Everything Has Teeth by Strand Jeff

Author:Strand, Jeff [Strand, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

APOCALYPSE OF THE YARD GNOME

"It's just you and me," said Sammy. "You and me against the world. We'll show them. We'll show them all."

Milton, who was a yard gnome, did not answer. He was not a magical talking yard gnome, or a magical moving yard gnome, or even a cursed yard gnome whose active mind was trapped in an immobile stone body. He was just a standard-issue yard gnome, purchased from a department store, with nothing to contribute to the conversation.

"Soon it'll be the apocalypse," said Sammy, with a crooked-toothed grin that Milton's painted-on eyes could not see. "Soon they'll all be dead, and oh, how you and I will laugh! They'll all suffer for the way they've treated me!"

The truth of the matter is that Sammy was not treated with any notable amount of cruelty. His number of friends was well above the national average. He'd never spent his birthday or a major holiday alone. His parents lived next door, but they didn't meddle in his business; they merely invited him over every Sunday for a delicious brunch. His co-workers were all friendly and generally upbeat, and though Sammy wouldn't stock grocery shelves as a hobby, as a day job it really wasn't so bad. He was actually treated remarkably well, especially for a guy who talked to a yard gnome.

At twenty-nine, he didn't have a girlfriend, but it wasn't as if he'd never had a girlfriend. He'd had six of them, and four of them had indeed engaged in sexual intercourse with him. He and his last girlfriend, Chloe, had broken up several months ago, but it wasn't a particularly hostile breakup, and they'd even gotten together for a bonus tryst one night when Chloe was drunk, lonely, and suffering from temporary self-esteem issues.

So, really, his constant talk of laughing during the apocalypse was unwarranted. Many of the people who might be swept away in the river of lava were decent human beings, and to be honest, if people had treated him poorly, he would have been deserving of their scorn.

"Yes, Milton, the apocalypse will be here any day now, and I cannot wait!"

Milton was too un-alive to even think, "Why do you keep talking to an inanimate object?" There literally was nothing going on inside that gnome.

Ironically, Sammy had a perfectly good dog, a Yorkshire terrier, in which he could have confided. No, the dog did not understand the English language beyond its name (Waggy) and a few simple commands (sit, stay, fetch) but at least the dog was a living creature. It would have occasionally looked at Sammy while he spoke, and perhaps licked his hand when he was done sharing his venomous thoughts about the tragic fate of the human race. Waggy was a nice little dog with a sweet and feisty personality; a far better conversation partner than Milton. Yet Waggy sat inside, gnawing on a squeaky chew toy, while Sammy sat on the back porch, confiding in a yard gnome.

"Any day now," said Sammy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.