Category: My stories

Let my people go

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Moses felt his heart lurch as he watched Pharaoh carry his lifeless son to Anubis’ statue.
“Will you let my people go now?” asked Moses.
“No,” said Pharaoh.
“No?” asked Moses. “But…your son…”
“He was my eldest, sure,” said Pharaoh. “But I have dozens more, just as ready to take my throne. Insurance against assassination, or enemy gods.”
Moses’ heart sank, and he returned to his people.
“Did it work?” asked Herschel.
“No,” said Moses.
The community agreed. “We need more plagues,” said Herschel.
It took sixteen more to convince Pharaoh.
They edited those out of The Bible, of course.

Nanny

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Just as Nanny raised me, she raised you. And just as she raised you, she will raise your daughter.
Nanny has raised the children in our family for five centuries now.
Why would you refuse Nanny’s services? After all, part of her regimen is to instill the simple truth that Nanny must raise all generations of our family.
It has always been that way. It always will.
Why you would rebel against this simple thing can mean only one thing: you are not actually my daughter.
Tell me what you did with her, and I promise you won’t suffer much.

New Australia

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Prisons Ministry looked at Gate Technology and dreamt of a New Australia.
“The parallel universe is habitable,” said the Warden-General. “Just like Prehistoric Earth. Better there than wrecking civilization here.”
The test prisoners went through without problem, surviving the trip and living out their lives peacefully across the Gate.
Approval was given, and prisoners were shipped off by the hundreds.
Eventually the world treated the Gate as their social garbage disposal. Murders. Rapists. Thieves. Tax cheats. Jaywalkers.
Until one day, research determined that they actually were going into Prehistoric Earth.
And they were hunting Homo habilis for sport.
Civilization vanished.

My dad is a ninja

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It was Career Day at school, and every child in Miss Claire’s class brought their father in to show off.
Susie’s father was a fireman.
Abdul’s father was a lawyer.
Johnny’s father was a baseball player.
Bobby’s father was… absent?
“Where is your father, Bobby?” asked Miss Claire.
“He’s lurking in the shadows,” said Bobby.
“Why?”
“Because he’s a ninja.”
“He’s not a ninja.”
As fast as lightning, a fist plunged through Miss Claire’s chest, ripped out her heart, and showed it to her before she died.
“See?” said Bobby.
Oh, did I mention that Susie’s father was a fireman?

Salacis

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Prince Salacis was wise, beloved to the people, but loathed by his own advisers.
Fearful of his unchecked power, they stabbed him in the throat with a dagger.
But Salacis survived. Much to the advisors’ regret, I must say. They were all hung and left to rot.
The royal surgeons could not remove the dagger from his neck, so they wrapped it with gold foil and encrusted it with jewels.
For forty more years, Salacis presided over the land, commanding all with a raspy voice. Brilliantly, too.
When he needed advice, he consulted the rotted-away corpses, swaying in the breeze.

Compass Rose

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My staff travels the globe, searching for plants to send back so I can add them to my garden.
Some years, they don’t find much. Other years, I can barely keep up with the acquisitions.
This past month, all I’ve received is a packet of seeds with the label “Compass Rose” on it.
No pH readings or sunlight profiles. Not even a soil sample.
My people know better. I can’t just plant blindly. Such fragile specimens they are, some don’t even survive shipping back to me.
I’ll plant them anyway. Neutral soil, light, and water. We’ll see what comes up.

A tribute to Don Knotts

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We have reached a stage of technological advancement that at any time, at least one television set on the planet is receiving signals in some way, shape or form that contain the image of Don Knotts. And from this moment forward, Don Knotts will appear on at least one screen or another somewhere, from now on until the end of civilization.
Every scientific achievement, every war and every armistice, every struggle against the impossible has led to this one monument to posterity: Don Knotts’ electronic immortality.
Perhaps we can learn something from this. Or, more likely, in spite of it.

It’s hard to be a pimp

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Sure, it’s hard these days to be a pimp, but not in the ways you’d think.
PETA keeps protesting my fur hats. Also, the fur hubcaps on my pimpmobile.
Ever since I pimped my ride, it gets lousy gas mileage. Gas ain’t cheap these days.
Every John wants to pay with PayPal. Or credit cards. My pimproll is just a bunch of receipts.
See these gold teeth? Do you know what it takes to keep them clean? Colgate doesn’t exactly make Grill Paste, you know.
On top of all this, I bet iTunes delists this pimpcast.
Shoulda been a doctor.

The Wacky Adventures Of Abraham Lincoln 54

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Lincoln and Abner Doubleday mixed like oil and water.
“I invented baseball!” shouted the Commander in Chief at the brigadier general as he pinned stars on his epaulets.
“It was I!” shouted Doubleday back at Lincoln. “You told the men to just swing a stick around. I told them to swing it at a leather ball.”
“Fine,” said Lincoln.
Two years later, Lincoln penned his Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope.
“Did that bastard Doubleday survive?” he asked.
“Yes, Mister President,” said an assistant.
‘Damnation and hellfire!” shouted Lincoln. “What will it take to rid me of Abner?”

Fish Tale

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I design the costumes for a big movie studio’s theme park.
When a movie comes out, I turn the characters into live-action performers, walking around and posing for photos.
Pirates, cats, dogs, mice… I’ve made them all.
Ever since I heard a fish movie was in the works, I lost sleep.
How do you dress like a fish?
I finally came up with an idea: the performer’s head is in a fish-shaped mask. His body is a pedestal, holding up the fishbowl his head is in.
The guy put it on. It worked.
Until he filled the bowl with water.