Original story lulz.

"I shall try my best Madame, but there is no guarantee I can bring him back," The priest touched the lit taper to the incense candles and shook out his sleeves. The widow nodded and smiled bravely. "Thank you Father."

***
The boat creaked softly, as it was wont to do as the Reaper rowed the oar. "What's it like over there?" The middle-aged man sitting in the back of the boat spoke, looking about curiously at the gray expanse of water. Fog hung thick in the air, and the sunlight that glinted off the water was weak. "I hope it's more pleasant than here. Will we reach soon?"
The Reaper pulled on the oar. "We'll arrive shortly, just that you can't see it with all this fog around. It's much nicer than here really; there aren't that many pits of fire. If you didn't do anything particularly bad like murdering someone, or blaspheming, you ought to like it on the other side. But not many people reach it, really." A sigh whistled between the Reaper's teeth.

"Why so? And I thought there was a Boatman; I'd always heard there was one. I even died with a coin in my hand to pay him. And I'd pay you! Except that I seem to have lost the coin somewhere," The tubby man smiled apologetically and ran a hand through his graying hair.

"I appreciate the thought, but I hardly have use for money here. I am the Boatman of Styx, the Reaper, the Gatekeeper, and any number of strange titles you mortals have. As I was saying, not many people reach the other side. Priests keep interfering and trying to resurrect people, and sometimes, I just can't catch them again in time. It's been happening more often lately truth be told, and each time, it feels like steel grinding on cobblestones in your skull, and it makes my task so much more difficult. I cannot tell you how dispiriting it is to turn around and find your boat is empty again and row all the way back."

The portly man grimaced. "If it truly feels like that, you have my sincerest sympathies. On hearing this, I actually hope they do not try and resu-" He stopped and looked down at himself. "I feel odd. This isn't supposed to happen is it? I feel like I did when I was dying..." The Reaper glanced back sharply and locked the oar in its oarlock and grabbed the man's wrist.

"That's it."
***

Beads of sweat appeared on the priest's forehead, and his breathing became laboured. "There is... resistance. His soul is peculiarly hard to recall." The widow nervously rubbed eyes sore from crying. "He's coming." The priest's breath burst out in a gasp, and his shoulders slumped. The man on the bed gurgled, then his eyes shot open and he sucked in a breath.

"I'm... back. Is this what he meant?" The portly man looked around in confusion, blinking a strand of gray hair out of his eye. "What who meant dear?" The widow was smiling through a haze of tears and clasping her husband's hand.

Then the little beads of sweat froze with a small crackle, and the priest fell back, his breath steaming in the frozen air. The wood of the rafters groaned, a deep mournful groan that a dying tree would have made, and the flowers in the pot turned their faces from the room. A hooded figure appeared, paper-thin lips twisting humorlessly beneath an ebony cowl, and bony hands clasped around the damp earth-brown wood of a scythe. The lips parted, and a breath as cold and stale as a mausoleum's air gusted out.

"I've had enough. No more shall I shepherd the souls of the fallen." And with that, the figure vanished, leaving the room boggling in astonishment and terror, light glinting off the frost on their faces. The man on the bed spoke first. "What have we done?"

***

The sun-warmed sand was pleasant to walk on, and the warm ocean waves tickled the Reaper's feet. He tilted his head back, enjoying the rich orange light of the sunset, and breathed deep of the salt-tinged air. Months of living had fleshed out his frame; his lips were full, his hands strong, his shoulders sturdy, and dark eyes glittered mischievously above high cheekbones. The Reaper bent down and picked up a stone, tossing it for a moment in calloused palms, then threw it out towards the sea, watching it skip across the waves. Then he tilted his head to one side, listening for a moment to the cries of a world bursting with people who would not die, and he smiled to himself, and walked on along the beach.

Scholarly isn't it? Originally I would have changed the blog template to some scholarly/monastic looking thing, but that would remove everything I've added, and I like keeping my record of how many five-year-old children I can beat down, so we're stuck with the black background. No, just because the music is ominous doesn't mean that it's bad. I find it quite sleep-inducing actually. Just look at the old man at the top, he's so relaxed. I feel like sleeping too. In fact I think I shall! I am now free to do whatever I want, with the exception of breaking the law. I have 5 months to kill till polytechnic enrollment, and I don't have any new games. My actions are now devoid of meaning. :( Everything I've done in my 17 years has been geared towards O levels, and now that they're over, I have no idea what to do. As such, I am now watching a cybernetic ninja ghost anime! Perhaps I shall get a part-time job, construction if I can.

