Original absurd, satirical and funny fiction. Influences include Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut, and Norm Macdonald (all lovers of SEO).
The Mystery
I’d never seen anything as stupid as what she held in her hands. “Why did you show me this?” I asked. “Why are you so rude as to show me this?” She shook her head, shrugged her shoulders. “Got nothing to say?” I added. I hoped the weight of my criticism and disappointment could force a confession. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing here: you, this thing you’re showing me.” Still, she refused to talk. She just sat there in a soiled diaper, her hands and feet twisting this thing. But one day her first words will come. She will explain herself then, as we all must.
An essay on the future of the pork sector
Good cafes announce the lifestyle of their ingredients. Eggs are not just ‘eggs’ but free-range eggs. Beef is grass-fed beef. From where the ingredients are sourced is also vital information. This brings us to pigs, to Pialligo bacon, and the end of civilisation.
Pialligo is a suburb in Canberra, ACT. Bacon from Pialligo is widely marketed and highly desirable. Every cafe that sources Pialligo bacon lets its customers know, while those that don’t are closed down and their owners subjected to the midday firing squad against the red walls of Old Parliament House.
If it all ended there, with a few dead cafe owners, we’d be fine. I predict, however, that we will see further fractionation in the bacon market, and that this will bring about the end of life as we know it.
Within the next 3-5 years, there will be greater consumer choice in bacon. There will be the popular ‘near-the-barn Pialligo Bacon’, which will capture the woodiness and earthiness of that spot. There will also be the less popular ‘drinking-out-of-the-sewerage Pialligo Bacon’. This bacon, I’m sorry to say, will likely taste like shit.
Analysis indicates that demand for the near-the-barn stock will increase while demand for the sewerage bacon will diminish. As a result, producers will cram the sewerage pigs into cages near the barn. This will augment the supply of both varieties and enable producers to better service Australia’s shift to an entirely cafe-based economy by 2030.
However, the establishment of cages near the barn will demonstrate the benefits of infrastructure-led initiatives to manipulate the bacon market. For a small cost, producers were able to drastically increase revenue. These same producers will now understand the potential of genuinely infrastructure-led initiatives.
What will follow is significant investment in infrastructure by-the-barn. Though costly, there will be sufficient investor interest to fund the build. Back of the envelope calculations put the capital costs for a 104-floor high-rise at $1.46b AUD (see below).
($700 per square foot; 20,000 square feet per floor; 104 floors) = $1,456,000,000
In this 104-floor hub of bacon production, producers from all over the world will rent space for their pigs. Though global bacon production will flatline, it will become concentrated in a single suburb in Canberra.
Obviously, further fractionation will occur regarding from which floor your bacon is sourced. Producers will likely implement a pig elevator to rotate stock and create a standardised product, so that is not really the issue.
The issue is this: Having a high-rise filled with pigs is quite a target for vegan activists. Having that target so close to the Canberra airport will present a mouth-watering opportunity for willing vegan terrorists. These terrorists will likely hijack planes and fly them into the near-the-barn tower.
What happens after this attack is horrific to even think.
Of course, Australian cafe owners, unable to supply near-the-barn Pialligo bacon, will be shot. Their bodies will coat Old Parliament House as thick as decades-old moss. Peaceful vegans will be vilified. Producers will go broke. But all that comes later.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack - right after the planes hit - pigs will fly. Pigs will fly like shooting stars in the day. Those flying pigs will be filmed, and the footage spread around the world.
Many threats and promises were reserved for when pigs can fly. I’ll kill you, I swear it… oh sure, when pigs can fly. I’ll win the lottery! oh sure, when pigs can fly. The United States will be toppled, Bermuda will rule, she’ll love me again, the Saints will win it all!
Oh sure, when pigs can fly.
And that is how the world will end, my friends, when every threat and wish is granted, when pigs can fly.
