Category: My stories

Over the years, Andy’s computer has been a collection of all the parts that his friends have left over from when they upgrade their computers.
His battered and broken furniture is a jumble of sofas, tables, chairs, and shelves they replaced with newer stuff.
Andy’s car has always been a clunker that his friends couldn’t get trade-in credit for.
He’s on his fifth wife. All five have been ex-wives of his friends.
Now he’s in the hospital. He desperately needs a heart-lung transplant.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see which of his friends gets into a motorcycle wreck.

The room had a chair and table bolted to the floor.
And the subject chained to the chair.
We’d play a tape of people screaming for a while.
I’d walk in with a bloody belt sander, and I’d ask them a question.
They wouldn’t talk. They never talked.
“Fine,” I’d say, and plugged in the belt sander.
Thumb the switch and revved it.
Sometimes skimming my arm hair.
I’d let them smell the burn.
“Okay, here we go.”
But the cord wouldn’t reach.
“I need an extension cord,” I’d say. “Need anything while I’m up.”
They talked. They always talked.

Frederick’s of Hollywood sold naughty clothing.
Frederick’s of Chicago sold guns.
Frederick’s of New York sold electronics.
Frederick’s of Tokyo sold fish by the bucket.
Frederick’s of Berlin sold clocks.
Frederick’s of Marakesh sold slaves.
Frederick’s of Sydney sold souvenirs.
Frederick’s of Guam sold the best sandwiches. The sign on the front said so.
Frederick’s of San Salvador sold stage magician’s props.
Frederick’s of Bombay sold carpet by the yard.
Frederick’s of Seattle sold coffee.
Frederick’s of Rome sold bus passes.
Frederick’s of Waikiki Beach sold pineapples.
Frederick’s of London sold fancy hats.
And Frederick’s of Juneau sold space heaters.

Cameron always felt uncomfortable about who he was.
Or she was.
Cameron’s parents didn’t understand. Nobody did.
Today, some teens get the support they need. And options.
Surgery and hormone therapy instead of wishes and bitter tears
Back then, kids like Cameron didn’t.
Years of self-loathing and wishes that never came true.
Instead of taking the easy way out, Cameron became a mentor.
So many lives touched and changed.
Cameron died the other day.
Ashes in an urn.
We had them injected into hundreds of breast implants.
For teens to use during transition.
Still guiding the lost to find themselves.

One night, after I had consumed too much coffee, I stayed up for a while and did some cleaning.
The vacuuming was kinda fun. So was cleaning out the bad food from the fridge and the shelves.
But I’ve never been good at cleaning mirrors.
That’s okay. My doppelganger in the Mirror World is just as bad at it as I am.
He uses the same brand of glass cleaner, and an identical rag.
Puts just as much effort into it as I do.
I guess we tried our best, right?
We high-fived each other and…
Where’s that vacuum again?

She called herself a robot, but robots don’t run on windup keys.
That’s more of a toy or dolly thing.
Her serial number had been scratched out, but there’s always other in the chassis.
Runaway status.
“I worked in a hospital in the childrens ward,” she said. “I loved them so much.”
She told me about the games the children would play, the adventures they’d pretend to go on.
“But they never got better. So much pain, and they were so alone.”
If she could cry…
Before I wiped her memory, she kissed me on the cheek and thanked me.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
When life hands someone lemons and they wait until they’re rancid and putrid before they dump them in your lap, make lemonade.
And then, make them drink it.
Oh, and rub the rinds in their eyes, too.
If they keep their eyes closed, slash their fingertips with paper and rub the lemon on them.
Maybe with a little salt, too. Salt and lemons.
If the lemons are shrunken and hard, put them in a sock and beat them with the sock.
That should make it easier to rub their eyes with the lemons.

Charlie played the Birdland.
Everyone then played the Birdland, but Charlie, he played it best.
And he played, man did he played.
He had himself a wife, a girlfriend, and a lover.
Charlie played with Monk. Charlie played with Miles.
Billie and Basie, Quincy and Sammy. And the Duke.
Charlie played with Coltrane. Coltrane!
We’d sit there, drinks all around.
That was the night she shot him.
The wife? The girlfriend? The lover?
I dunno, but she done shot him.
She shot him dead, right there on the stage.
I picked up his horn and played.
Didn’t miss a beat.

Infamous Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel died today.
Despite absolute proof that he lived, I deny that Ernst Zundel ever lived.
Show me photographs, show me documents, show me video.
I’ll still deny that he ever lived.
Dig up his body, dump him out on a table.
Nope. He never lived.
Should you find some form of irrefutable evidence, okay, I’ll concede that he lived.
But not to the extent that he lived.
Not seventy-eight years. A lot less. Maybe seven or eight.
Or even while still in his infancy, mirroring his moral infancy.
But, privately, I’ll deny he ever lived.

Nobody likes a war more than a leader with low poll numbers.
Rattle a few sabres and launch a few air strikes, and the people cheer.
“He’s doing something, unlike that other guy,” they say to the pollster.
And the numbers go up… until they realize that the threat, real or implied, still exists.
So the numbers drop again.
That’s when the leaders call for war.
The numbers shoot up, way up.
So do the ratings. And the body counts.
Want to stop war?
Lie to the pollsters. Say everything’s great.
And declare war on the real threat: the pollsters.