Category: My stories

Paddling To Redemption

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They say that if you stand out in the rain on Redemption Island, all of your troubles will be washed away.
Lord, we’ve got troubles.
So we checked the forecast, borrowed a boat from the factory, and paddled to Redemption.
There was nothing on the island but sand and metal blobs.
“Are we supposed to be naked when it rains?” asked Chloe.
Nobody knew.
The sky grew dark, and the rain began.
“It tingles!” giggled Chloe.
Then the sulfuric acid kicked in, and it started to burn.
Everybody else screamed, but I was laughing.
Troubles, flesh – what’s the difference?

Paperboy

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Teddy’s mother abanoned him.
She stuffed him into a newspaper vending machine instead of leaving him on a doorstep.
Every time someone bought a paper, they’d take a newspaper, but leave him in the machine.
Teddy grew up in that machine, learning to read from the headlines and living on free samples in Sunday editions.
“Hi, people!” Teddy said to people buying papers.
“Hi, Teddy!” people said back. “Bye, Teddy!”
Other machines showed up for alternative newspapers, circulars, weekly rags. What an eyesore!
The city passed a law making newspaper vending machines illegal.
Teddy’s machine vanished. And so did Teddy.

Sevens

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Back in Springfield, Raul and I would climb up the willow tree, lay back on the branches, and watch the moon through the leaves.
We pondered important things up there.
“Who’d win in a fight: The Magnificent Seven or the Seven Dwarves?” asked Raul.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Let’s find out.”
We looked down from the tree and watched a group of men in Wild West gear square off against brightly-colored little people.
The echoes of gunfire.
The clang of heavy mining equipment.
Blood everywhere.
The dwarves would have lost if the singing broad hadn’t have showed up.

Drag The River

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The last time anyone saw Nancy, she was down by the river.
With men. With guns.
“Drag the river,” I said.
Three days later, the divers had found a few cars, some guns, a lot of knives, and a pool table.
But no Nancy.
“Maybe they stuffed her into the pool table?” I asked.
“No,” said a diver. “We checked.”
“How about in the trunk of one of those cars?” I asked.
“No,” said another diver.
Nancy showed up three days later. She’d been on vacation.
I tried to refurbish the pool table, but it was a total loss.
Damn.

Baroque Bach Mountain

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Johann Sebastian Bach was known for his prowess with a pipe organ.
Johann Cristoph Bach was also a master organist.
Pretty much every Bach was an expert with an organ.
Especially Elton Johann Bach, but I think that’s a different kind of organ, okay?
Elton would frequently vanish to the Schwarzwald mountains with a rather dark friend for fishing trips.
He never did catch any fish, but he caught plenty of diseases.
On his final trip, his brothers showed up at the cabin.
They saw everything.
“Why?” they asked.
“Once you go Black Forest,” Elton wheezed, “you never go back.”

Biggest Fan

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Hundreds of millions of people adore Guitarman’s music, and every one of them claim to be “Guitarman’s Biggest Fan.”
You see, that’s the title track of his number one album: “Guitarman’s Biggest Fan.”
Would they swallow a snake for him? Hell yes.
Would they jump off of cliff for him? Oh, hell yes.
Some of Guitarman’s fans take the title literally and eat themselves into a bodymass competition.
They keep score online, constantly updating their weight.
Wait… Two-Ton Tommy’s gone? Dead?
Heart attack. The funeral’s Sunday.
That puts me in second place, Mom. Second place!
Pass the mashed potatoes.
Please?

Dancester

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They called it Dancester – the place to download dances.
Just put in your credit card, sync up your iMind, and you’re ready to dance like the best dancers do.
Of course, not everyone wants to pay for their dances. That’s when the pirated dances started to appear.
The Lords Of The Dance didn’t like their dances getting ripped off, but Dancester couldn’t do anything to stop it.
So a series of pirated dances commanding dancers to slash their throats appeared on pirate sites.
Nobody could prove anything, but the piracy ended quickly.
The Lords danced for joy at the news.

Perseids

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Perseus, Kentucky was the place to go to watch the Perseid Meteor shower.
In early August, Perseus bans all outdoor lighting to make meteor-viewing easier, but some years the full moon ruins the view.
The city council came up with a plan: launch a rocket during the new moon and shoot artificial comet dust to burn up in the atmosphere for a spectacular show.
It worked brilliantly.
Pretty soon, every community wanted their own meteor shower, more brilliant than the first.
Leave it to those crazy rich Saudis to go overboard.
Allah’s will, they whined.
Who needs an atmosphere, anyway?

Buzzed

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Gene Krantz’s cigarette fell from his lips and bounced off of his console.
“What the fuck did Neil say?” he asked.
“Houston to Eagle, repeat,” said Mission Control.
“I’m King Of The Moon!” said Neil Armstrong. “Bow down to the King Of The Moon!”
“Maybe Buzz slipped him something?” asked a doctor.
The cameras showed the mad astronaut advancing on another with a probe. “I dub thee Sir Aldrin!”
“Back off, Neil!” shouted Buzz Aldrin, scampering back up the ladder.
“Cut the feed,” said Gene. “Thank God for the tape delays. We’ll just go with what we filmed last month.”

AIDS Microwave

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There’s two symptoms of AIDS folks that forget: fear and ignorance.
Early on there was plenty of both.
There were people dying young and leaving behind loved ones, pets, material possessions and crap.
People would ask at garage sales, picking through tennis racquets and microwaves. “Did he die of … that disease?”
When told yes, prices come down. Or nobody will touch them at all.
Take this microwave, for instance. Perfectly good. Top-of-the-line.
Once they know about its former owner, people think they’ll get AIDS from it.
It’s perfectly safe.
Well, okay – maybe an electric shock. It’s not well-grounded.