copyright Al Forbes
Typical First Date
The moon sparkled off the waterfall like the flash of a thousand smiles. It made me nervous, like a crowd was watching me. I pushed the box into the river and watched it bob away. Everything was inside: the bloody knife, the drop sheets, and the towel I used to clean up. Everything but my blood-red embarrassment.
Talk about a disastrous first date.
Her name was Danielle and she was diamond tiara to my baseball cap. I took her to an abandoned farm to show her the stars, driving her Mercedes since she was afraid of getting her dress dirty in my geriatric Honda.
I hadn’t counted on the mutant cows. Who would, right? Slippery buggers they are, twenty feet long with a mouth like an anaconda. The milk’s not bad though, I hear.
We were walking by the barn when a mutant cow—feral, I assume—leaped out and sucked Danielle down like a dandelion. She didn’t even have time to scream.
I got a pitchfork and killed the thing pretty quick, but then it took almost twenty minutes to cut her out, hacking here and there and spraying gore like a low-budget slasher. When I was finally finished, she stood there, covered in gunk and blood and stinking like a garbage man with a soap allergy.
She drove off alone, leaving me to clean up. Damn, I hate first dates; something always goes wrong.
Maybe I’ll call her tomorrow.
The Green-Walled Tower 