Category: My stories

They say that the camera doesn’t lie.
And it’s true. The camera doesn’t lie.
It’s the asshole holding it who lies, framing the shot to show what he wants it to show, and leaving out what he doesn’t want to show.
It’s the editor who lies, leaving the truth on the cutting room floor and stitching together their own version of reality.
It’s the producer, choosing what to broadcast and what to leave on the shelf.
It’s the reporter and anchor, with their tone of voice, their body language, wrapping the lie in a package you’ll believe.
But you shouldn’t.

I remember my mother talking about the Kennedy assassinations and the Moon landing.
She said they were all glued to the television.
Which I found strange, because she was always telling me not to sit so close to the television.
“Why can’t we get a bigger television?” I’d ask. “That way, I don’t have to sit as close to it.”
Now, I’ve got a big flat-panel television up on a stand.
Every now and then, a cat jumps up on the stand.
The cat isn’t exactly glued to the television, but I do hear occasional static crackle on their fur.

Does revenge bring closure?
It wasn’t hard to face her killer.
He was in the morgue.
On the table next to my pregnant fiancee.
It was a suicide bombing, after all.
I yelled. I screamed.
Beating his corpse with a folding chair.
But I still felt the rage.
When we found the bombmaker and the planner, I thought about making them eat each other’s fingers.
Instead, we shackled them to concrete blocks, flew them three miles out over the sea.
They fell, begging and screaming.
Let them drown in my tears.
But I felt nothing, and I haven’t cried since.

I don’t like sweet and sour chicken.
Chicken should be sweet or sour. Not both.
I don’t want indecisive chicken.
I don’t want passive-aggressive or bipolar chicken.
The last thing I need is erratic chicken on my plate, on my fork.
In my mouth, chewing. Chewing.
If I’m eating sweet chicken and it turns sour, I’m going to spit it out.
If I’m eating sour chicken and it turns sweet, I’m going to spit it out.
So, in the end, I don’t eat chicken.
I eat beef. I always eat beef.
Sweet and sour beef is just fine by me,

The blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands, the dictator of Syria listened to the threats and shrugged.
Then, one day, the missiles came, striking his chemical weapons factory.
The dictator assumed he’d be next, and he wore a vest with babies duct-taped to it.
That way, if he were attacked, his attackers would be condemned for killing babies, too.
But the babies constantly screamed and pissed and shat and were generally horrible.
The dictator had them killed.
They were much quieter, but they began to stink.
Even worse than the CNN reporters who volunteered as his human shields.

The old master sat in his wheelchair, out on the deck, watching the sun set over the ocean.
Slowly thumbing through his bamboo prayer beads with his good hand, the other, limp by his side.
Incense and flowers, white robes and long shadows, we sat and watched him dying.
“We are all dying,” said the master. “You. Me. Everyone.”
We pondered his words in the context of a finite lifespan on a cosmic scale.
When we should have pondered them literally.
The deck collapsed into the ocean.
The one thing we never learned from the master was how to swim.

After the ruckus died down, Joseph and Nicodemus grabbed the body and stuffed it behind a rock.
Several Roman soldiers told the guys to beat it.
The apostles gathered by a tree to restrategize.
“He’s coming back, right?” said Bartholomew. “Right?”
“He better,” said John. “Otherwise, I’m stuck with his bills.”
“How about we call today Good Friday?” said Matthias. “He did for all our sins. That’s good, right?”
“Well, it was a good Friday for Barabbas,” mumbled Peter.
They had nothing to do until Sunday.
So, they had a picnic and threw a ball around.
Thomas played the bongos.

Elvis Presley bought his Graceland.
It was the last house he ever needed.
And across the street, Vernon McTavish bought Disgraceland.
Vernon built a tower, taller than Graceland’s fences, to spy on Elvis.
He took photos and made films and reported Elvis’ movements.
Those of Elvis’ family, too.
And he’d sell them to the press.
When Elvis went overseas, he made a deal with Vernon.
Watch over his family for him.
So, Vernon did.
Up to the day that Elvis’ mother died.
Vernon had pictures of that.
When Elvis came back, he burned Vernon’s tower down.
With Vernon in it.

Nobody knows what Farmer Joe grows.
Some say it’s carrots. Others say it’s potatoes.
And for a while, I thought he grows corn, but what do I know?
He’s got a wall around his farm, with electrified barbed wire on top of it.
Satellite photography on Google Maps just shows a blur.
Trucks go in with fertilizer and machinery, and trucks come out loaded with… well… we don’t know.
He doesn’t even hire migrant workers to harvest whatever he grows in there.
Maybe he uses robots. Harvesting robots.
They don’t talk like people do.
“Rumors,” says Joe. “I grow rumors.”

When I get home, I like to lay back on the sofa and let Tinny jump up and cuddle.
She is the snuggliest cat.
When I move around, she squeaks and gets annoyed.
Sometimes, she jumps off and goes to preen or loafing up.
Twitching the fur on her back in contempt.
She’ll return eventually, jumping back up and snuggling and rubbing her face in mine.
At some point, she’ll cling to my shoulder and go to sleep, or she’ll flop on her side and drool.
It’s hard to type with my arm pinned by a cat.
So I don’t.