Microstory 2252: No Dutch! No Dutch!

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Dear Dudes, Dutch. Doy. I asked to fill in for Nick today, instead of Kelly. It’s not that she couldn’t write it for him, but I’ve been a little bored, and I wanted something to do. I don’t know what we’re gonna do tomorrow, because the hospital still won’t want him working, and his website is his job, so I may write the next one too. We’ll just have to wait and see. If you don’t read his socials, then don’t worry, he’s okay. He’s not back here for a medical issue, but because he had his surgeries. They took out his index, and some of his bone marrow. Funny thing about that first thing, when I went to another universe, the scientists who studied me wanted to see if there were any physiological differences between me and them. They did all sorts of tests...consensually, and discovered that everything was the same. We all got ten fingers, one heart, and two butt cheeks. They also mentioned that the appendix was about the same. And I’m, like, “what the hell is an appendix?” That’s what they call the index. Apparently, their ancestors thought that it was a useless organ that doesn’t do anything. Which is strange, because back then, they also thought that a magical God created humans. Why would they think such an omnipotent entity would think to include something so strange and pointless? Anyway, I just remembered that, and thought it was funny.

Welp, I think I have a little extra time, so maybe I’ll spend the rest of it telling you how I got my name. Most people assume that it’s only a nickname, but no, it’s real. Both in this world, and the other one, learning it has made people chuckle, or hold back chuckles. The Dutch are people from Nederland, or the language that they speak. My family is not from Nederland, nor even the area. Here’s the story. When my father was a child, he used to watch this old television program. Of course, as Nick has pointed out, we don’t have much of a library of fiction on this Earth, but this one was scripted, and said to have been pretty good at the time. I can’t remember what it was called, but in the first season, there was a younger brother in the family. They got rid of him in later seasons without an explanation, but he kind of became synonymous with the show anyway. The character was very protective of his toys and other belongings. Whenever anyone would come into his room, or try to do anything with his stuff, he would yell “no touch! No touch!” But he had this sort of babyish accent, and it sounded more like Dutch than touch. My father, being of about the same age as this kid, started imitating what he saw and heard. He’d walk around the house, yelling that catch phrase over and over again, emphasizing a D sound even more than the actor did. My grandmother tells me that it was annoying, but at least he didn’t really understand what the words were supposed to have meant, so he wasn’t actually ever trying to stop people from touching his stuff. Then he grew up, and forgot about all of this. But years later, as an adult, he watched some old home movies, and saw himself yelling that. His own dad was gone, but his mother was still alive, so he asked her about it, and she explained what that was. So my dad, being the jokester that he is, just started doing it again. He’ll periodically yell, “no Dutch! No Dutch!” usually at very inappropriate times. I think you can guess the rest. It became part of his personality, so when he and his future wife had a kid, naming him Dutch just made sense. I get my brains and good looks from my mother, but I got Aderyn ‘No Dutch’ Haines’ sense of humor. I think it’s a pretty good deal.

Microstory 2057: Precision of Language

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The interview went about as well as it could. He didn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that I didn’t have a résumé. I spent so much time traveling the bulk, and dealing with all sorts of wildly different people, I almost forgot how unusual I am. I’m neurodivergent, which doesn’t mean much in the extreme diversity of the multiverse, but it matters here. The reason I’ve been saying this planet is boring is not just because the headlines are pussycat tame compared to the kind I’m used to, but people seem to be mostly humorless too. At least when people back home would make absolutely dreadful approximations of jokes, I knew that they were trying. They wanted to be funny, they just weren’t very good at it. Metaphor, simile, analogy, hyperbole; these all go over these people’s heads. By that I mean, you failed to comprehend it, not that an object moved over your physical head. I told the interviewer that I’ve been to a thousand parks in my day, and he wanted to see my log of them, which he assumed I would need in order to come to such a precise figure. He didn’t understand that I didn’t mean it literally. I’ve just been to a lot, but probably still under a hundred, I don’t know. When I explained as much, he understood, so these people are not like Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. They don’t have to take things literally, but it’s not intuitive for them to pick up on things like sarcasm and emotional nuance, and they have to think about it for a moment once you clarify. Fortunately, they also don’t seem perturbed about it, like the society in The Giver, which emphasizes something called precision of language. Listen to me, making pop culture references that you don’t get, because these stories don’t exist here. I guess that’s what I’ll do with my time. You do have fiction here, but it’s got to be different than the kind in other worlds if they’re more about just telling the story, and less about the poetry. Hopefully I hear back from the garden soon. I’m ready to get my hands dirty. Just so you understand, getting one’s hands dirty is an idiomatic expression that usually means being able to put in the work to accomplish something, rather than just sitting by and letting others do it. It can sometimes mean doing something bad, but it doesn’t have to. In my case, it’s to be taken seriously, though, so don’t worry. Gardening is dirty work.

