Category: My stories

Walkabout

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When people build in virtual worlds, they tend to make assumptions about gravity and wind.
Not Arthur. “Fundamental laws like gravity need not apply,” he said.
His playing card office building and an upside-down pyramid stand out, but I notice the subtler things like a starscape that slowly shifts in impossible patterns.
Arthur’s avatar was out walking around his odd world, so I caught up with him and tried to ask him what it was all about.
No response. Just kept walking.
A day later, the paper said he’d shot himself.
They found him, head resting on the “Walk” key.

Labor Pains

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We checked the nanny’s references. Even did a Google search
She came up clean, but it turned out she was batshit crazy.
A month later, we were sitting down to a candlelight dinner at Rico’s when my cell rang.
It was a neighbor calling about the noise.
We got home just in time to stop the psycho bitch from cutting off another of our baby’s toes.
“They grow back,” the nanny shrieked. “Like a starfish!”
No, they don’t.
Two grew back. Like The Lernaean Hydra.
I flipped a coin, and my wife lost.
She cuts, and I’ll burn the stump.

Backwards

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An orderly wheeled Stuart’s corpse back into the emergency room, sliding him on to a table and putting an IV needle into his arm.
Doctors and nurses surrounded the body, alternating between chest compressions and defibrillator shocks.
A pulse…
Then… nothing.
Still dead.
The doctors worked some more and then quickly yanked the needles back out of Stuart. The nurses took units of blood down from their hooks.
They had to work quickly. Paramedics wanted to load Stuart on to a blood-soaked stretcher to catch an ambulance heading to a fatal car crash.
Yeah, that’ll revive the fucker for sure.

Magic Compass

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My magic compass doesn’t point to North.
Instead, it points to Texas.
Wherever I am, it tells me which direction Texas is in.
It’s not terribly useful as a navigation device, but it’s a great conversation piece.
“How does it work?”
“Why Texas?”
“Where did you get it?”
Not only does it point to Texas, but it also points out Texans.
When a Texan sees this thing, they can’t help but smile.
Sometimes, they whoop.
I don’t think that’s a part of the magic of the compass, though.
Compass or not, Texans tend to be annoyingly proud of their state.

The Last Drop

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When Charlie retired from the waterworks, they gave him a gold-plated watch and a cardboard box to put his stuff in.
He took everything home but a large half-empty bottle of poison, which he left in the middle of his desk.
Charlie had started every day with a fresh cup of coffee, walking to the Filtration Pump Room, and putting a drop of poison in the city’s water supply.
He figured it would toughen people up a bit in these difficult times.
Charlie also dumped his coffee into the city’s water supply, but that’s because the coffee was so bad.

The Wacky Adventures Of Abraham Lincoln 76

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General Grant handed Abraham Lincoln a telescope. “Watch our victory unfold before your eye,” he said.
Abe looked through the telescope and watched the battle rage.
“My brilliant strategy is paying off,” said Grant.
“The issues of our struggle depended on the Divine interposition and favor,” muttered Abe. “It’s all up to God now.”
God looked down at the blood-splattered battlefield and winced.
Jesus handed Him a quarter, and God flipped it. “Call it.”
“Heads,” said Jesus.
God caught the quarter mid-air and covered it.
He opened his hands, and a dove flew out.
“Damn,” said God. “Happens every time.”

Goliath’s Fall

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It was the final battle.
For all the shekels.
Goliath never knew what hit him, that dumb son of a bitch.
One moment, he was waving his war club around and rallying the troops.
All of the sudden, a rock hits him in the skull.
The giant didn’t even say “OUCH!”
His eyes took on that thousand-cubit stare and he toppled like a broken column.
A minute later, his lieutenant arrived, breathlessly apologizing to his commander for his tardiness.
“You really should keep your pack mule better organized,” he muttered. “It took me forever to find your helmet.”
“Sir? Sir?”

The Final Hours Of A Professional Slut

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Anne Nicole sat in her hotel suite and wept.
From the other room, her lawyer’s bastard baby shrieked.
The porn star wept harder.
She always got this way when she read the letters from her dead billionaire husband.
One after the other, his words tore at her heart and she yearned for him to be here with her again.
When she was finished with the last letter, the tears turned to rage.
“You found time to write this shit, but you couldn’t write a goddamned will?”
She poured out the pill bottle into her hand, swallowing them one by one.

Choose Your Death

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The catalog makes it very simple.
Every page has a different kind of death on it, a full-color photograph in all its grisly wonder.
I looked cold and hard at the page featuring the carbomb, but it was just a little too messy for my taste.
Plus, I kinda liked Steve’s car. Was hoping to buy it after… he bought it.
Then I saw the death I wanted: electrocution.
Their number was busy, so I went to the website… entered the data… and…
Transaction completed.
Wait… hold on…
Did I get the billing and shipping addresses mixed up?
Uh oh.

Those Lousy Bums

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These days, the Doomsayers write their Armageddon spells on pieces of cardboard and wave them around in crowds, foaming at the mouth.
Back in the day, they’d glue their signs to wooden sticks or make up one of those… what were they?
Sandwich boards! That’s it!
The end of the world is coming, and these crazy bastards know it.
After all, it’s their job to cause it.
They gather at night, light their campfires, and chant in unison in praise of The Great Destroyer.
When I find them, I roust them out.
I have yet to miss a gathering.
Yet.