With Apologies to Daniel Handler

For example, you could break the ice by purchasing a hammer and then using it on the lake down the street, or you could break the ice by telling that nice-looking night-shift cashier at the hardware store about your passion for swimming in the very cold water in the dark, or you could break the ice by purchasing a hammer and then asking if the cashier wants to come down to the lake with you to go swimming, and there may be situations in which the ice is broken and the ice isn't broken, like if there are big cracks in the surface of the lake but if the thought of the two of you floating naked in the freezing water makes everyone a little uncomfortable, or if the hammer turns out to be too small but she is laughing at your jokes, and if you're really into breaking the ice you could try breaking the ice with the ice, by making jokes about ice or by picking up a big chunk of ice and throwing it at the ice or even by talking to the ice as if to make pleasant conversation, in which case you could break the ice with the ice with the ice, perhaps by asking the ice what it is like to be ice, and though I would not recommend breaking the ice with the ice by breaking the ice with the ice, you could still try it, it might be nice.

Amy Vanderbilt and the Rude Zombies

ONSCREEN: AMY VANDERBILT's eyes, looking fearful. She walks forward.

NANCY (V.O., whispered)
They can't know you're not one of them, Amy.

Flashes quickly: MALE ZOMBIE 1 - who appears perfectly human - spitting on the sidewalk.

AMY keeps walking. We see her now from the shoulders up. The street around her is full of people, wandering aimlessly and in a very rude manner.

NANCY (V.O., whispered)
Our old world, that's gone now. You have to understand this. You have to blend in.

Flashes quickly: MALE ZOMBIE 2 yawning in a business meeting. He fails to cover his mouth.

AMY keeps walking.

NANCY (V.O., whispered)
We look the same. At least there's that. You can do this. They'll never know.

Flashes quickly: FEMALE ZOMBIE 1 receiving an inappropriately garish gift from MALE ZOMBIE 3. She does not tell him how inappropriate it is.

AMY turns the city corner and walks into a ZOMBIE.

AMY
Excuse me.

A beat.

All the ZOMBIES attack.
ON SCREEN OVER BLACK: AMY VANDERBILT AND THE RUDE ZOMBIES
ON SCREEN OVER BLACK: COMING SOON

Variations

Apologies for the poor artwork and late update, and, of course, please don't read too far into this post. It is merely a bit of wordplay. I in no way endorse long-handled gardening tools and/or immoral pleasure seekers.

This Isn't a Love Story

1.
On the phone with her friend, Jenny discusses her new coworker, Oliver - an attractive college graduate like herself. His interests include model airplanes and skinny ties. I cannot get enough of guys in skinny ties, she says to her friend, who wants her to get a number.

2.
In a letter to her friend Jenny writes, this isn't a love story, just because she hates all that cliché nonsense and she knows she will never meet an attractive man at an expensive hotel in Paris. Girls meet guys all the time and they don't fall in love.

3.
Jenny runs into Oliver at the post office when she goes to mail a letter. Do you want to come with me to fly this new plane I got? Oliver asks. Jenny says yes. She throws out her letter.

How to Play Frisbee in the Rain

It's hard, man, because you want to relive memories through your talking about them. You want to write facebook statuses and tell stories about these things you did that were so different - sports in the rain and sprinting in the middle of the night, you want to write about how you have to think about gripping the disc in your fingers and describe the feeling of the track on your bare feet, but it is never the same - you can't go back; that layout is never as good the second time around.

Brevity!

Friday: he has long since abandoned describing his characters or the setting, he has eliminated foreshadowing and symbolism (except for allusions to chess; he just loves those), and, in his quest for minimalism, he has finally arrived at an important question: how much can you strike?

Saturday: he writes a story about a nameless character in a blank room without a chess set.

Notes

I'll be taking a brief hiatus for the holiday. I will return to my usual schedule of posting this coming Thursday, July 8.

Very Angry Commercials

1 - Int. Train Station - Day - 1

The ATTRACTIVE MAN looks across the track and sees the ATTRACTIVE WOMAN in the car opposite himself. It's not his train, but he's in love, and what can you do? He whips out his phone in a way that makes it very clear that all is not lost. He quickly hits the giant "change ticket" button, and then he's picked up his bags and he's off.

2 - Int. Train - Day - 1

Inside the train, the ATTRACTIVE WOMAN stares wistfully out the window whil ethe doors close with a whoosh. The ATTRACTIVE WOMAN turns to her purse in the seat next to her, but then, suddenly, at eye level: the bottom of a familiar green sweater!

ATTRACTIVE MAN
Is this seat taken?

3 - Ext. Train - Day - 3

Through the window: the ATTRACTIVE WOMAN moves her purse, the ATTRACTIVE MAN sits down next to her. The train rolls slowly out of the station.

4 - Int. Train - Day - 4

The ATTRACTIVE MAN and ATTRACTIVE WOMAN are having an attractive conversation.

ATTRACTIVE MAN (continued)
And that's when I found five dollars.

ATTRACTIVE WOMAN laughs hysterically. She wipes away tears.

ATTRACTIVE WOMAN
I've only known you for thirteen seconds, but I already feel very comfortable with you, as evidenced by my easy laugh.

ATTRACTIVE MAN
You will make our children delicious sandwiches. I will take out the garbage. You will give me knowing smiles as I leave for work in our attractive car.

The CONDUCTOR wanders over.

CONDUCTOR
Tickets, please.

The ATTRACTIVE WOMAN smiles and hands her ticket to the CONDUCTOR. The ATTRACTIVE MAN takes out his phone.

