There once was an author named Clive McGrimm,
Who smiled very politely… but harbored things within.
He’d nod when you spoke, he’d say, “Oh, how nice!”
Then go home and edit your fate in a trice.
Oh, Clive had a hobby, no, scratch that, a need.
To write little stories at lightning speed.
And in them were people, quite real, more or less,
But thinner on patience and thicker on mess.
You see, if you crossed him, cut in line at the store,
Or talked through a movie, or knocked on his door.
At 6 in the morning with leaf-blower cheer
Well… you’d find yourself fictionally vanishing, dear.
“Oh look,” Clive would murmur, adjusting his pen,
“Here’s Nigel, who double-parked twice last week when
I circled for ages. Now Nigel, my friend
You’ll trip on page three and meet quite a quick end.”
And type-ity clack went the keys in delight,
As Nigel fell from some suspiciously tall height.
Not graphic, not gory, Clive wasn’t a brute.
Just sudden and final, with dark comic loot.
There was Amber, who blasted her music at night,
Boom-booming the walls till his tea shook with fright.
Clive sighed as he wrote, “Amber, rave queen of doom.
You’ll anger a ghost in a haunted spare room.”
And poof in the tale, she was gone in a blink,
A cautionary note with a sarcastic wink.
“Oh, I feel much better,” he’d say with a grin,
As fictional justice restored calm within.
His anger dissolved into paragraphs neat,
With karmic conclusions, both tidy and sweet.
His editor asked, “Why so many abrupt ends?”
Clive chuckled, “Oh, purely symbolic, my friend.”
He never explained (thinking this is how it should be):
His stories were definitely cheaper than therapy.
So, if you meet Clive, be considerate and kind,
Use turn signals, chew softly, and wait your turn in line.
For though he seems gentle, well-mannered, and fulfilled…
You really don’t want to be written in and then killed.
