Category: My stories

The Violent Pizza

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My friend Mikey is one of those political vegans. He orders what he calls non-violent foods, made from healthy ingredients that don”t come from exploiting farm animals.
Today, he’s at a bistro ordering a “non-violent pizza” with garlic, tomatoes, broccoli, and soy cheese.
But the chef has other, sinister plans. He puts on his rubber gloves, reaches for the glowing tubs of shredded meat, and constructs… The Violent Pizza!
In a matter of minutes, a horrifying, angry pizza-creature will burst from the brick oven.
Terrified patrons will scatter and flee.
Mikey, however, will smile and calmly ask for a salad.

Toaster Affair

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She’s been buying a lot of bread lately.
Two, three loaves a week.
Then, this week, ten. And the week’s not over yet.
Know what I think? I think she”s having an affair with the toaster.
Not that I blame her. It”s a really, really nice toaster.
Shiny, too.
It’s got a lifetime warranty, but with all the bread she’s running through the poor thing, she’s burning it up.
I watch her pull out the crumb catcher tray and pour it out in the trash.
The way she puts it back “slowly”
At least it’s not the smoke alarm anymore.

Electro the Magnificent

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Electro the Magnificent ran everything for almost a thousand years.
Every decision was made by this amazing and powerful electronic brain.
Even Electro’s critics found it to be perfectly capable of responding to all problems with a fair solution.
Over the centuries, humans tried to revere Electro as a god, but Electro guided people away from treating it like a cult figure.
At the end of a thousand years, there was peace, prosperity, and unity not only on Earth, but all human worlds.
Researchers stopped the model at that point.
“So, should we turn it on?” one asked.
Would you?

Back In The Day

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Back in the day, Batman would be all over Gotham City, battling villains, busting crooked capers, and solving crimes.
Then, one day, instead of coming up with an elaborate way to kill Batman that he could escape from, The Joker stabbed him in the heart with a knife.
After that, all the fun of being a bad guy just went away. They had nobody to match wits against anymore.
Most retired. But others, well…
Sad, really, watching The Riddler going around, taunting passers-by with “What have I got in my pockets?”
Oh well. Fun while it lasted, right, Mr. Kent?

Mouth of Money

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Wanna see something really cool?
Put a five dollar bill in Fred’s mouth, and he can spit out a hundred nickels.
No. Really. Try it.
The guy’s got himself a magical mouth or something.
Same goes for a dollar bill. He’ll spit out a hundred pennies.
What about a ten-spot? Sure, give it a try. He’ll spit out a hundred dimes.
If you need a hundred Susan B. Anthonies, put in a C-note.
Out come the shiny silver little dollars. Not that you can use them anywhere.
Don’t try it with a twenty, though. Don’t try it with a twenty.

Salad Life

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Before he made monsters, Dr. Frankenstein started with trying to bring salads to life.
At first, he thought that he needed different varieties of lettuce, but in the end he was thoroughly convinced that sliced radishes were the secret.
Time and time again, Igor would throw the switches, sending millions of volts of electricity through a tangled maze of wires and into the salad bowl.
Aside from an impressive shower of sparks, the salad never did come to life.
Today, salad dressing makers try to convince us they have the secret.
No, folks. It’s just a salad. Nothing fancy here.

Spider

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I’m watching a spider climb up the side of this fence.
This is fascinating.
It extends each leg, one by one, and pulls itself along.
It’s graceful, smooth – like walking your fingers up the board.
But with a spider. More legs.
For five minutes, I watch it, but it feels like an eternity. Like watching the sand run out of a gigantic hourglass kind of eternity.
When the spider reaches the top of the board, it slips around the edge and stands in the sun.
A bird swoops down and eats it.
For a moment, I stand there, just staring.

Cursed Town

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They say Westchester’s a cursed town. I wouldn’t know.
I was sent here to computerize the county’s record-keeping. Getting all those stacks of marriages, births, and deaths from the old ledgers to my laptop for processing down in Albany.
Three days in, The Town Hall burnt to the ground.
Here’s the weird part… everyone ever born in Westchester vanished like smoke. As if they’d never existed.
And everyone who ever died and got buried here, well, they weren’t dead anymore.
Not a problem for those not born. But the rest, well…
Damn Zombies make you wish you’d never been born.

Keep a little bit of fog

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Jackie keeps a little bit of fog in a jar on her kitchen shelf, and she watches it swirl around from time to time.
How she captured it in there, I don’t know, but I’m sure it wants out from the way it lashes against the glass.
“Don’t let it go,” she says. “It brings me good luck in here.”
She’s never burned anything in the oven, nor has any of her pots ever boiled over.
Without even trying, her pasta is perfect.
Still, I watch the fog, and wonder if it is suffering.
Oh well. It’s time for dinner.

Closing Windows

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Y’all may have been wondering why there wasn’t a story from Elisson this past Weekly challenge.
You know, looking back, the first person I called when Edloe died was Steve.
I wanted to let him know that the cat he’d gone on pilgrimage for to visit was…
It was amusing to watch Edloe’s reaction to a reverent stranger.
Food helped.
Never did get a chance to get to Atlanta to visit Matata.
Time’s about windows. They only look wide open for what feels like forever.
When they close, it”s too damn fast. That slamming shut jars me to the soul.