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You lost an ear in the subway. Your left ear. The subway doors closed quicker than you thought they would.

One quick snap and it was gone. So were you – gone in the subway car, halfway to the next station before you knew what had happened.

No blood, strangely. No pain. Just the snap and then, where your left ear had been, nothing. You could still hear fine with your right ear.
Still, this was not a good thing to happen.
In the otherwise deserted subway car, above the seat opposite you, you saw a poster:

Ear problems?
Contact us at...

Then there was a postal address. No phone number, but you suspected this was to better target the ad to its intended audience – people with ear problems. And a large proportion of people with ear problems would have difficulty using a phone.

Later, at home, you composed a letter to send them. Postal letters were increasingly rare, supplanted by email, so you enjoyed the opportunity. But you were sceptical of the “ear problems” people and doubted their ability to help. This is what you wrote:

Dear [REDACTED],

Lost left ear in subway door accident.

Please send replacement.

What was that?
What?

No, sorry, I can't hear you.

Yeah, because of the ear thing.

I'll take one left ear – medium-rare, over easy, sunny side out, without the broccoli, plus an extra pickle. No, make that two pickles. ASAP.

Kind regards,

[YOUR NAME]

Two days later, the replacement ear arrived in the mail. You clipped it on. It worked like new.

Snakebridge

Moron Snakebridge was a man of average height whose every thought and movement was dictated by the millions of tiny snakes living in his brain.

The snakes did not believe in modern liberal democracy. They did not hold elections. They were more of an anarchist commune – one which had the fortune of controlling one male human brain between them.

Due to the grass-roots government of snakes controlling his brain, Moron's activities were somewhat nonsensical and hard to predict. He lacked narrative sense. Or, to give a more accurate picture, he behaved as if his brain was digesting a postmodernist poem with no rhyme scheme, no meter, and millions of different unreliable narrators.

The snakes sometimes agreed – on basic matters like polluting Moron's vocabulary with words like “slither” or “hiss” where they did not belong.

An example: “I'll just slither on down to the post office.”

Another: “You've gotta be hissin' me!”

Or: “Hiss off!”

Also, the non-snakebrained humans around Moron could not help but notice his tendency to drop to the floor and wriggle. Or his obvious disappointment at his ownership of arms and legs. Or the way he would bite first, ask questions later.

And even those questions tended to be something like: “Hey, how's it going? Say, you don't have any dead mice lying around, do you? No? Well, OK. See ya!”

And then he might slither off down the corridor on his belly.

Strangely, despite these snakelike qualities and his general unpredictability, Moron Snakebridge managed to hold down an office job just fine. The constant shift-change of snake-to-snake in control of his brain made sure that no individual snake ever got stressed.

When asked the secret to his stress-free lifestyle, Moron would just hiss and stare. Most people backed off after that.

And as for whether he had a venomous bite – I didn't care to find out. You can, if you want. But I wouldn't if I were you.

Flag

He was the first to set foot on this new planet. Who'd have thunk it? Him, Clark Shmeigel of 23 Cricket Street, Bumblesburg, Illinois.

“Hey,” said the planet. “The fuck do you think you're doing?”

“Excuse me?” said Clark.

“You just put your foot on my face.”

“I'm sorry,” mumbled Clark, unsure of where the voice was coming from.

“But where are you?”

“Right here, you idiot,” said the planet. “Just think – 200 million years, and I got by just fine. No interruptions. Not so much as a peep. A lot of time for reflection, you know? Know how it is?”

“I guess...” said Clark.

“Then you come along with your big, stinkin', clunky feet, and walk all over me. Unacceptable. And don't even think about planting that flag in my face.”

“What flag?” said Clark, concealing a large stars-and-stripes flag behind his back.

“Don't be coy with me. Dumb fuck. I know you have it.”

“Oh, this old thing?” said Clark. He forced a laugh, then proceeded to wave the flag around as if it were all some big joke.

“Yeah, that old thing. Now, you take your flag, get back on in that little 'spaceship' of yours, and get out of my face.”

“Yes, sir,” said Clark. He hopped into the landing module, pushed a few buttons, and the little ship took off, rising up again, back off into the stars.

“And don't come back!” yelled the planet.

Clark's spacecraft grew smaller and smaller in the sky. He became a tiny dot, then disappeared.

“Good riddance,” said the planet to himself. Though he'd never admit it, he was feeling lonelier by the second.

Clark was 300 light-years away before he realised what he'd left behind. But it was too late to go back. NASA had only given him fuel enough for one return journey.

Back there, on the planet's face – lying on its side, not planted upright – was the flag. Intergalactic litter. A rag on a pole, lying on someone's dusty cheek.

“Idiot,” said the planet. “What in the heck am I supposed to do with this?” But after a while, he kind of grew to like the flag. It became his most prized possession.

