Professor Chandar Vapagee spent decades pushing the boundaries of physics.
And failing.
So it was a great surprise when he announced to his class that he’d developed a faster-than-light engine.
It was an even bigger surprise that it was set up in the middle of the lecture hall.
“Ten seconds to ignition!” shouted the professor.
Most of the students ran for the exits but some stayed to watch…
Three… two… one…
The machine vanished, and the professor fell to the floor.
“Oh, it works,” he told the department chair. “Now I need to work on the whole passenger compartment thing.”
Category: My stories
The Price Of Fame
The agency sends special girls.
Stare into their eyes long enough, and you become them.
Mind-Body Psychic Transfer, they call it.
What people do, well, that’s their business, as long as they pay, and don’t get the girls hurt.
I work for this Hollywood star who pays a fortune to get away from himself.
He can go to dinner, or just walk around without getting harassed or chased by paparazzi.
Or, he’ll have the girl walk him around, and he’ll watch the crowds swarm, begging for autographs.
Weird? Yeah.
But I don’t judge. As long as he’s back for rehearsals.
A Bunch Of Babies
Our country’s compulsory military service begins at birth.
The infantry is literally made up of infants.
And the air force’s recruits spend their days fed by spoon while drill sergeants shout HERE COMES THE AIRPLANE INTO THE HANGAR! ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Oh, and the navy spends its time in the wading pool on the lawn, splashing around and squealing.
Sure, they have issues marching and holding rifles and maintaining advanced radar-jamming equipment, and then there’s the discipline issues with “the terrible twos,” but all in all, they’re a good bunch.
Oh, and our large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. Those help too.
A Whiff Of Accomplishment
James made the best-smelling paintings.
No, not selling. Smelling.
He’d go to the beach and paint abstract waves and moonlit skies with tempera and plaster.
The mixture would capture the scent of the sand and the salty air, and if you closed your eyes and breathed in deep, you’d feel that spring Corpus Christi day.
His dream was to open his own restaurant, his paintings on the wall.
And he did. The opening was last month.
He made it.
And died last night of a heart attack.
A whiff, a touch of accomplishment, and your dreams is all you get.
The Water Marshal
It never rains in The Burning Lands.
But in case it ever does, the citizens must be prepared.
Young salamanders and firedrake students laugh and play as they are shepherded from their classrooms into the gymnasium.
An iron tank covered with warning symbols sits in the middle of the room.
Water: The most dreaded and feared substance in The Burning Lands.
Students hiss with fear as The Water Marshal turns a knob, and an ordinary flame is…
Extinguished! Dowsed!
What magic is this?
Screams. Shouts.
The Water Marshal demands order.
Then, together, they shout the Water Drill:
“SMITE! IGNITE! ALIGHT!
The Spies
The final test for spy training is passing a test conducted in one of our own cities.
However, due to printing mistake, the trainees were given mission parameters meant to go to a counter-insurgency team in Syria.
A rash of political assassinations struck Memphis, and the agency tried to pull their trainees out before they did more damage.
The orders state “NO EXTRACTIONS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.”
And the students killed the teachers sent to collect them.
If there’s a bright side to this, Memphis’ local government runs much better now. No corruption at all.
But Syria? Yeah, they’re still fucked.
Day
Jimmy’s a really annoying guy.
How annoying?
Well, he calls Thanksgiving “Turkey Day.”
And calls birthdays “Cake Days.”
And Easter ends up “Bunny Day.”
“Shouldn’t that be Candy Day or Basket Day?” I ask him.
“No, because people confuse that with Halloween.”
Which he doesn’t call “Candy Day” or “Basket Day.”
He calls Halloween “Pumpkin Day.”
When his mother died, I asked him if he called it “Casket Day.”
He looked me in absolute horror. “Oh my God no! How could you say such a thing?”
“I’m sorry for being so insensitive,” I said. “I guess you had her cremated.”
Not A Prophet
The press says that God talks to Jimmy, but that’s nonsense.
Jimmy can hear God talking, but he’s only overhearing what God is saying.
According to Jimmy, it’s a constant stream of mathematics. At first, Jimmy tried to copy it down, but he didn’t know mathematical notation.
Until the researchers taught him how.
Formula after formula, solution after solution. His notebooks contain tangled nightmares that Bertrand Russell and Einstein couldn’t have comprehended.
I watch him write, then erase what he wrote, write again.
Jimmy laughed. “God stutters.”
The lightning was quick; a charred desk and ashes were all that remained.
The Judges Demand
The fear holds me tight.
The judge demands an answer, but I have none.
I take the Swiss Army Tool from my pocket, flick out the sharpest blade, and draw it cross my left palm.
It doesn’t take long for enough blood to well up, and I quickly draw a circle around my feet.
“O Great Ancestors!” I shout. “Guide me through this moment of peril!”
The dust begins to swirl… the lights grow dark… a rumbling from the skies…
“DISQUALIFIED!” shouts the judge.
The dust settles, the lights come back up.
“Next contestant: Zymurgy.”
And they spell it right.
The great heaving gust
I like to flavor my iced tea with freshly-squeezed lemon.
Usually, I squeeze the lemons with a tool that catches the seeds, but sometimes I’m in a rush and squeeze them by hand, dropping the seeds into my tea.
This usually isn’t a problem. But when I drink my tea with a straw, sometimes the seeds get caught in the straw, and I have to work them out from the straw with a series of squeezes.
Or, with a great gust of breath, I can shoot the seed across the room and out the sliding glass door to the patio.