Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Surprise Endings

Omar installed the bomb in the trunk of his car. He set the detonator in the glove box then headed to the town center.

“If you die, love continues. Protect your family,” said the radio spokesman.

Omar saw an insurance agency and stopped to talk to an agent. Omar left knowing, regardless of the cost, his large family would be taken care of.

He stopped at a traffic light and was rear-ended. His life passed before his eyes as he braced for the explosion then died from a heart attack.

© May 31, 2011

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Snack

Carrie laughed as she ran ahead of the group. She’d been warned to stay with tour but she hadn’t been listening. She never listened.

Just as she was out of sight a giant stepped out onto the path. Carrie ran into his big toe.

The giant squatted to get a better look then picked her up. “You’ll make a yummy snack.”

She screamed as the giant put her in his shirt pocket. No one heard her as the giant continued on his way. Carrie was never seen again.

Moral: Listen to your tour guide.

© July 12, 2006

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Twitter fiction

I focused the lens on my target. She was beautiful but oblivious as I waited for an embarrassing moment. Ahh, the life of the paparazzi.

I blew out the candles and made a wish. I smiled as a zombie hoard attacked my family. The inheritance I got was the perfect birthday gift.

I sat on the privy, the gun aimed at the door. I'd be safe here. I felt a tickle then the probe. "Argh!" There's no escaping damned aliens.

"We're free!" cried the guppies. They swam into the deep water, oblivious to the turtle until he lunged at them from under the rock. "Nom!"

Dan circled X-70. He realized how the planet was named: it was like stepping into a disco filled with green-skinned aliens during the 1970s.

He stalks me in my dreams. Trying to bribe me with all the things I want so I'll stay. But I can't; I'm not ready. Death will have to wait.

Torrential rain falls, flooding the window sill. As I close it, I see the open car window. I run out, keys in hand. Soaked, I utter, "FML."

The groom ran off with the pastor. Stranded and devastated, she destroyed the flowers and the wedding cake then hung herself with her veil.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Missing Scones

Sue started brewing a pot of coffee then opened the cookie jar to get a chocolate scone she’d made the night before. Instead, she found $150. “What the heck? Bob, did you eat the scones?” Sue asked. He shook his head. “Do you know where this money came from?”

“The scone fairy?”

“Very funny,” she replied.

That night she made a double batch of chocolate scones. The next morning, they were all gone and $300 was in their place. They didn’t know what to think.

“Make more tonight,” Bob said when he called her at work later. “I’ll set up a hidden video camera and we’ll solve this mystery.”

When they got up, the triple batch was gone and there was $600 in the jar. They watched the video—the chocolate scones disappeared then were replaced with money but there was no one visible on the tape.

They left four batches of chocolate scones on the counter that night. In the morning, they found $900 and a note.

“Thanks for making those amazing chocolate scones. As a rare delicacy on Zarflart, we could have both been rich. Too bad you were greedy and saturated the market. Sincerely, Hyzar”

© May 24, 2011

Friday, May 20, 2011

A Fishy Tale

"What's in the cooler?" the border guard asked.

"Fish I caught," John answered as he opened the container. The pungent smell of fish filled the small room.

"Close it up," the guard said holding his nose. The drug dogs whimpered at the overwhelming smell. The guard waved him through. John loaded the cooler back into his truck then drove across the border into Texas. By the time he reached Dallas, the fish had defrosted.

He stopped at a deserted building in a rundown section of the city. John messaged his dealers to tell them he had fresh supplies. While he waited for them to show up, he sliced the fish open and removed more than 150 kilos of Mexican cocaine. When the dealers came by to pick up their stashes they dropped off his portion of their sales from the last supply drop.

On the way home, he dropped off the fish at the St. Mary’s Church food kitchen for Friday’s fish dinner. When John got home, he put the money in a safe hidden in his basement then went upstairs to take a shower.

He smiled as the hot water beat against his body and thought about how clever he’d been to hide the drugs in frozen fish. He was so caught up in applauding himself that he didn’t notice the Drug Enforcement Taskforce standing in the doorway.

