League Night

Caroline heard the car door slam, climbed into bed, turned out the light and pretended she was asleep.
His bowling ball made a soft thud as he set it down. She could sense him standing over her at the edge of the bed. He reeked of beer and cigarettes. She clutched the wooden handle of the kitchen knife under her pillow ready to use it if he tried anything. When Caroline heard him leave, she sat up and in the darkness started crying.
Harland was the name she called him. She still was uncertain if he was friend or foe.
For a few days now, she'd been held prison when her ship ran ashore in a land with no vegetation, where everything was made of a pristine synthetic material. Even the ocean floor of this planet still gleamed with the same illustriously varnished glow it had been installed with.
At first Caroline thought it impossible to communicate with this thing, this Harland. That is, until she saw him bowl. Bowling was similar to the form of communication on her planet.
Each pin would represent a letter and in knocking over sequential pins could you begin to decode a message.
Many of Caroline’s friends and the people she hung out with could easily knocked down ten linguistic pins with one ball and depending on the order in which they fell form sentences. Sure, good eyes were needed and you had to be adroit in perceiving the fractional differences of what pin landed first, but that all came with practice. Since there were only ten possible letter arrangements, one could master it while still young.
As far as she could tell, bowling appeared to be the only cultural link between her society and his.
Harland however, had no idea about Caroline’s customs, he bowled because it was relaxing.
She was excited to find a set of dominos while she was looking for something to defend herself against this Harland.
She set-up ten dominos forming a triangle and plucked a small, round stone from the dirt of a potted houseplant.
If may have been slightly out of proportion but Caroline was skilled enough to roll the stone to say what she had to say.
Although she was trying to convey to Harland that she was hungry, he deduced she just wanted to go bowling.
“Sure, no problem, Tonight’s league night. You can come and watch,” he said.
Enthusiastically nodding, she believed he understood.
Caroline became quite upset at the bowling alley because she wasn’t allowed to speak while Harland and others babbled on nonsensically. They all appear to be moronic thought Caroline.
However, when Harland picked up a 9-4 spare in the fourth frame, he had inadvertently made a derogatory comment out Caroline’s hair. She was so incensed over his comment that she got a lane for herself, picked up a ball and started bowling. There was plenty she wanted to get off her chest to this Harland.
Strike.
Caroline spelled out; Apologize now!
Her second ball was another strike whereupon she complained she was still hungry.
Harland heard the resounding tumble of pins as he dried the palm of his hand over a vent of air. He and the others began to take notice, and glanced over at Caroline’s lane to see if she’d get a turkey with three in a row.
Strike. Caroline said. Thank you, now that I have your attention, there are a few things I’d like to say.
“Wow. She’s good,” Harland muttered to himself.
With the fourth strike Caroline explained she didn’t particularly care for her living conditions and wanted to leave.
Harland and the others cheered. This infuriated her to no end. How dare they cheer! Caroline thought it extremely rude behavior.
She grabbed the ball from the ball-return and while gliding gracefully with each step, affixed her glare on Harland.
Strike.
You and your friends have no couth. You’re boorish and I’m getting a headache.
Again, these miscreants cheered, whooped and hollered.
“She wasn’t even looking at the pins!” Harland cried in awe.
Caroline had enough. She stood at the line without even walking up to it and in one fluid motion hurled the ball.
You’re all a bunch of assholes, said Caroline with her sixth strike as she stood with her arms akimbo staring them down.
By now, everyone in the bowling alley had gathered around Caroline’s lane.
Her seventh strike was a bit more humble.
Please, I’m begging you. Take me home. I can’t stand this anymore. I need to get my ship fixed so I can leave this wretched place, I’m hungry, I’m tired and I must return to a place where I’m wanted, and treated fairly.
Nothing.
Caroline bowled her eight strike and told them to roll their balls and say something!
More cheers.
Caroline waited for a response. When no one bowled she threw her ninth strike.
She spelled out: I’m waiting.
It became very quite as she entered the tenth frame.
You leave me no choice said Caroline by having the last pin standing wobble before falling over to create more emphasis.
They egged her on. Strike! Strike! They chanted.
Furiously she hurled another ball and said: If you don’t take care of me and start acting properly, I’m going to plunge the knife under my pillow into your heart when you’re asleep.
People applauded vivaciously.
A realization swept over Harland that not even he had bowled a perfect game. He looked sullen and depressed.
Just for good measure, Caroline threw another strike.
Mockingly, she said; See! Even your friends think you’re a jerk.
She had bowled a 300 game. Balloons floated down from the ceiling and she was handed a fruit basket.
Seeing her prize, she reconsidered her comment about what’s she’d do to Harland when he slept.
At home, Caroline unwrapped the fruit basket and indulged herself, then knocked over a few dominos as she stared at Harland.
Were champagne and strawberries too much to ask for?

