Category: My stories

The Elders

639160

The tribal elders are angry.
Schools, telephones, roads, Internet.
All are broken, slow, outdated.
The Bureau ignores them. The utility representatives ignore them.
“No budget. Go away.”
So, they come up with a plan.
They follow bureau chiefs and utility executives on their vacations.
They perform rain dances and ruin the vacations.
No helicopter tours. No skiing. No scuba diving. No sight-seeing.
Just restaurants, museums, and the hotels.
They are still ignored.
So, they dance harder. Angrier.
Lightning storms and a hurricane come.
The surviving chiefs and executives yield.
Schools, cell towers, roads are all built.
The elders smile.

Ten Eggs

639158

I watched the eggs in the incubator hatch.
Ten slimy, wobbly chicks drying off in the heat of the lamps.
They preen, standing on wood shavings.
Not yet eating, drinking. Probably tomorrow.
We’ll move them over to the other box when they’re ready.
Until then, there’s one last egg in the incubator.
It’s glowing green.
The chicks avoid it, preening and peeping on the other side of the incubator.
Wait. There’s only eight of them.
Weren’t there ten before?
The green egg glows brighter.
Maybe we won’t move them out to the other box.
Or open the incubator at all.

Eight Nights

639162

On the second night of Hanukkah, the rabbis were desperate.
“This re-dedication will fail,” one said. “The consecrated oil will not last another night.”
“What do we have plenty of?” said another rabbi.
They found wine. Lots of it.
“Drink!” they shouted. “Everybody take a bottle and drink yourselves stiff!”
And so, everyone drank and drunk. They drank until they passed out.
The rabbis refilled the lamps with some non-holy oil while everyone slept it off.
“Boy, did you guys party last night!” said the rabbis. “Ready to light up again?”
The real miracle was: the wine lasted eight days.

Gadgets

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The gadgets you buy today will be the junk of tomorrow.
So why not buy junk now and just be a bit behind the curve?
It’s cheaper, less stressful, and you know the things will be tried-and-tested as opposed to the buggy releases available at the bleeding edge.
The guy that I got my secondhand artificial heart from was buying a newer, fancier model. He thought it would be more reliable.
It glitched while he was in an elevator. By the time they got him to the hospital, he was dead.
While his former heart keeps on ticking in me.

Talking To Candy

639166

It’s the holiday season, and I am busy as a bee.
I work in a chocolate shop, and there’s no busier time than Christmas.
You’d think it would be Valentine’s Day.
No.
Just before I wrap each of these chocolate-dipped apples and hand-rolled jellies into their packaging, I whisper a message for each to announce as they are unwrapped.
“Your teeth will all rot out,” I say. “You will get fat and then suffer from diabetes.”
Then I close the foil and cellophane over the treat, affix a label, and add it to the completed batch in the shop window.

Santa’s Menorah

639165

The elves wanted to explore diversity and different cultures, so Santa bought a menorah and lit the candles.
“Aren’t you supposed to sing something?” asked Blitzen.
“Shit if I know,” said Santa. “This writing looks like an army of chocolate-covered ants fucking.”
Santa put all nine candles in, the elves sang Christmas carols, and they all went back to work.
“Do you smell smoke?” said Twinkletoes.
Sure enough, the workshop was on fire.
The flames spread to the reindeer barn, the elf dormitory, and Santa’s house.
“Everybody gets wood burning kits,” declared Santa.
And they all froze their asses off.

Wigs

639154

I know a man who flips people’s wigs.
Figuratively and literally.
It’s not easy to do these days, considering the complexity of hair weaves and the strength of organic glues, but he’s had a lot of practice and never fails to cause sufficient stupefaction and hairpiece inversion.
Sy Sperling, the hairpiece magnate, and the wig-flipping man are arch-rivals. When Sy creates an unflappable wig, the man stays up nights working out how to flip it.
And he does.
Upon hearing of his latest failure, sure enough, Sy feels a brief rush of air on his scalp.
He’s flipped his wig!

Gift Basket

639161

My wife is making the cats a gift basket.
The gifts include treats, new collars, and catnip.
A few toys, too. As if they don’t have enough toys already.
There’s also a lot of colored tissue paper that the cats will like to play around in.
Despite the fact that the basket is on a high shelf, the kitten’s managed to find a way up there and inside the basket.
Based on how much of a pest she is to the other two cats, I don’t think she’s trying to say she’s a gift to them.
We need more catnip.

Cookies

639157

My mom always made the best cookies. I have recipes, but it’s not the same.
It was so hard to resist them. They never lasted long.
When she made plates of them for others, she had to hide them, or wrap them with several layers of foil and plastic to keep the rest of us out.
She put a plate on the front bench to take to the neighbors, but the next morning all that was left was the plate.
No foil, no plastic, no cookies.
The dog had eaten them all.
Or, at least, that’s what we told her.

Regifting

639159

Santa slides down the chimney, opens his sack, and puts the presents under the tree.
Then he picks up the presents sitting by the fireplace and stuffs those into his sack.
Back up the chimney, into the sleigh, and the helper-elf double-checks the inventory and flight plans.
“I know that business is bad, Boss, but did you have to add regifting to your services?” asked Twinky.
“Shut up,” said Santa, watching the GPS flash a new destination. The time display next to it flashes an unjolly red. “Fucking eBay.”
He cracks his whip, and the eight miserable reindeer take flight.