Article courtesy of Kyle Parks of Creative Writing Club
“Today, continuing last week’s tragic story, the police have released the full details of the death of our town’s fatally unfortunate hero, Phillip Phell. Mr. Phell, the morning of his death, had been in the park with his friends playing a game, which they reportedly like to call ‘the Stabbening,’ which involved quickly moving a pair of scissors between one’s outstretched fingers while trying to avoid stabbing oneself with the scissors. This is when Phell’s fortune first failed, as he proceeded to stab his left hand. He then—”
“Sounds like he was a cut above the competition, huh, Felicia? Or below, I suppose, since he seemed to be pretty bad at it.”
“This is very serious, Forrest; please don’t do this today. Anyway, Phell then returned home to his apartment to bandage the wound. His roommates also reported that he had smoked some marijuana, something which they had only discovered after the fact and ‘obviously didn’t participate in at all because that’s, like, totally illegal.’ Police believe this led Phell to exhibit some strange behavior later in the day. After this, Phell purportedly left to visit a friend and ‘just chill,’ according to one of his roommates. On the way, Phell happened across the lawn of a local resident, Felicity Fitzgerald, and was shocked by the electric fence she had put up to deter children from trampling the grass. Following this, Phell—”
“Whew, this story really is electrifying, isn’t it, Felicia?!”
“That’s enough, Forrest. After being shocked, Phell stumbled into the road where he was struck by a passing ice cream truck whose driver was distracted at just the wrong moment. Worse still, he found himself then caught on the front of the truck and was carried, conveniently enough, directly to his friend’s apartment as the driver, yet to notice the man stuck to his truck, often stops there to deliver ice cream to local firefighter Francis Finley. ‘I like to get these neat little ice cream bars dipped in chocolate to rest a bit after I’m done playing with and/or putting out fires,’ Finley has told police. Next, Phell—”
“It sounds to me like Phell’s derrière became a dairy-ère, right, Felicia?”
“Forrest, please! This is inappropriate! I sincerely apologize on his behalf. But, moving on, Phell, at his friend’s apartment, was left alone while this friend went to work. Unsupervised, our unlucky Mr. Phell proceeded to drink a bottle of rat poison that was irresponsibly contained in a beer bottle, and—”
“Talk about a drinking problem!”
“Forrest, that one wasn’t even funny, stop trying. Anyway, following this, our unfortunate friend then stepped out onto the balcony for a smoke, where he encountered a cardboard cutout of Mayor Flores propped up against the wall. Police believe that Phell was startled by this cutout and fell over the railing, only to fall to ground, roll down a hill and eventually drown in the river. Forrest, any witty comment you’d like to grace us all with?”
“No, not at the moment.”
“Alright, good. Some sources also say that they believe Phell’s tragic end to be an instance of ‘faking-one’s-own-death’ gone wrong, but frankly, that’s the most nonsense I’ve heard since my wife told me she likes pineapple on her pizz—”
“I’ve got it! Feigning fleeing failing fortune, forlorn Phil Phell forsook faulty fingers, fearsome fences, frozen fudge for firefighters and fatal fluids for finishing feral fellows and Phell fell forward from feline fanatic’s fireside flat, finally finishing fate’s foul frolic, following fabulously far-fetched fortune!”
