When John died, representatives of Heaven and Hell showed up.
“Come with me, and live in eternal bliss, love and happiness,” said the angel.
“Sounds boring, don’t it?” said the little devil. “Come with me, it’ll be fun!”
“Your pants are on fire,” said John.
“Occupational Hazard,” said the devil.
He was going to die.
It was all happening very suddenly, but there was this infinitesimally short instant of calm, where he got the chance to reflect on the past, and watch a rerun of his entire life.
He didn’t expect it to fit within a fifty word story, though.
“All jokes are finite (all have punchlines.) Naturally, the longest joke must also be finite.”
“Agreed.”
“Consequently, there’s a finite number of character arrangements that can form a joke.”
“Yes.”
“Ergo, there’s a finite number of jokes.”
“What happens if we tell the last joke?”
“I think we just did.”
Spring dawned as we hunted bears. One, two, three, they fell before our weapons.
The meat was one of our goals, but skinning them and turning their hides into winter coats for next year’s cold was our main objective.
But these bears were different. Possessed.
Beware the hides of March.
“What’ve you been up to?”
“I finally finished my teleporter.”
“Impressive! How’d you get around all that quantum mechanics and uncertainty principle stuff?”
“Most of it just cancels out.”
“Most?”
“I just set direction and distance. The teleportee gets to the destination 50% of the time.”
“Otherwise?”
“Same distance, opposite direction.”
He would do this thing where he could guess what you had eaten in the past 12 hours simply by smelling your farts.
His accuracy was uncanny.
One day, though, a particularly smelly one stumped him, but good.
“It must be something I’ve never smelled before.”
“Probably. I’m a cannibal.”
“Oh.”
After thirty years, the spy remained completely undetected. He’d blended into the enemy’s society, becoming a valuable part of the community. He made many good friends. He married. Had children. He made sure everyone who knew him trusted him. Now was the time to act. What was his mission, again?
I went back in time to tell myself this story was lame, to just scrap it, but then I later went back in time again to tell my meddling self to stop doubting myself. Then I got into a fight with myself. Oh, forget it, I fell down stairs, okay?
They were deciphering the inscription at the feet of a newly-discovered statue:
” ‘I stand tall, immobile’ ”
“What is it?”
” ‘Always a likeness, but never becoming’ ”
“Ah, a riddle!”
” ‘If I fall, I crumble’ ”
“What could it be?”
” ‘Outside, birds would use me for target practice’ ”
“What is it?”
“No idea.”