Stories: All-New Tales

The sweatshirt granny bids some regular amount of money for her showcase. Just like always, the numbers of her bid appear in tiny lights, glowing on the front of her contestant desk where she stands.

Here, all the Zeta Delts are yelling. Your phone keeps ringing and ringing.

For your showcase, a supermodel rolls out five hundred pounds of raw beefsteak. The steaks fit inside a barbecue. The barbecue fits onboard a speed boat that fits inside a trailer for towing it that fits a massive fifth-wheel pickup truck that fits inside the garage of a brand-new house in Austin. Austin, like, in Texas.

Meantime, all the Zeta Delts stand up. They get to their feet and step up on their audience seats cheering and waving, not chanting your name, but chanting, “Zeta Delt!” Chanting, “Zeta Delt!” Chanting, “Zeta Delt!” loud enough so it records for the broadcast.

It’s probably the acid, but—you’re battling some old nobody you’ve never met, fighting over shit you don’t even want.

Probably it’s the acid, but—right here and now—fuck declaring a business major. Fuck General Principles of Accounting 301.

Stuck partway down your throat, something makes you gag.

And on purpose, by accident, you bid a million, trillion, gah-zillion dollars—and ninety-nine cents.

And everything shuts down to quiet. Maybe just the little clicking sounds of all those Las Vegas lights blinking on and off, on and off. On and off.

It’s like forever later when the game show host gets up too close, standing at your elbow, and he hisses, “You can’t do that.” The host hisses, “You have to play this game to win…”

Up close, his host face looks cracked into a million-billion jagged fragments only glued back together with pink makeup. Like Humpty Dumpty or a jigsaw puzzle. His wrinkles, like the battle scars of playing his same TV game since forever started. All his gray hairs, always combed in the same direction.

The big voice asks—that big, deep voice booming out of nowhere, the voice of some gigantic giant man you can’t see—he demands, can you please repeat your bid?

And maybe you don’t know what you want out of your life, but you know it’s not a grandfather clock.

A million, trillion…you say. A number too big to fit on the front of your contestant desk. More zeroes than all the bright lights in the game show world. And probably it’s the Hello Kitty, but tears slop out both your eyes, and you’re crying because for the first time since you were a little kid you don’t know what comes next, tears wrecking the front of your red T-shirt, turning the red parts black so the Greek Omega deals don’t make any sense.

The voice of one Zeta Delt, alone in all that big, quiet audience, he yells, “You suck!”

On the little screen of your phone, a text message says, “Asshole!”

The text? It’s from your mom.

The sweatshirt grandma, she’s crying because she won. You’re sobbing because—you don’t know why.

It turns out the granny wins the snowmobiles and the fur coat. She wins the speedboat and the beefsteaks. The table and chairs and sofa. All the prizes of both the showcases, because your bid was way, way too high. She’s jumping around, her bright-white false teeth throwing smiles in every direction. The game show host gets everybody started clapping their hands, except the Zeta Delts don’t. The family of the old granny climbs up onstage—all the kids and grandkids and great-grandkids of hers—and they wander over to touch the shiny sports utility vehicle, touch the supermodels. The granny plants red lipstick kisses all over the fractured pink face of the game show host. She’s saying, “Thank you.” Saying, “Thank you.” Saying, “Thank you,” right up to when her granny eyes roll up backward inside her head, and her hand grabs at the sweatshirt where it covers her heart.

SAMANTHA’S DIARY

Diana Wynne Jones

Recorded on BSQ SpeekEasi Series 2/89887BQ and discovered in a skip in London’s Regent Street

December 25, 2233