Microstory 1530: Cloze Tests Test

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This is going to be one of the most ________tal microfiction experiments I have ever done. They will all be cloze tests. What is a cloze ________? Well, you might have heard of Mad Libs before, and this is a similar situ____. For the former, a ________ is tasked with tasking their ________ with supplementing the missing words from a paragraph in a ________. Underneath each blank is a part of sp____ch, which prompts them to choose a word without having any context to the paragraph’s ultimate meaning. The ________ of the game is to come up with the craziest and ____iest story in the end. A cloze test, on the other ________, is not generally meant to be ________. You’ve probably done them in school, where you’ve ________ a film, or read a ________, and the teacher asks you to prove your comprehension without having to ________ an entire summary from scratch. My cloze “________” will be short fictional ____ies, with no particular theme, and no ________ way to connect them all together. The words I omit will be ____ly selected. If writing this ________ is any indication, then I will be ________ the blanks as I go along, rather than ________ the whole story, and cutting ________ out afterwards. I may do it differently to see how that ________. As you’ve seen, I occasion____ put part of the word, and have you ________ in a blank before or after it, with only a morpheme or two. I may even make it even wilder, and put blanks in very _nusu_l places, with single character blanks. Pay no attention to the length of the blank ________. It is of no indication ________ long the word you fill in should be, and will probably only ev____ be shortened when only part of a word is missing. I don’t want to tailor the length to any given ________ I have in mind, because I still ________ you to be able to come up with whatever narrative you feel makes the most sense—or the least sense, as it were. This might be one of the ____best things I’ve ever tried, and it might make me ________ like a ________in’ ________, but as I’ve ________ before, the point of this website is to experiment with nontraditional forms of wri__ing. That last blank was meant to be writhing, by the way. Hopefully this makes for an interesting read, and isn’t so distracting or vague that it means nothing. There’s little I can do to test it out myself, since I always do have a word in mind, and will always read it using those. If you don’t like it, then ____tive criticism is fine, but don’t go around calling me a ________ ________ ________ ________, or a ________ ________ ________ who can’t even ________ when ________ is on ________, you piece ________ ________, standing there with ________ and ________ ________ ________ shoelaces around your ________. Okay, maybe some of these will be a little funny.

Microstory 1394: Misdirection

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Garden Terrorist 1: Mr. Stern! I see you’ve survived! How was it?

Fiore Stern: It was simultaneously the best, and worst, thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. What was the deal with that sheep? Did everybody get to do that?

Garden Terrorist 2: A lot of the tests are all about loyalty, but that one was about how strong your stomach is. I mean, if you can kill a sheep that slowly, I imagine you can do just about anything.

Fiore Stern: Yeah, it didn’t bother me at all.

Garden Terrorist 3: I was watching you from a distance. You hold the record for longest sheep suffering. You should be proud of yourself.

Fiore Stern: Oh, interesting. So, this is a suitability interview?

Garden Terrorist 2: Ah, it’s not really an interview. We’re here to get to know you, so we can start to build some trust.

Fiore Stern: You guys work in the gardens?

Garden Terrorist 1: Yeah, that’s all we do.

Garden Terrorist 3: In fact, they don’t want us to know anything about what’s really going on in this organization.

Fiore Stern: What is really going on in this organization? And could you speak directly into my shirt collar?

Garden Terrorist 2: Haha! I love this guy. You’re gonna do just fine here, Sterny. That’s what we’ll call you; Sterny.

Garden Terrorist 3: Severe.

Fiore Stern: Huh?

Garden Terrorist 3: We’ll call you Severe. It’s a synonym for stern, ain’t it? Makes you sound mysterious, and dangerous.

Garden Terrorist 2: Oo, I like that. Yeah, that’s much better. Have a drink, Severe.

Garden Terrorist 1: Severe is a perfect name. You certainly lived up to it when you drained that sheep, and when you beat that man half to death.

Fiore Stern: Yeah, who was that? Does he work here?

Garden Terrorist 3: Yeah, but he tested much lower than you.

Garden Terrorist 2: And he’s a masochist.

Garden Terrorist 1: So he volunteers to be the punching bag for Stage Two of initiation.

Fiore Stern: Well, I almost killed him full to death.

Garden Terrorist 1: That’s the risk we all take. You can’t work for us if you’re afraid of a little danger.

Garden Terrorist 2: Or a little pain.

Fiore Stern: I have no problem with pain. I just prefer to be the one doling it out.

Garden Terrorist 2: Ha! There he goes again with that sharp humor! Get him another drink, you whatever your name is.

Garden Terrorist 1: Actually, go get us a keg.

Fiore Stern: So, I wanted to ask you guys something, and I hope I’m not out of line. I understand that I’m not here to be involved in the main business, but what if I were to have...let’s call them extracurriculars?

