Category: My stories

Our baby. Our baby is coming.
Our baby is here.
Our baby was born without kidneys.
She lived for an hour.
In that hour, we held her. We called her beautiful.
We prayed. We prayed a lot.
We had her baptized. A splash of water by the priest.
And we held her some more, and told her that we loved her.
Then, before we realized it, she was dead.
We held her for a while longer, said our goodbyes, and the nurses took her away.
How long, I don’t know.
Should she never have born?
Just scraped away?
And gone?

The Simpsons premiered while I was in college.
We’d watch the episodes together in groups.
I watched it for a few seasons.
Then, I kinda lost track of the show.
There’s video tape, DVD, Blu-Ray, and online collections, but I never bought any of them.
Years later, our cable provider offered free on-demand streaming of some shows.
Well, it’s free with the cable subscription.
Among the crappy shows these days, there it is: The Simpsons.
After all these years, it’s still going.
I connect my laptop to the television and start the treadmill.
Who says you can never go back?

Neddy built a little sandcastle.
He filled his bucket with wet sand, turned it over, and lifted up the bucket.
He was very proud of his simple sandcastle.
So, he built another.
This sandcastle housed the enemy of the first sandcastle.
But he was the biggest enemy of all.
He threw rocks at the first sandcastle. And then the second sandcastle.
Both of the sandcastles were damaged.
Neddy laughed.
But then, a rock hit Neddy.
“Ouch!” he said.
Then another. And another.
Rocks hit Neddy from all directions.
Neddy fell apart into a pile of sand.
The two castles rejoiced.

I don’t want to deal with anything today.
I didn’t want to deal with anything yesterday.
Or the day before.
But, for some whatever reason, I’m getting up.
I’m going through the motions.
I’m making this cup of coffee.
And drinking it.
Wash up, get dressed, go out to the truck.
Drive to work and go in the building.
Push the elevator button.
Walk out and down the hall.
Into my office.
Slide the door shut.
Dock the laptop and sign in.
This voice track won’t record itself.
So, I put on Ambient Sleeping Pill.
And close my eyes.
Whatever.

Old Gertie liked to sit by the old wishing well in the town square.
She liked to imagine her great-grandfather digging the well and building the frame and cover.
But the truth is, her great-grandfather never left Sweden. It was her grandfather who came to this country.
And her didn’t dig the well or do anything to help build it.
He was in jail for drunken and lewd behavior while Chinese laborers finished it.
He knocked up a hooker, who had fraternal twins: a boy and a girl.
Her parents.
I guess its better she didn’t know the awful truth.

It’s hard not to be bitter about the horrible failures and stress during my time at the TV station.
Eighteen years later, I still feel so much anger and resentment, it clouds any good memories.
Even the rare, few good people trigger the bitterness and rage.
So, I’ve tried to keep my distance, and I keep the TV off, or close the browser windows.
I keep to myself, or escape into places where nothing matters.
But like any poison, it never truly goes away.
Imagining myself surrounded by vipers, they offer to suck it out, digging their fangs in deeper.

Ted doesn’t like it when you tickle his toes.
So, he wears thick socks. And boots.
Even when he’s in the shower.
Not that he’s ever in the shower with other people, but he’s not taking any chances.
He locks his bathroom door. And his front door.
All of his windows are barred.
He put up a fence, topped with barbed wire.
The paper boy died trying to deliver Ted’s paper.
Ted was found guilty of manslaughter and went to jail for it.
And he got raped in the shower. Repeatedly.
But, thank goodness, nobody tried to tickle his toes.

Word got around that Yahweh spoke to Moses through a burning bush.
Shops dumped their golden calf inventory and stocked up on bushes.
Pretty soon, everyone was carrying around a bush, waiting for God to call them.
Some people carried around two, three, even four bushes.
The High Priests looked like walking shrubbery.
Practical jokers would wait until the High Priests were asleep, then they’d light their bushes on fire.
The screaming priests looked and sounded like some kind of strange divine intervention, but the holy mood was broken when they stopped, dropped, and rolled to put the flames out.

Joe likes to listen to the religious cultists at the airport.
He’d get to the airport hours before his flight.
He’d watch all kinds of brainwashing movies, get hooked to a variety of weird pseudoscientific devices, and read all sorts of pamphlets and books.
Then he’d promise his eternal life and soul to them.
Just as they brought papers for him to sign, he’d get up and run for the exit.
Then he’d go to the employee locker room and put on his pilot’s uniform.
Maybe there will be some new cults to fuck with when he lands in Chicago.