Category: My stories

Drool

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Thor’s Drool, you say?
That’s not easy to come by. It’ll cost you.
Sure, Thor the Thunder God’s gone senile, not enough worshipers to get a bed in the Old Gods’ Home, but he’s still plenty dangerous when he’s lucid.
Eyes like burning ice, full beard with fresh war ribbons is how I like to remember him.
Now, he’s just a grimy angry old wretch living in a cave.
Hrm… let’s see…
I’ll send Rodney out to collect the drool for you. “Lucky Rod” I call him, but more like “Lightning Rod” when Thor’s aim is good.
Cash or charge?

The Last Time

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The last time I saw her, she was dancing in the middle of the street.
It wasn’t safe there, with all the traffic, but she was enthralled with some tune or poem in her head, and she just raised her arms in the air and turned like she was fending off really slow bees.
A scream pierces the air. But it’s not her, she hasn’t been hit yet.
They’re screaming for her to get out of the street. People on the sidewalks are doing that, too.
Nobody runs out to grab her. The traffic’s too thick. They just keep yelling.

Strippers

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Old Joe was a funny man, great to be around.
Every night, he’d shuffle from strip club to strip club, peeling off five-dollar bills from a roll as thick as a cabbage.
I don’t know how long he’d been doing this, but that roll never ran out. Not to his dying day.
At his funeral, the place was packed wall-to-wall with strippers, and by the end of the service, the floor was a sea of veils and black dresses.
One final party.
There in the center, old Joe, smiling in his coffin, gripping that bundle of fives.

Hand Of Revenge

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A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, the old saying goes.
In the silvery moonlight, a severed hand crawls its way through the forest.
It’s been crawling for a while, because it’s all tangled up in vines and dead leaves. Completely covered in dirt.
Don’t ask how it performs this hideous task. To learn of the magic spells that impel this hand is to earn oneself eternal damnation.
Just stay back, let the hand pass, and know that whomever it is seeking will suffer great pain.
But not as much as the one-handed wretch who sent it out, seeking revenge.

Bag Of Hair

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Vanity can be such a drag.
The problem I’m facing is… my hair is turning grey and falling out.
All things considered, I’d rather have it turn grey than fall out.
I mean, hair that’s still on your head you can color. Then you’re going around with colored hair.
Hair that falls out is a lot harder to color. Still, I collect it all up out of the shower trap and sink and color it every evening.
If people ask me if I’m going grey, I take out the plastic bag full of hair and scream NO I AM NOT.

Angels Blush

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At first, my picture was up in the Post Office. Then, they took it down.
“Racy,” they called it. “Too damn sexy.”
I have done things in the line at the Post Office that could make angels blush and The Devil bite his lip.
They got rid of the stamps you lick because of me. How I’d lick a stamp, postal carriers fainted by the dozens.
Calling my actions sinful and “moral cancer,” the Postmaster General declared war on me, and stamps became stickers that weekend.
Don’t ask me where I stick mine. You couldn’t handle the thought of it.

Peek A Boo

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I have found another portal into a parallel universe.
Unlike the others, it’s to a universe where my daughter is still alive.
At first, I thought to bring my daughter here, but I don’t think I can explain how she survived a fatal car crash three years ago.
I could go there, but I’d have to take my parallel-self’s place. Not an easy thing to do when there’s been three years of experience to learn?
Perhaps I can peek in there and maybe watch her grow up. There’s no harm in that, right?
I won’t change anything. Nothing at all.

The Flying Banjoman

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We found the battered boat adrift off the coast of Nantucket.
Ragged body parts all over the deck, eventually we accounted for all the passengers, minus the pieces the seagulls dragged off.
Right there, jammed in the wheel, was a blood-soaked banjo.
“The uneasy spirit still roams the fog,” muttered the old harbormaster.
He reaches for the banjo and throws it back in the water.
“That’s evidence!” I shouted.
The harbormaster gave me a stare that drilled right into my bones.
“That’s what the last detective tried to tell me,” he said, and he pointed to… a severed lawman’s head.

Broke

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“Broke my parole by coming here,” said the old felon at the bar.
I served him another beer. Here, man needs a drink, man gets a drink.
Broke every string on my banjo.
Broke every heart in Arkansas.
Broke every finger on my hand.
Broke every law across the land.
Broke every record set before.
Broke every chain across the door.
Broke every mirror in the bar.
Broke every bank, but lost my car.
Broke every story in the news.
Broke every shoestring on my shoes.
Broke every code that hid your data.
Broke every promise, I’ll see you later.

The Planet’s Gotta Go

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Paradise Beta is going to be demolished tomorrow.
And that’s too bad, because Paradise Alpha and Paradise Beta were a cool binary planet arrangement.
Sadly, the Beta folks built what they thought was a new kind of generator, but it ended up messing with their angular momentum.
Their orbit’s changed significantly, someone did a few calculations, and found that in less than a year, they’d collide with Alpha.
Neither Beta nor Alpha liked that, so we’ve moved everyone on over to Alpha.
When Beta blows, it’ll atomize without making the star go nova.
Want to pull the trigger?
Go ahead.