Tag: mystery

Never explain the light

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There is a light under the water, about a mile offshore.
We sent a crew out.
They never came back, no answer the radio, either.
You can’t see it in the daytime, but at night, it’s bright enough to light up the ocean.
We called the Coast Guard, and they said to just let it be.
“What about the crew?” I asked.
“Hold a memorial service,” said the Coast Guard. “And fish elsewhere.”
They won’t tell us anything else. The Navy just sends us to the Coast Guard.
Whatever it is, it’s getting brighter.
And now, it’s starting to sing.

Bigfoot

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Deep in the woods, Bigfoot sits on a rock and stares at his humongous feet.
Exhausted from the constant chase by photographers and scientists, he pondered the meaning of life.
“Pedicure,” he growls.
A branch snaps.
Bigfoot crawls under a fallen tree trunk.
The leaves rustle, and then a deer approaches.
Bigfoot sighs. Is he paranoid? Is everything a potential threat now?
“Zoloft,” he grumbles.
He shakes dandruff from his fur, ponders using a sharp rock to shave it off, join a circus as a giant, or play basketball.
Do they make shoes his size?
Another branch snaps.
He hides.

The Butterfly

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I told Lucy not to get a tattoo, but she did.
It’s a pink butterfly on her ankle.
Sometimes, it is on her right ankle. Other times, her left.
I’ve watched her sleep and the butterfly flapping around her bedroom.
When she wakes up, it lands and melts into her skin.
Today, it’s on her wrist.
“I’m thinking about getting another,” she says.
I told her not to, but she did.
Another butterfly. Blue this time.
They fly together at night, circling.
I rub my arm, where the flaming skull once was.
Sure, laser-removal surgery worked.
But it still burns.

The Lighter

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Down in the dungeon, the witch stirs up a boiling cauldron full of jokes
“We stir to keep the lighter jokes from floating to the top and staying there,” says Hildegard the Wicked. “Only when the jokes are finished do we skim them from the top.”
I’ve asked her what she puts in the pot to make the jokes, but she never reveals her secret.
“You don’t want to know,” she says. “Just drink the potions I give you and be happy with it.”
Sure, I’ll drink it, but I won’t be happy with it.
Funny, yes. But not happy.

The Itch

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Two more days.
They warned me not to scratch it.
“If that poison touches the air, it’ll change,” said the nurse. “Your body can fight it on its own if it’s inside, but if you scratch it, you’ll get worse.”
They can’t give me anything for the pain.
“It’ll react with the poison, too,” said the nurse. “Nasty stuff.”
My hands are tied to the bed rails. I’ve dislocated my shoulder again in the past hour.
“MAKE IT STOP!” I scream.
The door is closed, the walls are padded.
The nurse smiles. “Be good, or we’ll inject you with more.”

Under

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This morning, I found a tarp on my lawn.
I want to peek under it, but who knows what’s under it.
Tarps cover things you don’t want to look at.
I can’t tell what’s under there by the bulge in the tarp.
And every time I look, I swear it’s changed shape.
Maybe someone will take it if I just go back to my routine.
So, I drag out the trash cans and check the mailbox.
Everybody’s mailbox is empty.
“Maybe the mailman is under that tarp?” my neighbor asks.
We sit around and wait.
Nobody looks. We just wait.

The Thief

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The thief breaks into your house and steals your dreams while you sleep.
He puts them in a burlap sack and tiptoes through the night.
The fence looks through the sack of dreams.
“Second-rate pipedreams here,” he says.
He always says they’re second-rate to get the price down.
“This one’s shattered,” he says, pointing out the pieces in the bottom of the sack.
They agree on fifty bucks.
The thief doesn’t know what the fence does with the dreams. He’s heard of some guy named Sandman.
The thief doesn’t care. He just steals and sells them.
And dreams of retiring.

The Mustard Guru

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I am waiting for a process on this server to finish.
The progress bar is stuck at 27 percent.
“A watched progress bar never completes,” says the guru in the cubicle next to mine.
So, I turn off the monitor.
The guru turns it back on. “Can’t do that,” he says.
I close my eyes. He smacks me on the back of my head.
“Ouch.”
He hands me a packet of spicy mustard from his lunch.
“Smear that on the monitor,” he commands.
So, I do.
He smacks me on the back of the head again.
“Now, lick it off.”

Sweating Bullets

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I know a magical creature on The Island Of Strange Beasts called the Winchester Panda.
It literally sweats bullets.
The more frightened or warm the creature gets, the more bullets it sweats.
The caliber, too. From small derringer shells to full metal jacket 50-cal machine gun rounds.
Their nesting areas look like ammo dumps, bullets strewn everywhere.
The Army tried to raise these things in captivity to cut down on munitions costs, but they only thrive in the wild.
No, we don’t hunt them. They don’t taste good, and their pelts are rather shabby.
But they hunt us. Keep quiet!

Corn Dogs

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There’s nothing quite like a fresh hand-dipped corn dog at the county fair.
These aren’t the pre-processed ones you get at the state fair or the grocery store.
You can watch as they pull a hot dog out of the kettle, spear it with a stick, dip it in the batter, and dangle it in the hot oil.
Look behind the curtain, and you’ll see the batter-maid milking a batter-cow into pails, hot dogs picked straight from a hot dog tree, and the oil pumped straight from the Great Vegetable Oil River.
As I said, as fresh as can be.