John turned the water off then reached for his towel. “Freeze,” the lead officer said. “You’re under arrest. Pick up the towel slowly and cover yourself.”

He covered up then turned to face the police. They motioned for him to move to the bedroom and waited for him to get dressed. An officer cuffed him and read him his rights while another placed the fishy clothes into a plastic evidence bag. They led him out of the house then took him to the police station.

“How did you catch me?” John asked the two officers after he settled into a chair in the interrogation room. He was sure one of his dealers had snitched.

“The staff at the church started cutting into the fish and discovered you’d missed a brick. Their security cameras showed you coming and going with the cooler that you left there,” one officer answered.

John smacked himself in the forehead as the other officer said, “I guess what they say is true: no good deed goes unpunished.”

© May 20, 2011

Monday, May 16, 2011

Child's Play

God looked at the universe with frustration. He had laid the planets out a dozen times and none of the configurations worked. He looked at his diagrams again then put them in a new configuration. God set them in motion, the rotations were all wrong.

"I need a break," God said. He went upstairs to get a cup of fresh coffee.

Satan, who was just three years old, sneaked into the workshop. He picked up the planets and rolled them around the room. He heard his father coming back and dumped the planets back into the universe then slipped out before he got caught.

God set his coffee down then looked at the Milky Way again. All the planets had been rearranged. "This is Satan's work," he thought.

He checked his diagrams, it was a configuration he hadn't tried yet—Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. God put it in motion. It was perfect.

He decided not to punish the little devil for playing in his workshop; after all, he had saved him days of work. Besides, God didn’t want anyone to find out his divine plan had been child’s play.

Copyright © May 15, 2011

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Sweet Rewards

“Hey handsome,” Barb said as she slipped onto the bar stool next to Bill. He looked around to see whom she was talking to. “I mean you, silly.”

“I’m not rich, I’m not even a college graduate,” he replied. Bill didn’t have anything against cougars, especially beautiful ones with gorgeous bodies, but he liked to be upfront about his status in life.

“Would you like to be rich?” she asked as she pressed her firm breasts against his arm suggestively.

“Seriously?”

“The name’s Barb Collins,” she said. “Come with me.”

Bill was a geek but he knew not to argue with a beautiful woman and followed her out of the bar to her waiting limo. He climbed into the back then sat next to her. She leaned forward, poured them each a glass of white wine and handed him one.

“What … what do I have to do?” he asked nervously as the car pulled away from the curb.

“I need you to collect something for me.”

“What is it?”

“A recipe.”

Bill laughed. “You’ve gotta be kidding,” he replied. “What’s it for?”

“Mrs. Field’s Famous Neiman-Marcus Cookies.”

“That’s just a hoax,” Bill said.

“I paid $250 for the recipe and I never received it,” Barb said. “I have identified where it is. All you have to do is get it for me then I will make you rich.”

“I’ll do it,” he replied. She gave him instructions on where the recipe was kept along with the schedule of the secretary who guarded it.

“We’ll be here when you’re done. Just knock on the window.”

Bill entered the building and took the elevator to the ninth floor. He waited near the secretary’s desk, pretending to read a paper he’d picked up from someone’s cubicle. When the secretary left for her afternoon cigarette break, Bill opened the center desk drawer and pulled out the key to the filing cabinet.

He quickly found the folder with the recipe in it then pulled it out and slipped it into his pocket. Bill barely put the key back into the drawer and started walking away when the secretary returned.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“No, I am on the wrong floor,” he said then quickly walked to the elevator. On the way to the first floor, he read the recipe and wondered what was so special about it. It looked like a regular oatmeal chocolate chip recipe to him.

The limo was still parked in front of the building. He knocked on the window and it slowly rolled down. Barb’s hand slid out and he handed her the recipe. “Perfection! Thank you so much!” she said then read the recipe. Bill cleared his throat.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. Sell these when the market gets hot,” she said.

