Category: My stories

Life Is Cruel

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“Alive,” mumbled the wizard, casually flicking his wand.
The chair, startled, walked around the table and settled back into its usual spot.
“Alive,” yawned the wizard, waving his wand yet again.
The clock’s hands spun. Then, the minute and second hands turned back and forth, seeking out the correct time.
The wizard smirked and wandered off to his workshop.
Later that evening, both the chair and the clock slowly died.
Nobody noticed, and nobody mourned their passing.
Just like every other object the wizard had brought to life, blithely ignored, and allowed to die.
Sometimes, life is cruel that way.

Weeding Out Directors

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I tug the rope, and the beam holds.
“Good,” I mumble, and I look back at Joel Schumacher. “You brought this on yourself, Hollywood.”
He’s tied up tight, lashed to the metal folding chair, rocking slightly on top of the table.
“Go ahead,” I say. “Crack your head open.”
The chair stops rocking. Joel’s eyes get wide.
They get wider when I tie the noose around his neck and kick the table away.
I wait for a few minutes, cut him down, and toss him in the basement with Oliver Stone’s corpse.
I told them Christopher Nolan or nothing, dammit.

Bob and Lena

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For their diamond anniversary, Bob and Lena wanted a divorce.
“He leaves the seat up,” said Lena, “and his snoring keeps me up all night.”
“She’s a nagging, vicious shrew,” said Bob. “Nothing I do is good enough.”
They hired lawyers and prepared for battle. The networks caught wind of the story and sent reporters to cover the proceedings.
At nine in the morning, neither Bob nor Lena showed up to court. They were found in each other’s arms in the bed they shared for three-quarters of a century.
Okay, so they strangled each other.
Keep that a secret, please?

The Wasting Curse

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Alfonse dragged the sack of bones out of the charnel house and down to the creek.
“Drown, you infernal hag,” grumbled the old monk. He emptied the bones into the water.
That’s how the Wasting Curse struck Creeksedge. Man and woman, child and beast broke out in massive, putrid boils. The sores would burst and run, making the victim mad with thirst.
More cursed water, more sores.
Then death.
Alfonse watched it all from his hut, drinking bottle after bottle of the abbey’s wine.
The witch’s ghost knocked over his candle, incinerating Alfonse as he slept.
Revenge, whispered the wind.

Names

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Adam ran out of names by the time he got to the last three animals.
“What will you call this one?” asked Eve, holding up a furry, lumpy creature.
“I’m not sure,” said Adam. “Goat?”
“No, you’ve already used that one,” said Eve.
“Urchin?” he said.
“That’s the prickly thing over in the lagoon,” said Eve. “How about… platypus? Wait. You’ve use that one, too.”
“Screw it,” said Adam. He built a fire, and then cooked and ate the three creatures.
“I dub thee Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner,” he announced. “Now where is Rabbit? I need to wipe my ass.”

COPS: Third Dimension

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It’s not easy cornering a timefugitive, so when you shout “We have you surrounded” you’d better block them in all directions as well as in the past and the future.
Also, pandimensional hyperbeings may not understand “Come out with your hands up.” Not only are you assuming they have hands, but in higher dimensions “up” is not always “un-down” and “out” may involve going further in and then wormholing back around.
Finally, “This is your last warning” is actually the first warning for retrotemporal outlaws. Those are the worst, since from their perspective they’ve only just gotten out of prison.

The Season of Death

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Up here, they call we repair guys a “Scotty.”
I have no idea why.
Sometimes, the motors and gyros on a solar array get jammed, and I have to suit up and go out to smack it with a hammer for a while.
We’re supposed to use remote-robots to do this, but a good Scotty wants to smack the machinery with his own hand, not through some joystick or virtual glove.
Until the seals break, that is.
From a dry spring day in your suit to colder than the coldest winter in less than a second.
I call it Death.

Ancient Indian Burial Ground Corners

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So, how did this place get the name “Ancient Indian Burial Ground Corners?”
Because it’s built on an ancient Indian burial ground.
When it rains, skeletons pop out of the weak points in the ground. Arrowheads lodge themselves in tires all the time. And cable reception’s spotty when spirits gather to unleash spectral fury upon the defilers of their graves.
Not all is gloom and doom, though. The Little League team always wins because visiting teams have the piss scared out of them when they come here.
So, do you want a brochure, or are you ready to buy now?

Baseball

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It’s a long fly ball.
I’m in the bleachers, and it takes me a second or so to realize the ball is headed straight towards me.
My hands are full, and I’ve got a choice: drop the beer and catch the ball or protect the beer and get hit with the ball.
I choose a third option: putting the beer down and trying for the ball.
I bend over, and I feel a thud on my back.
I drop the beer, and it spills as it rolls into the row below.
I guess there is crying in baseball, after all.

The White Flag

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Alexandre’s unit was surrounded and running out of ammunition. The enemy was closing in and the situation looked bleak.
“Options?” he asked the men.
Nobody wanted to be the first to say surrender.
A mortar whistled overhead, and everyone ducked.
“We’ll surrender,” said Alexandre. “Time for the white flag.”
Alexandre looked around, but all of the bandages were soaked bloody red.
He broke open a laundry parcel, but someone had washed the sheets with something red and they’d been stained pink. “Will pink work?” he asked the men.
He tried it, and it sure gave the enemy a good laugh.