Ball

 

The little dog was having a fit.

He went outside with a flashlight to see what was upsetting it.

Shining the light in the direction the furry fury was facing; he didn’t see anything out of order.

There were tall grasses and weeds, a mess of sticks, and a bright red ball.

“What are you doing? That’s your own damn ball!” the man said in exasperation and went back to the door. “Come on in, now. It’s time for bed!”

With one last snarl, the tiny terrier turned around, peed in the general direction of the ball, and ran inside.

Be

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

She glared up at her grandmother, clearly disgusted by the question.

“I want to be tall. And I want to be strong. I want to help people who need help. I want to be kind.”

Grandmother pursed her lips disapprovingly, and said, “Well, maybe you can be a nurse, or a doctor or a policeman. Those are good things to be.”

Rolling her eyes, the girl said, “Those aren’t things to be. Those are things to do” and she hopped down off grandmother’s lap and went to read a book. 

Dogs

 

The sound of the dogfight erupted, shattering the silence of the night.

There was no telling what they were fighting over- it could be a shiny rock, or a very fine stick, or maybe one of them had found a little dead thing.

The two giant dogs were related, uncle and niece, and between them they were right around 300 pounds of big teeth and pure muscle.

It was quick, fierce, and over in less than twenty seconds.

The black velvet silence washed over everything again, and the two canines snuggled in for the night.

Dogs are better than humans.

Seaside

 

The Seaside Hotel sat in the center of the desert, surrounded by sand and depression.

Abandoned for over fifty years, rumors were that anyone who entered the Seaside never came out.

He stood in the parking lot, watching the “Vacancy” light flickering with no power to the building.

Shrugging, he entered the hotel.

Padding down the musty carpet of the single hallway, he read the signs on the rooms.

“Mediterranean, Caribbean, Bering, Adriatic, Tasman, Arabian, Aegean, Java.”

As the door to the Tasman Sea closed behind him, the scent of mimosa and call of a Butcherbird lingered in the hallway.

Wink

 

The forest was quiet.

Too quiet.

Her footsteps were silent on the pine straw carpet, and she startled when a twig snapped sharply behind her.

Turning quickly, she came face to face with a squirrel, lounging on a low branch. It stared into her eyes for a long moment, then slowly winked and vanished up the tree.

Facing back the way she was headed, a hummingbird zipped into her path and hovered at eye level for a long moment, before winking at her and disappearing with an insect-like buzzing.

Were they warning her, or threatening her?

She soon found out.

Done

 

He decided he was done.

His kids had their own lives, and his wife had her hobbies and projects.

He couldn’t get excited about hobbies and projects.

So, he went out into the backyard, dug a hole, and dropped into it.

For the next week, everyone tried to talk him out of the hole.

Finally, his 4-year-old granddaughter threw a book at him and said, “If you’re gonna die, at least read me a story first.”

He climbed out of the hole, dusted himself off, went into the house, put his granddaughter on his lap, and read her a story.

One Last Time

 

The little dog peered up through milky eyes and blinked.

She hadn’t been able to jump up onto the bed in years, and if lifted up onto it, she fell trying to get off, so she’d been sleeping in a fluffy bed on the floor.

But now, something told her to try.

She whined a little bit and sat up like a shaggy meerkat to gauge the distance.

Then she spun around in a determined circle, building her confidence.

Finally, she made a mighty leap…

…and exploded into stardust and glitter, drifting up to join the rest of the stars.

Helpers II

 

She stifled a yawn and closed her eyes.

They’d show up any minute now and push her car through the mud.

They always did.

It’d been six months since the little creatures had first saved her, always coming when she needed them.

She was annoyed. Where were they?

That’s when she realized the car was moving…down. It was sinking.

The muck was already halfway up the windows, so there was no opening the door to escape.

Wild-eyed, she peered out the top of the window to see them watching her.

They shrugged their tiny shoulders and disappeared into the forest.

Helpers

 

She crossed her fingers and said a silent prayer.

This stretch of the dirt road always turned into an evil soup of clay and mud after a hard rain.

Taking a deep breath, she clutched the steering wheel and drove calmly into the muck.

Her car came to a sloppy, lurching halt.

She pulled out her phone and started to dial her dad about 20 miles away.

The car suddenly inched forward, and she dropped the phone in surprise.

Peering out the window, she watched them push her car to safety.

She nervously smiled and waved, and they waved back.

Surprise

 

Francis lived on the wall behind the toilet, and he and the human had a polite co-existence. He appreciated that.

The morning of her birthday, the human noticed Francis wasn’t on the wall.

She’d just started showering, when she heard a tiny horn and felt something on her leg. She looked down at Francis, who had hidden himself under the bath mat. “Surprise!” he said, waving his little appendages.

Startled, the human directed the water onto her leg, washing Francis back under the mat, destroying his hat and dissolving the tiny cake.

“What the fuck?” Francis would never understand humans.

Unhappy

 

He was so unhappy.

Obviously, his parents and grandparents were old and had no idea how the world works, so he cut them out of his life.

Still unhappy, he looked at his financial bloodsuckers, his wife and kids. It was the most natural thing in the world to leave them.

Realizing that his boss was an asshole and all the people he worked with were morons, he quit his job, cashing in his 401k to live on.

Sitting alone in his tiny apartment, the silence consumed him.

The phone never rang.

There were no visitors.

He was so unhappy.

Squirrels

 

He knew most of the squirrels.

You’d think they all look pretty much the same, but there are slight differences if you pay attention.