He read the top one. “What’s this?”

“You’ll find out in a few years. Just put them in a safe deposit box and forget about them until 2004,” she said as she handed him 10,000 shares of Google stock. “Now I must go. Thank you again, you were superb.”

Bill stepped away from the curb and watched the limo pull away. He looked down at the stack of stocks then headed home. The next day he put them in a safe deposit box at the local bank and went on with life.

* * *

Bill was reading the newspaper with his morning coffee when he read the headline, “Google Goes Public.” He remembered the stocks he’d sealed away and smiled. Barb Collins had finally made him rich. Bill just needed to wait for the stocks to reach more than $100 a share so when he sold the stocks; he’d be set for life.

On his way to the bank to collect the stocks, Bill passed a bookstore. In the front window was a book titled, “Uncovering the Truth: The Cookie Recipe Hoax,” by Barb Collins. He went inside and picked up a copy of the book.

The picture on the inside back flap was of the woman who had hired him to steal the recipe. She hadn’t changed at all over the last eight years. Bill opened the book and flipped to the dedication. “To the man who made this possible; enjoy your reward.”

He looked up and saw there was going to be a book signing by her in an hour. Bill took the book then found a comfy chair and started reading it. He was amazed at the story and that she’d even mentioned his part in obtaining the evidence she needed.

There was a commotion by the entrance when she arrived. He watched as she made her way to the table that was set up for the signing. Bill got in the back of the line and waited as more than a dozen people ahead of him got their copies signed.

She smiled up at him. “So lovely to see you again! Have you cashed in your reward yet?”

“Not yet. I think I’m going to wait for it to go to more than $100,” he answered. “I have to know. How did you do it?”

“A bit of luck being in the right place when my friend’s time machine needed to be tested,” she replied. “The rest, as they say, is history.”

© May 11, 2011

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Zombies: The Opera

Caitlin and Karen walked across the foggy stage. As they passed the cemetery, the music grew creepy and a zombie started singing, "Br-ains! Br-ains! Brrr-ains!"

The girls screamed and it chased them into an alley. "Help us please! Won’t someone save us?" the girls sang, the music growing intense. "We don't want to become zombies; we wanna grow up to be mommies!"

Jesse jumped up out of the dumpster carrying a baseball bat. The music turned heroic as he sang, "Pick on someone your own size! Or I'll turn you into mush.”

The music began to crescendo. "Br-ains! Br-ains! Brrr-ains!" sang the zombie, lunging for Karen. It was about to bite her head when James appeared at the alley entrance and shot it in the head. The zombie teetered.

"Don't forget to double tap," James sang then shot the zombie again. The orchestra played triumphant music as the girls thanked their heroes with kisses and the curtain closed. A standing ovation followed.

The next night The Zombie News ran a review: "Zombies: The Opera had a mindless plot with soulless music. If I were alive, I’d have been bored to death. Stay in your crypts, it isn’t worth the trip.”

Copyright © May 11, 2011

Saturday, May 7, 2011

A Mother’s Day Visit

I stood over my mother’s plot, the flowers I’d gotten her laid on the ground at my feet. I held a faded scrap of paper and a vial the voodoo man had given me. “Shake the contents of the vial over the grave three times then recite the poem,” I read.

I shook the contents of the vial then read, “Rise from the dead, sleepy head. Its time to rise from where you have lain. Rise from the dead, sleepy head. Your loved one wants to see you again.”

The earth shook, the soil parting as my mother’s skeletal body rose from the ground. She groaned angrily as she stood up, glaring at me.

I picked up the flowers and held them out to her, my hands shaking. “Happy Mother’s Day! I love you.”

She knocked them out of my hands and lunged at me. She grabbed my shirt as she tried to pull me close, her mouth opening to take a bite from my head.

“Go back to the earth, to your endless berth!” I quickly said as I pushed her backwards. The earth opened and swallowed her then closed over her body.

“See you again next year Mom.”

© May 7, 2011