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stories I wrote when I was 16 and thought I was the next Kurt Vonnegut

I. Billy Buckles Up

Billy Crowe was just fiddling around in his basic home learning center when he jumped up, very excited.
He had invented a belt buckle with his junior chemist's kit. It had a dial that displayed four numbers. When you shook the belt, the numbers spun like a slot machine.
The belt buckle was a time-machine belt buckle.
Billy's hands were shaking as he attached the buckle to his belt. His belt was brown. It had fake rhinestones.
"Eureka!" cried Billy. "Eureka!"
The numbers stopped like this: 2-0-0-1. This meant Billy would advance to the year 2001 when he pressed the belt buckle.
He pressed the buckle. He did this because he couldn't wait for the future. If he did, it would then be the present.
He entered 2001 quietly. He found himself in the middle of the parking lot. Cars floated by and some honked at him.
HONK! HONK!...HONK! HONK!
Cars pulled out of parking places near Billy. They each left a cart on a moving conveyor belt that took them into the store. It reminded Billy of dogs leaving doggie-doo on the curb. The conveyor belt was a cart pooper-scooper.
In Billy's time, young men picked up the carts by hand.
Billy had his hand on his time travel belt buckle. He turned around. This is what made Billy turn around.
HONK! HONK!
Then he was hit by a truck.



II. 53-Under-Par

When Billy Crowe was an astronaut, he found it interesting. He was sent to the moon.
Before Billy went to the moon, it didn't have any footprints. Now it does.
That's progress for you.
Little did Billy know, but he would become famous for his moon trip. He was the first astronaut in history who could say that everyone hated his guts and was glad to see him go.
Billy went with another man, Billy Bowels. Billy teased Benny because of his name.
On the moon, Billy wanted to hit a golf ball. He thought this: "I didn't come here to collect rocks."
He put the little dimpled ball on a tee. He'd never done it before, not even on earth. Of course, he was never famous on earth either.
He hit the ball. He thought he might have sliced it. The ball was orange. The moon is a par 54.
Some time later, Benny thought he saw something on the horizon. You see a lot of exciting things on the moon. What Benny saw was Billy's ball. It had orbited the moon.
Benny watched the orange dot get bigger and bigger. His eyes crossed. The ball smashed into the glass shield on his space helmet.
Benny turned blue. He had a golf ball blocking his epiglottis.
When Billy looked down at Benny, this is what he thought: "Oh my God!"
Then he thought: "A hole-in-one!"


These stories originally appeared in Chip's Closet Cleaner, Issue 7.

Link: Slaughterhouse 5, or the Children's Crusade (book)

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