WELL DONE PATRON

("WELL DONE PATRON” is a short-short story about going to extremes over small matters. Ostensibly a short-short story, we can also see it as a kind of skit that you can perform with your friends in the comfort of your home.

Choose your role with wisdom.

Enjoy !!!

WELL DONE PATRON

“What does a guy have to do to get a little service around here ?!” Todd said in a rather loud voice. Not quite a yell, but up there. Staff lazed about their work of cleaning tables, taking orders and bringing food, paying no attention to Todd’s irritation.

Isabelle shushed him: “We’ll wait just like everybody else.”

The line-up was twenty people long.

“They can fend for themselves, but we have to stand up for what we believe in. We have lives to live. I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life in this fucking line-up !! Just wait here.” Todd stormed off into the outside world.

Isabelle smiled at the people around her.

Ten minutes later, he came back into the restaurant with a jerry can of gasoline.

“Let it be known that my actions are motivated out of complete dissatisfaction with the abysmal service at this restaurant which has degraded us and robbed us of our humanity. May my actions aid in the betterment of others lives. May my sacrifice lead to hope.” He sat at the front of the line-up and started dousing himself in gasoline.

Isabelle laughed uncomfortably. “He gets this way from time to time,” she said to the couple standing next to her.

Sunshine suddenly poured in through the dirty windows of the restaurant whose name was cast in a shadow over Todd’s gasoline soaked lap.

BALLOONING BLISTERS

("BALLOONING BLISTERS” is a short-short story that will get under your skin and bones and find a little resting place in the subconsciousness of your lower intestine..

Yeah it’s weird and deep and maybe a little brown.

Enjoy !!!

BALLOONING BLISTERS

Held aloft by ten balloon-sized blisters at the ends of his fingertips, Marty’s arms stretched up to the blue of the sky as his body pulled down to the brown fields of the earth below.

He had just wanted a squeaky voice from the helium. He had no idea it would stay in his body, inflate his fingertips and take him away from his daughter’s tenth birthday party.

“Help !!!” he shouted as a Cessna flew by.

Finally in that funny, squeaky voice he’d been searching for all afternoon.

No one was around to laugh.

DAVID CROSS MARRIED ME

("DAVID CROSS MARRIED ME” is a short-short story that dances through Charlie Kaufmann territory without stepping on toes.

Your brain will do the twister trying to make sense of this here story.

Enjoy !!!

DAVID CROSS MARRIED ME

Mark Shofliegger, Grade 8 Social Studies, shuffles his way into a sit-com sized staff room full of morning faces.

"Morning," he yawns, as he heads towards the coffee.

Several "mornings" come back in half-hearted response, sounding more like the moans of ghosts than greetings.

Arriving at the sink, Mark opens the cupboard door to find his favorite mug missing. A souvenir that he got on vacation in Hawaii ten years ago.

I'm too tired to care, he tells himself.

"You would not believe the dream that I had last night !!" Tarl Waters, Grade 10 Math, bursts into the staff room with Susan Obermiller, Grade 10 English. Their laughter lightens the mood of misery hanging in the staffroom.

"What was it about ? " she asks, anticipating the ridiculous.

"I dreamt that I was getting married and David Cross - you know that bald actor in Arrested Development who plays the gay husband ? - he was conducting the wedding ceremony. Everything he said was just dripping with sarcasm and he kept rolling his eyes like, Oh my God I've got to say this shit ?!"

Susan laughs uproariously.

Mark stews in his silence over the absence of his coffee mug. Coffee is my fucking laughter in the morning, he thinks to himself.

"And then when he says, you may now kiss the bride I go to lift her veil and who is behind it but David Cross !! I look out over the pews in the church and it's David Crosses everywhere. Its like that movie with John Malkovich where there's a whole bunch of him all over the place. What was that movie called ?"

"John Malkovitch ! It was called John Malkovich," she laughs hysterically.

Mark slams the cupboard door shut: "That wasn't your dream !! You always come in here with your dreams, your stories that sound like they were written by a joke writer !! That shit doesn't happen in dreams."

He starts throwing the coffee mugs at the high school staff.

In the court case that will follow the mini-rampage, Mark Shofliegger will confess that he's never had a single dream in his waking or sleeping life.

When the judges gavel comes down, that's when you will wake up.

Next to the sarcastic smirk of your lover David Cross.

