Ken Sweet, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Ahab's Palace by Ken Sweet
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Not rated by the Author.
Ahab's Palace is the hilarious account of a single day in the life of a downtrodden arcade attendent named Graham. Follow Graham through a wild shift as he is forced to square off against abusive customers, his wormy boss, a bevy of annoying teenagers, geeky videogame addicts, and an obese fast food worker named Sally.
This story is dedicated to anyone who has ever worked in a mall, clutched a fistful of arcade tokens, fought with a cranky customer, or suffered the tortures of a crappy boss. That pretty much covers everyone, I think.
PREVIEW
Ahab’s Palace; 3:17 pm
“Bobby!” the large-headed child declared loudly, for the 65th time. The child’s voice was a few hundred decibels louder than the banks of arcade games in the store, and Graham was sure the pitch would have made dogs howl in pain.
Graham winced as a sharp pain shot through his head. He had just arrived for his shift and already he had a splitting migraine from the piercing sound of the machines and the stresses of the day. He popped the Tylenol into his mouth and swallowed hard, reluctantly turning to face the ugly child standing before him.
“Yeah, yeah. Bobby, Bobby, Bobby,” Graham muttered, imitating large-head’s voice.
This must have fueled the kid’s fire, because he began to jump excitedly in place, suddenly letting loose with an ear-piercing shriek. He looked like he’d just won a Toys N’ Games shopping spree. Graham’s face screwed up in a distorted visage of pain. He reminded himself never to have children.
“Listen, kid…” Graham knelt down so that he was face to face with the child. “I don’t know where you came from, but somebody somewhere must be worried about you. I’m gonna call security and they’ll take you to, um, wherever you’re supposed to be. Now, here are some tokens. Go play skee-ball or something, ok?”
Graham shoved a handful of tokens into the child’s fist and watched as he scampered off to play Deadly Combat 4, even though there was no way he could see the screen properly at his height. Graham went into the office and snatched the cordless phone off of the wall, returning to the doorway to make sure the child hadn’t run off. He hit the speed-dial for mall security.
While on hold he saw two teenagers in the arcade, previously unnoticed. They were currently standing around Random Killing Spree 3, feigning interest in the game, but not actually playing. Every so often they’d glance over at him to see if he was watching them. The true center of their attention seemed to be something in the spiky-haired boys coat. Graham figured they probably were shoplifters and the thing in their coat was a recently liberated item from CD City or Jelly’s Jokes down the corridor. Making the mistake of letting his attention fall away from the large-headed child for a few moments, he glanced back to see that the child was gone.
“Mall security. What seems to be the trouble?” the voice on the other end of the line asked curtly.
Graham began hustling around the arcade, searching behind the rows of games for the child. Panicked, he checked the small bathroom and supply closet. The boy was nowhere to be found.
“Yeah, uh, this is Graham Montrose, the assistant manager over at Ahab’s Palace. I’ve got a kid… hold on a sec.”
He stopped for a moment to ask the two teenagers if they’d seen the boy. The teenagers were typically helpful young people, and stood staring at him for a few moments as if he’d asked the question in Swahili. When it finally dawned on them that they weren’t actually in trouble for anything, they slowly shook their heads.
“Sir, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” the voice on the other end of the line asked impatiently.
“Yes, ma’am, sorry. There was this kid here a minute ago. I think his name may have been Bobby. He seemed lost. I went into the office to grab the phone and call you, and when I came back out he was gone.”
“Ok, we’ll send somebody right over. What did the boy look like?”
Graham thought for a moment, recalling the boy’s features. “His head was really big.”
“His head was big?”
“Yeah, it was huge. I think he was retarded.”
“What makes you think that? Because his head was big?”
“No, because he kept yelling ‘Bobby’ and jumping up and down.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone, while she digested this information.
“Do you remember anything else?”
Graham strained his memory. Mostly he remembered the kid’s big head and pudgy face. He chided himself for not noticing more. He was too tired for this crap.
“No,” he said, then quickly: “Wait a minute, yeah, I remember one thing. His breath smelled like sour milk.”
“Thanks, sir. I’ll have the security guards get out there right now, and have them begin stopping children with large heads to smell their breath.”
Graham could have sworn he sensed sarcasm in the woman’s voice. He didn’t care.
The Wholly Book of Doo-Doo-Rot-on-Me is adult satirical humor featuring adult language and adult content, and the work is a parody of the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy.
Farctured Frazzled Folk Fables and Fairy Farces, Part II satirizes popular children's stories into adult-oriented renditions. FFFF &FF, Part II is also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats.
Thirteen Sick Tasteless Classics, Part V
Thirteen Sick Tasteless Classics, Part V is humorous adult literature featuring adult content and language. The work satirizes and spoofs thirteen classic tales from U.S. and British literature, a
PREVIEW
