Category: My stories

Reunion

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I hate dealing with organizing the high school reunions, but as the last classmate corporeal in his original form, I’m stuck with the job.
Rachel’s reincarnated as a squirrel. You know what catching those is like.
Eddie’s a stockbroker now. Hates to get away from the city.
Arthur’s had a lot of bad luck spirit-wise. Lots and lots of mayflies.
One by one, I go down the checklist, and I eventually get a set of addresses for invitations and field teams to pick up specimens.
They’ll joke that I’ve lost weight since college.
Thankfully, disembodied brains in jars can’t blush.

Cruise Ship

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The cruise ship White Diamond has a severe engine misalignment, and it wobbles in timespace.
On its last voyage past Cuba, it wobbled slightly and smashed into its duplicate in a parallel dimension.
Counting survivors, casualties, and the missing isn’t easy when life rafts and bodies float between worlds.
Customs wants to make “twinned” survivors fill out Entry Forms.
Apparently, some nutball in Congress got taxing dimension-travelers attached to a bill a while back, and it got approved.
Problem is, we can’t tell who is a native and who is a twin.
“It’s government,” grumble the captains. “Tax them all.”

Calendar

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Every morning in the lobby of my building, there’s always the same crazy man wandering around, asking what day it is.
Sure, I could tell him, but instead of that, I hand him a cheap, giveaway pocket calendar.
I don’t remember where I got this one, but I don’t need it, so I’m giving it to the crazy man.
“Here you go,” I said. “Now you can look up what day it is whenever you want.”
He looks at it, flips through the pages, and scowls.
“Does it say what day it is?” he asks.
He’s right. It doesn’t.
Weird.

Magical Night

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Another Wednesday evening, and I’m out in the garage.
In the moonlight, everything looks magical.
Even this ordinary screwdriver looks magical.
So, I wave it like a magic wand and say ABRACADABRA!
Nothing happens.
Not that I expected anything to happen.
After all, stage magicians tend to use those black rods with white tips… or they use twisted wooden sticks as magic wands.
You never see a stage magician pull out a Craftsman Phillips-head and pull a rabbit out of his Caterpillar ball cap.
I snap my fingers and the screwdriver disappears.
Oh, don’t applaud – I really needed a flathead.

War

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Let’s have a war.
We’ll draw maps and set borders.
We’ll make flags and compose anthems.
We’ll dress our friends in uniforms and march them around in parades.
Then we’ll tell them to fight each other. Fight to win!
Some will die.
Others will survive their wounds. We’ll give them medals.
Many will be hurt in ways nobody can see. We’ll ignore them.
Then we’ll end the war and make peace.
We’ll be friends again, working together in harmony.
It’ll bring us closer together.
So that we can have another war.
Come on, it’ll be fun.
What do you say?

Bagel

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I put the sliced bagel in the toaster and I thought for a bit… what do I want on it when it’s ready?
This is very important to me. This is how I’m starting my day, you know.
Grape jelly?
Butter?
Cream cheese, onions, and nova?
No, it’s Monday, and that’s Hummus Day.
I look in the refrigerator and I see the jelly, butter, and cream cheese.
But no hummus.
I forgot to buy some at the store.
Sure, it was on my shopping list, but I forgot to get it.
The toaster pops.
The bagel’s ready, but I’m not.

Celloboe

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When I was young, I played the cello.
I was great.
Then, as I grew older, I played the oboe.
I stopped playing music for a while, but I decided at one point I’d take it back up again.
My old oboe and cello were in storage, but they’d been damaged from the years of neglect and abuse.
So, I tried to fix them in my workshop, and I ended up with a celloboe.
Sitting down, I took a deep breath, drew back the bow, and tried to play it.
Bad idea.
I get out of the hospital next week.

Squirrel Gun, Hunting Dog

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I was in the park, watching a guy walk his dog, little puffs of grass and dirt kicking up all around them.
That’s when I saw the squirrel with the sniper rifle up in the tree next to me, nestled among the waving branches.
“You’ve got to compensate for the wind,” I told him.
The squirrel chittered, adjusted his sights, and fired a few more rounds.
POW! POW! POW!
The dog dropped first, then the man spun around into a hedge.
I heard something, and at my feet was that sniper rifle.
And that’s the God’s honest truth, Your Honor.

Blindfold

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Someone glued a blindfold over my face while I was sleeping last night.
Looking back, I’m surprised that I didn’t panic.
I use my cell phone as my alarm clock, so I reached for it, thumbed it off, and calmly dialed 911.
Waiting for the ambulance to arrive, I breathe slowly and meditate.
It’s rather calming, really, rediscovering everything in the darkness.
You know, when they get here, I may ask them to turn around and go back. Come back in a few hours, maybe tomorrow.
If at all.
My eyes are closed, and I feel fine.
Time to explore.

Piano Man

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I was sitting at a San Francisco sidewalk cafe, minding my own business, when a large herd of grand pianos slowly rolled along the street.
“Did they fall out of a truck?” the waiter asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” I said. “They’re all going uphill.”
The pianos, paying no attention to our comments, continued their slow, rumbling roll up the hill and out of sight.
“Hey, maybe we should tell someone?” said the waiter. “They might cause an accident or something.”
“You’re right,” I said, pulling out a cell phone. “They completely ran that red light.”