Category: My stories

Virtual Class

639163

Imaginary spitballs fill the air. Roger Washington’s back to pulling pigtails. Stacy Miller shimmers and falls to dust.
Third one today. There must be something out of sorts with the holographic system.
I check the diagnostics while Stacy’s parents are threatening to sue the school.
No red lights, so I order a check of the Miller’s unit and read the manufacturer alerts.
Aha. Bad firmware update last night.
I send out an alert to the parents, and I remind them to remove all headsets before performing this flash.
No sense risking a spark and wiping a kid. Even little Roger.

The Lawyer In Your Lap

639172

A universally-despised attorney gives up on making court appearances, using an assistant with a laptop and video software to conduct business.
“It’s safer this way,” he says.
Sure enough, he pisses off a class action defendant, and the guy shoots the laptop.
The assistant is relieved. At least he wasn’t shot, right?
His phone rings. It’s the lawyer, irate.
“That was a four thousand dollar laptop,” he yells.
The assistant asks him how much his suit jacket is worth.
“A thousand bucks,” says the lawyer.
“I’ll be glad to save you the difference by shooting that instead,” says the assistant.

Cathedral

639159

Every colony has a Cathedral.
That’s what we call the terraforming engine after it’s idled and scavenged for useful parts.
The newer the model, the less of a carcass left. Every cubic inch of that behemoth can be melted down and forged into something useful.
Colonists won’t use it all, though. They insist on leaving something to remind them, a vast hollow shell as a monument to the colony’s founding.
Inside, they gather to give thanks, an annual ritual carried out thousands of years ago by our ancestors, many miles away.
Drovo made the rootbird this year.
Pass the gravy.

Control Room

639162

The king wants to go to the control room.
Half of the lights in this room blink for no reason. The others do not blink at all.
The switches aren’t connected to anything, and all that the buttons do beyond changing color when pressed is to make a faint clicking sound.
It makes the king happy, though. He loves to push buttons and flip switches and laugh.
“Die die die!” He yells.
A display lights up with a random number.
He cheers. “High score!”
We laugh with him and pray to God that he never finds the real control room.

The Golden Pen

639164

I was suffering a horrible case of writer’s block when The Devil tapped me on the shoulder.
“Use my pen,” he said, and he handed me his Golden Pen.
“What’s the catch?” I asked.
“The usual shit,” he said. “Brilliant artistry for your soul and eternal damnation.”
“Pffft,” I said. “I’m already fucked.”
I shook his hand and he vanished.
Sure enough, when I tried to write, it was out of ink.
Fucker.
Oh well. I wrote anyway, scratching the letters into the paper, and I held it up to the light.
I’m damned, but my work will live on.

The Blackberry Bard

639158

He writes his tales as he walks the streets, tapping the keys on a telephone.
Before the telephone, he would stop at corner coffeehouses with his notebook to write his stories. Now, he is on the move, the Blackberry Bard enjoys the cool evening.
He is slimmer, healthier. The exercise has served him well.
Not looking as he crosses the street hasn’t.
His latest tale will never be finished.
A cop stands over the Bard’s corpse and picks up the phone.
He looks like over, admires the buttons and the slightly-scratched screen.
“Nice phone,” he says, and pockets the battery.

My Medicine

634146

My medicine is running out.
Just three more pills left in the bottle.
The insurance company says they no longer cover it – they say it’s an experimental treatment.
The pills are too expensive. I cannot afford them on my own.
I beg, but they ignore me.
Fools.
So, I will run out, and when the full moon returns, I will be howling at it while on the hunt.
Thank you for the address of the claims agent who rejected my appeal. I plan on going through The Change outside his home.
There will be no appeal from my claws, either.

Astronauts

639160

The Astronauts came to our world centuries ago and built both Stonehenge and the Pyramids.
Once, one sneezed, and forgot to cover his nose.
Ever hear of The Plague?
They also painted the Mona Lisa, released the monster in Loch Ness, and hunted the yeti to near-extinction.
Thank goodness that the Bigfoot are plentiful in number. Just paint one of those smelly buggers white and we’ll be fine for the next time the astronauts come to hunt.
Do you see lights in the sky?
Me too.
Let’s drive out to the rendezvous point now.
Oh, and bring plenty of tissues.

Music Club

639160

Alice has been dead for twenty years, but the record club has been sending her the default monthly selection every month.
She was unmarried, had no kids, no brothers or sisters, and her parents were long gone.
The people who moved into her house kept the albums, as did all of the people who moved in after them.
Only when the house was demolished to make way for a shopping mall did the deliveries stop.
Still, if you listen carefully, right outside the bookstore, you can hear music.
Of course you can, stupid. There’s a music store there.
Overpriced, too.

Salad Bar

639159

The two kings were bitter rivals.
One marries a beautiful woman, the other marries one more beautiful.
One gets a fast horse, the other gets one faster.
Castles. Armies. Jesters.
Always one-upping each other.
Then came the salad bars.
This time, neither would back down. For miles, each one stretched across the rolling hills.
One added to their salad bar. Then the other.
Back and forth.
Until they met at the border.
The greatest salad bar of all time.
The two kings gave up their rivalry and became friends.
That’s when a third king’s army invaded and killed them all.