Toothpick Avengers or Dream#1

I was at my high school. It must have been some sort of field day, because there was a school-wide race. I was with a group of students that weren't participating. Once of our professors, who in real life was one of my business professors who had a buzz cut and talked about selling pools all the time, had rounded us up to combat a supposed break in that was about to occur at the school.
The professor handed each of us a handgun and a pack of cigarettes. We walked down the hall , the ceiling was much higher than usual, maybe 200 ft, and there were caverns and passages jutting off to the side intermittently. We got to the place the tip said the crooks would show up and went into a small room with only one way in and out and nothing in it that I could see. It was a light grey-blue and seemed to be made of some sort of metal. We filed in and turned around and shut the door behind us. The professor didn't bother giving us a pep talk, he just said, "You know what to do," and we all pulled our guns out of our waste bands, cocked them and pointed them at the door. I had pulled mine earlier when we entered, and when I went to make sure it was cocked, a cigarette butt fell out of the chamber. This made me think two things 1) that I had just wasted one of my bullets, because he hadn't given us any extra ammo, and 2)were my bullets all just cigarette butts?
It was pitch black. People were beginning to smoke to try and pass the time. It was silent other than the sound of the others breathing, til we heard footsteps outside. Guns were readjusted, and everyone tensed up. I was thinking, We can't just go around shooting just anyone. What if somebody not even involved opens that door? The door opened inward, and for some reason everyone but me had taken positions behind it so you wouldn't be able to see who was walking in until they were already well into the room. I would be the first to see them and knew it would be up to me to kill or be killed. All of a sudden my vision was in split mode, like in some action movie where you see the targets walking with guns and stern looks down one hallway, and a few janitors chatting and pushing mop buckets down another. They both went to open their door, and I looked ahead of me to see who would be entering our room. It was the janitors. Luckily no one got shot, but since the tip was bad, we'd have to go hunt them down in the caverns off the hallway. The janitors stood silent and stared at us filing past them back into the hallway, with well-deserved looks of sheer confusion.
We headed back down the hall to the next cavern. There were metal steps that had been built up to a raised walkway that stretched back into the dark, but it didn't look very well-kept up. The set of stairs up to this particular walkway had broken neatly straight down the middle of each step and fallen to the sides. Somebody had the great idea to hold them up while the others climbed the 15' or so. Somehow a few managed to do so until an overweight girl was about to take her turn, and we were afraid it wouldn't hold. I noticed an a-frame ladder that was the perfect height, lying next to the walkway, but before I could say, "duh, guys. Why don't we just use that," they'd decided to continue walking along the cavern floor.
The floor was uneven piles of loose stone and debris, making it more like hiking than anything else. The people that had managed to get up, had to jump down one by one as they came to breaks in the walkway, as there were chunks that seemed to just have disintegrated. We had no luck in that cave and went on to search a few more with no success. The group was losing steam and our leader had been switched out with one of the semi-nerdy English professors, one you wouldn't want to have your back in a fight, to say the least.
The next cavern we came to was a little different. The school had chosen to build a store in its entrance. The passage continued beyond it, but you had to go through the store in order to get there, and at this point it was a distraction we just couldn't handle. The group scattered everywhere. The store seemed to be a mix between a general store and the best museum gift shop you've ever seen. There were wooden shelves everywhere filled with fascinating things. I somehow was pulled toward a little wooden rack next to the entrance that had different kinds of poultry seasoning. I'd remembered being there before without finding one I didn't hate, but the first jar I smelled was so intoxicating, that I began thinking about how I needed to head to the grocery store and get a whole chicken, though I'd never made one before or even wanted to.
I began to see that the store was meant to try and make us to stray from our mission, and it was working. Even as I thought this, I was distracted by Jill, who was showing me the pump bottle of lotion her dad had given her. When she set it down, it began to grow until it was so tall that the the pump bent over as it hit the ceiling. I wondered how on earth you would ever get up there to use it then suddenly shook my head until I snapped back into focus.
I couldn't tell where everyone had gone. A couple had started wandering down the cave passageway by themselves, as if they were on a stroll down the beach. Our leader and another were looking at novelty cards. I only saw two others in the shop, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed 3 or 4 leaving through a big set of glass doors that went outside. I quickly followed them. There was a very steep, long bank made of loose red dirt that sloped down to a highway. I saw them at the bottom and started to go down to fetch them back.
Along the one side of the bank, the school had fastened the medals of all the winners of the school's race. Some of them were falling down, so I paused to refasten them. Then I froze. I'd just read the name on the second medal I'd picked up. Somehow I knew that the people we were after had kidnapped the top winners of the race. They thought they'd be able to get a decent ransom for them. The name on the 3rd place medal I held in my hand was my little sister's. On one hand, I was so proud of her for training hard and getting third place out of the entire school. On the other hand, the bottom dropped out of my stomach, because I just had the horrible feeling that they'd taken her. My family would have called me if she didn't come home from school, right? I didn't seem to have my phone on me.
I refastened her medal, for some reason prayed the Lord's prayer, and then turned to climb back up the bank to the caves. Screw everyone else. If I was ever going to get her back, it was up to me.
And then I woke up. THE END

Let it Snow

Last month it snowed over a foot. Parking lots turned perfect little white hills and valleys. I traveled through labyrinth tunnels, levitating 6 inches above the winding roads on clouds of compacted snowflakes. The world was silent for a moment, and you were here. I let myself close my eyes and take a deep breath.
Too soon, it melted.
Now I'm here, left with a few dirty chunks of stubborn ice...and bits of garbage-beer cans, cigarette butts, plastic.
Salt sticks to everything after it's no longer needed, and refuse hidden in dark piles still stinks up the place when revealed.
I alternate ignoring it as I walk past and sitting there, staring at it, wishing it was gone already, and I didn't have to roll up my sleeves and deal with this mess.
Somebody hand me a shovel.

Killing things

The other day I was driving to work and I saw a bird drop straight out of the sky onto the side of the road, and all I was thinking after that was should I drive back there and kill it? I mean, birds don't just drop out of the sky for no reason. It must have fallen off of the power line. Maybe it was deathly ill, in which case I should probably stay away. But what if it's just been severely wounded by like, another bird with a knife. He was just sitting there, minding his own business, sittin' on the power line, thinking about where to fly next and BAM (or some other onomatopoeia [yes, I had to look up how to spell that] signifying a stabbing sound [like SCHLICK]) the other bird stabs him! Were I that bird, I would love for some kind passerby to either 1.take me to the bird hospital or 2.since that's a stupid idea and way too expensive since I'm only a wild bird, put me out of my misery.
I didn't kill it, but sometimes I still wonder should I have?
I think this only because I was once told a story by a friend of how he saw a hurt groundhog by the side of the road and for some reason decided to get out of his car and check on it. Needless to say (actually, I probably do need to say it or you'll have no idea what happened next), the groundhog attacked him and he had to stomp it to death! . . . Of course, that's exactly what I thought, too. That can't be a real story. Why on earth would you stop to check on a wounded groundhog. That considerably more than crazy. No one would do that. So on my way home that day (this friend was also a neighbor) I drove past where he said it had happened, and sure enough, there it was. It was all stiff and puffed up, there on the side of the road. And that's why I'm glad we're friends, my friend.