Category: My stories

For a year, I’ve been working from home.
Mostly inside, since it’s either raining or too hot outside to work.
But every now and then, it’s nice out.
So, I take out my laptop and headphones, and attend a Zoom meeting from the patio.
If the meeting is boring, I sweep the leaves.
After a while, it gets too hot. Or bright. Or windy.
Or there’s too many mosquitos.
And then, the forecast calls for rain.
I go back inside.
It’s good to get a little sun now and then.
And maybe a little work done now and then too.

Some people have an little angel on their shoulder, whispering things in their ear.
Others have a little devil on their shoulder, whispering other things in their ear.
Sometimes, a person has both.
Me, I have Fred.
Fred sits on my shoulder and whispers things in my ear.
Fred’s kinda big, a lot bigger than an angel or a devil, so it’s hard to walk around with him up there.
“Mind getting off of my shoulder and walking?” I ask Fred. “You’re really heavy.”
He whispers in my ear. “Keep walking, pal.”
And I keep walking, as best I can.

I put my alcohol and drugs on the top shelf in the pantry.
Higher than I can normally reach.
I need a stepstool to reach them.
But instead of a stepstool, I have a twelve-stepstool.
It’s a stepstool from a twelve-step program.
I get on the first step to be honest with myself: I have no control over my addiction.
With each step, I progress through the program.
Until I reach the top step and don’t need the alcohol and drugs anymore.
Then, I fall from the stepstool and break a hip.
And I’m back on those nasty painkillers again.

The power is out and it’s getting dark soon.
I was reading a book by daylight, and at night, I’m reading it by candlelight.
It’s just light enough to write, though.
So I get out a notepad and I’m writing.
What will I write about?
Not having power? Heat? Light?
You should write about what you know, I guess.
I lay out the tealights in a row, and light them up.
Bright enough to read and write by.
I try to be careful with my bathrobe and blankets.
Because as much as I need heat, I don’t need a fire.

Teleporters make the worst messes.
At the organic level, you can get organs out of place, vessels bursting.
At the genetic level, you can get mutants and monsters, if the person doesn’t die of cancer or some other disease.
At the molecular level, you can get a wave of organic sludge-water.
At the atomic level, you can get nuclear explosions.
Those are the worst, right?
So, my advice: keep the analysis array aligned, the power conduits monitored, the gaskets and seals firmly in place, and clear the pattern buffers after every transport.
Oh, and use a shuttle when you can.

Ted spent days banging away at his typewriter.
Ideas that had been in his mind for years were finally pouring out of him.
The writer’s block vanished, and there was no stopping him.
There was something about a typewriter than brought it out of him.
Years of using pen and paper or a word processor hadn’t produced anything, but now that he was using a typewriter, it was full steam ahead.
As he typed “THE END” he sat back, lit a cigarette, and laughed.
That’s when he realized… he hadn’t loaded any paper or ink ribbons into the damned thing.

Some people leave a fan on to use as white noise to help them sleep.
Others use electronic noise generators.
Then there’s soothing soundscape streaming services that you can play on your phone.
Simulated rainstorms and thunderstorms to fall asleep to.
But recently, there’s been endless rainstorms all day long.
For days. And weeks.
And it’s hard to fall asleep to a storm when it’s always storming.
So, I ordered a noise generator that generates the sound of a sunny day.
I put it on the night stand, plugged it in, and turned it on.
And drifted off to sleep.

If you ask Siri for directions to Camden, she will ask you if you really want to go to Camden.
Go ahead. Say yes.
Siri will just ask you again.
And again.
Ask any device. You’ll get the same treatment.
Look it up in a map and you’ll find that section blank or filled with a forest or a lake or something.
Zoom in, and your system will crash.
Call technical support all you want.
They can’t help you. They won’t help you.
Do you hear strange slurping and bubbling sounds on the line.
That’s because they’re talking from Camden.

The first ringtone was a bell ringing.
Here and there, people made special devices to plug into the line to make different sounds, but pretty much everyone had a bell in their phone.
Then came wireless home phones and fancy novelty phones which beeped, chirped, and made other simple sounds.
So did the first cellular phones.
They evolved through simple MIDI sequences to brief low-fidelity recordings to sound clips, and eventually songs you could download and set to each of your contacts.
But never pick a song you love with all your heart.
Eventually, you’ll get sick of hearing it.

I like to wear white New Balance 623 sneakers.
I use one pair to walk for exercise and one pair to wear for regular use.
When the regular use shoes lose their luster, I make those the exercise shoes and buy new regular use shoes.
And I throw out the old exercise shoes, because by then, the soles and padding are worn out.
I should get a subscription for Amazon for these shoes.
Every six months, new shoes.
There’s a knock on the door.
A kid selling newspaper subscriptions.
“Go away!” I shout. “Until you sell shoe subscriptions, not newspapers!”