Tag: mystery

The Birds

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The trees are filled with so many birds.
Black as the night, silent and watching.
They only move their heads to follow us.
I’ve never seen them fly.
For as long as I have watched them, not a single one has left or arrived.
Just turning their heads without a sound.
I haven’t seen any other kinds of birds around since they arrived.
I haven’t heard any, either.
Where have they all gone?
Where did these birds come from?
Nobody knows.
We watch them in shifts now, and nobody’s seen any changes.
Just staring at us.
And we stare back.

The Talking Kid

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We love our kid.
How can we not? He’s our kid.
One disappointment with him, though. Our boy didn’t start talking until he was four.
But when he started, he just couldn’t shut up.
He talks all the time.
During meals.
In the bath.
In the preschool.
And even in his sleep.
Some of it makes sense, but the vast majority of what comes from his mouth is nonsensical babble.
So, we give him gum to chew. When he chews gum, he can’t talk.
He blows bubbles now. Popping all the time.
But it’s not as annoying as the babble.

Migration

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Watch the spaghetti for me.
Don’t let it overcook. And don’t let it escape.
Remember the last time the spaghetti got loose? It took an entire legion of the Baron’s soldiers to subdue and drive back to the kitchen.
If it hadn’t been so delicious, both of us would have lost our heads.
They say that spaghetti is supposed to be easy, but when you forget to salt the water, all kinds of curses and maliciousness gets into the pasta.
The meatballs are screaming again?
Best not to serve them at all. We’ll use olive oil and pepper this time.

The Sleeper

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My little girl couldn’t fall asleep.
So I told her to close her eyes, think of clouds, and count slowly to ten.
She always fell asleep at five or six.
But one night, she got to ten.
And she was by the bed, shaking me.
Wake up, Daddy, she said.
She does it to her classmates, at their desks.
She doesn’t even have to count out loud.
She just thinks of clouds and counts to ten.
What happens when you count backwards? I ask her.
She shakes her head. No, she says.
I feel tired, so I don’t ask again.

Floating

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It rained hard for a day, and the bayou looked like it would overflow, but it didn’t.
We watched tree branches and other junk flow with the water.
Then, a dead body. Jeans, jacket… face down and not moving.
Well, okay. It was moving downstream.
Around the bend, another body floated by.
Two bodies.
Instead of calling the police, we placed bets.
I bet on the first body. It had a good head start.
But the other one was coming up fast.
Mine got caught on a tree branch, and the other won.
Only then, did we call the police.

Rocketman

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“My power is infinite!” cackled Dr. Demonic, rubbing his hands together and throwing switches on a complicated console, the highlight of his dark, evil fortress. “The world will bow at my feet!”
“Infinite?” I shook my wrists. “Then why am I handcuffed to your Doomsday Missile?”
The villain growled. “Okay, so the chairs from Ikea didn’t have arms. And they had wheels. My finest moment, ruined by a hostage rolling around the floor? My powers of improvisation are infinite!”
He hit the launch button, and was incinerated by the rocket’s exhaust.
I didn’t have long to chuckle at his stupidity.

The Candidate

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Crowds surrounded the candidate, or the spot they thought he was standing.
Throughout the campaign, everywhere they thought he was politically, he wasn’t.
So much so, with so many lies and double-deals, he’d ripped a hole in the fabric of space-time.
One step ahead, his campaign called it.
Displacement, the scientists called it.
The distance grew. Pretty soon, the candidate appeared miles from where they thought he was.
Despite this phenomenon, he was elected. When he took office, as he put his hand on the Bible, he vanished completely.
The hole closed over.
The judge said “Amen and good riddance.”

Seven Locks

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A locked chest?
The lock requires seven keys.
Legend says that each was handed to the King of each Continent, but we all know that’s crap. There was never a King of Antarctica.
So, I pick the locks.
Surprisingly easy to do. The locks were just ornamental.
I open the chest, and sure enough, it’s empty.
Once again, the locks were ornamental. This chest has been opened many times before.
So, I toss in a few leftover items from the shelves. It’s a museum, we have plenty of stuff in storage.
I lock it back up.
Back on the shelf.

Fireflies

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Me and Teddy, we go firefly catching in the summer.
We always go firefly catching, we do.
Teddy, he ain’t got no arms.
That don’t stop him.
He catches them lighting bugs in his mouth, and I hold up a jar for him to spit them in.
Bam. I put the lid on.
“Ain’t they pretty, Bobby?” He say. “They so pretty, they is.”
Teddy, he go off to college, leave me here with my jar. he smart and stuff.
I wonder if he go firefly catching.
Probably not. He ain’t got no arms. Or me to hold his jar.

Flat Feet

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Someone’s out there in the field.
I’d better check it out.
So, I follow the trail of footprints through the mud.
Big feet. Flat arches, too.
Who walks around in this field without shoes on? What kind of crazy person does that? They could step on a rock or a nail.
My feet ached at the thought of it.
I didn’t see anyone.
For an hour, I walked around the field, until I come back to where the trail started.
I looked down and realized that I am barefoot.
Oh. Right. I’m out here.
No wonder why my feet hurt.