Category: My stories

Blind Man’s Wallet

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Joe has been blind since birth, but he keeps photos in his wallet.
We ask him who they are of.
His wife. His daughter. His parents.
He opens up the wallet to show us.
All three are beautiful, almost-perfect.
They are the photos that came with the wallet.
We know they are fakes, but does he know they’re fakes?
And does he know that we know they are fakes?
We play along.
Or is he playing along with us?
Does he really have a kid? Is he really married?
He’s got the ring, but then… the photos.
What’s the truth?

I Killed The Moon

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Look at this knife.
This knife is mine.
I threw it at the moon.
And killed it.
Its blood raining down.
Dead.
Police station.
Jail. Behind bars.
Arrested for murder.
Other cells hold drunks. Hookers. Thieves.
I am the only murderer.
“Why did you do it?” asks the cop.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I had a knife. It was there. It followed me home.”
This angers him.
“Why did you do it?” he shouts.
I really don’t know. All I know, is that I killed the moon.
Every night, my victim up there in the sky.
Still following me.

Fresh Thursday

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What do you mean you’re having a bad Thursday?
Thursdays don’t spoil.
I pick my Thursdays fresh from the vine and gently place them in the basket.
So ripe and delicious they are, I can hardly believe they’re gone by Friday.
I wake up, rub the Thursday from my eyes.
Oh, why can’t every day be a fresh Thursday, picked from the vine?
Mondays… Wednesdays… not for me.
This man in the alley offered me Thursday pills. Ground up from dried Thursdays.
No. Fresh Thursdays or nothing! I deserve the best!
Today, my friend, I take a long, slow bite!

The Labels

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Something strange happened last night.
All of the labels on the cans in the pantry vanished.
I don’t know how or why. It just happened.
Now, I have no idea what’s in these cans.
Well, okay, maybe the tomato paste is easy to identify. They’re small and thin.
Soup cans are all the same. I never buy soup that I don’t like, so I can just grab any can shaped like that.
The rest are canned fruit. I should eat more of that.
Every can I will open will be a new mystery solved.
This is going to be fun.

Shoelaces

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Damn. I broke a shoelace.
So let’s go out to the woods and look for a replacement.
They drop from the tree branches and slither on the ground, looking for a spot to burrow a hole.
You catch a few, check their sizes and colors, and then hope to find just the right one.
Grab each end and pull tightly to snap their spines.
That’s how a shoelaces go all soft and limp.
Nobody wants a living, writhing shoelace in their shoe.
Don’t try to keep one as a pet. They just sit there in the bottle and wither away.

The Birds

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The trees are filled with so many birds.
Black as the night, silent and watching.
They only move their heads to follow us.
I’ve never seen them fly.
For as long as I have watched them, not a single one has left or arrived.
Just turning their heads without a sound.
I haven’t seen any other kinds of birds around since they arrived.
I haven’t heard any, either.
Where have they all gone?
Where did these birds come from?
Nobody knows.
We watch them in shifts now, and nobody’s seen any changes.
Just staring at us.
And we stare back.

Weekends

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When I was young, time crawled.
Now that I’m older, and the schoolweek is now the workweek, things feel a whole lot faster.
And it’s a good thing that the workweek goes by so fast. So much crap I just want to just get through.
It’s the weekends that matter to me. I live for the moment I can walk out that door and I’m free until Monday morning.
The problem is, if the week goes by fast, then the weekends go by even faster.
Sadly, Friday to Monday is a lot shorter than Monday to Friday.
When’s retirement again?

Helpful

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All our company’s technical support is moving to India.
It’s not because they are cheap workers.
It’s because they really like to help others.
Boatloads of them show up at our ports, asking if they can help with anything.
We send them back, and they offer to help with that, too.
“We’ll call you if we need any help,” we say.
They waited for the call, but we never did.
So, they started to help themselves.
These days, they’re the ones turning back boatloads of our people.
“We offered to help,” they say. “But we think you’re beyond help now.”

Training

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Instead of getting laid off, we’re being repurposed.
Today’s training session is for turning us into plants.
The trainer goes from seat to seat, jabbing us in the foot with a nutrient spike and then tipping a watering can over our heads.
One guy is being prepared for lawn duty, so they’re dowsing him with a hose outside.
Unlucky bastard.
I don’t like getting hosed down on a regular basis, but it’s a good promotion from what they had me doing before.
You can only take so much shit heaped on you, even if you’re supposed to be a mushroom.

The Talking Kid

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We love our kid.
How can we not? He’s our kid.
One disappointment with him, though. Our boy didn’t start talking until he was four.
But when he started, he just couldn’t shut up.
He talks all the time.
During meals.
In the bath.
In the preschool.
And even in his sleep.
Some of it makes sense, but the vast majority of what comes from his mouth is nonsensical babble.
So, we give him gum to chew. When he chews gum, he can’t talk.
He blows bubbles now. Popping all the time.
But it’s not as annoying as the babble.