Bruwyn didn’t come home last night.
Usually, he’s the first to come home, but Myst came home first.
Finding a black cat at night is impossible, of course, but you can’t just sit down and wait.
Walking around, I hear what I think is his collar, but it’s just crickets and frogs.
So, I come back home, Myst and Nardo wait up with me.
If he can’t come home for whatever reason, I hope he knows he’s loved and missed.
And if he doesn’t want to come home, well, cats are cats, and I hope he’s happy wherever he is.
Category: My stories
Hallow’s Eve
Every holiday brings its special charms and annoying marketing blitz.
All throughout the store, you’ll see a lot more orange and black for Halloween.
We’re not just talking about the piles of candy for handing out to kids.
(Although I must admit, I ate my candy stockpile and need to go out and buy more.)
You’ll see all kinds of products decked out for the season, some of which don’t make much sense.
Small bottles of Summer’s Eve douche, rebranded “All Hallow’s Eve.”
I guess if you’re turning tricks while collecting treats, it’s essential, but I’ll just stick to candy.
Restoring Faith
The Sermonizer has been priest of Steamtown for a hundred years, presiding over weddings and funerals, delivering the Sunday sermon without fail.
Until today.
Pressure tank exploded overnight. Punchcards strewn everywhere.
Looking down from the equipment loft, I stare at Sermonizer’s marionette, slumped over the pulpit.
I climb down the stairs, and I lift it.
Not heavy at all, really.
I climb back up and tug at the support ropes.
Sermonizer wobbles to his feet.
“Dearly beloved,” I groan loudly.
Every child mimics Sermonizer in Steamtown, you know.
Clean up the cards, Deacon, and ring the bells.
Time for church.
The Book Of Life
All across the world, Apple and Google fanboys are clutching their chests and keeling over dead in the streets.
Why? Every year, The Lord writes our names in The Book Of Life.
He adds those who are born and scratches out those who died.
But this year, he’s catching the e-publishing bug and giving up on the ink and paper.
He’s worked up a file and sent it to Amazon for publishing on the Kindle.
He thought about making an app for Android and iPhone, but those smartphone owners are a bunch of annoying cocksuckers, so he’s left them out.
Eight and Ten
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Everything in Mathematics is pretty much known these days. It takes five hundred pages packed with formulas to come up with something unknown.
And those panel discussions are really boring.
So, I came up with a simple and fun one: “Why are hot dogs sold in packages of ten and hot dog buns sold in packages of eight?”
Wow. You should have seen the fistfights.
Then, Weird Al Yankovic, yeah, the musician, steps in and says “I just give the extra 2 hot dogs to my dog.”
He won the Nobel Prize for that.
(And gave it to his dog.)
The Mechanical Arm
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The mugger tried to take the girl’s purse.
She fought back.
And lost, with a bullet in her heart.
Despite the fact that the girl in the street was dead, her mechanical arm was still running.
The AI routine was cycling through idle behaviors, drumming the fingers on the ground, opening and closing on its own.
She liked to wear gloves, so the lifelike sleeve with the tattoos ended up convincing the mugger that she was still alive, so he shot her a few more times.
The hand kept moving, twitching, and the mugger picked up her purse and ran.
House Guest
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I watched the ragged homeless guy haul refrigerator boxes out to the weedpatch by the train tracks.
Then, it was shopping carts full of broken appliances.
Item after item, he hoarded into a pile until I got curious.
There, in the tall grass, was a magnificent palace, constructed of junk and litter.
I was buzzed through the gate and met him at the front door.
“This place is amazing,” I said, and he gave me the tour.
A pool.
A ballroom.
A movie theater.
He smiled. “Now that I’ve got the guest house done, I’ll work on my mansion next.”
The Ghosts In My Pants
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Most ghosts appear as sheets flapping in the wind, but the ghosts that haunt my house appear as torn and worn-out pants flying around.
At first, I found them frightening, but in time I’ve grown used to them.
They’re even somewhat ludicrous when I think about them.
Especially when they fly around with their zippers undone.
“X Y Z,” I say to a passing ghost, and the jeans hover there for a moment before zipping up.
It goes back to moaning and flapping around with the others.
The laundry promises to exorcise them this time.
Just like “no starch” right?
Rehab
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Things got crazy at the party. Talia overdosed on longevity drugs and went into a coma.
We handed her off to the Sleeping Beauty Ward. They gave us an estimate of 80 years before she’d come out of it.
Eighty years?
They handed me the bill for her babysitting, and I scraped up most of it.
A kidney and some skin for burn grafts covered the rest.
That was 79 years ago. Vital signs say she’ll wake up soon.
Never did find anyone else, too old for her now.
I wrote one last note and walked to the termination center.
The Dead Bird
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I’ve had this bird for years.
Used to be pretty with bright white feathers.
One morning, I lifted the cage’s cover and it was lying there on the bottom of the cage, ugly and dead.
I was about to open the cage when I saw it twitch.
I’d seen this in the news: zombie birds.
If it hadn’t have twitched, it would have bitten off a finger or two.
I padlocked the latch to keep it from escaping.
Now, it just claws and bites at the bars of the cage, getting scrawnier and uglier over the years.
Fifty bucks? Deal.