Ah, long has it been since last I posted. *breathes in the musty smell* Shit. I better touch this place up soon. I'll be giving it an insignificant make-over soon enough. Anyway, one curious thing I noted: Why do suicide bombers target their own country?? They generally seem to disapprove of the foreign elements within their country, so to strike against the foreigners, we're going to bomb our own people! How do you like that! Here's what I think of your foreign currency! *boom* Doesn't make sense at all. If I were a subversive element within a country, I wouldn't be bombing its people; I'd be helping them and trying to improve their lives where I can, so that I can gain popular support. Not to say that I am a subversive element, to any authority figures that may happen to read this (Why, I do not know). Also, a small question on ethics: If a robot is indistinguishable from humans to all purposes and intents (feels like one, looks like one, sounds like one, passes the Turing test, acts, walks, and talks like one), should it be given human rights? And if a robot cannot be distinguished from a human apart from the composition of its body (Synthetic), is it ethical to allow marriage to one? Anyone from my exceedingly tiny stable of readers is free to share your opinions on the subject. Also, I appeal to the female readers if any, how do you ladies smell so good? Its a continual mystery to me. When guys take a bath, the nice smell generally evaporates by the time we reach the bus-stop. But girls can smell nice all day! How do you do it?

And so, after countless months of not paying attention, getting in pretty legendary school trouble (its the class, not just me), and eating canteen food as inedible as boiled steel wool, we finally arrive at the O levels. What's worse, it's right after my birthday, literally. It's got to be the worst present ever.

"Guess what your present is Vern! One whole month of exams!"

Crap.

On the other hand, school's over. I'm frankly quite surprised we made it all the way. Especially after that Maple Story incident (where we played Maple Story in real life; I was a lvl 70 Dragon Knight with a School Table as my shield and a Chair Leg as my sword), and that bit where the Student Management Committee caught one fellow eating in class.

"Why were you munching those chips during your exam?"
"Yah, I munching! Not eating what."

We got banned from class shortly after that.

Anyway, now I know the hollow feeling that a condemned man has in his stomach. ;_;

Reposted for ease of location. Most people come here for these, those that come here at all. (I for one have no delusions as to the amount of traffic my blog receives)