ATTRACTIVE MAN
I used my phone to change my ticket.

CONDUCTOR
What?

ATTRACTIVE MAN
I used the "change ticket" button. It was so big I felt like an above-the-shoulder camera shot could have seen it! Gosh.

CONDUCTOR
That's not- you need a physical ticket. Have you ever ridden a train before?

ATTRACTIVE MAN
Of course. Didn't you see my travel-worn duffel bag in the overhead bin?

CONDUCTOR
You need to have a ticket! What is wrong with you?

ATTRACTIVE MAN
I told you, I pressed the-

CONDUCTOR
We don't have a change ticket button. Last minute cancellations cost, like, seventy dollars, and you can't make them on the platform with your phone.

A beat.

CONDUCTOR
This is- massively- this is so inconvenient. Why would you do this to us? Why- forget it. I need you to get up.

Another beat.

CONDUCTOR

Dammit.

Nights

Nights, and the graduating class has taken to staring at the clock on their microwaves and picking at their fingernails. They're on a precipice here, and the slower that summer goes, the better.

Why Would You Tell Me That

One in twenty games I don't feel hungry afterwards. Nearly all of the time I come off the field demanding burgers and pizza and fishsticks with custard, but after five percent of matches, just five percent, my friends and teammates go out for Wendy's; I go home and catch up on my webcomics. I take a shower. I read a book. I think about how I played.

And then right when I am about to go to bed - in fact, right when I am about to brush my teeth - I get hungrier than I've ever been, and for cereal, cereal, cereal. I pull on sweatpants and go downstairs to lay waste to the cabinet next to the sink. I've eaten whole boxes of Multigrain Cheerios and Raisin Bran. I drink water - room-temperature, in a glass - and I eat more cereal than I ever could in a week of usual breakfasts.

And here is my question: why do I want you to know that? Why am I interested in telling my friends that sometimes I like eating cereal late at night? What possesses me to tell people the water's temperature? This is a boring story. This is a then-I-found-five-dollars story. This is unworthy of recounting.

At night, I could shuffle my day's anecdotes into those worth telling and those that should not be repeated. It could never be an exact science - if I have a forgiving audience I might tell one of the less interesting ones - but it is a procedure that I like to think could be performed in a fairly accurate manner. If there's anyone out there that does this, please let me know. I'd like to hear how and when you started, if you think that would be an interesting tale to repeat. At the very least I could take a look at your filing system.

Evidence, Evidence

It was a problem you can only come up with if you are never worth anything but the designer suits you wear: he needed evidence of himself. Evidence, evidence, evidence. He filled a house with all of his receipts, because he could afford to. He wrote his name in the books he took out of the library and the ones he gave to charity. He gave money to colleges he didn't attend so that he could be on plaques in front of wings and libraries and auditoriums. He was the sponsor of scholarships that were for interest in nuclear science and others that were for the deconstruction of every nuclear power plant in the world. He got speeding tickets so cops would write his name in their little books. He was bad at parties; one time he met this girl that was kind of cute but he never worked up the nerve to ask her number.

One Cloud (Underwater)

Scenes 12

One:
When I tell you to lift me up above the crowd at the party, you ask how high. That is awesome. Really awesome.

Two:
You ask me to kill that bug. I mean it is a scream, frankly, or at the very least a shriek. Afterwards, I realize I used your Mensa day-to-day calendar. Forgive me. It was so close to making it under the armoire, and I didn't really have time to look for a newspaper or anything.

Three:
I hear you have serious ass cancer; I hear it's fatal.

Track

The sky is brown and bright and hot and a thousand gnats buzz around the runner's face as she looks up from the shadows of the empty classroom across the courtyard. There were trees here once, four months ago, but then things got hot and people got angry and now the trees are dead and the runner can see all the way across the flat, dead grass to the door that serves as her finish line. She used to run real track. She could fly, man.

Coach gave her this advice: "It's about 70 meters, and you'll have 8 seconds from the time the gun goes off. After that, it's no promises. I'll tell the starter to try to cover you. The baton is on the desk through the door; you have to break the biohazard glass."

They - they - sit inside unless the courtyard motion alarm goes off. It's cooler there, and that's the route the senseful unwary would take. They don't waste energy. They sit still.

She touches the edges of the window where the glass is broken, and then steps up into the frame, crouching, as close to a real starting position as she can get.

Her earpiece buzzes with static. Break, break. It's a regular thing.

Then the shot goes off, and she runs.

All Snared Up

Onstage before the Fourth of July concert, things were going to hell.

"I have this tradition," said Tom to Belle, the other percussionist. The strings were busy tuning up. "It's sort of to get me pumped up. Get some energy out there, you know."

Belle smiled nervously, glancing around at the tiny flags and the freedom-themed streamers and watching while Tom dug through his pocket. He took out a little boxcutter.

Tom said, "I think that's important to have before a concert. Energy. You know that head-pounding, blood-pumping feeling? It makes my rolls sizzle better." He walked over to the snare drum.

"What are you doing?" Belle asked, "is this a joke or something?"

Tom glanced at his watch. "I told you, it's tradition." He touched the tip of the blade to the drum's tight mylar skin. Belle shouted, "Stop! What are you doing?" A couple trombones turned around to look what was going on. From the wing, the conductor straightened his tie and nodded to the kid pulling the curtain. The blade dug in further.

"No one has ever objected before," he said. Then the curtain opened, the conductor strolled out graciously, and, over the applause in the dark, stifling auditorium, no one heard the quiet snapping noise from the back of the orchestra.