Garden Terrorist 3: Oh, I see what he’s sayin’. This boy likes to play. We all have our extracurriculars.

Garden Terrorist 1: Rule number one, don’t do anything to jeopardize this organization. You can have a life outside of it, but if you get caught, you better keep us out of it. We’ll deny having any knowledge of whatever it is you like, which will be plausible, because you won’t be telling us. Obviously, we have people in law enforcement who work for us, but you won’t ever know who, so there’s no one out there you can trust. You feel me?

Fiore Stern: I got it. We’re good. I’ll keep to myself.

Garden Terrorist 3: Well, drink up! The world’s ours now.

Microstory 1338: Social Distance Learning

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Data Gatherer: We tried to ask a bunch of random people on the street whether they were more concerned with the virus, or how the elections were going to be handled this term, and the responses...were hard to find. The few people we found walking the mostly empty streets were wearing masks and/or trying to keep their distances from us, and the few responses we did receive were too depressing for our show. At least, that’s what I believed. I instead decided to go back home and video chat with everyone I knew, to ask them some lighthearted questions about their experiences with social distancing. In particular, I was looking for funny stories. Not everything I heard was as lighthearted as I had hoped. My boss has allowed me to upload this last video, but I have been let go. The first person I called was my college roommate. We’ve not spoken in seven years. I think he forgot who I was.

College Friend: Nah, man. I didn’t forget you. I just wasn’t expecting your call. So yeah, social distancing has been fine. I was kind of built for this. I’m a web developer, so I never saw the point in going into the office anyway. They eventually gave my desk to an intern to use while I wasn’t around, so this was just kind of an obvious next step. I don’t really have any funny stories to tell. I have let myself go, so I look more ape than man, but my life hasn’t changed too terribly much. I don’t have kids, or any other responsibilities.

Ex-Girlfriend: I have a ton of responsibilities. This has turned my life into chaos. I get my hair done on Mondays, my nails done on Tuesdays. Wednesdays are for massages. Thursdays are all about me, staying at home, reflecting, so Thursdays are fine. Fridays, I always used to go out to bars or clubs, but nothing’s open anymore. I don’t really see the point in all of this. I’m young, I’ve never been sick a day in my life. I should be able to go out and have fun.

Former Co-worker: Oh, it’s been a lot of fun. Not only am I stuck at home all day, but so are my kids. My. Six. Kids. Well, two of them are my nieces, because my sister and her wife are both doctors. And one of them is an adult who’s been helping out, but it’s still been really stressful for us. They are a joy, make no mistake, but we’re running out of fresh entertainment. Our youngest wants to watch the same episode of a kid’s show over and over again, so if you’re looking for something funny, that’s your story. It’s not funny haha, though. It’s more funny oh God, get me out of here, I’m going crazy.

Brother: The crazy thing is that I’ve been preparing for this my whole adult life. You all called me insane for hoarding those cans of food, and keeping hand sanitizer with me at all times, but who’s laughing now? Who has all the toilet paper, and masks? Me, I do. Well, I don’t have the masks anymore, because my reusable pack finally arrived, so I was able to donate my disposables to a hospital. Yeah, that’s right; not all preppers are selfish jerks. The shows you watch are all about the ones buying guns and bunkers, but most of us were never excited about the end of the world. We still want to stop it, and I’m doing what I can from my end.

Neighbor: The world is not going to end. Everyone is blowing this whole thing out of proportion. Tens of thousands of people die from the flu each year. Now, I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it is normal. It’s nature’s way of keeping the population down—I really believe that. Old people are supposed to die. Nobody tried to stop it before, so why are we all freaking out now? As the saying goes, this too shall pass.

Social Media Acquaintance: My father passed from this yesterday. No, it’s okay, I want to say this. He was old, and he was on his way out. I don’t know if what he went through with the virus was better or worse than what he was dealing with before. I don’t know whether he would have preferred to stay alive for longer, or end it faster. He stopped being able to talk, so I’ll never know what he was thinking about in the end. Everyone at the hospital was really great. I felt very comfortable leaving him there, and not being able to see him, because I knew he was getting the best care possible. Things are getting bad, though. They’re starting to make triage decisions. Triage, Data Gatherer. That’s not the kind of thing you normally have to do in a hospital setting. Anyone who doesn’t believe this virus is a big deal should be placed in formal quarantine, and left there, even when this is over, because people like that are a danger to society under all circumstances. Though, I guess my anger at them goes against the spirit of what we’re trying to get back here.

Data Gatherer: These were some of the less dispiriting stories, if you can believe it. People need streamed entertainment right now, so maybe it’s a good thing I’ve lost my job. It will give me time to focus on my personal channel. I don’t have a funny story either. Stay safe; stay inside.