ANOTHER STORY TO SAVE THE DAY

("ANOTHER STORY TO SAVE THE DAY” is a short-short story that is neither a bird nor a plane; rather it is a sort of Superman of a story that flies into your world to save you.

Enjoy the strong arms of this story...

ANOTHER STORY TO SAVE THE DAY

The cluttered clouds in the sky mirrored the state of the freeway below with hundreds of cars crawling towards the horizon.

Karl Vespers' knuckles whitened around the steering wheel of his Chevy pick-up. The heat vapors from the traffic crept into his car like freeloading hitchhikers. Fuck off heat, he thought to himself.

He just wanted to be home to celebrate his ten year wedding anniversary. He was a good husband that way. He was faithful, kind and thoughtful.

Outside this bubble of marital bliss however was Karl's temper which was a force to be reckoned with.

"Get the fuck off the road !!"

Unbeknownst to Karl, the man in the Honda ahead was reaching for a loaded gun in his glove-compartment. Unbeknownst to either Karl or the gunman, a third party in this potential powder-keg was walking quickly up alongside Karl's Chevy.

"A couple lonely clouds blocked the blue of the sky as Kevin Chambers reached his driveway," the Scribe read outside of Karl's open window from a piece of paper. His blue super-hero mask hid any signs of emotion for it was the story which was the focus of his heroics. As he read from his story about a man who needed to resolve his anger issues, Karl felt a calm ease over him.

Seeing this strange site in his rear-view mirror, the man in the car ahead left his gun in the glove compartment.

The traffic crawled ahead slowly and peacefully.

Once again the Scribe's power to psychically pick up on people's distress and then prepare the perfect story as an antidote saved the day.

His fame however, would forever be kept at a minimum as it was difficult to sum up his powers in a catchy phrase.

HOW TO KICK A SAVIOR IN THE GROIN

("HOW TO KICK A SAVIOR IN THE GROIN” is a short-short story that aims to please as well as enlighten. The story is set in a fictional amusement park.

Enjoy the ride..

HOW TO KICK A SAVIOR IN THE GROIN

“But nobody wants to play with me,” Sammy spouts out through a pouty face. At ten years of age, he weighs in at around a rather round 120 pounds.

“Now don’t you worry. As long as you’re a good person inside that’s all that matters.” His father places his large hand on Sammy’s shoulder. A trickle of sweat drips down the side of his face and then speeds up to curve around the bend in his smile. He forgot to wear his baseball cap for the day’s outing.

“Now let’s go take a kick at the crotch of Jesus.”

“Okay,” his son responds with zero enthusiasm.

They walk towards a statue of Jesus with a metal track running up the center. A little girl kicks Christ in the groin and a metal ball sails up to his head making a dinging sound.

Sammy smiles.

The sun shines bright over all 23 acres at the Atheist’s Theme Park.

INAPPROPRIATE FANTASY AT THE DENTAL CLINIC

("INAPPROPRIATE FANTASY AT THE DENTAL CLINIC" is today’s short-short story that drills deep into the mouth of a patient who harbors a desire that is best left in the inner recesses of his subconscious mind.

Enjoy !!

INAPPROPRIATE FANTASY AT THE DENTAL CLINIC

He plays the part of a patient leafing through a magazine as his eyes scan page after page of red lips, buxom breasts and tampon ads in a Cosmopolitan magazine. He’s too absorbed in his thoughts to notice that he has the wrong prop in his hands.

“The dentist will see you know Mr.Anderson,” the dental assistant says with friendly lilts that lift her voice up into the calmness of the heavens. Her voice is beautifully soothing and makes up for the fact that she has dropped dental instruments over thirteen times in the past four years. She also has a beautiful smile.

“Yes I was just about to…” he shouts with a start; a man waking up from a bad dream.

Everyone in the waiting room looks at him.

“Alright then right this way.” Her voice restores calm to the room.

“I was just… ha ha ha” he says as he walks with her to the dentist’s chair. He waves his hand through the air to dismiss any thoughts of strangeness.

He doesn’t want to be seen as a man who dreams night after night of having his teeth replaced with the bristles from toothbrushes. He doesn’t want to do anything that will give away his fantasy of seeing his teeth individually placed on the ends of thirty-two toothbrushes. He doesn’t want her to know that what he wants more than anything in the world is to place these “toothed-brushes” into his bristled mouth to be cleaned. At that point he imagines himself being filled with bucketfulls of pleasure.

But he fears that everyone can see this fantasy written all across his face.

“The dentist will be with you shortly.”

Mr Anderson turns red.