The Puppeteer

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the words picnic, poison ivy, campfire

The Puppeteer

“Pornographic web sites are the Poison Ivy of the Internet,” typed Josh before hitting the Enter button.

He waited patiently for the flood of forum responses his comment was sure to generate. He loved the attention that came from being an Evangelical Internet Bully. It didn’t matter one iota that his comments brought on the flaming barbs of the righteously resistant left. He could care less that people hated him for his anonymous stance of I-know-what-God-wants superiority. It was not even important that he didn’t believe most of his own posts.

All Josh wanted was the attention.

The predictable flood of posts was like manna from heaven.

“Who made you God?”

“Give me porn or give me death!”

Josh laughed so hard at the response stream that he coughed up a half-sleeve of Campfire Girl cookies. The congealed glob fell to the floor where the lower strata of life forms would picnic on it for the next few days.

After a few minutes, traffic started to let up so Josh considered his next gem. 

In spite of his hugely obese body, non-existent hygienic practices and total isolation from the rest of the world, Josh was living large. People were so easy to control. Their fear-generated anger left them no option but to respond to his assertions. He knew that they feared him; feared that he might be right. So they fought back. Pay close enough attention and they would tell you what they feared the most. The math was simple. More anger equaled more fear.

Pull the right strings and the world would dance. 

With a giggle he typed in, “Rush Limbaugh should run for public office. He is the voice of reason that America needs.”

The tsunami that followed nearly crashed his internet provider’s server.