Attack of the Killer Books by Daniel W. Wright

Once upon a time
books were read everywhere
They inspired ideas
and brought about conversations
There was always a book to be read
or a book to be shared
and the books felt happy
to help the humans understand
each other
a little bit more

Then one day,
the books stopped being read
The humans suddenly preferred
shiny objects of all sorts
and the books began to feel lonely
They huddled together on shelves
to keep each other company
but couldn’t help but observe
people start to resent each other more
and see education fall
and see the rise
of people taking pride
in anti-intellectualism

So one day,
the books decided
to do something about it
They opened the windows of the libraries,
bookstores, and apartments
and decided to kamikaze themselves
in the name of killing
the anti-intellectuals

All across the world
police were baffled
as more and more town idiots
found themselves
with their heads caved in
and a book right beside them
and all shiny objects cast to the streets
to be run over by cars
that didn’t see them
One case even had a man’s blood
and brain matter
spell out
SPLAT
along the sidewalk
just in case people didn’t realize
what had happened to him

As the phenomenon grew,
conspiracy theories began to spread
Some blamed the Illuminati
some blamed the Free Masons
some even blamed Elvis
but there was little evidence
to support that theory

The police began to look
at security footage
to see if there were any clues
but there were none
The books were too smart
People began to be
so scared for their lives
that they began to start carrying books around
so that whoever was killing these dumbasses
wouldn’t target them
They walked with books in their hand
had books beside them at bars
and eventually
began reading these books
Soon the murders stopped
and intelligence began to rise again
and like all things
The Moron Murders
as the phenomenon came to be known
faded in to memory

But the books knew
that eventually
another shiny object
would come around
to distract people from reading
And whenever that next shiny object
showed itself
the books would be ready

A poet of the no collar work force, Daniel W. Wright is a mid-western son who loves and loathes the red brick town that surrounds him. A longtime writer of wild nights and whiskey tributes, Wright speaks for the lover in every loner. He is currently the author of five chapbooks of poetry, the most recent being The Death of the Ladies Man with Bad Jacket Press. His work has appeared in the Gasconade Review as well as underground zines Bad Jacket and Crappy Hour