Category: My stories

The Minister

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We are a small town on the prairie.
Not many people come here from the rest of the world.
And we really like it here, there’s not much reason to leave.
We don’t bother with televisions, the one radio station’s fine enough.
It plays the same music it has always played, over and over.
Because we grew up with it, and like it.
There’s one church we all go to every Sunday.
The minister starts at the pulpit, gives the same sermon every week.
Then we go home, step on to our recharger pads, and all shut down.
Good night.

The Middle Name

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I don’t have a middle name.
I mean, I don’t have one anymore.
I sold it to someone who didn’t have a middle name, found mine interesting, and offered me money for it.
“Why not just change your name?” I asked.
“We don’t do that in my culture,” he said. “There are only so many names available, and we compete for them. If we cannot win one, we buy it.”
He handed me a check.
There was a large number on it.
I agreed and wrote my name on it.
Then scratched out the middle name. It’s not mine anymore.

Fear

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Final evening approaches: Ramadan.
Father enters, asks “Ready?”
Forty elders and relatives.
Fatima expects a riot.
Find everyone a rug.
Face east and recite.
Fatima’s excited. Allah! Rejoice!
Fasting ends. All relax.
Fried eggs are ready.
Fennel, eggplant, and rice.
Fish, endive, and rosemary.
“Fantastic! Elegant! Amazing! Righteous!”
Friends eat and ruminate.
Finish eating and regroup.
“Fun? Entertainment?” ask relatives.
Farts. Embarrassment. Awfully rude.
Flustered excuses and revulsion.
Family endeavors are rowdy.
Former enemies are restless.
Fighting erupts! Anger! Retaliation!
Flailing everywhere. Angry responses.
Father exclaims: “All right!”
Fighting ends abruptly, respectfully.
Finding exits, all retire.
Fatima, exhausted and run-down.

Knots in my stomach

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I feel knots in my stomach.
So, I swallow a Boy Scout.
He crawls back out.
“I forgot my flashlight,” he says, and crawls back in.
He tries to untie it, but it turns out that his knots badge is a fake.
So, I go down to the docks and swallow a dockworker.
You’d think that a professional who works with knots all day could untie it, but he was stumped.
“I just do boat hitches,” he said, tipping his cap and going back to work.
So, you say you’re a backpacker?
Handy with bungee cord?
Mind taking a look?

My Spy

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An assassin is following me.
He’s an expert at this. Wouldn’t suspect a thing if you saw him there.
Friendly. Polite. Well-groomed.
But I know what he’s really doing:
Following me.
So, I turn the tables on him.
I put on a disguise, cover my tracks, and follow him.
He doesn’t suspect a thing. Doesn’t break cover. Maintains his routine.
Excellent.
I corner him in an alley, a knife to his throat.
He’s surprised and denies being my assassin.
Just like all the rest.
I bury him in the park with the others.
And wait for another to follow me.

The Kraken

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Off the coast of Port Byron, the seas boil with tentacles.
The Great Kraken has returned for its Solstice Sacrifice, part of the pact our ancestors made with the beast.
We load up a boat with murderers, thieves, and the feeble, lowering it into the water and sending its shabby crew to their doom.
Some townsfolk make a picnic out of the occasion.
They toast the ancestors with champagne, and feast on kraken tentacles, boiled in butter.
We give up our own, the Great Kraken reciprocates.
One taste, and you’ll agree that we got the better end of the deal.

Flounce

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It all started with flouncing.
“Gathered or pleated?” asked the forum moderator for The Dressmaker’s Dummy online community portal.
Some dressmakers swore by gathered material, but others insisted that pleated was best.
That’s when the YouTube videos appeared, demonstrating one style’s superiority over the other.
Others used the opportunity to drag out dead horses to beat, deriding materials like suede and burlap, even though they were completely off-topic.
Finally, someone posted “Hitler liked gathered skirts!” and Godwin’s Law was invoked.
Everybody flamed everybody else.
The forum moderator posted a long and dramatic resignation.
I guess it ended with flouncing, too.

Astonished

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Nobody was astonished when Missy Johnson ended up in prison.
She was the black sheep of the family, the first kid to be sent to reform school kindergarten.
When other children were learning to count and watching Sesame Street, she was running guns to Belize and ruled the city’s drug lords with an iron fist.
In between Nap Times, of course.
Pretty soon, all organized crime in the world was under Missy’s thumb, and her babysitters became her lieutenants, helping her run a global prostitution ring.
And then, prison.
She turned herself in voluntarily.
Safer behind bars, opulent accommodations nonetheless.

Creative Juices

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We let the children play with their toys and draw with crayons for an hour.
Then, the valves open and knockout gas puts them to sleep.
Nap time.
When they wake up, they have no memory of our hooking up the spinal shunts and draining them of their creative juices.
Looking around the room, they pick up the crayons and stick them in their mouths or put them up their noses.
The toys are used to smash other toys or hit other kids.
Eventually, they learn to play and draw again.
And we are ready to harvest more creative juices.

Where do babies come from?

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Where do babies come from?
After the Cobalt War, they come from The Baby Factory.
Deep underground, shielded from the radiation and toxins in the air and soil, geneticists assemble the next generation.
Or, if we can’t remove enough of the contaminants, the last generation.
This time, the scientists are working on adding thick hides, culled from rhinoceros genes.
The babysitters have a high suicide rate, watching wave after wave of monsters come from the labs, dying from horrifying diseases and tissue rejections.
The ants crawl over their tiny, broken corpses.
“Looks like it’s your turn now,” I tell them.