Category: My stories

Tuesday Tax

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He goes door to door, collecting the Tuesday Tax.
Sometimes, it’s a chicken. Other times, it’s a flake of gold.
I pay with recycled motor oil.
Nobody ever pays the Tuesday Tax in cash.
The law doesn’t require it, so people take their frustration out on the Tuesday Tax Man with the most difficult of barter to exchange.
He writes his collections in a huge ledger, tears off a receipt, and drags everything back to his truck before moving on.
We found his body the next day, silver bullet in his chest.
He wrote the receipt in his own blood.

The Dolls

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No matter how deep I dig, I keep bringing up buckets full of dolls.
I knew that my dog steals them from neighborhood kids to bury in the back yard, but I never knew how many until I had to put in new flowers.
There’s hundreds… thousands in here.
There’s no way my dog did all of this. It’s just too many, and way too deep.
As I go back down, two dolls fall on my head.
I look up.
It’s my dog… and another dog.
He’s teaching others.
A howl. More dogs come.
Dirt rains down.
They’re burying me!

Cheap Knives

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You can tell the class of friends you have by the quality of knife they stick in your back.
Sterling silver is the best. Those are the ones you forgive.
Stainless steel, maybe you don’t forgive them so quickly.
And plastic knives, those you should have never been friendly with in the first place.
The kind of knife matters, too.
A carving knife or a butcher’s knife lets you know they really care, while a butter knife will just slide right off no matter what it’s made of.
So that spork you stuck in my back, that’s low, man. Low.

The Brass Medusa

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I love statues.
But I always wonder about how they’re posed.
Usually, they’re just standing there, looking pompous or proud.
Or they’re on a horse. A leg or two up.
Sometimes, I envision the ancient Medusa, slithering around the early American colonies, staring at famous Founding Fathers and her gaze transforming them into brass.
Then I realize that they’d have their hands up, faces frozen in fright.
If I ever get famous to the point of earning a statue in my honor, that’s how I want to be depicted: like something horrible and scary turned me to brass or stone.

Get Out Of Bed!

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For some people, it’s the alarm clock.
For others, it’s getting licked on the face by their dog or cat.
What gets me out of bed, well, that’s kind of a moot point.
I never get out of bed.
Ever since the drunk driver hit me, I’ve been here.
The tubes, wires, and nurses do everything for me.
And when they can’t, well, they put me under and cut more stuff off or stick in more tubes and wires.
The brown tube there, well, that pumps out my shit.
Probably to the kitchen, based on how this damn porridge tastes.

Beehive

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Flossie has a beehive hairdo.
It’s got actual bees in it, too.
Whenever she needs honey, she fogs her head with a smoker, waits a minute, and then pulls out a honeycomb to scrape.
Then she sticks it back in her hair and walks around until the smoke clears.
The bees wake up, and all is back to normal.
How does she wash her hair?
How does she sleep?
How does she have sex?
Yeah, try myself, but I’m not beating that hornet’s nest?
No. Really. There’s a hornet’s nest down there.
Not even with a beekeeper’s gimp suit, man.

Meat Pie

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“Sweeney Todd will give you a close shave, and Mrs. Lovett will make you into a wonderful meat pie.”
I read the poster twice.
And smiled.
So, I hobbled into the barber shop and happily shouted “I’m really to be murdered and turned into a meat pie!”
Todd looked me over, ran a hand across my chin, and smirked.
“You won’t do at all,” he said, and told me to leave.
Mrs. Lovett was just as dismissive.
“I just chop up what Sweeney sends me,” she said. “No special orders.”
In the end, she did sell me a meat pie.

Arrows

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All of the members of the tribe are expert archers.
Except one.
No matter how much he practices, he misses. Or he breaks the string on his bow.
He falls off of his horse a lot.
Don’t stand behind him when he’s got his tomahawk. His grip’s much too loose.
When asked to scalp an enemy, he merely takes a little bit off of the top and gives an excellent shave.
In fact, he’s got a business on the side. A barber shop in the white man’s settlement.
As for the gambling tables in back, well, that’ll never catch on.

Turtles

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It’s okay to hate on turtles.
Turtles are smug, patient little reptiles that plod along stream beds and aquarium tanks, completely without worry or concern for the stresses of modern, civilized life.
Plus, there was the time that I went to court to protest a parking ticket.
The jury consisted of twelve turtles.
I protested, demanding a jury of my peers, but the judge waved me off.
“We’ve been having problems with people showing up for jury duty,” said the judge. “So now, we go to the pet store and grab turtles.”
I guess kittens are too expensive.
Damn turtles.

Piano on the bus

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When I was little, I played the cello.
It was too big for me to carry, so I switched to the violin.
When I got older, I tried to play the piano.
The piano is not very easy to carry, but that was not one of my selection criteria.
Besides, the piano has wheels. You can roll it places.
Just don’t try to take it on a city bus.
Sure, an upright piano can fit in the doors, but they won’t let you roll it on.
Even with the wheelchair ramp.
So that’s why I have this iPod.
Wanna listen?