"Are you kidding me? Throw it! Hurry up and throw it!"
"Shut your milk dud. It won't stand still!"
The time? Halloween night. The place? The Glitcheson yard. The voices? Two teenage pranksters, armed with good ol' American toilet paper. The mission? Decorate a tree and run. The problem? A glitching tree that refuses to cooperate.
Roll goes up, roll comes down. It doesn't make contact with its branched target. The tree keeps zipping back and forth like The Flash - or at least the Road Runner. Finally it disappears altogether, as if deleted.
"Oh, just forget it!," exclaims the older of the two.
They turn around to flee, only to be forcefully knocked to the ground. They have run smack into the elusive tree. It has reappeared behind them.
Flat on their scraped backs, the youngsters look at one another with wide eyes. It's becoming a common facial expression in Hollow Graham these days.
(Excerpted from my short story MEET THE GLITCHES - the full story is included in my book SPACE & RHYME)
© Matt Decker
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