"Stretching"

Daphne hated posing with babies. "If you want a baby picture, you don't need me," she said, illogically, because, of course, someone had to play "beauteous mother" to "innocence personified" frolicking on the sandy beach, and she would be paid some $5,000 the shoot -- not bad for a day's work.

But earlier that week, she'd read a book called Being Your Own Brand, and while she remembered little of the book beyond its title, that title certainly resonated for Daphne. I am my own brand, she thought. Like Kleenex. No, more like Rolex...or Tiffany's!

Convinced that each and every endeavor she undertook should drive her goals for "The Daphne Brand," she left the handsome toddler in a nearby Pack-N-Play and walked off the set with a regal swagger, smiling contented at the frantic buzzing behind her, nearly laughing with glee at the sound of her name...

"What're you...Daphne!"

"Hey! Daphne!"

"Daphne, stop!"

I'll never stop, she thought. I will be what I was always meant to be. I'll be known for class, I'll be sexy, I'll be hot, I'll be me, and only me.

"Now. Where's my car?" she said quietly to herself, staring out over the ocean at the empty blue horizon, noting, suddenly, the cool of the salt water lapping at her knees.

Daphne closed her eyes and breathed like they taught her to do in yoga class. She performed an elegant pirouette, as best she could in the knee deep water, and strode up the beach where the photographer, publicists, agents, lighting crew and nanny waited -- some gaping, some smiling.

"Now," Daphne, deploying a smile described in the Prairie View, Minnesota High School yearbook as 'one that can confirm your belief in a higher power', said, "Where is that beautiful little boy?"

# # #

"The Downsizing Blues Paradigm"

"Uh oh."

"What?"

"I dropped my damn guitar."

"Dude. Don't speak ill of your axe, man."

"Dude? Man? Who the hell do you think you are?"

"A guy who doesn't need any more of your...ah what's the use..."

"What?"

"Look. I've been trying to get through to you since Phoenix. We played for two drunks in Tucson, a half-dozen secretaries in Santa Fe, and a CFO conference in Austin... and after everyone left, they wouldn't even pay us."

"Your point?"

"There is no market for 'Business Rock.'"

Donny was silent. Clearly, he wanted his pronouncement to sink in. No market for Business Rock. Indeed. As if it wasn't clear as ever that Business Rock's time is now!

"Donny," I said. "Visionaries are always..."

"...considered fools at first, yes I know. But when you hired me as bass player and 'Chief Operating Officer' of this band, I thought you had a following. I thought you had critics behind you..."

"That's what I call Great Corporate PR!" It was one of my finer moments. My clip book of Photoshopped articles I'd expect to see in our first year and dramatic quotes from "critics" were as convincing to Donny and Greg, our drummer/Chief Technical Officer, as they were to booking agents, clubs and conferences. PR works, baby!

"I mean, I thought the songs were, let's face it, crap. But I figured someone must like it so maybe you were on to something."

"And I am. We're on the cusp of the proverbial tornado of dramatic change in the musical landscape, a new paradigm where the hopes and dreams of the white collar worker have a voice in a new generation of rock and roll..."

"Right. Like Accounting for Your Love? CPA, I Love You..."

"Classics!"

"And who can forget The Outsourcin' Blues, and Middle Management Shuffle and I Ain't Harrassin' (I'm just askin')?"

"Country Classics!" I was getting impatient. "Look, if you don't believe in this endeavor, just leave. Get out of here. I don't need you. Business Rock can never die!"

"Whatever, man. I'm out of here."

"You can't quit!"

"Why not?"

"Because," I said, pointing my finger like a gun. "You're fired."

"Fired?"

"Well, laid off, really. We'll position it as a 'restructuring'."

# # #

"Maintenance"

For Aaron

"I'm healthy as a horse! A cow, even!"

"A cow?"

"Yes. A cow. One who has been stuffed full of the most delicious nutritious, muscle-building ingredients. One ready for consumption in the finest of dining establishments."

"So, you're saying you're ready to be slaughtered and eaten, then?"

"What I'm saying is that you have nothing to worry about."

"Well, that's good, then. Was I worried?"

"I thought you were. You should be."

"Now you're just messing with me."

"Aren't I important to you?"

"Of course!"

"Then why aren't you worried?"

"Because you told me not to be! And what would I be worried about?"

"Anything. I could be run over by a bus. Stung by a scorpion. Murdered by a late-night prowler. I could be struck down by an aneurysm. I could have a heart attack."

"Probably from eating all that cow."

"You ought to watch yourself, you know."

"I'm doing just fine, thanks."

