Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction by Bathroom Readers’ Institute

all poured out—though I was mostly dragged out by the wave of human hysteria.
    I ran the next ten blocks to work and arrived at the office in a disheveled, sweaty state. The bossman’s secretary asked for a reason for my tardiness in a tone that matched my school teachers.
    “I can’t discuss Anything,” I said.
    Her little mouth popped open and eyes grew large. “Did Anything happen to you?”
    “Heh, yeah, last night.”
    “Oh my. Have you told the police?”
    “Well, I was going to…” I patted my pockets—dammit! Where’s my phone? I looked to her. “Mind if I—”
    “I’m sorry, but it’s company minutes.” She cradled the phone receiver close to her chest.
    I sighed and did a half-turn. “All right. I just hope Anything doesn’t happen to your grandmother.”
    The phone receiver clattered onto her desk. “ Don’t say that!” She quickly composed herself. “The police station isn’t too far from here. Go report it. I’ll tell Mr. Ren that you called in sick.”
    “Thank ya, thank ya.” I nodded and rushed out.
    I walked across the street and up a few blocks to the station, which was overflowing with aliens. Not an ideal place by any means. And it was hours before I managed to get a hold of the police chief—literally, by grabbing him around the waist.
    “What the hell is wrong with you?” he growled.
    “It’s Anything!”
    His face drained of color and he walked over to a window, and stared aimlessly out it. “I lost five good men to Anything.”
    “Did—did they die?”
    “What? No, they quit the force. Anything will do that to a man.”
    “Can Anything be undone?”
    He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
    That was that. I went him home and decided to start that memoir that I always wanted to write but never got around to. But as I started typing it, I had a feeling that sunk and kept sinking.
    I was being watched.
    “Dammit, I can’t work if Anything is looking over my shoulder,” I said out loud.
    Anything was on my balcony, staring through the glass door. My heart and I jumped. But I had beaten Anything before and I could beat Anything again—at least that’s what I told myself. Self-therapy helps, you know.
    I shook my fist at the glass door. “Anything, whatever you want, you can’t have it.”
    But Anything is a stubborn thing and stayed put. I threatened to use the gun-I-don’t-have, but Anything still wouldn’t budge.
    The lights went out. That’s what I get for not paying the electricity bill on time. Glass shattered. Pain sprinted up my leg. Putting two and two together, I realized I had just stepped on my disco ball.
    I tripped and fell.
    And that’s the last thing I remembered before waking up the next day. The entire apartment had been ransacked, butI’m not sure if Anything had anything to do with it. Probably did, that bastard. Since my place looked like hell, and being the only person to survive Anything, I took the day off to clean up. Though I ended up working on that memoir that I usually never get around to. At least now I have something worthwhile to say.
    Seems you can die from a lot of things, but not from too much of Anything.

Jiggs and Bob
    Charles N. Beecham
    I guess the first tragedy in my life came the day that Cricket got run over. I cried for a week. Dad put her in a wood box and buried her in the backyard. I didn’t think any dog could take the place of Cricket. Then one day a Boston bulldog came to our house and just kind of stayed. One day a man walked by and told my dad that the name of our dog was Jiggs. “Everyone knows Jiggs,” he said. “He kills cats, you know.”
    It wasn’t long after that when some woman knocked on our door and announced that our dog had killed her cat.
    Jiggs was a dedicated cat killer. His execution style was quick and clean, in that his victims never suffered. He grabbed each one by the neck and with a short whipping action snapped their neck! Then he would calmly walk away.
    We moved to another