Category: My stories

Dumping Grounds

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Spend enough time in the emergency room and you’ll forget that people aren’t always bleeding, screaming, or dead.
Kinda sucks.
It’s especially bad when someone wakes up and you’re there all of the sudden, lights and smells and noise.
What happened?
One moment, they’re stepping into the shower, and the next, into the emergency room.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” is what we ask.
Procedure says to summon Security if the patient asks for anything truly bizarre, like a particle accelerator or a beverage nobody recognizes.
Damn transdimensional portals, dropping these bastards on our doorstep.
Probably aren’t insured, either.

Secrets Kept

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My grandmother always said that there’s no such thing as a shared secret.
Either you keep a secret, or it’s not a secret anymore.
Some secrets are worth killing over.
Especially if someone knows that secret and they’re threatening to blow it wide open.
If you’re good, you can wipe out everyone who knows that secret and it’s safe again.
Except, it was you that let that secret get loose in the first place, right?
There’s one more person that knows that secret you need to get rid of.
And it’s you.
No suicide note. No diaries.
Your secret’s safe.

Thankskilling

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We’re releasing the Thanksgiving Virus into the water supply tonight.
It’s a pretty simple virus: it kills anybody who hasn’t eaten cranberries in the past 24 hours.
I mean, all these illegal aliens coming from all over, destroying our traditions, ruining our economy and society – maybe they should show this country a little thanks and assimilate, right?
So while they’re eating their burritos and sushi, we’ll be counting all our blessings, carving up the turkey, spooning out the stuffing, and saving our lives with sweet cranberry dressing.
Those that survive, we’ll cook something up for Christmas.
Pass the gravy, Joe.

Holiday Decorations

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Don’t believe everything you see in the movies, kid.
These ghosts in the dining room were a part of our Halloween celebration.
Seems it’s pretty easy to twist ghosts out of phase with the netherworld and bring them into ours.
Spooky, aren’t they? They sure make great decorations.
For Halloween, that is.
Getting rid of ghosts, well, that’s not so easy.
And there’s no exorcists or Ghostbusters you can call to get rid of them.
That’s why we’ve got ghosts for Thanksgiving this year.
Maybe they’re Pilgrim ghosts?
Or Indians
Just ignore them, and help me peel these potatoes, okay?

Angry Planet

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Feel the ground?
I feel another tremor coming.
You know, I don’t think this planet likes us all that much.
The landing should have been smooth, but that turbulence was downright wicked nasty. Came out of nowhere, slammed the living daylights out of the shuttle.
The clouds were all pretty and fluffy, but from down here they look so angry and red and dark.
The sooner we get off of this rock, the better. I don’t want to end up on the receiving end of an avalanche.
Now hurry up with that damn stabilizer before we run out of oxygen.

The Landscape Of Dorian Grey

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As we back across Dorian’s perfect lawn, like a plush green carpet, we stop to admire its beauty.
The eternally young monster lay in a pile of dust in his foyer, shown his accursed painting, but outside in the fresh air… the grass… the grass…
“It’s always looked… perfect,” I said. “Too perfect.”
We head back inside, looking for a painting of landscaping.
What depiction of brown, wretched, barren grounds awaits us?
Instead, we come across a painting of a puddle of water, lumps of coal, a rotten carrot.
Well, I guess that explains Dorian making a snowman in July.

Level Playing Field

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All of the headstones are flush with the ground, which has been flattened to allow for quick and easy lawn maintenance.
The groundskeepers are supposed to collect up the flowers and flags and candles and other items left behind, but they never do.
There’s a brief change in tone of the drone of the lawnmower as it chews up and spits out pieces of whatever trinket it’s absorbed, spraying it across the lawn with the grass clippings.
The leaf-blowers toss the grass clippings, leaves, and shards of shared memory into the air.
I’m sure it lands somewhere. Not my problem.

Not A Dream

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Every time something bad happens to me, I close my eyes and tell myself “This is only a dream.”
The time when gigantic jelly donuts were attacking The Pentagon? Only a dream.
The time when Nancy Pelosi was whipping Newt Gingrich in my bedroom? Only a dream.
The time when Superman froze Lake Superior and dropped it on Idaho? Only a dream.
Standing naked in front of the rest of the school during Final Exam Week?
It’s not a dream. It’s totally real.
I wonder – if I scream loud enough, Superman will hear me and drop Lake Erie on me?

Closing Windows

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Welcome to 2007. It’s so easy to send an instant message halfway across the world, right?
Open a window, type what you feel like saying, and close the window.
Sometimes, it’s a little too easy. You type faster than you can think, and that’s when the trouble begins.
Over and over, I try to say I’m sorry, but the words never come.
Maybe if I open another window?
It just sits there.
It’s so easy, right?
Maybe not.
More messages come in, covering the blank window completely.
Perhaps I should just cut my losses now and go read a book?

Prayers Answered

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The simplest mistakes can have such disastrous consequences.
It’s true that God hears all prayers, but he’s gotten rather sloppy keeping them organized.
Every now and then, someone’s prayer gets answered for a complete stranger.
Maybe you prayed for a cure for your father’s cancer, but you wake up to a brand new bicycle?
That kind of thing.
It’s been happening more and more, which suggests that either God isn’t infallible or that people don’t know what they really want.
I, for one, really like this shiny new bicycle.
Actually, it’s kinda fun to ride to the cemetery with it.