Category: My stories

Dan built a platform for the camera. Then he rigged it to a weather balloon.
Filling the balloon, until it was ready to release.
And that’s when Dan cut the tether.
The balloon rose, pulling the platform with it.
But the tether was lashed around Dan’s ankle and he was yanked up with the balloon.
Without a knife to cut the line, he was hauled into the sky.
Higher and higher, colder and colder, until the air was too thin to breathe.
Then, the balloon burst, and the platform fell.
Later, someone found the platform, camera, and Dan’s broken corpse.

I live in a golfing and tennis resort community, even though I don’t golf or play tennis. A lot of people drive around in golf carts. They drive in the bike lanes, which scares the crap out of joggers and walkers and cyclists who are wearing headphones. Even though teenagers can’t get drivers licenses, through a technicality, they can still drive golf carts around, electric bikes, and weird one wheeled scooter things. Every now and then you hear about some kid losing control and hitting someone or something. There’s a lot of white crosses on the side of the road.

Rita taught English in Dubai and lost her teaching job after she complained that half the kids in her class were named Mohammed. That’s all the administration heard and they fired her right on the spot. It had nothing to do with the fact that the kids all dressed alike, let alone while having the same name. And she couldn’t go by last name because they all had similar last names like Saladin. And the parents got mad when she would give them numbers calling on Mohammed one, Mohammed, two, Mohammed three. She was replaced by a teacher named Mohammed.

There were angry marches all over the world.
Earth is sexist.
Earth is racist.
Earth is bigoted.
The Baban Empire’s embassies offered free trips to their paradise worlds.
They recruited heavily at the marches.
And millions of the discontent boarded their ships to fly off and never be seen again.
The marches grew smaller and fewer, and eventually stopped.
And things were better. So much better.
Some videos came back, happy people on other worlds.
But the truth was, the Baban were flying the ships over Mercury and dumping their cargoes before returning back for more.
Good riddance to them.

We put together a band.
Played covers in our garage, played a few gigs.
Wrote a few songs, played a few more gigs.
Got on the radio.
Cut an album, and it went up the charts.
Went on tour, filled some music halls.
Wrote a few more songs, did a festival.
Went on tour again, and then we filled some stadiums.
Wrote a few more songs, made a film, cut another album, went on tour again.
Had a few fights, sued the record label, the record label sued us.
We sued each other.
And we all went our separate ways.

Another train rolls in to Pelosi state penitentiary, Unloading the surviving passengers, hose out the vomit and blood and shit before sending the train back out again for more.
The prisoners are sorted by their crimes.
This one, 10 years for misgendering.
That one, 15 years for saying all lives matter.
And the worst, bakers who refused to make gay wedding cakes.
They send the Trump supporters to the right gate, to lay in a pit and wait for the bullet in the back of the head.
Another train rolls in, and the crematorium’s smokestacks fill the sky with ash.

Bobby was a rough kid.
His mother said, you, you’re no good, Bobby.
So he left home.
Went out on the road.
Bobby went to a psychic to read his future.
This line says you’ll live a short, violent life.
This line says you and money? No way.
And this line says nobody’s ever gonna love you.
And Bobby gave her three black eyes.
Bobby met a girl. He met many girls.
The girls who like bad boys, but they never lasted.
And the last one, she put a knife in his back.
Bobby bled out in the street, laughing.

The police arrested a peaceful protester with a knife in his pocket.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with a gun in his pocket.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with a lighter in his pocket and a Molotov in his hand.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with four empty canisters of mace in his pocket.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with a green laser in his pocket.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with dog biscuits laced with rat poison in his pocket.
No, they weren’t killed. Just arrested.
That sounds peaceful to me, don’t you agree?

It’s okay to share needles if you’re clean and the first one to use the needle.
How do you know you’re the first to use the needle?
Be the one who owns the drugs.
Or, be the one who owns the needles.
When you unwrap the needle, you’re the first to use it.
How do you know you’re clean?
Be the first to use the needle.
And it won’t matter if you’re clean.
Or you can take pills. Or smoke something. Or drink it.
Things that don’t need needles.
(But be sure to wipe the neck of the bottle first.)

The perfect trees, the perfect flowers.
The perfect path, the perfect grass.
Everything in the park was perfect.
Even the litter people tossed out was perfect.
But, this being Texas, you know they’ve gotta stick a pink flamingo out on an anotherwise prize-winning yard.
In this park, it’s the statue smack dab in the middle.
So ugly, birds won’t crap on it.
The townspeople started rumors that the statue was of a Confederate general so the Black Lives Matter people would tear it down.
But some prankster said it was Martin Luther King, so the damn thing is still there.