Elgin Marbles: A mini-saga

It is interesting that the defacement of statuary, often the only extant art of bygone cultures, is done for reasons of religious intolerance. Zeus no longer owns his head because Jesus became the godhead, and Buddha no longer looks over the hills and valleys of Afghanistan because Allah is great.

The Formula for Success: A mini-saga

“Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”
- Arthur Rubinstein (1886 - 1982)

Wearily Dr. Dombrowski removed his glasses and rubbed the sides of his nose where they had left red marks. In front of him was a long page with the heading “Invisibility Formula” filled with mathematical equations. He picked up his pencil once more, added a final number and promptly disappeared.

Smoking: A mini-saga

A woman sashays into a bar, leans her generous bosom over the counter and calls out seductively to the bartender, “Hey honey, pour me a drink! I’ve got heartburn!” The bartender eyes the bleached-blonde hair, the low-cut neckline and says, “Lady, you ain’t got heartburn. Your tit’s in the ashtray!”

Dorothy: A mini-saga

“...if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any farther than my own backyard; because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with!” - Dorothy in L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz

Scrabbling in the grass, frantically pawing at the ground underneath; where had she hidden it? Burying her heart’s desire so that none other could have it, she could not now find it herself. Such irony! There it was! Dorothy grabbed the bone in her teeth and ran off to gnaw.

Divide: A mini-saga

(Photo credit to SilverSide)

Tired of the singles-bar scene, Sarah decided to create the perfect man using software she wrote especially for that purpose. The results were so overwhelmingly satisfactory that she spent more and more of her time at the computer, until she became old and gray and no one wanted her anyway.