Category: My stories

I was sitting by a stream when an old man carrying a worn out map, walked up to the stream, crossed it, and made a mark on his map.
I’ve done it, he shouted. I finally done it.
I got up and walked to the stream edge and asked him done what
I’ve climbed every mountain and forwarded every stream, he said. I did everything that singing bitch told me to do, and I finally done it.
He showed me the map, and sure enough, every mountain and stream had been marked with ink.
Congratulations, I said. And we hugged.

I guess it isn’t working out so well.
Protestors without masks.
People coming across the border for health care.
Kids being kids.
Fingerpointing. Blame.
Fools in stores refusing to wear masks.
Beaches. Parks.
Going out when we don’t have to.
(You know, like my third grocery run of the week.)
Or when we’re sick.
I see the neighbors doing laundry without masks.
Or going to their cars or walking their dogs.
Dumbasses.
Not washing our hands.
We’re fat. We’re sick.
We’re having the same unhealthy shit delivered to us.
It’s all bad choices.
You can only control your own actions.

Two months ago, they launched a new series of video cards.
But they didn’t make enough of them, so they were impossible to get.
Unless you went through a scalper on eBay, of course.
And they were damned expensive.
For the past two months, barely any of the cards get to the stores.
Scalpers keep snapping them up.
But, thankfully, the prices are coming down.
I did the math, and finally ordered one.
I bookmarked the shipping tracker.
It’s up in a browser tab.
Every five minutes, I hit refresh.
A watched pot never boils.
And the doorbell doesn’t ring.

I got a letter from Greenpeace the other day.
Your classic Save The Whales plea.
When I think whales, I think the killer whale Shamoo at Sea World.
Leaping from the water for fish.
I also remember a whale watching boat off the coast of Cape Cod.
A blinding storm with the waves tossing the boat around.
Throwing up over the side until I could only dry heave and scream myself hoarse.
I shred the letter and go online.
Searching for defense funds of Japanese and Norwegian “marine research’ boats.
Kill them all. Let no seasick kid ever suffer again.

I used to be pretty good at frisbee golf.
I had a strong throw and pretty good accuracy.
I practiced throwing at trees and trash cans at various distances.
And I played the campus course nearly every day.
After I graduated, I played the course a few times, but I eventually hung up the disks.
Years later, I moved into a small town with a half-abandoned golf course.
The community converted it into a nature walk and preserve.
And set up frisbee golf cages.
I got a new disk, went to the course, and threw.
And hit a nearby house.

Freddy saw a job posting, and he sent his resume and cover letter.
Two days later, they wrote him back saying that they went with another candidate.
Then, a month later, the job posting appeared again.
He adjusted his cover letter slightly, telling them that they wouldn’t have had to repost the job if they had hired him.
He was ready to drag and drop it to the form, but decided to go with his original cover letter.
Two days later, they went with another candidate.
When the job posting appeared again a month later, he closed the browser window.

Henderson liked to go for walks and smoke cigars after dinner.
But that was kinda hard, being an astronaut on the space station.
So, he ate his steak paste, strapped himself to the treadmill, and walked for a while.
He wasn’t allowed to light a cigar, but he snuck one out of his coveralls and put it in his mouth unlit.
When he finally got back down to Earth, the first thing he did was have a real steak.
Then he went for a walk, lit his cigar, and coughed until he dropped it.
And lit the neighborhood on fire.

The shabby overcoat, boots, and dirty hat pushing the shopping cart full of junk around is Gertrude.
But don’t bother calling her that. She’s stone deaf, and even if you stop her and write things down, she’ll just ignore you and keep going.
Touch her or her cart, and she’ll beat you with an umbrella.
Which she never uses when it rains.
She goes from dumpster to dumpster, looking for things, throwing other things out.
Some say she used to have a cat in that cart.
Maybe she still does.
I’ve never seen her sleep.
She just pushes her cart.

It’s been a year since the aliens arrived, and everything is so much better. They brought all sorts of technology and medicine and other things, and aside from a few minor resistance incidents, the world is pretty much at peace. Although, one of the strange things in the treaty that humanity signed was a non-disclosure agreement. We can’t tell others about our special, intergalactic friends, or even communicate outside of our society. Earth is pretty much on its own now. Not that we mind. Everything is wonderful, and those who disagree well, they aren’t a problem for very long.

The satellite just kind of drifted around Earth doing its job, picking up weather signals.
One night, it caught something weird, like a low humming noise.
Not a radio, not anything normal.
It sounded almost like the ocean was singing, which didn’t make much sense from space.
It kept listening, saving the signal.
It wasn’t perfect, kind of broken and fuzzy.
Later, it sent the sound back down.
Most systems ignored it, but one analyzed the signal and found… something.
For a second, everything felt a little quieter, like something big had tried to say something.
And then went silent.