19) Rollercoaster Diaries

*Diary of a Drop Tower*

Dear Diary,

Today started well. I was feeling up for a very long time, so high I thought I could touch the sky. However, as I learnt many years ago, you can only go up for so long before you have to come crashing down again. It’s strange how people handle the fall though. Some cry actual tears, unable to handle the pressure of everything falling. Then there are those who ride the fear, screaming into the face of danger. There are even the few who do not react; they sit quietly, accepting what is happening. It makes me optimistic that today’s society can handle a crisis. I think when disaster strikes, we’ll be okay.

*Diary of a Log Flume*

Dear Diary,

Another day of getting people wet. Man I am good at my job. I don’t think there’s ever been a sexier log flume unit than I. Sadly, the autumn is coming which means the goods have to go away before it gets cold. I do not do well in the cold. I heard from flying carpet ride that the Water Rapids is feeling a little blue. I tell you what, if I could get off my track, I’d show her my-

-The rest of this entry is illegible due to soggy pages-

*Diary of a Spinning Teacup*

Dear Diary,

BLEEEEEUUURGH.

18) Arthur's Seahorse

Arthur had been a criminal, wrongly accused of stealing fish food despite owning no fish. The jury did not see this as a flaw to the evidence that had been handed to them (eye witness testimony from the shop owner, the shop owner’s wife and a dog which could respond to yes or no questions through barking once or twice). For his crime, Arthur was banished to the sea with only a raft and a week’s worth of fish food.

It took four days for Arthur to wish he was dead. The fish food tasted like rabbit pellets found in the forest and the inside of his throat felt like strips of masking tape. The sea water teased him. He put his head out over the side of the raft and stared at the blue water. Salt water couldn’t be that harmful could it?

He dipped his hand into the water, and as he did he felt something rough with many spindly thorns. He pulled his hands back and saw something yellow under the surface. A nozzle shaped nose poked out of the water. As the rest of its head came out, it had the skull shape of a dragon and the arched neck of a horse. The head alone of this creature was larger than the raft.

If Arthur wasn’t so dehydrated, he might have believed he had come across a giant seahorse. He reached out a hand which trembled through both uncertainty and malnourishment. The seahorse pushed its head into Arthur’s palm. It rubbed itself up and down, causing tiny coral scales to crumble away like dandruff. The seahorse whipped its head back, signalling for Arthur to get on its back.

As a man with nothing to lose, Arthur rolled over the side of the boat and allowed the waves to carry him. The seahorse dived underwater and then resurfaced underneath him. Arthur put his hands gently around the creature’s throat. They were off, dashing across the waves with ease. Arthur’s cackle startled the seahorse. He wasn’t sure if he was really being taken back to shore. Even if he wasn’t, this was a pretty fun way to die.

17) It's a brown thing...

It was a brown thing in the middle of the playground. A trio of seven year old boys had found it. Maxwell exclaimed how gooey it looked, while Peter stated it definitely came out of Rob. Rita and Lisa laughed at Peter’s joke and Rob ran inside to tell the teacher.

More children crowded around it. Lots of loud ‘wow’s’ and other noises of amazement filled the playground. Mark said it smelled like the toilet after Fran had used it, to which she responded it did not, to which he responded it did to. A group of ten year old girls declared it disgusting and wandered off to chat about pretend beach holidays and boys they fancied. One nine year old girl was crying, so a boy in her class held her hand grinning like a drunk teenager.

Maxwell dared Peter to poke the brown thing with a stick. The crowd held its breath as the stick prodded the brown thing. It squelched and rolled over. Underneath it was more sticky, smelly stuff, but instead of brown it was red and white. No one laughed anymore. Everyone was silent, except the girl who sobbed.

Rob came back with puffy cheeks and Mr Cartwright. He pushed his way through the crowd of people who came up to his hip and saw the brown thing. He told everyone to go back inside. Once everyone had dispersed, he examined the long brown strands of hair. They were attached to a decapitated head covered in cuts and blood. Mr Cartwright vomited. 

16) The Art of Not Finishing Your...

Tristan waited with his mouth, staring at Rachel. She looked back like he was a pervert trying to watch her pee in the ladies bathroom. His jaw could have fallen off at any moment.

‘…Sentence,’ he finally said, ‘C’mon, do you not find that cute at all.’

Rachel didn’t want to hurt his feelings so she took a giant bite of her burger and responded with a greasy smile. Tristan dabbed a piece of chicken around his plate. When Rachel gulped down her burger, Tristan looked at her in expectation of an answer. Instead she took a long sip of her root beer. She emptied the glass. Tristan stared.

‘Fine, I don’t. I guess I’m just not suckered in by all that romantic stuff.’

It was her turn to stare, to analyse. Tristan didn’t react at first, just stared right back. After a few seconds her blew air out through his nostrils and ate the chicken which had been crushed into a thin, wirey strip. Rachel ate a couple of chips and looked around for a waiter to get her another drink.

‘So are we done with any romance now?’ Tristan said to her back.

‘Ofcourse we’re not. We still have sex don’t we?’ she said without turning around.

She grabbed the attention of the waiter who took her order and scurried off. When she looked at Tristan, his hands were leaning on the table with no cutlery.

‘Is that all you think I need?’ he said.

‘What do you want? I go to work, I come home and I’m-’

‘Tired. I know. That’s one sentence I can finish.’

Rachel thrust herself back into her chair with her arms crossed.

