“Broken or unplayable vinyl records should be recycled.”
“Into what?”
“Well, vinyl is short for polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. They could make shiny, sexy clothes. Wouldn’t you like to get a nice, slick catsuit for your wife to wear?”
“Not sure.”
“Why?”
“My wife already sounds like a broken record…”
Being a tale told in 50 words, wherein the protagonist, a man named Arcturus Morgenstern (Third of the name) is eminently surprised to discover that the body of his wife, whom he’d found murdered not five minutes previously, is now animated with an unholy life, and for whatever reason is burning important-seeming papers that Arcturus had been working on previous to the gunshots that had seemingly (but not conclusively) killed his wife.
The gunshot startled him.
Turning, he found his wife, dead of a gunshot wound.
He ran out, looking for the assassin. Upon his return, his wife’s body was busy burning his writings.
Taking the last sheet from her undead hands, he nervously reads off the title: “How to Make Zombies”.
“How does the defendant plead?”
Just then, the defendant got up and announced:
“Not guilty, your honor, on account of my wife not being dead after all!”
Before anyone could object, the doors to the courtroom flew open, and an obviously zombified woman walked in.
“My love!” said the defendant.
His wife complained that he’d forget everything.
He’d forgotten their anniversary. Every year.
He’d forget where he left his keys.
He decided to kill her. That would show her.
At the crucial moment, he pulled out…
Nothing.
The gun was in his nightstand.
Or maybe in the car?
I forget.