The first explosion bloodies the legs of everyone at the sidewalk cafe.
A bomb filled with screws and nails, covered in rat poison to keep the wounds bleeding.
Smoke and screams, cries for help.
Bind them with napkins and tablecloths until help arrives.
That’s when the second explosion happens.
They meant for it to kill medics and police and the doctors who rushed to help.
Afterwards, the men in bright reflective vests, gathering shredded limbs and bone and fingers, toes in a baby’s shoe, where is the other one, bagging them up, sending them off.
So nobody is buried unwhole.
Category: My stories
Good movies coming
A lot of good movies are coming to the theater, but at my age, it’s a challenge to make it through an entire movie without needing to go to the bathroom.
Now that I’m on Flomax, it’s even more of a challenge. Just one sip of water or lemonade, and I’m rushing for the toilet.
So, I look at adult diapers. And catheters. And even stranger devices.
Maybe I should just not drink as much before the movie starts?
Nah. I’ll just wait to buy it online on Amazon and watch it at home.
And then for free on Prime.
It’s hard to write when
It’s hard to write stories when you’re doubled over in pain and clutching your gut and back.
You can’t see the screen or reach the keys.
Pen and paper doesn’t work when you’re curled up in a tub of water, crying and waiting for the pills to kick in.
Even voice to text software won’t recognize the words through clenched teeth.
Why why why is this happening?
Why why why is this happening to me?
Make it stop!
Then, the cool wave comes.
Pain floats away.
You can breathe. You can think.
But for how long before the pain returns?
Open the door
They open the doors and call out a name that isn’t mine.
They open the doors and call out another name that isn’t mine.
Over and over, they open the doors and call out names that aren’t mine.
Why won’t they call my name?
Why won’t they help me?
Why are they letting me suffer in pain?
Why are they making me suffer in pain?
They open the doors and call out a name that isn’t mine.
The pain is too much to take.
I can’t even remember my name.
The door opens, and I scream until I pass out.
Smartwatch
I bought a smartwatch.
It looks really cool.
Sure, it’s clunky and heavy on my wrist, and I have to charge it every night, but it looks cool.
The metal band gets caught in my arm hair, and it rips out hairs all day long.
Still, it looks cool.
It quietly displays alerts for new email and appointments and meetings.
Too bad that I forget to mute my smartphone, which blares out all sorts of beeps and ringtones at the worst times.
So, sure, it looks really cool.
Sitting there on its charger.
No way I’m putting it on again.
Better
Turn on your pad.
Put in your buds.
Surf, read, listen.
You can do it all.
Everything’s online.
Information, books, music.
It’s all there.
If it’s not online, it doesn’t exist.
Newspapers? Gone.
Libraries? Gone.
Records? Tapes? CDs? Gone.
Money, too. That’s all online.
Everything’s online.
You know the rules:
If it’s on paper, it’s bad.
Put it online.
Makes it so much easier to manage.
For you, and us.
We can make the news better for you.
We can make the music better for you.
We can make everything better for you.
We can make you better for us.
The last time
I can’t remember the last time it snowed.
Oh, it gets cold here.
And it rains.
But it never snows.
“Why doesn’t it snow here?” I asked my mother.
But she doesn’t know why.
“Ask your father,” she says.
He didn’t know either.
My teachers didn’t know.
Father William didn’t know.
Nobody knows.
So, I walked North.
For miles and miles.
I thought I’d walk until I reached the North Pole.
But I got tired.
So, I called home.
My parents picked me up.
Drove me home.
Put me to bed.
And when I fell asleep.
I dreamed of snow.
Nightmare bell
There are two locks on our front door.
One is a normal lock, and the other is a deadbolt.
You can’t disengage the deadbolt from outside, so I’m not supposed to lock it when I get home from work.
Otherwise, Gina can’t get in when she gets home.
We have a note by the deadbolt… DO NOT LOCK THIS.
But sometimes, I forget. And Gina gets locked out.
She rings the doorbell over and over again.
Until I wake up and unlock the door.
I should do that more often, because it’s actually useful for interrupting whatever nightmare I’m having.
George
A lot of people wanted George Zimmerman dead, so he fled to South America.
He enrolled in a second-rate medical school. A few years later, George had a new name, a new face, and a diploma.
By then, Obamacare had driven a lot of family doctors out of business, so George saw an opportunity to return.
He set up an abortion clinic in a poor black neighborhood.
The same people who had wanted him dead now called him a community resource.
The way he saw it, he could kill black children and be paid for it. Legally.
Isn’t life strange?
Joke File
Comedian Buddy Buster spent a lot of time writing jokes.
He put them on notecards and organized them in a card file.
Over time, the card file grew large enough to take up several filing cabinets.
He bought a white van so he could drive from gig to gig with his props, his wardrobe, and those joke files.
And record albums and tapes to sell after each of his shows.
One night, car thieves stole his van, but they were Buddy’s fans, and returned it with a note of apology.
They even filled the gas tank and got it washed.