I love the Dutch, that's why I came to Denmark... (short excerpt from comedy play by Oren Shafir)

In this short excerpt from my play, Better Off Dead, Ulla and her friends,  Lars and Lone, are trying to teach Rex, your average Texan cowboy, how to be Danish.

ACT I, SCENE III, ULLA’S LIVING ROOM

(Lars and Lone are just entering)

ULLA

These are my dearest friends, Lars and Lone Lonelarsen. Lars and Lone, this is my new boyfriend, Rex from Texas.

LARS AND LONE

Oh, an American.

REX

What’s a matter, don’t you like Americans?

LARS

Yes, of course. We are Danish.

 LONE

We are very tolerant and extremely non-judgemental.

LARS

But we believe that all Americans are narcissistic, dogmatic hypocrites.

 REX

Why I might take offense with that if I knew what any of those words meant.

 ULLA

Now we shall have Danish hygge.

LARS

Yes, now we shall have Danish hygge.

LONE

Yes, we shall have Danish hygge now.

ULLA

We shall explain.

LARS, LONE AND ULLA

(Lars, Lone and Ulla light

candles frantically as they

sing this song)

THE DANISH HYGGE SONG

DANISH HYGGE IS SO DANISH

IT’S AS DANISH AS CAN BE

DANISH HYGGE IS SO SPECIAL

BECAUSE IT IS SO HYGGELIG

DANISH HYGGE IS SO SIMPLE

AND YET IT IS COMPLEX

ALL YOU NEED ARE 500 CANDLES

AND SOME PEOPLE AT LEAST THREE

THEN YOU NEED SOME DANISH HUMOR

WE ARE VERY FUNNY

WE GAVE THE WORLD BLACK HUMOR

WE INVENTED IRONY

DANISH HYGGE IS SO DANISH

IT IS AS DANISH AS CAN BE

DANISH HYGGE IS SO CHARMING

BECAUSE IT IS SO HYGGELIG

ALL YOU NEED ARE 500 BEERS

AND SOME PEOPLE, AT LEAST THREE

REX

Oh, that’s Danish hygge. It’s kinda like...

Read more or download the full play as a pdf.

Listen to the first act read in a live staged radio reading

All for one (350 word freaky flash fiction) by Oren Shafir

What kind of person could beat a man until his bare knuckles bleed? I know you think I’m horrible, but there’s some things you need to understand.

First of all, it was Frank’s idea. He’s the leader, the thinker, the planner. And he has a way of explaining things with that fancy English accent of his so that it all makes sense. Now that doesn’t mean I will do anything Frank says. No sir, especially not something like that. You need to be motivated for something like that.

You see, that poor kid Jamie is so sweet and innocent, and has been hurt so bad, you just want to protect him. Jamie is the best of us. And it’s like Frank says, if someone hurts one of us, he hurts all of us. So you see, I had to do it. I'm the one who get things done that the others can’t, even terrible things sometimes. I am the doer.

Still when I walked up to that man I did not know what I intended to do. But then he smiled at me like he knew me. Almost like he had been, I don’t know, intimate with me. I could see how he must have hurt Jamie. I thought, Jamie is such an innocent kid, he wouldn’t have seen that; he probably just took it as a friendly smile.

“You don’t know me,” I said, and I swung my whole body connecting a hook to his temple so clean it sent him straight down.

How was I to know that Jamie had been hurt so bad before, that he could get so confused, he might blame this guy for something else someone else did to him a long time ago?

I can’t talk to Jamie (or Frank for that matter) all the time, you know. Usually, one of us just takes over and uses the body, and the others disappear for a while. This time it was me, and I used it to beat that man to death with my bare hands.

 

END

Read another freaky flash by Oren

 

Share this post using one of the buttons below

 

 

Alone (200-word freaky flash fiction) by Oren Shafir

I’d been trying to remove a painful piece of nut lodged between my upper right molar and the one next to it when I began to suspect the tooth was moving as well. I tested it, and it was loose alright.

I tore off a piece of my rag shirt, the clean one, and dabbed at the area. That’s when I saw the pus and blood. Without thinking, I pushed it as hard as I could ignoring the pain. Back and forth, again and again ,until there was a crack.

I stuffed a piece of the shirt rag in the hole and looked at the tooth.  Tooth? Whatever it now was, I could only admire it. I began laughing. Softly at first, the kind of polite chuckle you would have heard at a dinner party or the library. But my laughter gradually grew - like it was being pumped up inside me.

Soon, it was like the unchecked giggles of a child. Gradually, it became  hysterical. Tears rolled down my beard mixing with gooey blood. Had someone heard me, they wouldn’t have known whether it was laughter or the bellowing of a beast.  Had someone seen me, they would have thought me mad. Would have, if anyone were left, that is.

 

END

Read more freaky flash fiction by Oren

Share this post using one of the buttons below