http://ourmedia.org/user/136922 Recently published media items from Ourmedia.org en http://ourmedia.org/node/364240 Pauline thought she might have misheard out of exhaustion, since October was of course the busiest month for costume shops. So she asked the ordinary-looking man in front of her to say it again. There was something very strange about the way he talked. It was almost like a lack of strangeness that seemed odd, almost emotionless. ?Repeat, I would like a brown wig for my head. Caucasian-colored paint for my face. A pair of color contact lenses, for my eyes. And. I would like a latex make-up kit, to create unnatural appearances.? Pauline hefted her heavy velour skirt through the store, picking out items while the man stood there staring straight ahead. Pauline picked the items that hadn?t been selling that well, because of their film-industry quality and therefore high price tag. The man did not flinch at the cost, close to $400. He paid with $20 bills. ?I offer my thanks for the transaction,? he said as he left. Pauline had seen blacks come in and buy Caucasian-colored facepaints before. And she had been unfortunate witness to whites coming in and buying mahogany facepaint. But she had never seen a white man, with brown hair and green eyes, buy a costume to make himself look like?himself. Was he a burn victim? Terribly scarred? Some sort of spy? Or something worse? Whatever he was, Pauline thought, seeing a streak of Caucasian makeup on the top twenty-dollar bill, every day was Halloween for him, where he pretended to be a normal human being. Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:50:09 -0700 Jeff Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/369143 Vernon was only nine, but he had heard about Devil?s Night. In Detroit, on the day before Halloween, you set fires. The poor destroyed the property of anyone dumb or poor enough to be in the city. Other places just called it Mischief Night, and kids pulled pranks. But not Detroit. That was why Vernon?s mom accepted the new Bloomfield Hills job, cleaning up for a big mansion. Vernon and his mom would get to live in the mansion, but would be the only black or working-class family in town. On October 30, Vernon wore a costume to school and went trick-or-treating to houses instead of apartments, and went to bed safe and unworried. He woke up at 3 a.m. because of the fire alarms. A Jaguar had been lit on fire. Devil?s Night had found them. Vernon was the only black kid around, and everyone blamed him. This continued every Devil?s Night for years: more violence, more white kids trashing luxury cars, and Vernon got the evil eye for it. Finally, when Vernon was eighteen, friends invited him out for Devil?s Night in Bloomfield Hills. They wanted to burn a Lexus: they had never burned a Lexus. This was how Devil?s Night was really supposed to be, they told him: Devil?s Night should be a time of fear that the have-nots would rise up against the haves. This, from the trust fund kids. Vernon burned that Lexus, saddened that the transgression from suspected criminal to criminal didn?t feel more powerful. The next day he was blamed as always, yet couldn?t hold his head up as high. He never considered himself a have-not until he lost what he used to have. Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:13:26 -0800 Jeff Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/375415 Mr. Dennison was a killjoy. He threw out detentions to Jesse for texting, passing notes, whispering, or streaking classmates? white shirts with permanent markers. Jesse was going to wreck his house, just as soon as the trick-or-treaters and their parents cleared out. He smoked two bones in Dennison?s freshly-raked back yard before it was safe. First came the toilet papering. But Jesse dropped the paper on the ground, which was dewy, and it sogged apart in his hands. Jesse then opened the mailbox, to smash a few week-old rotten eggs in there. But Dennison the bastard had rigged a jack-in-the-box in there. A spring-mounted plastic skull bounced out and punched him in the face. The eggs fell on Jesse?s black outfit. Oh, now Mr. D was going to get it good. Jesse scraped egg slop off his chest, moseyed angrily over to the foot-wide pumpkin on the front steps, and kicked with all of his might. The many bones of his foot attacked the concrete structure painted orange to resemble a Jack-o-lantern, and lost the fight. Jesse fell over backwards, berating Mr. Dennison with epithets so vile that not even a pair of contortionists could accomplish them. Limping, Jesse approached the front porch for the coup de grace. He removed the lighter from his front pocket, and looked around for the brown paper bag full of his dog Grover?s recycled Alpo. But he couldn?t find it. He could smell it, though: it reeked worse than the eggs. When he discovered it, plastered to his back, due to his