CEREAL IN THE CELLAR

Chapter One

Truly, when I was very young, way back before my breasts reached my knees, I believed life would last forever and be perfect and wonderful. Boy, was I ever a troubled kid. Our daddy was a PR man for a brothel in Gladstone Pennsylvania. He was a wonderful man with a warm, giving smile and a flash car he called the "PimpMobile".
 When the twins were four, and Christopher was fourteen and I was twelve there came a special Friday. Now, normally Friday was special anyway:- Friday was when daddy would come home with the receipts from the brothel, and he and momma would figure out which receipts to 'lose' and how much money they could take before daddy brought the rest to the people who owned the brothel. I found out later that this is called 'skimming'. But this Friday was even more special. It was daddy's birthday. All his friends had come for the party which momma had organised for him. We children were cleaned and primped and dressed in our best. Momma said everything had to be just perfect for the perfect man and smiled at us. Oh, how we looked forward to Daddy's return!
 Five o'clock came and went, and still daddy had not returned. At seven o'clock the twins became irritable and cranky, as this was way past their bedtime. Some of daddy's friends became irritable too- "What the hell's keeping him" moaned Reverend Lovejoy who was beginning to come down and didn't like one bit. "Hush, now, and wait" said momma. "Have another line of coke."
 Just then the doorbell rang and momma opened the door and let in two State Troopers. "Aw heck, Jake" cried momma, pointing her finger at the sergeant, "don't tell me you busted him on his birthday!"
 The sergeant squirmed before answering. "I'm terribly sorry, but there's been an accident on Greenfield Highway."
 "Oh... " breathed momma, reaching to draw both Christopher and me against her sides.
 "Your husband was involved. He swerved to avoid a head-on collision, which should have saved his life, but then he crashed through a plate-glass window some men were holding in the middle of the highway, which caused him to lose control, and your husband's car turned over several times, and he even survived that! But then he collided with an oncoming truck which spun him back to the other side of the highway, where, still alive, he was hit by a truck carrying Ping Pong balls and his car immediately caught fire. He managed to escape the fire and the consequent explosion only to be savagely attacked by a bear, but fighting bravely, he killed the bear armed only with his pocket knife and bag of marshmallows! Then a semi carrying bank safes overturned on the adjacent flyover dropping a twenty-ton safe meant for the First National Bank of Jersey directly onto your husband! However, the safe door swung open, and out walked your husband, completely unscathed! Isn't that just incredible?"
 "It sure as hell must have been his lucky day!" interjected the other Trooper with a grin.
 "Oh Lord," breathed momma, "you mean he's all right?"
 "Mmm, I'm afraid not. You see, he caught his finger in the door of the patrol car sent to pick him up and he bled to death on the way to the hospital."
 The Trooper squirmed some more, looking guilty. Then he brightened: "But at least he was OK until then!"
 "Here's some stuff of his that was thrown out of the car at the first impact!" chirped the other Trooper putting bondage paraphenalia onto the kitchen table. The whips and chains were daddy's all right, no doubt about it. So it was true. Really true. Daddy was dead. Damn.
 The Troopers left, and so did the guests with most of the presents meant for daddy, and a good portion of the silverware, and a brand new radio we'd only had two weeks.
 When everyone had left, momma turned to us and said there was only one thing we could do at a time like this.
 "Pray for daddy?" I ventured.
 "No, you moron!" shouted Christopher, "Check the insurance papers!"
 Soon we were all gathered around the kitchen table looking at the insurance papers. Momma looked at them with disbelief on her face. Christopher started to cry as he read them. When I looked for myself I could see what the problem was: Daddy was insured for fire, bear attacks, plate-glass windows, Ping Pong balls and even death by balloon, but the son of a bitch hadn't bothered his hole insuring himself against bleeding to death in a patrol car! As the awful truth sank in we grew closer together in our grief and pain. As she held us tightly, her tears mingling with ours, momma gave voice to our pain and anguish: "Children, we're poor!" she wailed.

The End

Such sublime anguish!!! How truly have human emotions been captured here!

I've had enough, let me out of here!

I want to return to the blurb page, 'cos wow, that was really cool!

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