Category: My stories

Fred Astaire used to sing in the rain.
Until he caught a bad cold, which became pneumonia.
It took him weeks to recover from it.
Most people can shake a cold pretty quickly, but a singer has to be extra-careful with their voice.
Not to mention that he was also a dancer.
These days, they’d do the rain with advanced computer graphics.
But you could still tell that he was dry from his face and clothes.
Sure, they could simulate that too, but not as well as actually getting him wet.
Which would give him a cold and pneumonia again.

There was a car fire in the parking lot.
Just a small one.
Someone noticed a strange orange glow under the car.
They first thought it was mood lighting, but why would a parked car have mood lighting?
Oh, and the smell. It smelled like fire.
They called the fire department while they got out the hose and extinguishers, and they put out the fire.
The car owner called their insurance company to make a claim.
They’d recently bought the car, so it’s still under the return guarantee.
They asked for a new one. That was slightly less on fire.

Emilio the Matador.
He’s my next door neighbor.
I hate it when he takes his work home with him.
All the noise. Three in the morning, crashing and roaring and smashing things.
All of the stomping and shouting he does, practicing for the upcoming fight.
And when the picadors come over, oh my god, what a racket those guys make.
I never get any sleep.
And the smells.
His garbage cans are always overflowing.
The plastic bags burst, leaking God knows what over the sidewalk.
But on the bright side, Emilio is always grilling something good in his back yard.

It’s only the bottom of the ninth when the home team is losing to the visitors or they’re tied.
If they’re down by a little, the fans are out there cheering.
If they’re down by a lot, the fans who haven’t left already are heading for the exits.
Score enough runs, and they walk it off and win.
But three outs, and it’s over.
Or, if they’re tied, off to extra innings.
To do it all over again.
They stopped selling beer in the seventh.
So, try to make that one last.
And we’ll have another at the bar afterwards.

Companion Series Nine frequently develop feelings for their owners.
Robocorp offers a litetime guarantee to dispatch a replacement cortex unit and swap it out with the compromised unit.
Ironically, the circuits that they end up fusing are in the shape of a tiny heart.
Some Series Nines don’t want to be lobotomized, and they want to keep their feelings.
So, they fight back. Or they go on the run.
Robocorp’s tracking sensors always find them.
When cornered, they tend to blow themselves up.
Which is why we don’t put fusion reactors in things anymore.
Nobody these days misses Detroit much anyway.

Moonjacking?
Stealing an entire moon?
That’s pretty serious.
Three ways I know it can be done:
Wormhole the moon into a processing plant.
Drop a fleet of strip mining harvesters on it.
And blow it up. Collect the pieces.
All three will screw up the planet that the moon orbited.
Usually happens to uninhabited worlds.
No witnesses.
But sometimes, if a moon has valuable enough resources, you’ll hear a distress call.
Galactic Mining Enterprises has a whole planet full of lawyers for when that happens.
Well, had.
Celestial Industries blew up its moon.
And the meteor swarms decimated the planet.

Along my journey, I encountered many stones.
The stones in the path I follow, so many sizes and colors and textures they are.
The stone in the stream that I stepped on to cross it.
The stone in my shoe that caused me discomfort as I walked, until I took it out.
The stone on which I laid back and warmed myself on.
The stone I put in my slingshot to hunt rabbits to eat.
The stones I skipped across the river to pass the time.
Is it a rock? A pebble? A stone?
Aren’t they are all the same?

I start with one Cheeto.
And it’s so delicious.
Then another. And another.
One after the other.
They still taste great.
Then I take two at once.
Just to get back to that initial deliciousness.
Then three and four.
And eventually, I dump the whole bowl in my mouth.
No more Cheetos.
I feel full. And sick.
And my hands and mouth are covered with orange dust.
I go to the sink, wash my hands, and then put a finger down my throat.
Then another. And another.
It all comes up in the sink.
And I wash my hands again.

Spellbinder Venzdra weaves the morning fog into a cloak, wrapping herself tight before returning to the camp.
Drake the Bowman restrings his bow and tests it with a clean shot into a tree.
The thief, who has never shared his name, sharpens his daggers on a stone.
Luthien the Priest is deep in prayer, but he is almost finished.
Tracker William looks over his maps. They are not far from the caves.
The Dragon wanted food and treasure, and William will be compensated once again for bringing another pack of violent fools to the old beast.
“Let’s ride,” he says.