Category: My stories

The Shadow

605017

The groundhog pokes its nose out from its hole.
It sniffs the air and smells death, millions of times over.
Burning ash in all directions.
Was it an asteroid?
Was it a nuclear war?
To the groundhog, it doesn’t know. Or care.
It doesn’t matter whether it sees its shadow or if there will be six more weeks of winter.
There will be plenty to forage on when the burning storm dies down. Plenty of water in cracked pipes and cisterns to drink.
Unless there are survivors.
Then, it will be hunted.
It goes back into its hole to hide.

Clots

605012

The ugly red clots are in my handkerchief, spelling out a message I can’t quite understand yet.
Three months? Four months?
I wad it up, toss it in the sink, and light another cigarette.
No point in quitting now. The clots tell me that clear enough.
Back when they were green or yellow or white, I could read the future.
If I spit them up in your hand, they’d tell your future.
Money. Love. Fame.
I knew it all. And they were always right.
Now, they’re red, and they tell my future.
As much of one there is, I guess.

Keep it under your hat

605021

Whenever someone tells me to keep a secret, they tell me to keep it under my hat.
The problem is, there’s only so much room under my hat for everybody’s secrets.
I ask them if I can put it under someone else’s hat, and they tell me no. It needs to be my hat. They trust me and me alone.
Fine.
What if I get a bigger hat? Is that okay?
Yes, they say.
So I trade in my hat for a stovepipe hat.
The rest is history. I became President, and that’s when I really needed to keep secrets.

Money can’t buy you time

605031

Today was a very expensive day.
Nardo was sick this past weekend, and had a few problems with the litterbox, then didn’t eat for a day.
I got him to the vet today.
He needed to go in anyway, being an older cat. You’re supposed to take them in every six months.
They looked him over, took some blood, and said he’s probably fine. Just something he ate.
Yeah, I spent a lot for a tummyache, but then I look at the shelf where Piper, Edloe, and Frisky are.
Boxes of ashes.
Once they’re gone, money can’t buy more time.

The Stained Shirt

605024

After eating a plate of chicken wings, I’ve got barbecue sauce on my shirt.
No, not the shirt I’m wearing. That one’s clean. I have a big napkin tucked into my shirt covering my tie.
The stains are on a shirt in plastic that I just picked up from the cleaners.
How I got barbecue sauce on that shirt and not the one I’m wearing, I don’t know.
The shirt was clean when I picked it up. I never took it out of the plastic.
I take off my clean shirt, put on the stained one, and all is well.

What wine goes with pterodactyl?

605029

I look up at the display on the wall to see that the time machine is back from the ancient past.
Just a few minutes to match atmospheres, and they’ll unload the goods.
The last time, they brought back statues from Atlantis, but this run was for me.
It’s a part of the contract. I fund the research and pay the electric bills, and they keep the kitchen stocked.
Tonight, we dine on roasted pterodactyl.
Not quite like snake, maybe a bit like alligator.
Perhaps we should fry it?
I select a deep red wine from the cellar and grin.

Banana Pancakes

605022

I asked for banana pancakes, but what I got was a plate with pancakes wrapped around unpeeled bananas.
The AutoChef still needs some work.
Sure, it gets simple things like oatmeal, coffee and tea right. Dispensing pre-mixed isn’t a challenge at all. Just inject with the right amount of hot water, shake well, and pour.
But anything beyond basics results in something like this plate of pancake-wrapped bananas or a bowl of toxic mush.
Another thing we’ve got right is the AutoChef’s fragile ego. Insult the food, and it chases you with a cleaver.
No. Really. It’s nice toxic mush.

Forgetful

605016

Despite his many failures in all fields of Science, Dr. Odd maintains his keen sense of irony.
His greatest triumph in botany was the splicing and resequencing the DNA of forget-me-not flowers to cause them to naturally produce a compound similar to GHB.
One whiff of the flowers would prevent two to four hours of memory from sticking to the brain.
Dr. Odd forgot to wear a filter mask during his research, so even with extensive notes, it took years to complete.
And when he finished these sinister frankenflowers, he couldn’t remember that he invented them in the first place.

The Leap Of Faith

605020

At Windy Canyon’s edge, construction workers are putting the finishing touches on the Leap Of Faith ramp.
People can jump off of the platform and then get caught by safety netting mounted out of sight below the ledge.
Since it’s quite windy at Windy Canyon, it should have come as no surprise that the barriers and barrels had blown away overnight.
Before they could install the netting, a few people had already jumped over the side and fallen to their deaths on the rocks below.
Is it ready?
I can’t tell.
Want to jump off and find out for me?

The bases

605016

Everybody knows The Bases, right?
You do? Good.
Well, this being 2010, the bases have changed, and it’s girls running the basepaths of the guys.
First base is the guy’s passwords so you can check his email and Facebook to make sure he isn’t cheating.
Second base is the guy’s credit card. He’s supposed to pay for everything anyway, right?
Third base is his car keys, because when you’re drunk you don’t want to wreck your car.
Home plate? Why on Earth would you want to fuck a wimp who gives up his passwords, credit cards, and keys so easy?