Category: My stories

Are You Happy?

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There’s a strange machine in the break room.
It’s about six feet tall, shaped like a box. Solid black.
It says “Are you happy?” on it in big white letters.
There’s two buttons on it: YES and NO.
I pushed the YES button and nothing happened.
I pushed the NO button and nothing happened.
Then, I pushed both buttons at the same time.
A drawer popped open, and I took a small yellow pellet out.
Should I swallow it?
I’m not sure. I’ve thought about it, and I can’t decide.
Just like I can’t decide if I’m happy or not.

Kids Are Stupid

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I remember the kids in the schoolyard telling each other that if you toss a penny off of the Empire State Building, it could kill someone.
Kids are stupid.
You’ve got to drop a roll of pennies to take someone out.
I’d repeat the experiment, but I dropped my binoculars, so I can’t see if I’m hitting anyone or not.
Maybe they’ll tell me at the trial. If they take me alive, that is.
Looking down, I think the binoculars killed someone down there, too.
I wish I’d brought a parachute. Jumping from here would be cool.
I’ll jump anyway.

Taps

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It took years of practice, but Softshoe Kelly learned to encode secret messages in his tapdancing.
He started simple, but his skills soon gave him the ability to transmit complex messages without anybody suspecting a thing.
When he was captured by the enemy, they paraded him in front of a global television audience.
Softshoe Kelly performed his act, and cryptology experts determined that he’d been treated miserably but had quite a lot of information on their weak points.
With this information, the enemy was defeated, but Kelly was mortally wounded in the assault.
At his funeral, the military played Taps.

Mommy’s Home

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There’s a small orange fluffy cat curled up by the front door.
Two words. Two simple words can make such a difference.
He wants to hear them so badly.
He’s waiting for hours. Or has it been days?
He can’t remember when he last saw her.
It feels like forever.
He sniffs the carpet.
There’s a sound at the front door. He perks his ears up, listens.
Is it her?
No, it’s not her. Just some noise. Or someone else is home.
He sighs, curls back up, and goes back to sleep.
She’ll be home soon, Frisky. I promise you.

Birds and the Bees

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For parents who are uncomfortable teaching their kids about… well, you know… the church has tapes teaching in-home sex education.
Well, DVDs these days, but you get my drift. Just sit Little Susie in front of the monitor, hit “Play” and walk away.
The problem is, the pastor’s been known to download… well, unusual movies from the Internet – just for research.
But still, he’s been known to burn the wrong video to a disk.
Right now, Little Susie’s watching “Caged Bitches In Bondage.”
Boy, is she going to have questions. And she’s going to be really popular in high school.

The Final Book

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The line was curled around the block twice.
People were waiting in line for the book… the last book of the series they’ve been reading over the years.
Anybody who wasn’t in line, well, they’d barricaded themselves in their homes until they could get their own books… or borrow one from someone who had read through their early copy quickly.
They didn’t want any spoilers. They, just as much as the people in line, wanted the experience to be fresh.
What separated the two groups was a willingness to wait in long lines.
Who’s right? Who are the wiser ones?

Amazing Mice

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I was working on an animal behavior experiment, running mice through a maze, when I got a phone call.
So, I turned on the television and left the lab for a minute.
Okay, so it was five hours.
When I got back, I realized that I’d left the television tuned to a Christian gospel station.
I turned off the television, but it was too late.
Tiny voices, coming from the maze, started to sing:
“Amazing Mice, how squeak the sound,
That saved a hunk of cheese….
It once was lost but now is found,
Was hungry, but now, they eat.”

Ballet

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I walk out to the patio and sit in my chair by the fence.
The sun’s gone down, and the lights come on.
They are the footlights of a stage, the part of the fence that the umbrella hangs over, but the performer hasn’t been seen for a long time.
Her name’s been taken down from the marquee. The marquee remains blank – no act could follow her.
I close my eyes and remember how she danced, how she sang.
Bravissimo, I whisper, and I pull a kitty treat out of the foil pouch, placing it gently on the fencetop.
Bravissimo.

Two Robes

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If you did the same job since the beginning of time, you’d get bored, right?
That’s why The Grim Reaper and The Ferryman on The River Styx trade jobs once a year.
Ferryman reaps and the Reaper ferries souls.
So there I was, walking to work, and this figure in a black robe whacks me with a boat oar.
“Ouch!” I yell.
“Shit,” he growls. “Hold still.”
And he whacks me again.
Next thing I know, I’m standing on the shore of a river.
“Hello?” I yell.
Paddling a boat with a scythe has got to be a royal bitch.

Carnival of the Cats #173 – Dusty

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Once upon a time there was a magical castle.
The magical castle was full of dust. The dishes, the knights, their armor, the paintings and tapestries were dusty.
Even the king.
“Go out and fetch me a solution to all this dust!” yelled King Dusty.
So they searched for a solution, and they found a fluffy orange cat.
And the cat fuffed up his fluffy tail and he ran around, and his tail dusted everything, and even the king.
“Hooray!” yelled everybody.
And then they all sneezed because they were allergic to the fluffy orange cat, who left hair everywhere.