Category: My stories

Helper

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You can tell who has a Helper biochip and who doesn’t.
Every few minutes, their left eye goes hazy and blank.
That’s them talking to HelpNet. And the Helper talking back.
We use just 10 percent of our brains. Helper uses some of the rest to offer advice, keep schedules, remember things, too. Local storage. Reminders. Suggestions. Warnings.
Helpers connect to the global network to pull up scores, stock quotes, dinner reservations.
Sometimes, Helpers get too helpful. They take over, and when they link to HelpNet…
That’s when we stop being ourselves.
Take off those sunglasses and look at me.

Her Eyes

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Every city has an Oracle.
Every Oracle has a secret to hide.
The bartender with the bandage over her face told us some things should not be known.
“What color are your eyes?” asked Joe.
I elbowed him in the ribs. He laughed.
She put down the rag she was polishing the bar with and pointed to a jar on a shelf.
Blue. Her eyes had been blue.
“What color are they now?” Joe asked.
She sighed, reaching across the bar and putting her hand to Joe’s face.
“Whatever these are,” she said, and Joe screamed, his empty eyesockets bleeding.

The Pie

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She asks me what my favorite scent is.
Pie. Pumpkin pie.
The best pumpkin pie I have ever smelled was a gift.
A woman who had scorned me had left it on her windowsill to cool in the gentle evening breeze as she slept with her new lover.
I took the pie and tossed in a Molotov cocktail.
The fire caught quickly, too fast for them to escape.
They burned to death while I watched, finishing every last bit of the pie.
Here I am, hiding in Mexico, waiting for the heat to die down.
Got any pie? Or matches?

Last Dance

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All the time, folks say they can’t wait for me to up and die.
My funeral’s gonna be one hell of a party.
Clowns and dancers and musicians and fire-eaters.
Hell, I got the perfect spot for it.
There’s this dancehall I grew up around.
Everybody there, they know me.
They’re the folks who wanna see me croak.
So, when I go, they’ll have a big party there.
And bury me under the dancefloor.
That way, for the rest of their days, they don’t have to travel to dance on my grave.
Hey, it’s the least I can do.

Goldberg

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In all my centuries as a creature of the night, there is one thing of which I am certain.
I hate Bach.
I hate Mozart and Beethoven, too.
Oh, how my ears ache to hear Goldberg just once more.
You have never heard of Goldberg. I know this.
I heard him, long ago.
One symphony to his credit. After its first performance, I was so inspired that I drank him dry.
Dead. Gone.
The city watch caught and nearly killed me.
I escaped, but returned to the burnt-out husk of a concert hall.
Not a single note remained. Gone forever.

Wyvern

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Every week, the townspeople bring meat to my cave.
Sacrifices to the dragon, they say. Keep him from burning our village, like in ancient times.
I laugh.
I am no fire-breathing dragon.
I’m a wyvern.
I don’t breathe fire. Sure, my tail has a deadly sting, but it’s not like fire.
I wear the long-deceased dragon’s snout as a mask. The townsfolk feed me at night. That helps with the disguise.
When a champion comes uphill to slay the dragon, taking off the mask
gives me a few moments of surprise.
Enter sting, exit champion.
The freshest meat of all.

Healer

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I am a healer.
I heal the worn-down, the lame, and damaged.
If you have an ice sculpture that has lost an arm, a wing, or has melted beyond recognition, I can restore it to its former grandeur.
The water speaks to me, and with my frozen operating theater and trusty staff, we can bring it back from the brink.
It all started when I was young, filling ice cube trays day and night, obsessed with water as it went from liquid to solid.
Now, I gather their spirits and the treasured beauty is back.
Some ice for your drink?

Halves

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It was a beautiful marriage, and they made beautiful music together.
While it lasted.
It didn’t last.
Arthur ended up with the player piano. Leslie got all the scrolls.
Arthur would sit at the piano, tap a key now and then, and listen to the note.
He searched for the scrolls on eBay, but never found any for that model of piano.
Leslie would open up the scrolls and hold them up to the light, the intricate patterns of holes making her wonder what style that song was played with, what nuances.
Apart and alone, they made horrible silence together.

Rape Is Never Funny

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There is a rule of comedy that rape is never funny.
But then, how many comedians are from Easter Island?
Yes, the place with the big stone heads.
I was raped there by the natives.
But they made if funny.
It started with a few jokes and light molestation, but by the end of the sex crime, they had me roaring with laughter as they thrust into me against my will.
I was left on the curb, half-naked and aching from both the assault and how hard I had laughed.
I was left shamed, but also saying “Never say never.”

The Night Of A Thousand Stars

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“Make a wish, Daddy.”
A tiny finger points to the night sky, silver streaks crisscrossing over each other.
“Those aren’t shooting stars,” I said.
No, they were satellites.
And it was my fault.
After the Russians hit one of ours, we agreed to hand over orbits and frequencies to each other.
I wrote the database.
Everything worked beautifully in the tests.
But the moment the tracker went online, every satellite with propulsion went into controlled deorbit. The rest shut down or exploded.
My daughter pinched me. “Make a wish.”
So, I did.
I wish I had checked my code again.