Category: My stories

The Wacky Adventures Of Abraham Lincoln 62

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The Presidential Alchemist lifted the curtain and revealed a tiny box of gearworks.
“What does it do?” asked Lincoln.
“It turns slave soil into free soil,” said the Alchemist. “Let me demonstrate.”
He poured dirt into the hopper, turned the crank, and withdrew a dirt-filled drawer.
“See?” said the Alchemist.
Abe looked at the dirt.
Abe felt the dirt.
Abe even smelled the dirt.
“I suppose it is free soil,” said Lincoln. “How soon can you build a full-sized model?”
“It is full size,” said the Alchemist. “And it’s the only one that works.”
Abe sighed, shrugged, and started cranking.

Poking Parker

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Parker screwed up. Nearly got me killed.
“Poke him, Chief” said Vasquez.
Everybody agreed.
So, before my shift, I went to the Suit Room and poked a hole in Parker’s moonsuit.
Relax – the airlock cycles quickly. Long before he blows out. One tiny hole will just whistle a bit at Zero A.
I laughed as he cycled… and he blew out fast.
Blowout? I must have poked the moonsuit too deep.
Crap.
As Crew Chief, Parker died on my watch, so it was on me.
I confessed about poking Parker.
Vasquez also confessed. And Petersen. And Goldberg. And Sanders. And…

Noble Savage, Lend Me Your Grandmothers

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Otto knelt among the trees, looking at Mother Nature’s beauty and growling with rage.
In two years, this would be a massive subdivision.
Worst of all, Jim had beaten him out on developing it.
The sound of Whitefeather’s pickup truck arriving jarred Otto out of his rage.
“Got the bones?” asked Otto.
Whitefeather pulled out a burlap sack and tossed it on the ground.
“Excellent,” said Otto. “When they dig these up, they’ll have to stop. Now all we need to do is bury them.”
“We?” Whitefeather tossed a shovel to Otto. “Good luck, Paleface,” he said and drove off.

Make Money Fast!

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Babatunde spotted his orphan friend Zaytan sitting in the Lagos sidewalk cafe and decided to join him.
“May your penis be longer, thicker!” smiled Babatunde.
“You do not know me, but pray for me,” replied Zaytan.
They sipped their 100% Percent Guaranteed Herbal Remedies a while, watching the jeeps of oil executives and politicians with large amounts of cash in overseas accounts pass on the street and crash in horrific wrecks.
Babatunde finished his remedy, shook Zaytan’s hand, and made to leave.
“Why you no email me no more?” asked Zaytan.
“I does,” said Babatunde.
“Accursed Spam filters!” growled Zaytan.

A Love For Spuds

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Arthur finished his third bowl of mashed potatoes and let loose a fond sigh.
“I love mashed potatoes,” he said. “I love them oh so much.”
Emily had heard this once too many times that evening. “So why don’t you marry them?”
The ink and gravy stains weren’t dry on the divorce papers before Arthur headed to Vegas to marry his beloved mashed potatoes.
The preacher, just finished marrying a pair of Star Wars-loving store clerks, muttered “She’s quite a… side dish?”
The preacher took his money, performed the ceremony, and let the Health Department and courts fight it out.

In Russia, The Hundred Breaks You!

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Night. Fog. Cold.
Where am I?
Wherever it is, I’m not in the best part of it.
Hungry, confused. Cell phone’s dead.
Ugly, dirty faces pass by. Almost feral.
Markings in… some strange language?
Is it language?
I feel in my back pocket, take out my wallet.
It is overflowing with one hundred dollar bills.
Hungry.
No restaurants around. Just shabby vending machines.
“Where can I get food?”
They grunt in… what language is that?
I walk up to a machine. I…
It only takes coins.
“Can you break-”
I stop. I see the knife.
This is when you run.

Special delivery

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Lots of nines on the odometer, each one showing up quicker than the last.
Wheel in one hand and phone in the other, Bill was ready to snap a photo of the big rollover.
“Million Mile Club gets you a bonus,” said the boss. “Gets you moved to a better shift, too.”
Bill had covered a day shift for Hector once. It was much more interesting than weekends.
As the zeroes started to appear, Bill pushed the button.
Nothing. No flash.
Did it work?
While Bill fiddled with the camera, his van slid off of the bridge into the river.

And then there were seven

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I looked up from the battered, scratched pass to look again at her garishly made-up face.
“National Spiritual Advisor?” I asked.
After several checks, National Spiritual Advisor Melinda Gauche’s security pass was stamped VALID.
She smiled. “Ronnie was so nice to indulge his Nancy,” said Gauche, adjusting her veils.
“Follow me,” I said, leading the jangling mysticist down the hall.
When she entered the room and laid her charts on the table, the discussions stopped.
“What’s wrong, Spooky?” asked the President.
“I can’t chart it,” said Gauche. “Uranus is missing.”
I swear, the president turned to the Surgeon General first.

The Wormholy Land

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The official name of the technology is Geographic Phase Displacement, but it’s marketed as Phasics.
Got a land dispute? Just set up a Phasics engine, set the boundaries of the field, and now both parties can occupy the region at the same time.
The Nobel Prize for Physics went to its inventor, and then three years later the Peace Prize went to resolution of the ancient conflict over the Temple Mount and Haram Al-Sharif.
Phasics engines were spread throughout the territory, and refugees hopefully and joyously poured into the parallel Al-Quds pocket-reality.
Problem solved.
So, why isn’t the terrorism stopping?

Handling the pressure

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Arthur’s control panel was a thing of beauty.
So many switches, so many dials, and so many pretty green lights.
Day after day, Arthur would sit in his chair and whistle a happy tune.
When one of the lights turned yellow, Arthur stopped whistling.
He tapped the bulb a few times, just to see if it would change.
It stayed yellow.
Looking in the manual, a yellow light meant… something… to be… corrected.
So, like all the other yellow lights before it, Arthur got out his marker and colored the lightbulb green.
Arthur’s whistling covered the pressure valve leak nicely.