‘So what, you’d rather I just not work, stay at home with you all day and make coochy faces at one another?’

Tristan blinked twice and twisted his nose to the side. This was how he stopped himself from crying. Rachel couldn’t believe how much he cried. It had become a ritual.

‘You know, I’ve been thinking for a while that maybe we should-’

‘Break up?’ Rachel said, ‘Because you do this every time we have an argument and guess what, we never break up. So shut up, get off my case and eat your damn chicken.’

Tristan pushed himself back from the table and stormed off to the bathroom. The waiter came back with a root beer. Just as well it didn’t have ice in it.

15) Death's Favourite T-Shirt

Death didn’t really go in for metal or rock music, despite the fact that he was held in a high regard by these muscians. He thought it would be too cliché and besides it had given him a bad image in the past. He wanted a band shirt that said ‘Hey humanity, I’m a happy go lucky guy just like you. Think of me as the guy taking you to sweet salvation, not the guy who kills people. I don’t kill people, I just move their souls along to the next life.’

Satan scratched her goatee with her long black nails and gulped from her beer, the most evil of all alcoholic beverages. This was also another problem of Death’s. He hung out with the sort of people who had bad reputations, and thus their reputation rubbed off on them. Satan belched.

‘Okay. I don’t get it,’ she said, ‘But, for arguments sake, say I did understand why you wouldn’t wanted to be associated with death and all that jazz. Why did you choose that shirt?’

Death had picked out a black shirt from the merch stand at the last The Killers gig he attended. The shirt had ‘Killers’ written on it numerous times in green, white, blue, pink and yellow.

‘Everyone loves The Killers. You know, I’m Mr. Brightside. Ba-Da-da-dadadum-ba-da…you know what never mind I can’t sing.’

Death took a sip of his pina colada as Satan squashed her palm into her face.

‘Yes, but everyone loves sex and money too. I mean come on you have ‘killers’ scrawled all over your body. How much more associated with dying could you make yourself?’

Death picked his teeth with the pink umbrella stick from his drink. He sighed.

‘I just want to be liked,’ Death said, ‘For once I just want someone to be happy to see me.’

‘I’m always happy to see you,’ Satan said rubbing Death’s bony arm. Death’s jaw clicked as it curled into a smile. Satan continued; ‘Some things just won’t ever change I’m afraid. But if you want to show the world you like The Killers, then you go ahead and like The Killers.’

Death slammed his glass down, spilling coconut cream all over his hands. It was already sticky in the gaps between his sockets.

‘Thank you Satan, you always know how to cheer me up.’

Death got up from his bar stool: ‘Time to gather some more souls.’

‘Hey Death,’ Satan called just before Death left, ‘If Brandon Flowers dies, take that one to heaven. No way I’m having him down here.’

14) Dock Leaf, Part II

*Last time on Dock Leaf, Doc the leaf got used by a young boy who had stung his leg on a nettle. Let’s rejoin the action*

Doc was on the ground, discarded and crumpled. There were numerous holes between his tendrils where the youth had grabbed him. His stem hurt where he had been cut off from the rest of the bush. His friends looked down on him in mourning. Doc was soon about to die.

As he looked up at the grey clouds anticipating his final meal, Doc wondered what he had done to deserve this fate. Maybe it was three months ago when he bragged about a butterfly landing on him, or that period of a few weeks where he grew over Hazel so he could get more sunlight. As far as leaves went, he was a bit of a bastard.

Doc felt something crawl up his blade shaped body. It was a green caterpillar. Its little feet tickled Doc, but he could find no energy to laugh. The caterpillar nibbled on Doc. In comparison to being used like a sponge by the young boy, this pain was bearable. Relativity aside, Doc was still being consumed alive.

His friends watch on in terror, swaying with the wind as the clouds above broke. Drops of rain splashed on Doc’s forehead. The caterpillar was scared of the water and slinked underneath Doc for protection. For a moment, Doc felt refreshed and renewed despite his sides throbbing with bruises. This was his resting place. For a Dock Leaf, his life was pretty exciting.

13) 500 Jobs in Jeopardy...Where is Jeopardy?

Ashley’s father looked around the room, leaning forward in his seat. His wife let her eyes flutter and then went back to sleep. Ashley shook his head as the reporter continued his story about the job crisis in England.

‘See if we could find this Jeopardy place, then there’d be no more job worries,’ Ashley’s father said. He laughed hard and slapped his knee.

‘Where do you get all of these terrible, terrible jokes,’ Ashley said.

‘You don’t think your old man is smart enough to think of them up by himself.’

Ashley shook his head. His father was about to respond but the Premiership scores were about to be revealed just before Match of the Day, so there was a panic to find the remote. It was wedged between Ashley and sofa, he quickly switched it over to a penguin documentary on BBC 2.

‘Let me tell you a secret,’ Ashley’s father said, ‘I have a black book. It’s not too big and it’s not all my work. It goes back a couple of centuries, generations of jokes made by your grandfather and his father and etcetera etcetera.’

‘So where is this book?’ Ashley said, watching the penguins slide into the Arctic waters.

‘You’ll inherit it one day,’ he said, ‘But let’s hope not too soon. You ain’t got a sense of humour.’

Ashley switched it back over to BBC 1 as Match of the Day was about to start.

‘Arsenal on first? You’ve got to be joking,’ Ashley’s father said.

‘I know right. You’d hope Arse-nal would be near the bottom. Am I right?’

Ashley’s father shook his head.