Short Writings

Meditation

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I woke up and frowned. This wasn’t right. The whole world had gone yellow, and a pervasive smell crept into my nostrils, carrying strong notes of overripe banana.

After a few seconds of physical paralysis, my brain established that yes, I still did possess fingers. I reached up and removed the banana peel from where it sat draped over my face, and looked around.

A plastic roof only a foot above my head leaked sunlight, revealing that I sat in a metal container, about six feet long and three feet wide. Several parts of me ached, suggesting that I’d been tossed into the container, but my fall onto the steel floor had been cushioned by several bulky and half-torn bags of assorted garbage. Continue reading →

The Island of Cipatli

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Lord Herrington stepped up to the podium, gazing out at his audience. The usual learned men of London had gathered for the Royal Society’s monthly presentation, but he also saw a multitude of members of the public in the audience as well, looking eagerly up at him.

With a sigh, Lord Herrington resisted the urge to reach up and adjust his pince-nez. Word of his return from the New World had traveled quickly, making him something of a celebrity among those with an adventurous mindset. They’d come tonight to here him tell his tale, hoping for glimpses of another world, one far beyond their own humdrum lives.

He intended to speak of his observations on the biological variations in life, but he sensed his audience’s hunger for more. They didn’t want to hear about varying adaptations in the hooves of Cervidates to adapt to the moist jungle environment.

So as he wound down his speech, Lord Herrington decided to throw a bone to these common folks who had come out to hear him speak. Perhaps, he thought to himself, he could ensure that they did not leave completely disappointed. Continue reading →

A Hatred of Chocolate

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In retrospect, after midnight on a Friday evening in college is not the best time to make a deep, mind-shattering discovery about your best friend.

“Are you serious?” I howled across the table at Barry, pelting him with Hershey Kisses. “You don’t like chocolate? Man, what’s wrong with you!”

Barry did his best to block the shower of small projectiles, but he didn’t want to let go of his beer bottle, so several of the little foil-wrapped chocolates pinked off the glass container. “Nothing’s wrong!” he insisted. “I just don’t like the stuff, okay?”

“Nuh uh, not okay,” I said, shaking my head vehemently back and forth. With all the booze sitting in my stomach and pestering my liver, the head-shaking gesture made the room spin unsteadily, but I clamped both of my hands over my ears until the wooziness passed. “Who doesn’t like chocolate?” Continue reading →

Meeting Myself.

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I groaned as I accepted the tall pint glass from the bartender. Man, after today, dealing with Janet’s countless stupid email requests, I really needed this drink. I might even refill the glass a few times, just to make sure that I scrubbed the memory of dealing with that awful woman out of my head.

Taking a sip of the brimming glass, I turned and glanced around Third Street Bar, looking for an open table. Given as it was right at quitting time on a Friday, however, the place was packed. I finally spotted an open seat in a booth near the back.

I carefully wove my way over to the booth, noting that the other side was occupied by a gentleman with a baseball cap pulled low over his face. “Mind if I sit here?” I asked him politely. Continue reading →

High School Reunions in Zombieland

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“Hey, Tallahassee, pull over for a minute!”

Next to me, the big man behind the wheel grunted, not looking over at me. “What?” he asked sourly, not taking his foot off of the accelerator.

“Seriously, come on. See that building?” I pointed out through the windshield, still grimy from an old splatter of blood that I hadn’t managed to fully scrape off at our last gas station. “Head over to that.”

For a minute, I thought that Tallahassee wouldn’t bother, that he’d just keep driving. After all, we’d set our destination as Dayton (“That big race track has just GOTTA have Twinkies!”, he’d exclaimed), and we had a few more hours of driving to go. The sun was already starting to sink towards the horizon.

Rule #9: Avoid driving after dark. Zombies don’t look both ways. Continue reading →

The Countdown

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“Three… two… one…”

Counting under my breath, I ticked down the fingers, bracing myself against the crumbling stones. Just after I hit “one,” the ground shook beneath us, and a mighty roar filled my ears, leaving them ringing despite the earplugs I’d inserted. They said that we wouldn’t have much sustained hearing loss, but who believed them these days?

“You were early, I think,” Harry said next to me, after the ringing and echoes had died away.

Across from me, Donson nodded. “Yep. Half a second or so.”

“I’ll get it next time,” I replied, as we hauled ourselves back to our feet on the still-quivering earth. Continue reading →

Oh Gosh.

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I balanced up on my tiptoes, stretching to grab the plastic bin off of the top shelf of the storage closet. “Come here, you bugger,” I growled up at it, my fingers brushing against the handle but not quite able to wrap around it.

Who had decided to put the popsicle sticks all the way up on the top shelf, anyway? It must have been one of the clueless parents, I decided. They came in on Fridays to help out in the kindergarten class, doing their best to foster the growth of their precious little angels, but not considering more obvious issues.

Issues like the fact that the teacher of their little terrors was barely five feet tall – on a good day. Continue reading →

Modern Arranged Marriage

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I looked around the office, trying to control the anxiety building up inside my chest. Just breathe, Jake, I told myself. You’re just here to find out how it works. You haven’t signed anything, haven’t agreed to anything yet.

Whoever designed the office, at least, had been well aware of the anxiety that its visitors might feel. Most of the walls were paneled in dark wood, and a large fountain in the middle of the room sent a small waterfall cascading down amid lush green vegetation. I felt more like I’d accidentally stepped into a spa, or perhaps an upscale massage parlor, rather than a dating service.

“Jake Hoffman?”

I glanced up at my name, and saw a tall, efficient-looking brunette in a tightly tailored navy suit looking back at me. “Yeah,” I said, rising up from the low bench where I’d been sitting and gazing blearily into the stream of falling water. “That’s me.”

She smiled at me, an efficient and businesslike smile that she’d probably practiced a thousand times in the mirror. “Right this way, Mr. Hoffman.” Continue reading →

God Discovers the Platypus.

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Almost no one thinks about the knees of an angel.

No one really sees them, under the toga. Nobody ever stops to consider whether angels have knobbly knees, the kind of knees usually seen on scrawny fourteen-year-old boys who’ve only just barely managed to survive their first real dose of hormones. Of all the exalted, perfect qualities of angels, knees are fairly low on the list.

Quiniel looked down and frowned at his knees as they knocked together nervously. Like everyone else, he’d never stopped to consider his knees until now, and he found himself thoroughly annoyed with them, especially as they bounced together and added another level of anxiety to his already-flustered state. Continue reading →

The World Below, or, On the Stupidity of Fish

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Even when all things are considered, fish are fairly stupid creatures.

Admittedly, there’s no real reason for them to be smart. The buoyancy of water means that they can build up much more muscle and fat mass, and although they need some complex three-dimensional trigonometric calculations for determining optimal paths through an environment where height is more than just the “the empty space above my head”, there’s not a lot of real intelligence in a fish.

Perhaps, at some point in history, a short-lived branch off of the evolutionary tree showed some signs of real intellect. Maybe, at one or more times, a fish blinked, looked around at its fellows swimming through the water all around him, and thought to himself, “Hey, I wonder who created this maze where we all hang out!”

That fish was probably the first to be eaten by a dolphin, because instead of swimming away like his fellows, he stopped and tried to negotiate with the dolphin. Continue reading →