Category: My stories

Store

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In the middle of the afternoon storm, a man came into my store wanting cigarettes.
“This is a smoke-free town,” I said. “We don’t have cigarettes.”
So, he asked for some beef jerky.
“Meat-free town too. We’re all vegetarians.”
“Beer?”
“No alcohol at all,” I said. “We’re a dry county.”
Everything he asked for, we’d given up or made illegal.
“Is there anything for sale here?” he asked.
I was about to answer him, but by then the sheriff had arrived.
The silent alarm under the counter worked beautifully.
The man left, grumbling angrily.
The sheriff arrested him for swearing.

Alphabet Soup

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My daughter loves it when I make her alphabet soup.
But every now and then, she complains that a letter is backwards or upside-down.
“Just turn the damn bowl,” I say. “It all tastes the same.”
No, she won’t. She will stare at it and whine loudly.
“There is nothing wrong with this soup,” I say, and I eat a spoon of it. “See?”
She still won’t eat it.
I offer to make her a different soup, but she wants alphabet soup.
I blindfold her and slide the bowl in front of her.
Shut up and eat it, or starve!

Invulnerable

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Lord Bragdor’s armor stands in the Hall Of Heroes, as shiny as the day he was speared through the face in a jousting tournament.
“It was enchanted with an invulnerability spell,” said the Hall’s custodian, The Blue Wizard. “But, his visor was loose and his opponent very lucky.”
“Wouldn’t the lance have been knocked aside by the spell?” asked his apprentice Morstrawl.
“If the invulnerability had been meant for Lord Bragdor, yes,” said Blue. “But due to my misreading the spellbook, it was the armor that was invulnerable.”
The apprentice nodded, realizing why he had never had to polish it.

Silenced

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Behold, the Great Magician Mysterio!
“With a snap of my fingers, you are silenced,” said the man in the bright red cloak.
And he did. He took off a red glove and held his hand in front of my nose.
Snap
“Go ahead,” he said. “Say something.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said: “Elephant.”
“Did you say something?” he mocked. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
He danced around me, snapping his fingers in my face. And then, he stopped.
He snapped his fingers a few times, and then right by his ear.
“I am deaf!” he shouted.

Thud

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Ricky had been shouting about sparkly unicorns and butterflies before his eyes crossed and he dropped like a stone.
For the next thirty years, we’d visit him in the hospital.
The nurses always cleaned him up nicely before visits.
We’d hold his hand, tell him that we missed him, and then ask him what he meant by unicorns and butterflies.
He never did wake up.
One day, we came to visit, and he wasn’t there.
Someone else was there.
So we started visiting them.
To tell you the truth, we liked them better than Ricky.
Ricky was such an asshole.

Tunnel

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I’ve been walking for hours, but I haven’t found the end of this tunnel.
The walls get narrow, then they get wide.
There’s some phosphorescent rocks and moss down here.
I can make my way around without being totally blind.
The floor’s slippery. I have to walk slowly or I’ll fall.
This map doesn’t say how far I need to go. It’s torn, and part of it is missing.
The part I’m in.
I have no idea where I am going, I should keep going until I find a way out.
Or, I could stay down here.
Maybe next time.

Volcano

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The tribal chief was perplexed by the crop failures and dwindling animal stocks.
“The only thing we have that’s worth anything is the volcano,” he said.
“Hey, let’s try sacrificing things in it,” I suggested.
Everybody agreed.
We started to sacrifice virgins in the volcano, but it turned out that the moment a virgin was selected, she’d bang the chief’s son.
So, we changed to animal sacrifices. Those, the chief’s son would steal from the offering pen to make a feast for all his girlfriends.
In the end, we sacrificed the chief’s son.
Kicking and screamed all the way down.

Foil

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Happy birthday, Oliver. Here’s your present.
What?
Oh, I never buy gift wrapping paper.
Instead, I use tinfoil.
It’s bright and shiny. And it’s actually cheaper than wrapping paper when you think about it.
Especially if you give out small presents and not all that often.
Instead of having wrapping paper for every occasional and holiday, the tinfoil serves all purposes.
Plus, when they unwrap their presents, they can wrap food in it and put it in the freezer.
Let’s see you try to do that with wrapping paper.
What? You did?
No wonder why these steaks are badly freezer-burned.

The Black Spot

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I dropped a can of root beer on my foot.
When I took off the shoe and sock, the middle toe was dark red.
No blood, just bruised.
A day later, the swelling went down.
But there was a black spot on the nail.
Over the past month, it’s been slowly growing out.
In another month or two, it will be at the edge, and I can clip it off.
As if it were never there.
All the while, the spot tells me to save it.
“Please cut off your toe,” it begs.
Every day, it gets louder. Desperate. Angrier.

Straight Up

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If you ask a robot where home is, it usually points to its recharging station.
So when the Andersons’ new service droid pointed straight up, I assumed that it meant the attic.
After the survey of Oak Falls was complete, no other robot in my survey had an attic charging station.
Return to Washington?
No. Not yet.
I went back to the Andersons’ house and asked the robot again, but while we were outside.
It pointed up again.
That’s when the lights appeared in the sky.
“Where is home?” The robot asked.
It seems we have our profession in common.