Category: My stories

The Cheese

605017

Sister Hexx warns me that the cheese can be dangerous.
Lord, was she ever so right.
I opened the refrigerator door and reached for the cheese.
I had a cheese knife.
The cheese had a gun.
You know, my doctor had said that cheese was bad for me, but who listens to their doctor?
He said the same with red meat.
I look out the window, a slab of red meat behind the wheel of a Buick, circling the block.
The dent in the hood, the cracked windshield.
I was lucky, yes, but one day my luck will run out.

These Donuts

605019

I see a trail of mini-donuts leading into the woods.
They wind through the trees until they trail into a cave.
At first, I thought it was a trap set by a bear to lure people to their doom.
Then, I saw a caveman come out of the cave, picking up and devouring the donuts.
I follow the trail of donuts out of the woods, and it ends in Spain.
What the Spanish want with him, I’m not sure.
Thoroughly confused, I head to the donuts shop, where I am captured with a butterfly net and dragged into the back.

Nose hairs

605017

The chief of the Yil-Doi tribe lays on his buckskin stretcher, facing the stars with lifeless eyes.
His son takes his badge of office, a bag made of woven strings of brightly-colored beads, and places it on his belt.
“I am the new chief now,” he says. “You warned me that I would cry at your passing into the darkness, father, but I have not.”
He is immediately grabbed by two braves.
They place tweezers of antler bone into his nose, pluck out three hairs, and place them in the holy bag.
Tears and snot ran down his aching face.

Foot Fungus

605018

Dr. O’Grady had been seeing the patient for a decade, treating his chronic foot fungus as best as he could.
He never cured it, but it never progressed beyond those two toes, so that was something, right?
The coroner quietly ushered him into the morgue.
“He was your patient, so I thought it best that you see him,” he whispered.
“Why are we whispering?” asked O’Grady.
The coroner pulled up the sheet to reveal a roughly human-shaped glob of deep red fungus.
“I’m not sure he… it is dead,” said the coroner. “And I don’t want to wake it up.”

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.