facebook & google+ status updates part VIII

The month of January, in updates. Did a lot more of them in the space of a month than I usually do; doubt the rest of the year will be near as prolific -- or should be.

Sometimes I forget how angry I am at you and a smile slips out. You have to know they aren't real.

We painted our faces the colour of our faces and smiled during the rally.

We all have songs in our head an' we never here anyone else's. That's the tragedy o' life. What? You asked, an' that's what my superpower'd be: to here other people's songs. To not be alone. That's a power, innit?

"I handed in my badge," the Detective said, "by this point in the story you should have returned it to me."

"I know," said the commander. "I think the cleaning people put it in the garbage; I can't find it anywhere."

Once upon a time – last week, actually, just before the bins were collected by the garbage men – Mr. Howard saw the Stilton kids leave the home old old Mrs. Witherspoon covered in flour and blood. He told the police his story, which they labelled as evidence then brought cameras into the home to nail the past down before it could change on them.

This is the story of what followed after.

"There's more than one side to any story and always more than one truth to see it by," the fox said. "For example, I only trick those who deserve it."

"You trick everyone," Bess said.

"Precisely."

The Detective explained the series of clues and connections that let him to catch the Balham Phone box Killer.

"You remembered all that, but you forgot tonight is our anniversary," his wife said. "People ask why I drink while you've been sober for three years."

The Detective waited desperately for his beeper to go off.

If the universe is a science project, what grade was it made for?

The Detective had considered leaving the force to become a PI after the Sponge Cake Fiasco but realized that, as a PI, he'd never be better than Tracer Bullet.

"It would be easier to talk about this if you didn't keep using that scary voice," Boy muttered.

"And what voice would that be?" Bess said.

"The one that says that I'm wrong no matter what I say?"

"That's just my voice," she said.

Spam email are the best way to tell your fortune: look for patterns, repetitions, and how many you get from each country. The first spam you receive will contain the secret code for unlocking all messages that come after it. You *did* keep it, right?

Police officers catch criminals in part by thinking like them. The Detective was so good at this he sometimes was half-convinced he had committed the crimes in question.

They say time travel doesn't exist because no one sees any tourists. But who would travel in time and be a tourist? Consider this: what would you do?

Corollary: How do you THINK Hitler survived all those assassination attempts?

I don't have high expectations of happiness. It could just be this: you and me, a swingset, and forever.

The scapegrace is the opposite of a scapegoat; all good things happen to them, we all wish we were them and love them.

"I don't know why you killed those six men," The Detective said, "but it's people like you who keep us employed. On behalf of the department, I thank you."

The killer just stared back, something deep and human breaking in empty eyes.

The Detective was fired, but the killer never wrote a book about the killings. All told, it was a good ending.

"I didn't mean to fall in love with you," he whispered. "You just needed me so much I couldn't help myself."

This statement is now in the public domain, free to fly into the wild and morph into new forms of linguistic frenzy barely held at bay by dictionaries. Copyright of it has been released: please note this every time you use the statement and cite accordingly.

They told me I can't cut myself beautiful

but they do it all the time on tv

with bigger knives, a smiling actor-doctor, camera crews;

new smiles in old eyes.

I just have a pen knife but – you think –

if I cut myself just right, maybe?

Maybe.

There is a city no one remembers when they think about your country. The real is always like that, slipping away from us.

The real is too solid. We are mired in it, bogged down in ugliness so we flee to the beauty of dreams. There are children in china making most of the things we own; it is only dreams that insulate us from truth.

Every building I set on fire is another ghost I let to free. So many hate me now: the fire department, the police, the exorcists I put out of work.

"It's so frakbajulous," she said, having decided 'love' was too common, inventing her own word for what they shared.

He asked what he meant, she told here it meant, kind of, love.

At the divorce, she used the word and he finally understood.

You hugged me and said, "Shhh. It's okay. I'm here."

Only, sometimes, it's not enough.

"Your apology has been noted," she said, fingering her new scar, "and deemed worthless."

"You didn't pay back the loan," the bank manager says as if that explains everything, face morphing to becomes yours, alien shadows flickering in cold eyes. "We have other methods of recovering debt and you do have a most interesting life."

"We die, and all that is left is memories."

"Would that be such a bad thing?"

"Depends on what you do, I suppose. And who holds them."

He says, "I always wanted to be famous. It was this or be a serial killer."

All the copyright-extension and anti-piracy bills are actually being bankrolled by Disneyworld, which is determined that the Mouse That Shall Not Be Named is never, ever in the public domain.

Have heart, though: even they must run out of money.

Some day.

Surely?

"Why is it so hard to get away from your tears?" he whispers.

The other man smiles, terribly gentle. "I'm not crying."

"Don't you understand? That just makes it worse."

He called last night, from the hotel. Asked about the kids and the dog. But never about you.

What if your life was going to be made into a TV show and you were obligated to make sure you did one thing, each day, worthy of prime time?

Jimmy flushed six goldfish before his mother caught him. He said he wanted them to go down into the sewer, to become mutants and eat pizza. She asked what they would eat it with, how they'd survive out of water, and his imagination was cut down by each word.

He has never become a painter.

There is a pause after we both pick the same bottle of wine, the waiter murmuring, "Very good," over our silence as we wait for each other to speak first, or laugh.

Re-post this if you hate posts telling you to re-post them.

I have always been a deep sleeper. I slept right through the sirens to wake to a newer world.