Wally practically danced into the room, soaking wet and smiling as wide at his dripping hat.
“What a beautiful day!” he sang, gritting his teeth madly.
Down in the basement, Clem the Maintenance Supervisor watched in shock as the Sarcasm Compensator shook and rattled, glowing slightly red before spitting out a steaming ingot CLANK!
Clem put it on the cart with the other ingots, where they’d wait for the school to pick them up.
Sometimes, he’d pocket a really good ingot and sell it to a kid at a comedy club.
As if they needed any more sarcasm, right?
CLANK!
Category: My stories
The Final Rule
I have a hollow tooth. It is full of poison.
If I am captured, I will crush the tooth, swallow the poison, and die.
Sure enough, I’m in the middle of a mission, and I get captured.
So, I try to crush it, but it doesn’t break.
I smash my face against the table.
Nope. But I do bloody my nose.
Eventually, I get the information tortured out of me, and I’m sent back as part of a prisoner exchange program.
“Tooth’s a dud,” I say.
The agent reaches in, crushes it with pliers.
“Nope,” he said.
And I die.
The Werewolf
Bob points his gun at the werewolf, pulls the trigger… BANG!
The Werewolf goes down and lies still.
Bob waits for a bit, then says “Get up.”
The Werewolf gets up. “Those blanks are pretty loud.”
Bob hands the Werewolf a small red pouch. “Poke a hole in that and grab it to your side when I shoot you.”
“Just get me on the cart and the hell out of town before they do anything worse.”
The Werewolf and Bob went from town to town with their scam, became filthy stinking rich, and retired happily.
(But everybody else was dead.)
The King Of Cakes
It is Mardi Gras, and it is time for the King Cake.
I find this purple and yellow pile utterly disgusting, and I refuse to take a piece.
The rest of the group greedily rips off hunks, devouring loudly, until one pulls out a crinkly diaper.
“What the hell is this?” they say, throwing the diaper to the ground.
“Well,” says Carol, “you’re supposed to bake a baby into the cake, and whoever gets the baby will have good luck.”
Foster spits out some toes. “A METAL BABY!” he shouts.
Everybody begins to vomit.
Me, I reach for the cake.
Arc
Noah sat on a stool and watched the skies darken, rainclouds growing thicker.
All around him, two of every animal stood around, stinking to high heaven and making a terrible racket.
Sadly, not enough to drown out the constant shouts of “YOU FOOL!” from his wife.
He felt something… was that a drop of rain? He held out his hand, wondered if it was raining already.
“So, are you going to load up your ARK now?” sneered his wife.
Noah looked at the gigantic, narrow wooden curve he’d built and sighed.
“I swear, I thought he said arc. Damn homonyms.”
Coin Toss
I had a tough decision to make, but I couldn’t decide.
So, I asked the town’s wise man.
He said: “Arbitrary decisions are best left to arbitrary means.”
I asked him what the hell he was talking about.
“If you can’t decide between two things,” he said. “Toss a coin.”
I thanked him and went outside to toss a coin.
As the coin turned in the air, an eagle swooped down and snatched it from the air.
I went back to the wiseman, eagle perched on a leather glove, feeding it some meat.
“Leave a tip next time,” he said.
The Drunk
Casey slurred his words like a drunk, but the man didn’t drink. He’d suffered a stroke a few years ago and never quite got his speech all the way back.
He wanted to hang out with us at the bar, though, and we figured he’d make a good designated driver, being sober and all.
We drank ourselves blind stinking drunk, and handed Casey the keys.
Fifteen mailboxes and trash cans later, my truck got wrapped around a lightpost.
“I thought you didn’t drink,” I growled at Casey.
“I don’t drink,” he slurred. “Or drive. I don’t have a drivers license.”
She paints the future
She paints the pain, wide slashes at the canvas, red paint drips like blood.
Wrapping bandages, applying pressure.
The canvas still bleeds; what isn’t covered with red turns grey and sallow.
The red turns dark and black, she can do nothing but watch the canvas die.
Into the dumpster it goes with all the other failures.
You cannot kill art twice.
She casts the spell again, sips another sip of bourbon, and sprays it on a fresh canvas.
Waiting… waiting… feeling…
A pulse!
Dipping the dagger into the red paint, another chant: life… life… life…
The canvas trembles with fear.
Kneecap Rodeo
Yeeeeeeehaw!
It’s Rodeo Time, time to put on our cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and big shiny buckles and thick kneepads-
Kneepads?
Yup. ‘Cause while we countryfolk break horses, the Italians come on down to break kneecaps.
Then Mafiosa with their fedora hats and baseball bats, breaking kneecaps. That ain’t Texas, I reckon.
We cowboys break ’em by blindfoldin and riding them, or denying them food and water for a day before riding.
The Injuns, they ride ’em out to deep water and wear them out.
Then there’s the kneecap whisperer… fell behind in a loan.
Watch out for them Italians!
The Road Not Taken
I remember when I was little, my Papa Robert lived with us.
When it snowed, he’d wander down the road into the yellow woods.
“Go find Papa Robert,” said my father.
We’d suit up and look for him.
Sometimes, he’d take the road to the city and he’d be in the Derry coffee shop in his long johns, warming up, writing poetry.
Other times, he’d be on a side road, wandering in the undergrowth.
He lost a few toes that way.
His glasses all frosty, snow in his hair.
Today, I stand here, trying to decide.
Before my grandkids come.