The blazing orb of the sun hung in the sky, baking me within my clothes and raising the temperature to unholy heights. I fanned myself limply with my hand, resulting in a sluggish movement of superheated air. Just as I was about to give up in despair, I saw a structure in front of me; though I could barely see details through the blinding glare of light around me, I could discern the shape of a hawker centre. I would have sobbed in relief if I had any water to spare for tears, and stumbled towards the blessed shade its awnings offered.
Darkness washed over me, shielding me from the merciless heat of the sun, and I could not choke back a sob of thankfulness. For a moment, I closed my eyes, savoring the luscious shade and the respite offered by the gently-approving hum of the fans. Then I opened my eyes and my heart sank. The floor was grainy with dirt, in the manner that only exceedingly unclean public floors can be. Foul soapy effluent ran in the gutters, a filthy brown beneath the bubbly exterior. Uncollected dishes crowded on the tables, sauce pooling beneath them like abandoned corpses on a battlefield of synthetic plastic. The only thing that was remotely clean here were the seats, which merely meant that they had little bits of food which could be brushed off.
With a sniff of distaste, I wielded my tissue paper to devastating effect among the scraps of food, and I could almost hear their screams as they were swept off the seats to plunge to their death on the dirty floor. This settled, I swept my gaze over the hawker centre, taking in the derelict old men that made up both the customers and the vendors. I wasn’t spoiled for choice, as not many stalls were open to begin with, and one that was open had a vendor who was applying his finger to the inside of his nose with admirable zeal. His stall was discounted immediately. Eventually I purchased a plate of fried rice and a gloriously cold Ice Milo, and sat down to eat.
However, no sooner had I picked up my utensils when I noticed they were oily. I was considerably puzzled, as I had not touched them since they were put on my tray at the side of my plate. Suddenly, it hit me! This negligent specimen of Man had not washed his utensils and had the nerve to give them to me, a paying customer! I stalked up to the vendor. "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS FILTHY CROCKERY!" I roared. I could feel the anger pounding through my veins like molten steel, a terrible earth-shaking, sky-shattering rage that threatened to engulf the puny hawker in front of me in a whirling maelstrom of fury. The little man in front of me gibbered ineffectually, and consumed by fury, I punched him in the throat. He fell back with a strangled scream, clutching at his crushed windpipe, and everyone stared in horror. “Anyone else want to give me dirty crockery?” My shout boomed across the centre, but only silence greeted me. Full of righteous anger, I grabbed a pair of chopsticks and rammed them into the chest of the nearest hawker. He gave a choked cry and crumpled, clutching at the twin sticks of death jabbing into his ribs.
The rest of the hawkers must have taken this as some sort of sign, and they scattered, screaming in their arcane dialect. I launched myself from where I stood, landing on a nearby table and scattering bowls and laksa soup in all directions. With a feral growl, I leaped from the table and landed on the back of a running man. He let out a thin wail of terror as I landed on his back, the Avatar of Fury, the Embodiment of the Indignant Customer. I grabbed his head and wrenched it violently, hearing a crack as his skull detached from the spine, and his head wobbled crazily as his body fell. I noted with displeasure that the remaining three hawkers were rapidly leaving my range, so I grabbed a handful of knives from the utensil tray outside the Western Food Stall. The blades were unwashed, so much the better, guaranteeing an infected wound. I hurled three in rapid succession at fleeing backs of the last three vendors. The knives gleamed foully with a dirty light as the afternoon sun caught the metal, and time seemed to slow as the knives spun towards their targets, scattering bits of lettuce and breaded fish as they sliced through the air. The first one buried itself in the flesh of the neck, and the coward went down without a whimper. The second one hit the kidneys of the next man, and he went down with a pained cry. The last one fell low and impaled the last man in the meat of his thigh, and he fell down with a despairing wail.
As I walked up to him, he gibbered and pleaded, trying to drag his crippled weight away from me. I’m sure I must have made a fearsome sight, stained knives clutched in my hands, froth dripping from my grinning mouth, madness shining from my eyes. I granted this whimpering creature in front of me a quick death, and speared his heart with one of the knives I was holding. There were no other hawkers left alive. Slowly, I walked back to the hawker centre and rummaged through the bodies until I found a lighter and a cigarette. Picking up a heavy cleaver from the Duck Rice stall, I used its solid wooden handle and bashed the control valve on the main gas line. There was an ominous hissing as the lethal gas started escaping, and as I walked away, I lit the cigarette with the lighter and tossed it backwards. There was a moment’s silence, then a whooshing boom as the main gas lines ignited, destroying the hawker centre. I never looked back once as I turned away from this place that dared to serve me a dirty spoon.

Reposted for ease of locating:

