Category: My stories

Bottle

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Wanna hear something spooky?
I have an oversized novelty Coke bottle in my den. It’s been there for years, up on the shelf, gathering dust.
Last year, when I picked it up to dust it, it rattled.
There were a bunch of pennies in the bottle.
The thing is, it’s still had the bottlecap on it.
Sealed tight.
When I got it, it didn’t have any pennies in it.
Okay, last week, I dusted it again, and I swear, it had more pennies in there.
How are the pennies getting in there?
Who’s putting the pennies in there?
And why?

War of the Gods

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Corn Goddess and the Sky God make war by the ocean.
Wind blows over crops, the people suffer and starve.
Thunder God makes rain, lightning.
Our homes burn.
Coyote the Trickster gives us salt painted like seed.
Fields are ruined, Earth Goddess boils with rage.
We survivors surround the chief.
“Why do we worship these assholes?” asks Runs With Wolves.
The Chief slaps away a bottlefly, courtesy of Insect God.
“Dunno,” says the Chief, handing out brochures. “Let’s pick new religion.”
As we discuss and reason with each other, the chaos subsides.
Their power came from faith. Withheld, it wanes.

Breathing

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My bathrobe looks like it’s breathing.
Maybe it’s a trick of the light.
I woke up in the middle of the night, put on my bathrobe, puttered around a bit, pet the cat, and drank some milk.
Might as well go the the bathroom while I’m up, right?
I put my robe on the floor, take a seat, and after a few minutes, I’m looking at the robe… and… it’s breathing.
It even sounds like it’s breathing.
Or maybe I’m hearing myself breathe. It’s late, and the mind plays tricks on itself.
Maybe it’s the fan blowing.
The cat, perhaps?

Sunset

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It’s been a long day.
I’ve got my beer and my hat, sitting out in the back yard, listening to a whole lot of nothing, and waiting for the sun to set.
Waiting. And waiting.
Lemme check my watch…
It’s way past time for sunset.
And my beer is empty.
Time’s passed.
If the sun’s gonna take its time setting, well, I’m gonna enjoy it.
But just to check, I put my empty at the end of my lawn chair’s shadow.
If it hasn’t moved by the time I finish my other beer, well, I’ll call…
Who do I call?

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #85

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Abe finished the straw dummy, stripped off all his clothes, and started to dress the crudely-fashioned mannequin.
General Grant, laying with his back to a tree stump, took a pull from his flask. “What are you doing, Abe?”
“My mind is like a piece of steel,” Abe mumbled.
For the next hour, he poked and prodded at the stovepipe hat, never satisfied with the angle it rested on his simulacrum”s head.
“You can”t make him your Vice President, you know,” said General Grant.
Abe pouted and tore the wicked dummy apart.
But he never did bother to get dressed again.

Madman

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We drag the madman out of the basement and let him loose in the back yard.
The neighborhood kids squeal with joy and wave their butterfly nets.
“ONE! TWO! THREE!”
The madman hears the counting and remembers…
He needs to flee!
“NINE! TEN! ELEVEN!”
Over the fence he goes, and he”s loose in the streets. He jumps over hedges, paws at a car door, kicks over lawn ornaments…
EIGHTEEN! NINETEEN! TWENTY!
The kids swarm through the gate, laughing and cheering.
They catch the madman at a phone booth, trying to call Saturn.
Perhaps, next time, we’ll release two of them.

Smells

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There’s a chemical factory somewhere in New Jersey that can make any smell or taste you need.
Miles and miles of test tubes with lemon furniture polish, baked potato bubble gum, burning tire lip gloss.
Everything can smell or taste like anything else now.
In the labs below the basement, they mix the chemicals that can make any feeling that you need.
Here’s a test tube with Sadness.
Here’s another test tube with Joy.
Here’s yet another test tube with Fear.
Mix them up in the right combinations, and you can live out your greatest dreams.
Or your worst nightmares.

Telegraph

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Somewhere in the basement of the records office, I swear, you could hear clicking.
I dug around, opened up an old wooden crate, and found a telegraph key.
As I held it up to the light, looking for some kind or label, the switch clacked.
I nearly dropped it.
Maybe it just… you know…
It clacked again. And again.
Pretty soon, it was tapping a sequence. I put it on the crate’s lid, pulled out a notebook, and wrote it down.
I’m not good with Morse Code, but I swear it said: “Get me out of here.”
Where?
And who?

UFO

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Hubert was bored, so he picked up a camera and hucked a pie tin through the air to make a UFO photograph.
After sixteen reports to the FBI, they stopped taking his calls.
Later that month, gigantic pie tins floated down from the sky and landed in Hubert”s cornfield.
Hubert remembered The Boy Who Cried Wolf and realized he was completely and totally fucked.
Then, he remembered” he was the pie-eating champion of Bucktooth County ten years running.
Hubert ran towards the pie tins and… was blasted into smithereens by alien robots.
Come Fall, someone else will be pie-eating champion.

Garage Door

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Right after breakfast, when it’s time to go to school, Danny does this trick – he hits the garage door button and then watches the garage door go down and down and down…
When the time is just right, he runs for the garage door and rolls under it.
“Garage Door Limbo” he calls it.
One day, Danny’s principal calls his mom at work.
“Is Danny sick?” he asks.
His mom races back home, sees Danny trapped under the garage door.
Stone cold dead.
She weeps. If the garage door didn’t kill him, well, running him over finished him off.