The Dancers Take Their Places — Their Next Move Sent Chills Down Everyone's Spine

This was it. The finale of the global television phenomenon Dance Planet Earth. The dance team from France had finished, to thunderous applause. Now, it was the Russians' turn to perform for the largest audience in history, predicted to include over one-point-three billion people watching live. Dancers took their places, struck their opening poses in the dark, and the light came up on movement. They moved in perfect time and rhythm, marking out flawless geometric shapes — concepts, even — with their choreography. Across the world, viewers shuddered as they felt like the temperature had dropped twenty degrees.

Without any foreshadowing, the dancers broke from geometric perfection and shifted into something that looked like utter chaos, beautiful in motion but unrestrained. The dance looked unplannable, yet somehow they stayed in time and their movements still complemented each other.

Around the world, people shivered and hugged themselves or their loved ones tight, eager for heat but unwilling to leave their televisions before the dance was complete. People in places that had never needed heating found themselves in the middle of an emergency.

From their sanctum in the the motherland, Russian sorcerers celebrated, and plotted their conquest over a world of ice.

Your Full Attention

"Honey." She pushed his phone down to the tabletop. "Take a break from the phone, okay?" "Sure, babe, what's up?" He slid the phone to the edge of his reach and looked at his wife.

"So, I think we need to consider..." As she spoke, his phone buzzed on the table. What could that be, he wondered? Is it Bill texting back about this weekend? Or am I about to be late with one of my bills?

He looked at his wife, still talking, and used every ounce of his focus to keep his hand still. Maybe it's an email, he thought. Maybe a sale at Home Depot. I love Home Depot. If they're having an online sale, all the good stuff will go fast. I might already be too late.

Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He looked at his wife, who said, "...so I think we should give it a try. What do you think?"

He looked at her. Anything to get to the phone. "Sure."

"Great!" She picked up his phone a moment before he got to it. "The digital diet starts now!" He watched her go like a skydiver watches his reserve chute fail.

What's the Hold Up?

"Hey, what's the hold up?" Ron opened the wing-door of his one-seater and stood, raising his voice to get through to the portal technician. He was first in line to pass through to Mars City, and had been for almost an hour. An ancient technician, lines and goggles on her face, slowly unfolded from the base of the portal frame, large enough to pass a semi. "It's the main portal coil. Burned through. Gotta get a new one from storage."

Ron made a face. "How long's that gonna be? I'm gonna miss my grandson's bar mitzvah."

"Well, there're a lot of moving parts in a portal, and I gotta get most've 'em outta the way to pull the main coil." She climbed out of the machine and moved zombie-like to her toolbox a few feet away.

On her way back, Ron shouted, "Could you move any faster? With you shuffling about like that, my grandson will graduate before I get there."

"Sure, sonny." The technician accelerated by exactly zero.

Ron moaned. "At least give me a time estimate 'til I can get through to Mars?"

"Soon as I shuffle off this portal coil," said the technician. And that was that.

Fan Taunts Injured Hockey Player. What Happens Next? INSTANT KARMA

"Yeaaaaah, smash him, smash him!" Roger cheered so energetically he sloshed beer out of his cup. Moments later, one of the opposing team slammed number 14 hard against the glass, and he sank down on the ice. When his teammates helped him up, he skated slowly to the bench, holding his arm tenderly. Roger yelled as 14 passed his rinkside seat. "Ahhh, what's wrong, can't take a little pressure? Soon as the game gets rough, you need to sit out? Want me to call your mommy?" Waaah!"

Little known in the hockey world is the devotion of the Hindu deities to the sport of Hockey. It began when the Canadian traveler Vernon Morely found himself stranded in Punjab and, bored, arranged a hockey competition.

At this very moment, Shani sat in the audience admiring the Canadians' skill. His eyes narrowing, he looked at Roger from across the rink and whispered. Despite the distance, Roger heard each word clearly. "No. For your shameless disregard for this noble game, I pass judgment on your karma. You shall suffer in the next life, which begins... now."

Roger alone heard the cry of a raven, as he transformed instantly and painfully into a pig.

Nine Hundred Years

"Holy shit, holy shit, holyshit." Smoke coiled out from the old oil lamp. "I actually found a genie." "So you have, young Annie." The deep voice rumbled forth just before the smoke coalesced into a bearded man with shimmering skin. "And you must make a wish."

"Not three?"

"Stories may have exaggerated my generosity." The genie smiled. "One thing, they have gotten entirely wrong. You make a wish, but the next person to make a wish receives it."

"I don't get my own wish? Then what's the point?"

"You receive the reward the last to discover me wished upon you."

"What is it?" The genie shrugged and continued to smile.

Annie thought about it for several minutes. "Okay, I wish for enough locally-accepted currency to ensure a life of comfortable luxury for the rest of my natural lifespan," she said.

"Very well." The genie stood back and clapped. "Here is your boon." Dozens of women clad in scanty silks appeared. "A harem of seventy-one virgins."

"What the... When did this wish come from?"

"Almost nine hundred years ago." Genie and lamp disappeared.

The young women smiled, but Annie could only see housing, clothing, and feeding costs climbing to the sky.

The Communist Swim

"Okay, listen fellas, we need to tackle this thing differently." The crowd of swimmers gathered around. "So, we all know how this goes. We all swim our fastest, and then one of us wins and the rest of us get nothing, right?" A chorus of agreement came back at him.

"Well, I think it's time for something different. Something more fair."

One swimmer shouted back, "What's more fair than the fastest getting the prize?"

"What if we all got something? What if there was enough to go around? It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game!" A few others cheered, then more. "Why should I get everything just because I'm out in front?"

"Because you're out in front," shouted the other swimmer, and some cheered him on.

"But what if I want to share? With all of you, my brothers and sisters? If I believe that none should have to suffer if we only work together for the common good!" The crowd roared its approval. "So let's all swim together, and cross the finish line together. Together, we'll all get a bite of the prize!"

Twelve weeks later, the OB/GYN looked at the ultrasound and said, "What the fuck?"

Parents Put a GoPro on Toddler During Hide and Seek. Watch What They Find Out!

"Okay," Erin said, "it's loading. Now shhhh." John stifled his giggles and held up his wife's phone. On its screen, they watched a bobble-headed first-person view of their home. Their home through the eyes of their toddler. The perspective wobbled down a hall decorated with an earth-tone carpet and family photos. It peered into the master bedroom, and Erin hushed John when he whispered, "She's almost found us!" But the camera went past the closet that hid them and peered into the bathroom, then retreated.

It looked into the child's room, then the powder room, and finally the kitchen. "What...?" Erin muttered. The view showed two tiny hands pushing a stool over to the drawers. The child stepped onto the stool, then opened the drawer with a series of small jerks. A toddler's hand pulled out a butcher's knife.

"Oh, my God." Erin tore open the closet door and ran for the kitchen, John on her heels. Racing into the kitchen, they found their child sitting, quietly burbling. The knife was gone.

John rewound the recording, then reached into the back of a cabinet they barely used and brought out several knives. "I told you I wasn't losing our knives."