Category: My stories

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #88

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Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition.
No visitor to the White House left without being asked of their ambition by Abraham Lincoln.
He thought he’d heard them all, until one child said he wanted to be an astronaut.
“What’s that?” asked Abe.
“I want to explore space!” said the child.
“That’s very peculiar,” said Abe. “How will you get there?”
“With a ladder,” said the child.
Abe put the child to work lighting gas lamps and changing candles.
“How’s space today?” he’d ask and laugh.
The child cried and scraped a candle nub out of the chandelier.

Deathface

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The law says three days.
The machines can do five.
With modifications, seven.
That’s how long Spencer wants.
He’s got Deathface. Sunken eyes and cheeks, grey skin, eyebrows gone, raspy breathing.
The law says not to send a Deathface down. Notify the police if one comes to your Coma Center. Or if someone asks for a week.
It can’t be called an accident because the wastebag has to be changed and the
morphine refilled. The inspectors will know.
No, I say. I can do five. Not seven.
Spence left and I never saw him again.
Nobody saw him. Just vanished.

Felver Rate

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The government reports appear on my desk on the third Tuesday every month.
It is my job to inspect them for investment opportunities or legal loopholes.
Every month, a new statistic appears. This month I noticed a label called Felver Rate.
There was no explanation or formula. Just a graph showing a slow decline over time.
Is this a good thing, like unemployment, or is it a bad thing, like graduation rates?
I call the author… Dr. Daniel Felver, but I got a recording.
He’s at a Weight Watchers meeting.
I look at the graph… Those numbers could be pounds.

Roadkill

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Usually, we see dead possums and armadillos by the side of the road, but this was the first time I’ve seen a panda.
Turning it over with my shovel, sure enough, it was a panda.
Big bastard. I couldn’t lift it. So, I had to call for help.
The county cut back to one-man crews a few months back to save on costs.
Instead of jabbering in the truck cab, we jabber over the two-way.
Joe pulled up, and looked at it.
“Can you eat panda?” he asked.
“Let’s find out,” I said, and we loaded it into the truck.

The Cloud Whisperer

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He lays back in a field, guiding the clouds across the sky.
The Cloud Whisperer rules the heavens by sheer willpower.
The clouds are happy to do his bidding. It delights them to float where he asks.
He hardly notices the roar of the crowd around him, the players in their helmets and pads.
This championship needs to be played. the rain needs to stop for just a few hours.
“Please,” he says to the sky.
The clouds shift slowly, rising and thinning.
The game will be played.
“Thank you,” says the mayor. “Now get your clothes back on, Bill.”

Elevator

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The elevator doors open and I step in.
The doors close.
Usually, it’s a smooth ride. And very peaceful.
But I can hear breathing.
Loud, heavy breathing. Raspy. Angry.
I don’t want to look… I watch the numbers.
More breathing.
It’s starting to scare me.
The numbers go up… and up… and up…
The breathing is unbearable.
The elevator stops and the doors open.
I run out of the elevator and watch the doors close, sealing the breathing in once again.
Hopefully, they’ll switch the tape back to the elevator music. This Halloween loop tape is really creeping me out.

The Ducks

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When I was little, we would go to the Volkswagen offices and feed the swans at the pond.
We’d take a lot of white bread to the pond and crumble it up and toss it in the water.
It would float until a swan would swim over to it and gobble it up.
Repeat that for a half an hour, with occasional swans swimming around each other trying to get the bread.
No fights, though. They all worked it out somehow in swan-talk.
My brother and I, though, we fought like hell for the last of the bread to throw.

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #87

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Senator Douglas walked the streets, laughing and rubbing his hands.
“What’s so funny?” asked a farmer.
“Your president is a cannibal!” said Douglas, and he laughed himself silly.
“That’s a lie!” said the farmer, but Douglas was gone, telling some other person the same lie.
Ten thousand times that day, Douglas lied.
The next day, when people accused him of lying, Douglas denied it and held a bloody stump out of his sleeve. “Lincoln tried to eat me!”
Well, Lincoln did try to eat Douglas, but even the slimy Douglas had his pride and wouldn’t show what he’d bitten off.

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #86

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Lincoln assembled his generals and announced: “I have given you carte blanche, you must use your own judgment and do the best you can.”
He also told that to the landscapers.
The next day, Lincoln awoke to a magnificent garden of flowers, trees, paths, and fountains on the White House grounds.
“This is truly splendid,” said Abe. “But where did the field hospital go that was here?”
“We’ve gotten those bums out of their cots and down to the quarry, mining granite for your pyramid,” said a landscaper.
Lincoln laughed. He’d look splendid, wrapped in linen and decorated in gold.

Caution

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Caution was her name, taken from the yellow tape across the door of the abandoned nursery they found her in.
You would think someone would realize the tape was there as a warning, But most folks are soft-hearted and assume all babies are safe.
This one certainly isn’t Whoever left her there, hoped she’d die.
She didn’t.
The rescuers naming the baby Caution, well, that takes a special kind of stupid.
Stupid makes for easy mind control.
Caution giggles and points to the roof.
“Jump!” she squeals.
We all giggle along and climb out the window. This will be fun!