Category: My stories

Back in my day, when we held the town lottery, we didn’t use foam rubber rocks to throw at the sacrifice for the harvest symbolically. We used real rocks. Actual people got sacrificed and killed. None of this dodgeball crap where the kids are laughing and the sacrifice gets up and the mayor hands them a basket of cookies or a new toaster. There was real blood. There was real fear. And the crops, they came in much better and bigger and tastier. And the way you kids act, I wouldn’t mind hucking a rock at your damn fool heads.

Every day, Dan showed up at the shelter with his daughter Sarah. She’d pick out a black cat, name it Lucky, and take it home. She was so happy, petting and feeding Lucky. While she slept, Dan drove Lucky to the shelter, where Dan would show up with Sarah to pick out Lucky again. A new volunteer asked about this, the shelter coordinator said look at the girl’s head, it wasn’t quite right. Her hair covered… something. A bump? A divot? There was a crack in Dan’s windshield, a dent in the bumper. It’s all she knows, so play along.

Woodbury high school has a tradition where the most hated kid in school is loaded into a cannon, which is rolled out to the middle of the field during homecoming, and the Cannon is fired. Voting takes place that week and the candidates are kidnaped from class Friday morning homeroom. The winner, or you can call them a loser, is revealed at the game, sometimes the kids try to run and hide, but the county sheriff keeps an eye on them all week. Most human cannonball cannons use hydraulics or slingshots. Woodbury uses real explosives. So watch your ass kid.

The headlines shouted Dylan goes electric. The next day, they shouted Orbison goes nuclear. After that, Pat Boone went steam powered. Bob Denver, he went solar powered, you know, because he was all about the environment. Gene Simmons went wind powered for a while, but he couldn’t make any music on calm days. Musicians around the world embraced alternative energies. Geothermal, wave, action, capture, hydraulic piston, powered by tidal forces, hydroelectric, you name it. Some artist tried to go liquid natural gas, and a few defiantly clung to human power, but the liberal media shunned their efforts and championed Dylan.

Rip Binkel was the best scorer on the basketball team, but that really didn’t mean much considering he made maybe six or seven points a night and everyone else was tripping and stumbling on the hardwood. Plus, there were a hell of a lot of kids shooting up for the team spreading out the points before they trip and fall from all the other kids stumbling around. The coach would drag a kid off the court, smack another one on the back, and say get in there, then light another cigarette. A tornado hit the gym, they never rebuilt it.

Dave thought it would be funny to name his kids, Alexa, Siri, and OK Google. He could tell his smart home to do something and the kids would think he was talking to them and he’d say no I’m talking to the house. Until the kids were old enough to tell the family therapist about their anxiety and neurosis. One night Dave woke up, tied to the bed, his kids standing over him with knives and huge creepy grins. Let me go, demanded Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. The kids said in unison, stabbing their father to death.

It’s a lot harder to build and program a sex droid than build a combat droid. I mean, combat droids are built to kill while sex droids aren’t very popular if they end up hurting or killing someone. Of course, dead men can’t ask for refunds. I’m sure you’ll say that combat droids need to tell the difference between civilians and combatants. But places we send them, does it really matter? Plus, we tend to use them for enforcing curfew and anybody out after hours is considered a legitimate target. I guess you could say the same about sex droids.

They say the death comes for us all, but there are far too many of us. So death outsources the job to contractors and subcontractors. And to be blunt, they’re about three steps down from Amazon gig workers. They get paid for speed and not as much for accuracy. Which is why someone who was never smoked or drank and jogs every day can kill over at the feet of a 90 year-old drunk smoker. Or kids getting cancer. Or saints struck by lightning. And rotten people who live long lives, well, those are often those fucking incompetent contractors.

Gertrude Block was your typical nerdy little kid. Frizzled hair, freckles, cheap clothes. At the top of her class, but at the bottom of the social ladder. At lunch, she ate alone. She was always picked last in gym class. I wish I could tell you she grew up to be the queen of the prom or the hot girl, but she stayed that way. All the way through her two doctorates. She worked for a defense contractor making explosives, and she imagined all the jocks and cool kids who enlisted getting blown up and horribly mangled by her creations.

Old Frank is watching the morning news and sipping his coffee, a cat sneaks on his lap. He pets the cat and tells her I need to get up and go for a walk in a few minutes. Another cat does a running jump on his chest and digs in her claws to say you’re staying right here. Frank takes the last sip of coffee, turns off the TV with the remote, and reminds the cats who’s the boss. I just fed you too, I just cleaned your litter boxes, if that’s not good enough for you, tough fucking shit.