Category: My stories

Chances

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Four gangsters sit at a card table in a room in an abandoned warehouse.
They pass around a revolver, each spinning the cylinder and placing it against their head before pulling the trigger.
They pass it round, sliding cash into the center of the table to up the stakes.
As if their lives weren’t stake enough.
Eventually, one of the men checks the cylinder.
“There’s no bullet in here,” he says.
He gets up, and tries to open the door.
Locked.
He pulls out his cell phone, but there’s no bars.
Then the lights go out.
And they smell… smoke.

Butt Dial

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Even though the experiment was a success, Bell and Watson needed to perfect the telephone device before heading to the patent office.
Some of their ideas were improvements on the original concept and others weren’t.
For instance, Watson rigged up a chair to the telephone that would call the other unit when someone sat down.
“Call someone else with your butt?” said Bell. “How brilliant and simple!”
After sitting down to think and calling each other over and over, they decided not to add the feature.
But today, it’s standard with cell phones.
Just put it in your back pocket.

Rafting

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We’ve had this white water rafting business for a while now.
We load up the trailer, head upriver, and then Bart and the rafters head downriver. Then, I drive back down with the trailer.
We used to work out of the cabin upstream, but folks preferred to do the road trip first.
They also like midnight runs, but they’re not safe.
Tonight, something went wrong. I got to the downstream cabin and saw the boats floating down the river.
I check with a flashlight. Nobody in them, splattered with blood.
It’s a full moon.
Howling.
As I said, not safe.

Blue Skies

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Cindy looks up at the sky and scowls at the hideous shade of green.
“Blue skies, please,” she says, and the scene vanishes for a moment before rendering again, this time with blue skies.
She brings up a catalog of clouds, cycles through her favorites, and tosses them into the sky.
“Drift,” she says, and the clouds begin to slowly roll eastward.
She got halfway through the forest before the power spike wiped out her simulation.
She checked her settings.
No auto-save.
The skies boiled red for an hour before she regained her composure.
And started again: “Blue skies, please.”

Leviathan 2000

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Looking through the ruin and carnage, I picked up a brochure and read:
The Leviathan 2000 is the latest in automated remote divine intervention tools, complete with long-range supernatural telepresence, formidable firepower without match, and a preternaturally intelligent network system for coordinating complex maneuvers from dancing on the head of a pin to waging battles against the fires of the infernal pit.
Furthermore, this miracle of modern machinery will go where angels fear to tread, all through the Divine Will of the operator.
From the looks of things these days, blood and ashes, the angels didn’t take to downsizing well.

The Smell of Gasoline

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There’s one thing worse than the smell of gasoline, and that’s the taste.
Murloney’s boys dragged me to this warehouse and tied me to this chair so they could splash me with high-octane cologne.
“You missed behind the ears,” I said, and they punched my lights out.
I woke up to a spotlight in my face.
Laughing, glasses clinking. Groans from dozens of other guys tied to chairs.
All on top of a gigantic cake in the middle of a party.
“Happy birthday, boss!” said a goon. “Sixty years young!”
Mulroney laughed. “I’ll take my time blowing out these candles.”

Energy Drinks

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Rob watched Lisa suck down can after can of Red Bull.
“That shit will kill you,” said Rob.
Lisa’s only answer was to burp, toss the empty in the wastebin, and walk out the door.
She had a standing order to keep her supplied, but they were running late.
So, she walked to the store, bought another 5 cans, and headed home.
The brakes failed on the delivery truck, and it slammed into her as she was crossing the street.
No, I’m not pouring out this Red Bull on the curb in her memory.
I just don’t like the stuff.

Acronym

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You’ve heard of Zeus and Apollo, but have you heard of Acronym?
No?
He’s not the best-known of the Olympian gods, but where the others just putter about in the Old Gods Rest Home, Acronym is still active and involved in the affairs of man.
He whispers in the ears of the clever and the cunning, helping them find simple words into which to pack the cumbersome phrases that describe their political and social movements.
For good or evil, truth or lies – he is at their side, serving man’s desire for simplicity and catchiness.
Acronym laughs and winks, whispering more.

Yuri

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Yuri comes home tonight.
He is a cosmonaut. He is a hero.
He will be coming home from a mission tonight.
We wait at the Cosmodrome, listening to the controllers talk Yuri and his capsule down, making calculations and adjustments.
A bottle of vodka is waiting for him. Many bottles of vodka will be opened tonight in his honor.
Then, the radio goes silent. And we all watch the main screen, waiting.
A fireball, streaking across the sky, exploding into the mountain.
Some controllers stay at their consoles, working.
Others reach for the vodka.
We watch, still waiting for Yuri.

Father

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Sitting here on the park bench, watching the kids run and play, I feel like I have been missing out on the joys of fatherhood.
What would it be like to raise a child? Would all my doubts and fears fade as I take on that role? (Or, I suppose, the role take over me.)
No. The doctors warned me about thinking like this, trying again.
My hands clench and release, over and over.
Stop.
Not again. No more blood. No more screaming.
I get up slowly, walk back to my workshop, and stare at the puppet-boy.
Stay wood, Pinocchio.