All Dolled Up

Lying in a coffin, one might presume the dead themselves care very little about how they are presented upon their last viewing before buried beneath the ground, but this is not so. Not today. And certainly not in Egyptian times when pharaohs got an extreme make-over from their best wardrobe designers, fashion gurus and cosmetologists before being vaulted up with the very ones that dolled them up.
Why just last year, a nomadic tribe from the fifth quadrant invigorated such a practice after the radioactive meltdown of the first quadrant.
Denizen of the first quadrant such as myself glowed for a few weeks before dropping body parts like Hansel and Gretel dropped breadcrumbs through the forest.
Those of us in the first quadrant were all on our proverbial lastleg as well as our literal one.
The nomads realized they could cash in with some of the dying by selling body parts. By glamorizing the dead or those soon to be, the nomads knew we would all be vain enough to buy it.
Let’s say, someone missing a nose was informed that there was a sleek Romanesque nose from a recent cadaver available; it could be theirs if the price was right.
Thus bidding wars erupted amongst the sickly.
There were heaping piles of torsos in junkyards. Those were a dime a dozen while arms and legs could be readily be purchased at a reasonable price at the nearest market.
But such features as ears, mouths, noses, chins, fingers and eyelids in good condition were exceedingly rare to find.
There wasn’t much to live for. Death was imminent. So people in the first quadrant didn’t bother with frittering away their day looking for food and water. They’d spend every waking moment rummaging through the rubble in hopes of finding a make-up kit, some lipstick, a tube of eyeliner, or perhaps a garment fragment that might make a nice scarf.
It was disheartening to see one of my neighbors kill another after losing a bid on a matching set of unblemished ears. Life was indeed on edge.
Recently, the nomads smuggled in chimpanzee eyelids flooding the market. As well they tried passing off earthworms as lips, and sold chins made of nothing more than hardened clay. The dying people in the first quadrant caught on and staged a protest at the nomadic encampment. They hurled their own radioactive fingers over the fence and screamed revolt.
Harsh words and flipping fingers did little to deter the nomads.
Radioactive - schmadeo-active, money was being made.

"Why is it so important for us to look good? Why don't we just accept who we are and embrace it," said a man who hobbled around on stumps and whose cankerous lips were flattened to his face.

“Why look who’s talking. He’s got a handsome nose with still enough skin on his cheeks to completely cover the gaping hole in my face,” cried someone in back of the crowd whose face bore the meager details of a man wearing a hijacker’s stocking.

“Since he doesn’t care about what he looks like, I bid ten thousand on it,” cried another featureless man.

“Twenty!” shouted a someone missing both eyes and half a nose.

“I’m not even dead yet. Beside, I still use my nose,” said the man who instigated the dispute. “Why, just the other day, I found a flower. It’s bouquet was astoundingly pleasant.”

“A flower? Tell us where it is,“ shouted a girl whose face was covered with boils and was missing clumps of skin from her neck. “A flower would look fantastic clutched in my hands I as lay in my box. Or better yet, placed in my hair!”

“This is absurd!” cried the man backpedaling as the others approached corning him. “Get away from me!”

Even though puss oozed from their eye sockets, one could detect their frenzied gaze.
They ripped the man apart. Those with fingers clawed at the man’s face trying to tear off his nose, others with teeth bit off toes and someone gnawed through the man’s ankle for a prized foot. A measly foot, which would probably not even be seen while lying in the coffin or for that matter been of much importance in the afterlife - denizen of the first quantrant believed the departed floated around with wings or possibly jet-packs.
After the unruly incident, laws were constructed. We, the people, acted so scurrilous that many embarrassed by their actions lived the last of their days echoing what the man with the handsome nose had said; Why don’t we accept who we are and embrace it.
The new laws made it illegal for people to use others just so they could look good. Theoretically, it would have been nice if everyone actually felt this way, but at least they put up a good facade for a while.
This is not to say, there weren't plenty lurking about who still used the nomadic black market and would give up an arm and a leg for a most robust pair of cherry red lips that they could have curled into a smile