Category: My stories

After they turn up the lights, cash out everyone’s tabs, turn off the jukebox, and put up the chairs… she gets out her guitar and walks to the stage.
Just a corner of the bar, big enough for one table.
She puts one of the chairs back down on the floor, pushes the table out of the way, and she sits down.
And she plays. She plays so beautifully.
Not like the old days, when she filled the bar, and the line went around the block.
No. Even better.
A tree falls in the forest.
And she hears it fall.

The robot served as my mother for years.
Then, when I was older, she served as my wife.
After that, she served as my daughter.
And then, she served as my nurse.
For eighty years, I was never without her.
Nor was she ever without me.
“You turn eighty tomorrow,” she said. “I have enjoyed being with you.”
As she mixed the government-supplied chemicals, I thought about her.
How she’d call for the service to pick up my body.
And whether they’d pick her up for termination.
Or recycling. To become a mother again.
Then a wife. And a daughter.

They say that the human brain is the most powerful computer.
But they’re wrong. The most powerful computer is in the sub-basement of the university.
It’s a massive array of computing units, networked together at the speed of light.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t take much power.
Just food and water, and some waste disposal.
Because it’s made out of human brains.
No, they’re not brains in jars. They’re still in their bodies.
We tried using homeless people and convicts, but we get better results with normal people.
Just lie on this table and relax. Breathe normally.
It won’t hurt a bit.

After every terrorist attack, they’d dance in the streets and hand out candy.
Usually, the bombmakers or the gunmen or bombers in training would stay away from the celebrations.
But every now and then, we’d pick a few up.
Two, four. Always in pairs.
I put two in a room, strapped to chairs that had elevated armrests.
Their fingers forced into the others mouth.
Fingers, covered with cupcake frosting.
“You’re so fond of handing out sweets,” we said. “How sweet are your hands?”
When one finally bit, the other would scream, and they’d bite, too.
Over. And over. And over.

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.