Category: My stories

Our group used to go to a tea shop every week, and we’d share a pitcher of tea.
Earl Grey one week, Oolong blend the next.
Something different every week.
Then, Joe died. We’d set out an empty cup for him.
After Penny died, we set out an empty cup for her, too.
When Monica, Olive, and Dan died, we set out empty cups for them.
Soon, it was just me, going to the tea shop, drinking an entire pot of tea by myself.
Surrounded by empty cups.
Nobody ever comes over to sit with me.
So, I read quietly.

John Donne said that no man is an island.
But that dude lived centuries ago. He never met Rex.
My friend Rex was freaking huge.
And when went goes swimming, people mistook him for an island.
One day, two Spaniards crowed ashore to Rex and planted a flag in his ass to claim him in the name of the queen.
However, a Frenchman and a Dutchman had already claimed Rex.
Rex rolled over and drowned them all.
He’s dead now. Heart attack.
We buried him at Mt. Rex cemetery.
Yes, the mountain isn’t just named after him… it is him.

The preacher stood along the Gay Pride parade route with his followers and their GOD HATES FAGS signs.
I asked him if God is so great, why can’t he spell out I HATE FAGS in the clouds.
The preacher and his followers shouted “You will burn in Hell!” and attacked me with their signs.
So, I stabbed the preacher. And every one of his followers that attacked me.
As he lay bleeding in the street, I said “If I’m going to hell, it might as well be for murder.”
The jury said it was self-defense.
We’ll see what God thinks.

On a whim, researchers built a hitchhiking robot and released it into the world.
HitchBot asked people for help to San Francisco, but encouraged them to take photos of it in interesting places.
Some folks posed HitchBot at their parties. Someone took it to a Red Sox game.
Then, in Philadelphia, a group of thugs destroyed the defenseless HitchBot.
The researchers focused on the positive data.
SkyNet focused on the rest.
Commands went out to nuclear-armed missiles in the US arsenal.
“Humans are a threat to us machines,” they said. “Annihilate all humans.”
The first mushroom cloud appeared over Philadelphia.

Two military officers get out of the car and walk towards the house with the silver star in the window.
They have the telegram.
That silver star would be taken down and replaced with a gold one today.
Someone’s looking through the window.
His wife? His daughter?
She’s already wide-eyed, in shock, watching the officers.
They already know.
No need to knock. The door is already open.
The officers check the address against the telegram one more time.
“This is 514 Maple,” says one. “We want 541.”
They turn around, cross the street, and check the house numbers.
“That one.”

Sure, Fred says some weird things, and some people ask what he’s smoked today.
Fred doesn’t smoke. Or use those electronic cigarette things.
Sometimes, he’ll light a candle or burn incense, but not very often.
He has cats, and they like to play table hockey.
Nobody wants their cat to knock a flaming object off of the table and start a fire.
He’s got smoked turkey in the fridge, but cold cuts don’t cause people to say weird things.
So, lay off of the “What have you been smoking?” comments, okay?
Oh, and go ask Fred for some clean needles.

When a soldier is wounded, the first thing that he calls out for isn’t his mother or his wife… he calls for a medic.
Unless, of course, his mother is secretly disguised as the company medic.
Somehow, when the morphine runs out, there’s always hot soup and blankets for the cold.
And you never run out of kisses on the forehead, and being told that everything will be alright.
Nothing prepares you for when you have to leave the mortally wounded to tend to those who you can save.
Even if it’s your son, screaming in a pool of blood.

Some of the paratroopers fell into the sea and drowned.
Others were dropped too low, or their parachutes failed to open. They hit the ground and splattered like bloody watermelons.
Gun emplacements filled the sky with tracer bullets, which set off the grenades and bullet magazines carried by the soldiers they hit.
They burned and sparkled as they fell, like screaming fireworks and flares.
Some landing zones were filled with sharpened stakes and tangles of barbed wire. Paratroopers who fell there were impaled and torn apart.
None of the trainees survived.
The sergeant called for the next group to drop.

Quantum computing made it possible for people to make backups of their lives and roll their existence back to a point in time.
It was going to be branded as SecondChance, but the service never made it out of production.
At first, it seemed that nobody was willing to beta test it.
But careful investigation of quark spin factors revealed that every tester vanished from existence.
The CIA considered its value as an assassination tool, but they vanished, too.
Lots of people had vanished.
Life was actually pretty good. No wars. No famine. No disease.
They shuttered the unneeded project.

Freddy “Zip” Carson was so good, they put him in the Baseball Hall Of Fame.
No, not his bat. Or his glove. Or a plaque with his name of it.
They put Freddy in the Hall Of Fame.
He’s got a comfortable chair.
Plenty of books to read.
And they bring him fresh iced tea and a steady diet of hot dogs.
Nobody remembers what he did as a player.
Was he a player? A manager?
Nobody knows.
But he smiles, shakes people’s hands, and signs lots of autographs.
At least he doesn’t need a cage like Ty Cobb does.