Madness and Women
Stories
Poetry
horseflies
his new halfway house roommate asked him if he liked the band called judas priest.
he told him he liked judas priest.
the roommate’s face turned serious and asked him if he liked tapioca pudding.
the halfway house manager walked into their room and asked his roommate when he noticed his tapioca pudding cup had gone missing.
apparently someone stole his roommate’s pudding cup from the fridge again.
the roommate promised the house manager when he found out who took it he was going to “cut their fucking head off and mount it on a stick and plant it on the fucking front lawn.”
the house manager offered to help him look for it.
the other guys living there watched them search the refrigerator.
it wasn’t in there and his roommate left the kitchen without saying anything and came back with a baseball bat.
he screamed he was going to kill everyone and started swinging the bat at a few people who laughed at him.
he didn’t kill anyone but he did break some dishes and the coffee maker on the counter.
the house manager wrote him up put him on probation and charged him twelve dollars for the coffee maker.
_____
that same night the house manager made burgers from some donated chopped meat.
that's when horseflies flew into the kitchen and attacked everyone.
they all panicked and ran out the front door.
the burgers were still cooking on the stove.
outside the manager said whoever goes back in and gets rid of the burgers will get free rent and a small refrigerator in their room for the next month.
as soon as his roommate heard the free refrigerator offer he ran into the house and in a few seconds they heard him shouting words they couldn’t understand.
the pan clanged into something that turned out to be the big oak tree in the backyard.