pumpkin-related fall, he limped away. Next day in class, Mr. Dennison scolded Jesse for bragging in class about a slightly altered version of last night?s escapade, where everything went right. Jesse limped off to detention. Mr. Dennison sucked. Sun, 06 Jan 2008 08:52:33 -0800 Jeff Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/368268 Mr. Dennison was a killjoy. He threw out detentions to Jesse for texting, passing notes, whispering, or streaking classmates? white shirts with permanent markers. Jesse was going to wreck his house, just as soon as the trick-or-treaters and their parents cleared out. He smoked two bones in Dennison?s freshly-raked back yard before it was safe. First came the toilet papering. But Jesse dropped the paper on the ground, which was dewy, and it sogged apart in his hands. Jesse then opened the mailbox, to smash a few week-old rotten eggs in there. But Dennison the bastard had rigged a jack-in-the-box in there. A spring-mounted plastic skull bounced out and punched him in the face. The eggs fell on Jesse?s black outfit. Oh, now Mr. D was going to get it good. Jesse scraped egg slop off his chest, moseyed angrily over to the foot-wide pumpkin on the front steps, and kicked with all of his might. The many bones of his foot attacked the concrete structure painted orange to resemble a Jack-o-lantern, and lost the fight. Jesse fell over backwards, berating Mr. Dennison with epithets so vile that not even a pair of contortionists could accomplish them. Limping, Jesse approached the front porch for the coup de grace. He removed the lighter from his front pocket, and looked around for the brown paper bag full of his dog Grover?s recycled Alpo. But he couldn?t find it. He could smell it, though: it reeked worse than the eggs. When he discovered it, plastered to his back, due to his pumpkin-related fall, he limped away. Next day in class, Mr. Dennison scolded Jesse for bragging in class about a slightly altered version of last night?s escapade, where everything went right. Jesse limped off to detention. Mr. Dennison sucked. Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:16:37 -0800 Jeff Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/362943 What Day Is This?Was this Tuesday? Phyllis was outside. How did she get outside? It was cold. A ghost! Wait, just a boy in a sheet. He had a plastic pumpkin. Oh, this is Halloween. Phyllis forgot. That was why there was a cardboard Jack O? Lantern in the cafeteria! That made sense. So much of the world didn?t make sense. She should really get home. Oh, girls dressed as ballerinas! Phyllis followed them to the end of the block. She turned, and saw death! No, just a decoration someone put up. It was cold, and the decoration had a real cloak, so Phyllis took it and wrapped it around her. That got her warm, especially the hood. She turned to go home, but which way was home? She picked a direction. There was a church at the end. Was this her church? There were people in a line, all in costumes. Maybe they would know where she lived. She dug out her emergency $20 bill. She could get a taxi to take her home. She joined the end of the line. When she got to the front, she waved the $20 and said in her quavering voice ?I would like to go ?? A man in an eye patch took the $20 and gave her a $10 back. ?Oh, yeh think you be scarier than us, eh, Mr. Reaper? Well, we?ll give you the special treatment inside, yarr.? Thank the lord for these nice people. They must be making her tea, although it must be a big expense for them since they couldn?t afford many lights inside. Phyllis walked into the dark house, glad to be safe and warm. The doctors said she shouldn?t be taking these walks much longer, what with her weak heart. Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:18:15 -0700 Sean Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/362942 Thoughtless NeighborsIt was one thing to still have Christmas decorations up in January, thought Natalie Hunt, but Halloween decorations were something else entirely. Mr. Shorenstein?s fence was still lined with cotton cobwebs, and the front yard was still covered in those pretend cardboard tombstones. A scarecrow with a big jack-o?-lantern head sat on the front porch, and the pumpkin had turned black and rotted. To leave all that ghoulishness up into November was appalling, but to leave it up when the rest of the neighborhood was celebrating Christmas? Natalie Hunt was too polite to say anything to Mr. Shorenstein, of course. She never bumped into him at the market or when walking her Pekinese, so she had no way of asking him aside from the unspeakable rudeness of knocking on his front door. Nothing spoke louder than a good example, though, and so Natalie Hunt told her husband to take down their decorations exactly on December 26th. The rest of the neighborhood followed suit a week or two later, and Mr. Shorenstein still didn?t get the message. However rude, it was time for an intervention. She marched over to Mr. Shorenstein?s house, tray of brownies in hand, preparing to spend half an hour listening to his medical problems before addressing the decoration issue. Before she got to the front door she smelled the rotting pumpkin. That was positively the worst smell she had ever encountered! How could Mr. Shorenstein live in such a manner? Almost gagging, she walked to the front door and knocked. A host of flies came from the rotting pumpkin. Then Natalie Hunt saw the rotting face beneath the rotting pumpkin, and understood why Mr. Shorenstein wasn?t paying attention to his decorating. Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:18:14 -0700 Sean Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/362912 ResensitizedAll of the sudden, Harry became terrified of blood. He happened to be looking at his statue of Leatherface when he had his change of demeanor. Leatherface was holding a bloody chainsaw, wearing a bloody apron, and standing by a to-scale shelf of severed body parts. My God, that statue was sick! The thought of those horrible murders was overpowering ? It was just a movie, but just the idea of those evil killings was too much to think about. Harry ran from his computer room where Leatherface stood by his monitor, and into his bedroom. He shrieked, for the first time in his life. There were katana and nunchaku on the walls. These were instruments of war! Why was he using them for decorating? He ran from there, into a living room piled high with black-sleeved DVDs. He remembered gleefully watching all of their murders, as well as special features on rendering popped eyeballs as realistically as possible. It sickened Harry now. He dashed into the bathroom to retch. But the toilet tank was the only room in the apartment for his Aliens Vs. Predator figures. Harry stifled his nausea, ran for the front door, but a cardboard cutout of Michael Myers on the door scared him away. Harry cowered in the kitchen, the only room free from these horrible images. He put his arms in front of his face and began to cry. He opened them, to see a demonic stare coming from a hockey mask. Harry had forgotten about his tattoos, of all his favorite characters. These monsters were literally under his skin. Harry could not be any more terrified. It was oddly comforting when he picked up the cheese grater, and the fear was replaced by simple pain. Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:22:40 -0700 Sean Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/384424 Horror MarathonThe Phi Epsilon Tau brothers were doing a horror marathon for a Halloween fundraiser. They?d watch ten horror movies in a row ? Wilson was picking which ones - and people could pledge whatever they wanted per movie. The brothers were literally strapping themselves to the chairs in the school auditorium, thanks to one brother?s dad being a cop and having access to flex cuffs. Assuming they all made it through the ten, the brothers would get $14,000 for the local Salvation Army. The day came, the brothers surrounded each seat with full beer cans and empty Snapple bottles. The flex cuffs strapped their ankles to the chair legs. They were betting if this would be all the Jason movies or all the Freddy movies. Wilson pulled down the screen, congratulated the brothers for getting so many pledges, then reminded them that they needed to sit through all ten to get the full payout. Then he said he was quitting the frat, because he thought they were all date rapists. Then he said enjoy the shows. Steel Magnolias started playing. The brothers began screaming, began reaching for the wire cutters to get out of the restraints, but if they did that they wouldn?t get the $14,000. The brothers could stand any horror movie, but Wilson had a stack of movies the brothers were truly horrified to watch: Beaches, The English Patient, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and a half-dozen gay pornos. Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:06:14 -0800 Sean Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/382907 Dr. Evan?s Boo-Ha-HaIf you didn?t bring a costume to Evan?s Halloween party, Evan would make you a costume. Evan was an anesthesiologist, so everyone who didn?t show up in a toga or French maid outfit would invariably get transformed into a walking malpractice suit. The first guest to not have a costume went into the basement with Evan, and came out with scalpels sticking out of his chest. The guy said it was the coolest costume he ever had, and went to the kitchen for a beer. The second guest came out of the basement with syringes seemingly poked through both of her forearms. The third guest came up with sterile cloth wrapped everywhere but a square where pulsating intestines were visible. By now the whole party was watching the front door for the next person to get one of Evan?s inventive disfigurements ? except the guy with the scalpels in his chest, who fell flat on his back in the kitchen. Evan ran over to him, held his head until he regained consciousness. The guy said that he felt drugged, and attributed it to drinking ice beers instead of light beer. He also said that the glue from the fake scalpel was seriously making him numb. Evan said that sometimes glue did that. Then Evan thanked God the guy hadn?t fallen face first. Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:10:49 -0800 Sean Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/362840 Wanda swore she had been tricked by some kid on Halloween. They were supposed to come once to her house, ONCE. Yet the anonymous eight-year olds in their Yu-Gi-Oh and Scream and Batman outfits came by again and again, the same store-bought costumes, the same distant parents back on the sidewalk waving. How did she know they weren?t the same three kids coming by over and over again? And it had been like this for years, all of these masked kids stuffing her candy in their mouths. That was why she had opened up the miniature Hershey bars and painted them with some stuff she found under her sink. This way, if she saw them come back, she?d know it was different kids, because the ones the first time out would be sick. Sure enough, no more Screams or Yu-Gi-Ohs showed up at her house that night. Or on any other Halloween, for that matter. Word got out that Wanda was not one to be tricked. Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:15:58 -0700 Jeff Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/362842 Carole was new to the neighborhood, couldn?t even find a CVS yet, and wasn?t sure what trick-or-treaters in Arizona would be like compared to Nebraska. When her car wasn?t egged the night before, and her tree stayed free of toilet paper, she considered it a good sign. Maybe it was just from living on a cul-de-sac. Funny: when she told her coworker where she lived, he called it a cult-de-sac. The kids started to appear around five on Halloween while she was waiting for the cable man. The little Sunday-best outfits on the first two of them were just adorable. Then another boy appeared in a suit. Then two girls appeared, with their long hair tucked into their shirts, wearing their brothers? suits. Carole asked the kids who they were. "We?re the prophet Norbert when he was seven," they replied, beaming. Carole had never heard of the Prophet Norbert. When the next children came, she quietly asked the parents who Norbert was. "Why, he?s the savior, of course!" they answered. "Why else would you have moved to this town if you hadn?t heard his calling? Aren?t you here to be saved by him from the devils of prescription medicine and television? Aren?t you ready to defend the Prophet, strike down the unbelievers?" Carole remembered her eager house seller, how the house had been on the market for seven years. On a cult-de-sac. Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:19:36 -0700 Jeff Ryan http://ourmedia.org/node/362839 Dorothy sat down at her desk at work and tore open the wrapper of the candy bar, disregarding the nutritional information, and bit. It was just as the news reports claimed: an honest-to-goodness chocolate bar, with caramel and a little crispy bits and a cookie center that crunched like a pretzel. The Century bar wasn?t outstanding: there was a reason why it was leftover in the office Halloween candy bin, after the Snickers and Butterfingers were gone. But the appeal of negative calories was astounding. The Century had a nutritional count of -100 calories. Dorothy did not care how it happened ? transfat eliminations or carb-friendly ingredients, or maybe magic fairy dust. If she had cared, she would have realized that the wrapper indicated only one bar was to be ingested in a 24-hour period. Dorothy ate three, on an empty stomach. The catalysts baked inside the cookie were mashed up in her mouth, and traveled down to a hydrochloric bath in the stomach, where they began to foam. The catalysts, like all catalysts, were tireless engines of chemical change, and on a restricting diet they harmlessly worked their alchemy on the fats and starches in the digesting food. But Dorothy didn?t have any other food in her gut, so the catalysts began working through her stomach lining, and then her intestinal wall. Within an hour Dorothy was holding her belly in the ladies room at work. Normally the catalysts would be on their way to a speedy exit via the GI tract?s highway. But there was too much congestion for the catalysts, and they were taking a longcut downward through her torso?s other organs. And with all roads, they would eventually find their way out. But Dorothy would not be around to appreciate their steadfastness. Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:27:26 -0700 Jeff Ryan