{"id":1310,"date":"2019-07-29T09:47:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T13:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=1310"},"modified":"2019-07-29T09:47:02","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T13:47:02","slug":"cant-take-it-with-you-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=1310","title":{"rendered":"Can’t Take It With You"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We stood at the intersection looking down at my body, hit by a bus.\u00a0 How ridiculous!\u00a0 After all the times I stopped people on their phone gadgets from walking into traffic…and now this?\u00a0 I must have been daydreaming.\u00a0 What an idiot!<\/p>\n

Cars were still swishing through the scene while a small crowd of cynical bystanders gathered to make snarky comments in hushed voices.\u00a0 The police arrived to push the crowd away and redirect traffic.\u00a0 One of them walked right through me…ugh!\u00a0 Weird!!\u00a0 I shuddered. My companion grinned.<\/p>\n

I felt regret.\u00a0 It was a good body.\u00a0 I’d kept it fit and healthy, not too bad looking either, but now it was mangled and broken.\u00a0 There were scattered bits of gristle and a thick dark liquid splashed across the asphalt.\u00a0 One of my eyes hung down my cheek by a thread and my skull was split wide open like a busted watermelon.\u00a0 Hmmm, I always wondered what my own brains looked like.\u00a0 Eeeeeew!!!<\/p>\n

My companion stepped over to me with a ‘we should go soon’ nudge.\u00a0 I must say, for a scythe wielding hippie weirdo in a medieval bathrobe, he seemed like a decent chap.\u00a0 He was kind enough to give me time to adjust.\u00a0 Finally, with a friendly clap on the shoulder he hissed, “Come along, son.\u00a0 You can’t take it with you.”\u00a0 We turned away and began walking off into the ether.<\/p>\n

“Hey Grim!” I said, “You think I’ll come back as a sea slug or a tapeworm?\u00a0 I hope not…maybe I could be a hockey puck!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 That’s where all the action is…”\u00a0 He shook his head and rolled his eye sockets.\u00a0 “Hey, can you introduce me to Jesus?\u00a0 No…ELVIS!!! Yeaaaah!”<\/p>\n

***This combination of spot-image and story is featured on page 6 of our new book, “A Short Burst.”\u00a0 It is flash science fiction, which makes it very short and intense for people who have very little time, and is quite satisfying.\u00a0 It will be available to buy very soon at www.sallemander.com.\u00a0 Meanwhile, feel free to check out our first 3 books: www.sallemander.com.\u00a0 \u00a0-Marsha\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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We stood at the intersection looking down at my body, hit by a bus.\u00a0 How ridiculous!\u00a0 After all the times I stopped people on their phone gadgets from walking into traffic…and now this?\u00a0 I must have been daydreaming.\u00a0 What an idiot! Cars were still swishing through the scene while a small crowd of cynical bystanders … Continue reading Can’t Take It With You<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[242,150,124],"tags":[210,105,38,37,176,247,19,96,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1333,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions\/1333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}