Category: My stories

Fred was born into a horrible family.
They tortured and tormented him constantly.
School was torture too.
Even when he went into the woods to be on his own, mosquitoes and chiggers ate him alive.
He lashed out, he got in fights, he stole things and ended up in juvenile detention.
Therapists worked on him day and night to rehabilitate him.
Primal screaming to release all of his frustrations and resentment.
“It worked,” said the doctors. “But it’s so damn annoying.”
Cured and released, Fred went back into society.
Constantly screaming.
He got a job at CNN as a commentator.

Lawson invented the twelve.
Before Lawson invented the twelve, people went from eleven to thirteen without anything in between.
It never felt quite right, but nobody knew what to do about it.
They’d cough or wave their hands or stick a roast beef sandwich in there, but nothing quite fit.
Until Lawson came around, that is.
He spent weeks in his lab, testing all kinds of things, until one day, he came out of the lab shouting “I DID IT!”
And shared his new invention: the twelve.
Sure, it caused cancer and global warming, but fuck it: we need twelves.

John Donne wrote Death, Be Not Proud.
But under that black robe, Death wears a rainbow shirt. A Pride shirt.
After work, he hangs out in his favorite bar, tips the bartender well.
Dances with his friends when it’s time to dance, and listens when it’s time to listen.
Sometimes, he goes home with a friend.
Wakes up early, makes coffee and breakfast, and then reaps their soul.
It’s not hate. It’s not discrimination.
Everyone dies in the end, you know.
He is Death, and he’s got a job to do.
At least he makes them coffee and breakfast, right?

June is Pride Month.
It’s a month to be proud.
What am I proud of?
Well, I lost a lot of weight. And I went vegan for my health.
That’s an accomplishment I’m proud of.
I’m proud of my work. I developed a tool that saves a lot of time and reduces errors.
I also proud of my neighbor’s kid. I helped coach her for a Spelling Bee.
She won her school contest and went on to the regionals and state.
But my race? My gender? My sexual preference?
I dodn’t accomplish any of those.
Why be proud of them?

Are all men created equal?
Under the law, yes.
But some are smarter than others.
Some are taller than others.
Some are faster than others.
Some are darker than others.
Some are hairier than others.
Some are louder than others.
Some are angrier than others.
Some are stickier than others.
Some are slimier than others.
Some are smellier than others.
Some are sparklier than others.
Some are tastier than others.
This tool detects fifty-nine categories of difference to six decimal places.
Place it on your tongue, wait a minute, and a green light will come on.
Now open your mouth.

Ned built an ark in his back yard.
Every time it rained, he’d herd the family into the ark.
“Get in the ark!” he’d shout. “It’s going to flood.”
When the rain stopped, he’d let the family back out of the ark.
“False alarm!” he’d shout. “But next time, just you wait and see!”
He’d hold surprise ark drills late at night, forcing his family to wake up and run for the ark.
“If this had been a real flood, you’d be drowned!” shouted Ned at his sleepy, shambling family.
They tied him up and set the ark on fire.

(… and that’s sixteen years for you.)

It takes a century of soaking in The Pond of Knowledge before a sprout can become an Elder.
We test their brain-pods often, and prune off bad leaves and branches and pods to make room for the good ones.
One elder came up with the idea to graft branches and pods from the wisest of The Elder Council to speed along the process.
The results were a total crop failure. The seedlings and the edler were all destroyed.
Wisdom and knowledge must be earned and learned, not grafted.
The Pond had to be cleaned out and replenished with seeds again.

There was a new critic for the Tribute: Flick Billston.
And he hated everything.
You could open up the Entertainment Section and be entertained by Flickr’s verbal savagery.
The paper got bomb and death threats, directors and actors showing up at their offices demanding to see Flick.
“He works from home,” says the editor. “Sends stuff in with a courier.”
He wasn’t listed in the phone book. No paper trail at all.
The really angry ones hired detectives to follow the courier.
The detectives never reported back. And when Flick’s next review came in, it was that much more vicious.

Every Friday night, every Summer, we’d go down Highway 6 and catch the double-feature at the drive-in.
It’s more than just a movie. It’s a celebration.
We bring a keg. We bring a big pit smoker.
Sometimes, we dress up for the special events.
And there’s dancing. And singing.
It feels like the Summer lasts forever.
But it doesn’t.
Every Fall, as we went back to school, the drive-in closes down.
Until the next Summer comes around.
School’s out, the drive-in’s open again, and everybody can’t wait for Friday night, when we go down Highway 6 to catch the double-feature.

Half a world away, our boys were fighting and dying in a war.
So, we tried to stop the war.
We went out into the streets and protested the war.
We made banners and signs and chanted and blocked the recruiting centers and broke into the bases.
So, they killed our heroes.
They killed MLK. They killed RFK.
We escaped into our music.
Where they couldn’t kill us.
Even if they sent us to the war, we could bring our music with us.
When we went home, alive or dead, the music came back.
And through it, we live on.