Category: My stories

Benji Peletel always knew where his next meal was coming from.
Through the slot in the door of his solitary jail cell.
He also knew what his next meal would be.
“Step back,” said a voice from the speaker in the ceiling.
Benji stepped back from the door, the slot would open, and a tray would slide in.
On it, a stale brown block of some kind of meat and bread and other things, but as for what was in it, that’s another matter.
When he was done, the slot would open and he’d slide the empty tray back out.

I always wondered how the Greeks got out of the horse.
Was it the mouth? Did it look like the horse was vomiting soldiers?
Or was it out from the butt? Like the horse was pooping them out.
Perhaps it was from under the horse, so it looked like the horse was giving birth to a bunch of soldiers?
It’s too bad that the Trojans guard was asleep.
Because if someone had seen it, I’m sure they’d have gotten a laugh from such a silly sight.
Well, besides the whole getting murdered and the army being let in the gates.

Long ago, composers and orchestras got along great.
Composers wrote symphonies to make orchestras sound good, and orchestras did their best to perform those symphonies to make that composer look good.
Then, something went sour.
Composers began to write more and more difficult and discordant symphonies.
Symphonies left their instruments at home, just made all kinds of noise.
Audiences left in droves.
They came to a stale peace eventually.
But composers would throw in long solos.
A whole orchestra booked, but only one working.
Everyone staring at the violinist, frittering, and thinking I got my drycleaning rush just for this?

When the Andu banish someone, the banishment is complete.
No Andu will have anything to do with the banished.
They cannot return to the Andu homeworld, and are not welcome at any offworld Andu establishment.
Andu medicines, Andu technologies, and Andu libraries are all off-limits to the banished.
Anyone who breaks the prohibition, knowingly or not, is subject to severe punishment by the Andu.
Which is why Andu civilization collapsed.
Everyone eventually was banished.
Except for one: Emperor Anduval the Third.
Alone in his palace with his robotic servants, sipping his wine, and watching triple-sunsets with a quiet heavy sigh.

Wally hated reduplicated words.
Born in Walla Walla, Washington, he moved to New York, New York.
He refused to play with his yo-yo or go out for putt putt golf.
When he saw a cheerleader with a pom-pom, he’d tear the things up.
When he saw someone with a mahi-mahi, he’d jump on the fish.
When he saw Pizza Pizza at a Little Caesar’s restaurant, he burned the place down.
When he saw someone dancing the Cha Cha, he’d trip them and break their legs.
The cops arrested Wally, he was convicted, and sentenced to ten years in Sing Sing.

Ned threw the best pool parties.
All Winter long, it’s what we all looked forward to.
The deck, the furniture, the firepit, the landscaping.
The sound system and the lights.
It’s better than any Downtown club.
All Summer long, the party never ended.
Until it did. Ned and his family moved.
New people moved in.
They had kids our age, but homeschooled.
We tried to introduce ourselves, and they were polite, but shy. Almost reclusive.
We offered to throw the parties for them.
No thank you, they said.
Jenny has a pool. And throws parties.
But it’s not the same.

If you ask people what their favorite day of the week is, most would reply with Friday.
Very few replied Monday.
You know, because it means going back to work. Or School.
Dan liked Sunday.
“It’s because of church,” Dan said.
But it wasn’t the confessionals. Or the choir.
Or the church softball league.
And the potluck brunches, those were truly awful.
They taught choking and CPR classes after those, they were so bad.
Dan put a dollar in the collection plate.
And took out a twenty.
“My favorite day of the week,” he said, putting it in his pocket.

They say a poor craftsman blames his tools, but Bob was a really good craftsman.
His neighbors were always borrowing his tools and not returning them, and they were always borrowing the good tools, so Bob was stuck with his worn-out bad tools.
One day, he got fed up with everyone not returning his tools, so he made a list and went door to door, smashing in skulls with a hammer and taking back his tools.
By the time the cops came, Bob had all his tools back.
In prison, he worked in the wood shop.
Building really crappy furniture.

The ship went down, and Max was the sole survivor, washing ashore on an island, surrounded by the bodies of his shipmates.
He gathered up all the driftwood and vines he could.
And he made a raft.
A sail tied together from clothes of his dead shipmates.
Getting a sense of the currents and waves and winds.
Raising the sail and setting out, he vanished into the horizon.
That night, a ship found the island he’d been on and collected the bodies.
“I guess there were no survivors,” said a deckhand.
Maybe the heat stroke made Max dream that up?