Category: My stories

Wake

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Jimmy O’Connor planned this from the get-go. Long before the oncologist said “Tough shit.”
For his wake, he programmed up a hologram of himself.
Sure, other terminally ill hackers had programmed 2D movies and played them at their funerals, but Jimmy was the first to render a fully-operational, interactive ghost.
He was also the first to sync one with bio-implants too.
So, right in the middle of the wake, Jimmy’s ghost points at himself and screams “ZOMBIE!”
The servos kick in. Jimmy’s corpse slowly rises.
POW! I blow Jimmy’s head off with my .45.
That’s how you handle zombies, right?

Fresh Flowers (Episode 1,000)

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Every day for the past two years, I’ve stopped by the cemetery on the way home from work and put fresh flowers on my wife’s grave.
It doesn’t matter if it’s raining or snowing or there’s a hurricane on the way.
Flowers. Grave.
Maybe a bit of wailing and shouting of “WHY? WHY? WHY?”
When I’m done, I get back in my car and drive home.
“Did you do it?” my wife asks.
“Yes, dear,” I say.
“Good,” my wife says. “Practice makes perfect.”
Looking back, I probably should have gotten her a necklace for her birthday two years ago.

These Are The Pros And Cons

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It’s my Southern gentleman’s instinct, really.
You see a hot chick standing on the side of the road with her thumb stuck out, and you pull over to pick her up, right?
It’s the courteous thing to do.
Courteous ain’t what the other drivers thought. Sponsors and Team Owners, too.
Biggest damn wreck in NASCAR history, all because I’m thinking with my pecker.
That, and fucked up on painkillers and Jack Daniels.
Speaking of which, you think we’ll lose Jack Daniels as a sponsor?
Shit.
I guess I’ll just wash my percodans down with Jim Beam from here on out.

Let Him Dangle

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Kathy bought 78 canvases a few weeks ago.
It’s for a project of hers – she wants to paint the Tarot.
She could paint them up from memory, but she’s insisting on posing me as a model.
This week, we’ve been doing The Hanged Man.
Kathy may be having fun, but it really sucks to be me.
The blood rushes to my head and gives me migraines. Then I got rope burns on my ankle… until the rope came loose.
The studio has concrete floors… ouch!
But if you think this is bad, the next card’s the Ten Of Swords.

End Of Lifed

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When a server needs its drive image reloaded, we pull the old hard drive and stick a new one in there with the drive image already on it.
Well, when I say new, I really mean new to that server.
The old hard drives have to come from somewhere, right? They’re drives that are yanked from other servers, wiped clean, and then have new software loaded back on them.
And they’re marked with a tally-mark.
When a drive gets twenty-five tally marks, like this one here, it’s end-of-lifed.
Come on, pass me the hammer.
This sucker’s gonna get it good.

The Wacky Adventures Of Abraham Lincoln 77

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During the war, Abraham noticed a curious phenomenon among the embassies in Washington.
Ambassadors went from nice to rude, and then to downright ugly towards visitors.
“Why is this?” asked Lincoln of his Secretary of State.
“A nation which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad,” said William Seward.
“That’s fine and dandy,” said Lincoln. “But we’re not abroad.”
Seward invited the French Ambassador to visit the White House.
He did, and promptly insulted the President at first opportunity.
Lincoln kicked him in the groin and threw him out the door.
“Give my regards to Paris,” said Abe.

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.