A cut character from the short story, The Actor
With a cigarette in her hand, Sandra hunched over the railing and watched the Nepean Highway traffic. Behind her, the Saturday Fun Times door swung open and smashed into the stop. Sandra didn’t need to turn; she knew it was Tilly.
For the uncountable-eth time in her life, Tilly forgot that a door kicked that hard will generally fly back just as hard. So after bouncing off the stop, the glass door flew back like a fist from Tilly’s bitch-ass sister and struck her on the forehead.
Tilly gave the door the finger in response. But the door was made of glass, so it showed only her own reflection giving the finger back. It was that sort of constant, over-the-top behaviour that made everyone at Saturday Fun Times hate Tilly.
“What’s up, bitch,” said Tilly (and that, people also hated her for that). “Can I bum a smoke?”
“Will you fuck off?” said Sandra. “I just want to be alone.”
“Sad-sack Sandra. Sad-sack Sandra,” sung Tilly mockingly. “Don’t be a dog.”
Sandra handed Tilly a smoke, filter first, like a mother handing her daughter a butter knife. Tilly put the smoke over her ear and started shaping gang signs with her hands.
She learned these signs from YouTube, from her favourite rapper, SixCoc. Mr SixCoc is dead now, unfortunately. The exact cause of death is uncertain, but on the night of his passing, Mr SixCoc was shot dozens of times in the chest, head and face. His condition was so poor that when they put the decorated rapper under the hospital lights, the staff could see through him like a cheese grater. He died a very holy man.
The doctor present was unwilling to say whether Mr SixCoc died from or with the gunshot wounds. That year was a really tough one for doctors.
When pressed by a reporter, you could see the sweat gathering on the doctor’s forehead. He refused to answer straight. Then he mistook the reporter quoting a SixCoc lyric as a threat and had a heart attack. He died. But his colleagues were not willing to say whether his death was with or from the heart attack, and one by one, they all died too.
In the end all loves are faded, all bullet holes repaired (that’s a SixCoc lyric).
The doctors met SixCoc on the way to heaven, and together they floated above this earth glad to be free of all the stress and worry and bullet holes and flying pigs.
Tilly saddled up next to Sandra and copied her posture: elbows on the metal railing, eyes to the traffic, to the cars and their drivers travelling to other jobs, jobs that made sense, maybe, jobs that would survive whatever was coming...
“You’ve really done it now,” said Tilly. “Gaz the Spaz said we’re gonna do a team building exercise to boost morale. He reckons you’re bringing the whole vibe down. Why are you so sad, anyway? Haven’t you had a root recently? Us single girls gotta get it, know what I mean, brah? I been sucking that-”
Sandra cut Tilly off with a disgusted look. Her eyes then narrowed at Tilly’s hands. The teenager was still gesturing with the gang symbols, the same symbols the doctor refused to admit may have contributed to SixCoc’s condition.
Sandra kept staring at the young girl’s manic hands, and the world stopped making sense. “Gary said this is because of me?” she asked. “Well, he’s going to regret it.”
7 Pounds 5 Ounces
He was born seven pounds five ounces. At the hospital, the family towered over him and spoke words not yet understood. In response he screamed and made contorted expressions. Not long after, a woman tested the temperature of some milk while another found a straw. The man sipped the drink and took his last breath. He was surrounded by his children, grandchildren and his wife. She was in a wheelchair by his side doing her best to grip his hand, and there is no better way to die. There is no better way to die for a boy born seven pounds five ounces.
A conversation with the author
Here’s an interview by Profitron’s own, Vance Dance Rance, with the author of this post, Luke Skelton. They discuss the post’s content and what drives Luke to write.
Profitron contains absurd, satirical and funny short fiction and prose. Literary influences include Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut and Norm Macdonald. That’s all we have time for, folks.
Loved “An Essay on the future of the pork sector” Luke. Brilliant.
I related to the woman testing the temperature of the milk in “7pounds 5 ounces” and reminded me of the last waking moments shared with Grandad. Beautiful.
😂 that interview is awesome.