After his retirement, he’d been told to get a hobby, so this was it.

Squirrel watching.

There was one with a sparse tail, one that was strangely morbidly obese, and the young ones all had their own personalities.

Then, there was the black one.

It stayed off by itself, and it looked like its eyes glinted red, but they couldn’t.

Could they?

He felt uneasy when he saw it, and almost more uneasy when he couldn’t.

Blessed

“Have a blessed day!”

It was said everywhere, here in the Bible Belt, after every social and monetary interaction.

Being an atheist, but not an angry one, she took it in stride. Atheist acquaintances asked how she dealt with it, since it was pushing religion onto people who may not appreciate it.

“Well,” she told them, “Here’s what I think. I think someone wishing me a blessed day means that they are hoping for the best for me, and that’s nice.”

“How do you respond?”

“I tell them either ‘thank you’, or ‘you too’. I’m an atheist, not an asshole.” 

August

 

Something was dead in the woods. Perfect.

It was August, and there was nothing cool or refreshing left outside in Texas.

The dirt felt like lava, the water in ponds and lakes was piss-warm, and breathing felt of nothing since the air was the temperature of the inside of a body.

The air was thick with the scent of pine, because the sap was melted inside the trunks.

And now that was overpowered by the stench of rotting flesh.

The vultures circled lazily. Between them and the insects, all soft parts of whatever it was would be gone within days.

Fossils

 

Who will dig up our bones?

What will they think of the traces we left behind?

Will the world have gone forward or backwards and what is even the definition of each of those directions?

Tomorrow’s world depends on what we do today, and how we do it.

How will our bones be found?

With advanced technology, seeing into the earth where human eyes cannot?

Or with shovels and buckets by people looking for water?

Future civilizations- built on our foundations and the foundations of our ancestors?

Or will these places be forever shunned?

Who will dig up our bones?

Michael

 

“His name is Michael!” the old woman said triumphantly, a sparkle in her eyes.

She had been trying to think of her son’s name all morning.

The young man who stopped by to help her every day smiled. “That’s a nice name.”

“Oh, he’s a lovely boy! I’m so proud of him” she told him, her face lit with maternal love and devotion.

“I just wish he would visit me more often. I really miss him” she said, trying not to sound too disappointed.

“I’m sure he misses you, too” Michael said, gently setting her lunch in front of her.

Table

 

Cursing mightily, he grasped onto the edge of the table for balance.

That table had been there for years, and he’d never moved it so much as an inch.

He himself had been walking upright for several decades, mostly without incident and passed that same table multiple times every single day.

Yet just this minute, he’d soundly stubbed his toe on the table leg violently enough that it just might be broken.

With a heavy sigh, he sat down to examine the damage.

Logistically, how was it possible that it was the pinky toe? How?

The table leg was fine.

Shadows

 

He’d seen them as long as he could remember, the shadows.

His mother would put him to bed (first in his crib and later in his big boy bed) after a bath and bedtime story, tell him to have sweet dreams, turn off the light, blow him a kiss and close the door.

And one by one, the shadows would appear and surround his bed, humming quietly until he went to sleep.

His friend in kindergarten told him there was a monster in his closet, which was really scary.

He was happy his shadows would always protect him from monsters.

Traditions

 

It was the early 1960’s and grandma was talking about what Christmas was like when she was a little girl.

“We’d decorate the tree with mother’s ornaments and father would clip on the candle holders after we took turns with the tinsel. It was so pretty with the candles lit.”

She paused.

“Every morning, at least one family on the street had their tree tossed into the snow in the front yard because it caught fire the night before. I’m glad things are safer now.”

She chuckled and sprinkled the asbestos snow around the centerpiece on the dining room table.

Stranded

 

They’d spent days wandering the rocky wilderness. Nothing but weird rocks as far as they could see.

When they saw a village on the horizon, they made for it as quickly as their ravaged bodies could go.

Eagerly they looked for a water source, but none could be seen.

Pantomiming, they made clear they were dying of thirst, but all the village people did was try to hand them rocks.

Disgusted and cursing, they left, dying a few days later.

The people of the village watched them go, occasionally squeezing a refreshing drink from the rock-like sponges in their hands.

Little Night Noises

 

She heard the chirps at night, assuming they were frogs of some sort, but if she listened for more than a minute, it seemed like call and response communication.

Are frogs that smart?

They didn’t look that smart.

Rustling in the leaves she chalked up to squirrels.

Squirrels are guilty of almost everything. Just look at ‘em.

She did a double-take of a brown shape the size of a chicken on the bridge rail, but it was just a clump of dead leaves.

As she passed, the clump slowly turned its head, blinked, and clicked its little razor teeth.

Soon.

Ready

 

They’d worked non-stop for three days, now, and when they stepped back to see their progress, they felt good.

The small truck was old, but ran reliably, and it didn’t matter how much rust had been on it, since it was now fully insulated and armored.

“She’s ready for bear, now!” he told her, and she grinned back at him.

He winked at her and opened the passenger door for her like a fancy chauffeur, waving her inside with aplomb.

They’d gone less than a mile when the first bear dropped onto the roof of the truck, smashing the cab.

Bedtime

“OK, now. Fold your hands and say your prayers” his mother told him.

His little heart quaked.

All the other steps of his bedtime routine were comforting and reassuring.

First a bath, then a bedtime story, and then tucking in all his stuffed animal friends around him and making sure his night light was just right.

It was all perfect until…

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”

And his parents wondered why he had nightmares.