5, 15, 25

            “Put down the cat,” Anne screeched, clumsily flourishing her red cape.  “Amazing Anne is here to stop you, Mom!”

Kingdom Come

            Amanda DeSosa, unable to help herself, took a quick look around as she stood in front of the Victorian house at the corner of Sycamore and College.

First Day

            In Mark’s “bum years,” before he met Cassidy and she whipped him into shape, he had been something of an adrenaline junkie.

At least Carl got to be in space when this happened to him

            Nebulas and comets streaked by the Wilkerson’s bulky Sports Utility Craft as it clumsily lurched towards the Pizza Galaxy, but these wonders of the galaxy were entirely lost on the ship’s occupants.  Their attention was entirely focused on their pilot: Carl Wilkerson, normally an entirely ordinary, un-notable teenager.  Ten minutes into being the center of attention, Carl was of the firm belief that being notable was grossly overrated.

A Hard Day's Work

            “You know,” Frank said, waist-deep in colossal lizard shit, “they say that female monsters kill more folks than male monsters do.”

            Johnny, sweating up the hill of greenish waste in his bright-yellow, C.L.E.A.N hazmat suit, stopped in his tracks.  “What?” he said, hoping he hadn’t got spit into the radio communicator inside his helmet.

Second Stringer

            Vice-President Tom Wilson was largely a figurehead.  President Martinez had needed somebody from the northeast to balance the ticket, and then-Senator Wilson had managed to keep his dick in his pants longer than Governor Sullivan.  Better still, when Wilson did take his dick out of his pants, nobody took a picture of it.  So far, that had been his most significant contribution to both the Martinez campaign and subsequent administration.  So far, Martinez had kept in good enough health that Wilson hadn’t had to sub for him during some surgery or vacation.  Foreign relations were going smoothly enough that he didn’t need to be sent on a goodwill tour anywhere.  He hadn’t even needed to cast a tiebreaker vote; Martinez had such massive coattails that a quarter of the coalition could desert and the majority could still break anything short of a filibuster.  Wilson liked it that way.  Contrary to the People Magazine fluff piece about him, he wasn’t as much of a fan of public service as he was of the perks of the job.  The Naval Observatory had really fast internet, HBO, and a well-stocked fridge.  Since the inauguration, Wilson had been content to simply sit back and enjoy his status as “the spare,” as it were.

            Unfortunately, that had changed when Martinez left for the G7 conference, and the Secretary of Defense had practically dragged Wilson out to his limo, interrupting his Will Smith movie marathon.

Klash of Koopas

            The dinner in Level 8-4 was nothing like the barren ground surrounding Bowser’s Keep, burnt black by centuries of crushing heat and volcanic eruption. The meal was bountiful, and it was perfect: tanooki leaf salad, garnished with grated 1-UP mushroom, followed by cheep-cheep soup, with sweet donut lift crackers that sank into the salty broth if not quickly slurped up.  The third course, skewers of those squirrel guys from New Super Mario Bros Wii U with acorn dipping sauce, was an excellent palate cleanser for the heavier dishes that followed.  A fourth course of fire-flower roasted monty-mole, a fifth course of smoked reznor flank, so tender the juicy flesh would simply fall off of the bone if touched, a sixth course paella of the rabbit guys from Super Mario Galaxy, and finally a pie made from the fruits of Yoshi’s Story, was savory and heavy enough that it would have fed the entire population of the Koopa Kingdom for weeks.  The Koopalings, smaller replicas of their behemoth, turtle-esque father, gorged themselves, none giving a second thought to why they were summoned from their posts to World 8.

            None except for Morton Koopa Junior.

Fun at the races

Chartreuse Toad bit his lip, clutching the sides of his old, grimy table at The Mushroom Tip, one of the more disreputable pubs even in the Mushroom Kingdom’s red-spot district.  His face was the same shade of sickly yellow as the spots on his massive, white mushroom cap, as his beady black eyes were fixed on the bar’s lone TV screen.  Just about everyone in the building was, save the bartoad, preoccupied with wiping the bar with a dirty-brown rag.  But none of them had as much riding on the TV as Chartreuse Toad did.  Chartreuse Toad wasn’t sure of many things, but that was definitely one of them.

Gotta go fast!

            Learning how to drive really changes your perspective.  Things you’ve seen one way for decades you look at completely differently once you’ve spent some time sitting in a metal box, nervously looking at all the metal boxes speeding around next to you.  Before I learned how to drive, I was decidedly pro-pedestrian.