Little Red Riding Hood was not really her real name; she was actually called Natalia Serova. But no one had called her that for such a long time that no one remembered. As such, she was named for her rather signature red hood, although oddly enough, it did little riding. The ‘Riding’ in “Little Red Riding Hood” has no discernable origins.
On to the story anyway. Red Riding Hood’s father was never mentioned, and as such we shall declare him legally missing. Her mother held two jobs, to support her daughter and her own mother, and as such had little time for the upbringing of Red Riding Hood. This task was left to their grandmother, until she had a bout of insanity and fled their home, gibbering crazily, and vanished into the woods. After two weeks of searching, county police located her deep in the forest, having constructed a ramshackle cabin for herself. However, no amount of persuading could bring her out of the woods, and so Red Riding Hood was left without proper upbringing, resulting in her hanging out with the wrong crowd and adopting their dressing style, including a red hoodie. However, her grandmother had made a deep impact on her when she was younger, and as a result, Red Riding Hood took it upon herself to visit her dear grandmother one day.
Loading her basket with food, she happily set out, heedless of the fact that her grandmother’s body probably could not tolerate the high-oil content of the food she packed. Following the trail designated by the police so many years ago, Red Riding Hood went on her way. Now in the woods, there lived an extremely cunning wolf. Scientists and animal rights activists would doubtless have been intrigued by a wolf capable of talking and demonstrating human emotions and reasoning, had they known about it. But they did not. So they were not intrigued. Nonetheless, such a wolf existed, and he observed Red Riding Hood’s progress through the woods. Deducing her destination, he decided to run ahead of her and play a prank.
Being able to run on four legs, the wolf reached the grandmother’s cabin ahead of Red Riding Hood. Now as the grandmother had gone bonkers, she could not and had not installed a reasonable security system, and it was with no difficulty that the wolf opened the door, possessing the intelligence to turn the door knob. The old woman stared at the wolf for a moment, and their gazes locked. The wolf could feel the tension in the air as he waited for the old dame to realize he was a threat, and she opened her mouth to scream “Я вижу вас, вас фашистский немец! Для Motherland!” before brandishing an antiquated Mosin-Nagant. The wolf sensed the danger and moved immediately.
Shortly afterwards, the bones were stashed in the wardrobe and the wolf quickly dressed up in the recently-deceased geriatric’s clothes. The buttons presented a minor problem as the wolf had no opposable thumbs on his paws, but eventually he just pulled the dressing robe closed. Hardly had he settled in bed when there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he called. Where the wolf learned to speak, and how he even had vocal chords that could form those words, we will never know. Regardless, Little Red Riding Hood came in. It had been a long time since she had seen her grandmother, and her memories of her were hazed with time.
“My, what big eyes you have grandma!”
“I read in poor lighting.”
“What big ears you have!”
“You should see my earphones.”
“What big teeth you have grandma!”
“I have an excellent dental plan.”
“Do all women get as hairy as you when they reach your age grandma?”
“You cheeky bugger!” The wolf leapt out of bed, intent on devouring the girl for this slight. Truth be told, the wolf was rather full, and his jaw ached from chewing such tough meat earlier, but he had a reputation to maintain. Little Red Riding Hood fled the cabin screaming, with the wolf hot on her heels.
It just so happened that a lumberjack was thundering by at that moment, on his way home after gathering enough hippies to use as firewood. As Red Riding Hood ran by screaming, he considered eating her, but decided that whatever was chasing her would probably be more filling. So he lashed his raging bull to a nearby tree and dismounted. That may have made no sense to you, but the primary mode of transportation for a lumberjack is by bull. While ordinary bulls eat grass and antibiotics, a lumberjack’s bull feeds on steroids and endangered species. The reason their bulls are fed endangered species is because lumberjacks are proponents of ecological diversity. There are only two major groups in the animal kingdom: endangered species, and non-endangered species. If endangered species were allowed to procreate and re-establish their populations as they please, then they would no longer be endangered, and the only kind of animal we’d have left is the plain old non-endangered kind. So we would lose an entire category of animals, leaving us only one, and having only one category is not diverse by any measure of the imagination.
Having made sure his bull would not run away, the lumberjack hefted the small tree that he used as a javelin and stepped forward. Now a lumberjack is a man who jacks lumber. Chopping down trees is all they think about. If there were no trees to chop down, lumberjacks would cease to exist. And yet, lumberjacks have so much contempt for trees that they are willing to sacrifice their very existence to help win the war against nature. Trees are everywhere. It’s getting to the point of where you can’t even go to a park anymore without seeing a tree. If lumberjacks didn’t cut down trees, the trees would overwhelm us and take over the world. Then where would we raise our families and park our cars? In the forest? Wishful thinking, and it might even work if it weren’t for one small detail: Bears.
Hardly had the lumberjack taken a step forward when the wolf, hot on the heels of Red Riding Hood, careened into him. This massive specimen of Man looked down to see what had hit his knees, and the wolf stared up in awe. “Come now, surely as reasonable creatures we can come to an agreement?” The lumberjack glared stonily and the wolf, then rumbled and rubbed his stomach. The wolf let out a small whimper and tried to escape; big mistake. The lumberjack lifted the wolf into the air with his mind, spun him around, and digested him telekinetically. And the lumberjack wasn’t even hungry. Sobbing with relief, Red Riding Hood clung to the back of the lumberjack’s knee, thanking him profusely. The huge man was puzzled; does she want milk? Does she need to be burped? Did she eat something off the floor that upset her stomach? Undecided as to what to do, the lumberjack lifted her off the floor and gave her several back-breaking pats on the back, before setting her down and telling her to sod off or he’d eat her too. The last thing Red Riding Hood heard as she turned on her way home was the enraged roaring of the bull and the ground-shaking pounding as it galloped away.

Quite a while back (I've been busy), we had a mock-exam practical test in the chemistry lab, and we had ammonia as one of the compounds. Now we all know ammonia smells like concentrated urine that has been left to fester for several weeks, so inside the lab was this sinus-destroying stench of urine as we were testing for gas. Out of nowhere, the lab filled with the smell of sewage, and everyone started staggering about in dismay.

'T'cher, why the gas test so smelly one?'
"I don't know, its not supposed to be this smelly =/"

Eventually it got so bad this guy ran over to the window and threw it open, and got promptly knocked back by a solid wall of stench. He couldn't have reeled back further if he had been hit by a hadoken from Muhammad Ali. Turns out there was this big honkin' sewage truck parked right below our lab; so inside our lab was this acidic smell of urine, and outside was a soul-darkening stench of crap. It was so bad even the roaches died.