The Bush That Lit the Night Sky
by: Robert Zimmerman

I was, as usual, lunching with God that afternoon. He resides in the mortal world as burning bush sprouting out of a fire hydrant about four blocks away from my house. As I was saying, I was right in the middle of my pudding, my economy-sized pool of pudding mind you, when an idea stuck me with enough force to drive me down to the bottom. I yelled out for God to help me, but I think my cries were somewhat stifled by the seven hundred and twenty square feet of pudding surrounding me. Realizing that I was going to die, I gobbled up as much pudding as possible. I figured that it would be incredibly manly of me to, instead of dying from a lack of oxygen, gorge on pudding and stuff myself to death. Not only would it be original, but my family would also be left with the problem of fitting me into a casket… and a nice, fat liposuction bill would leave them something to remember me by. So, all points considered, I began.

God, meanwhile, was taking his time with his scones and tea. Scones and tea! For lunch, mind you! Some people… Well, anyway, I died after a while but God had the nerve to resurrect me. “What in God’s name did you do that for?”
“Excuse me?” God sounded exasperated.
“Why did you revive me? Couldn’t you see that I was floating up to heaven?”
“That’s exactly why I did it.”
My eyes contracted. “You bastard.”
The magical bush that was God rolled its eyes. “You are so damned.”

I began my walk home after that, having had my plans ruined. My pudding didn’t have the same punch after that – and it hasn’t since. Although I was incredibly down, I soon had a revelation: it was almost Halloween and I didn’t have a costume. After taking a few seconds to ponder how that was related to anything that had recently happened I realized there was none whatsoever and, deciding that walking was too slow a method of transportation, I began to tunnel my way into my room.

Upon my entry, I started drawing diagrams of several possible costumes. After a few hours, I had made up my mind – I was going to be a burning bush. I realized all too quickly how hard it would be to create realistic branches to put on my arms and the rest of my body so, to save time, I ran around the neighborhood with a chainsaw and severed a couple hundred branches, selecting the best few to hollow out and torching the rest.

With only a few hours until it was dark enough to Trick-or-Treat, I hastily dug out the insides of the branches. Unfortunately I had picked a branch that housed a wasp’s nest without realizing and, for some reason, they seemed rather incensed that I was chopping away at the branch they had chosen to incubate their young in. Thank goodness my awesome ninja skills kicked in and I was able to spring to my can of Lysol™ and lighter in time. Torched wasps taste a little like cauliflower, by the way.

My costume was soon finished, so I went outside to join the ranks of the Trick-or-Treaters. I approached the first house giving away candy and began the final preparation of my costume. I doused myself in gasoline, drinking the last quarter of the container for good measure, and lit up… the entire neighborhood. Needless to say, my costume was a big hit. I did die, though. It wasn’t very much fun either – no one got stuck with funeral and or burial costs.