Kidney

I sold my kidney online.
I mailed a certificate to the buyer's house, which stated that the kidney could be redeemed upon my death by natural causes.
“I need it now,” they wrote back.
“Tough luck,” I wrote in reply. “Maybe you shouldn't believe everything you read online.”

I'm pretty sure it was some organ-harvesting triad, anyway.
It suits me to believe this
because the alternative is I gave hope to someone who needed it,
then snatched it away.
And took their money, too.

The Uncommon Cold

“No immune system is immune to death –
but after death, who knows?
Maybe ghosts get diseases,
with splutters and sneezes,
and scare the Bejeezus from us with their noses...”

— Darien Michelmas Mitzvah McJamboree, 'Ghosts On Toast: Apparitions and Spooky Traditions' (pp.7-8: Heebie-Jeebie Press, Dundee, 1706)

It happened in the old house.

I was looking at places for rent. I had almost no money, which limited my options. No job. However, I was more than willing to tell lies on the forms. I'm morally flexible like that.

And so I ended up looking at places right on the outskirts of town. Places where a hypothetical commute would be two hours each way through rough, desolate country. A foul terrain of gas leaks, broken glass and rotten wood.

Even so, most of the rat-infested deathtraps I saw were still out of my price range.

My guide through these horrible houses was an unfathomably old realtor. He had only the occasional wisp of hair, and kept his eyes closed 70% of the time. He wore a bright cyan uniform which did not suit his face, and he coughed. The coughs were loud and sharp, punctuating every sentence he spoke, as well as the silences in between. Each cough sounded like it might kill him. Unfortunately, none did.

It took place after yet another failed showing. The realtor had just taken me up to a top-floor flat above a butcher's shop. The smell of raw meat stung my nostrils. I'm not a vegetarian, but some days I'd like to be. The place above the butcher's, all rotting wood and damp crevices – even that cost slightly more than I was able to pay.

After that, the realtor took me to the last property of the day: the old house.

“The oldest house” would be more accurate. None of the other places had been young. The eldest house? But then, “eldest” is just a word for people, as far as I know. People with siblings, some older than others. This house had no siblings. It stood alone, patches of waste-ground on all sides separating it from the other buildings by a good few feet.

It was a detached house on two levels. An actual house. This surprised me.

“You won't want this one,” croaked the realtor.

“I'll be the judge of that,” I said.

But it was certainly bigger than I'd been expecting. Inside was dust. Absolute dust. Layers upon layers, a thick film of dust on every surface. I felt like I was wading through snow – though, really, the dust only came a few centimetres up on my shoes. Every metal fixture – each lock and door hinge – seemed to have rusted, then had the rust rusted over by some kind of double-rust, then the double-rust rusted over again.

Every breath I took tasted of copper coins. The realtor hadn't coughed for a while. Perhaps he was holding his breath, unwilling to accept the air.

It happened as soon as he left me alone.

The realtor asked if I didn't mind if he stepped out for a moment. Only, he hadn't had a cigarette for hours. And he didn't want to smoke indoors. Only, he was worried the place might catch fire. Wood everywhere. Scattered fragments of wood, like kindling. So would I mind terribly if he went for a smoke?

“Sure, go ahead,” I said.

And he left.

A little time passed and, with nothing else to do, I ascended the staircase to have a look upstairs. The steps were crooked, with several missing. It was like walking up the teeth of someone who hasn't brushed in a long, long time.

There was no electricity. Only light filtering in from outside. Dim afternoon light, made jagged by broken windows. I crept through the shadows and pushed open a door. It creaked. Everything creaked. I could hear my own hips creak with every step. I walked forward into the room and then –

“Achoo!”

A sneeze. A gigantic, sloppy sneeze, right in my face. But from where? From who? There was no-one around. I shuddered, and legged it back down the stairs.

Outside, the realtor was nowhere to be found. His car was gone.

With a handkerchief, I wiped my face. What came away from my cheeks was a thick, viscous green sludge.

I headed back to the youth hostel as quickly as possible. Took a shower. But somehow, there was always more of the ooze. I must have washed my hair five times that night, but the water still ran green. I kept on finding slimy chunks – behind my ear, in my eyebrows, buried in my scalp. I couldn't get clean.

So how could I sleep?

Over the coming months I would discover it had been a ghost that sneezed on me that day. I caught the ghost's cold. Then, when I myself could not stop sneezing, I inadvertently assisted in spreading the haunted infection all over town. Now the whole place is haunted. The ghost exists in the nose of every man, woman and child.

Thankfully, the ghost doesn't seem to have any evil intentions beyond simply being all over the place. But the sneezing sure is inconvenient.

The town is now a cacophony of sneezes at all times. No-one gets much sleep any more. We tend to be covered in the viscous, green, ectoplasmic snot. Quite repulsive. Outsiders avoid our town entirely. I think we're under quarantine, but the government won't give us a clear answer on that.

Armed with Kleenex and Lemsip, we battle our haunted noses daily, and hope that one day this uncommon cold will be cured so we can go back to our lives.