"Everyone could use a little maintenance."

"And what, pray tell, do you prescribe for me?"

"You are getting a little heavy. And your diet. I'd be concerned about that."

"I had a salad."

"Yesterday. What nutritional delights did you foist upon yourself today?"

"That'd be a Bacon Double Cheeseburger, Bob."

"That would be lunch...and for dinner?"

"That'd be a Quarter Pounder with Cheese."

"And?"

"And...and I go sit in box and I feel shame."

Silence...

"And then what?"

"And then I get back to work, that's what. How do you feel about that?"

"I feel healthy as a horse!"

# # #

"Weak in the Knees"

The TV over the bar was like a magic mirror, one showing a better bar than this one. "Weekends," sang the happy barflies, "are made for Michelob."

This weekend, James said wryly to himself, was made for Johnnie Walker Red.

"What was that?" Syl said while wiping down the bar.

"Nothing," James muttered. "Just...you know."

"Talking to your drink?"

"Yeah."

"I think you're done, Jimmy."

"I guess I am, Syl. I'm done with a lot of stuff."

James stood up and lazily saluted Syl. He stopped and stared...he found it curious that Syl was now horizontal, and yet it seemed like he was standing. And he was curiously out of focus as well.

"Stop that...!" James shouted just ahead of some very loud and very confusing noises.

James awoke to music. He hummed the tune: "Dah dah dah dahhh dah livin' the vido loco..." That can't be right. The tune was coming from his pocket. He pulled out the phone and found the numbers too blurry to read. He pressed a button and listened.

"Jimmy? Jimmy?"

"What?"

"Where are you?"

James had been wondering the same thing himself. He looked around. Vinyl seats, scenery moving outside.

"I'm in a car. A cab."

"Where's it headed?"

Another good question. He called out to the driver, who had a grizzled gray flatop. "Where we headed?"

"St. Francis," the driver said in a heavily accented grunt. Lithuanian?

"St. Francis' church," James said, feeling proud and then quickly horrified.

"Uh huh. Right," said the voice on the other end, who clearly, he knew now, Tracy.

"Right. You know what? Don't bother, Jimmy."

"Oh, Tracy..." James began...

"Oh, James ..." she said, and James waited a long time, phone pressed to his ear, head pressed to the vinyl seat in the back of the yellow cab, cockeyed bow tie brushing up against his neck, before he admitted to himself that the line was dead and she was gone. He closed his eyes.

"St. Francis'," the driver said.

"I'm not getting out."

"Where we going now?"

"Take me to the mall," James said. "I've got a tux to return."

# # #

"Bulk Smash"

Any similarity between Bulk and superpowered characters created by popular comic book companies is purely in the imagination of the reader. Oh, and apparently I'm on a brief superhero jag...

The mighty muscled Bulk, blue skinned and ever-angry, slammed his 22-pound-Thanksgiving-turkey-sized fists into the roof of a purple Honda Accord, smashing the vehicle into a now impractical V-shape. Bulk grabbed the car's two bumpers and folded it in half, crumpled it impossibly into a jagged metal ball and tossed it like a first draft into the alley.

Bulk roared at the sky.

But the helicopters didn't come.

Where are the helicopters? thought Bulk. There always were helicopters.

Bulk made a prodigious leap, 20 feet into the air, and landed in the center of 6th Avenue, pavement sinking and cracking at his feet. He uprooted a traffic light and swung it like a baseball bat at a Volkswagon Beetle, the new kind. The Beetle skidded down 6th Avenue and popped over the sidewalk, crashing snugly as a cork stopper into an underground subway entrance.

Bulk roared again at the sky.

Still no helicopters. Or police cars. No bullets bouncing off his chest. No rockets from the sky. No bullhorns warning him to give up. No giant Bulkbuster Robots with innovative but ultimately futile weapons designed specifically to overcome Bulk's limitless strength and immunity to pain and injury.

Bulk hurled the lightpost like a javelin, one that embedded itself into a newspaper stand, scattering newsprint in 16 languages across the sidewalk. Bulk leapt and stomped to the stand, swept up a pile of papers in his massive hands, threw them into the sky like confetti and shouted, "Happy New Year!"

He stood impassively as the papers floated over him, some brushing his hair, others caressing his brutish blue cheek.

"Bulk go now," Bulk said.

And Bulk smiled.

"Comic Book Dreams"

I was sitting on a park bench, dreaming.

In my dream, I was in the army. But when I fired my gun, I didn't kill anyone. They would just keep coming and coming, over the dusty, dirty hill that was dotted with patches of green and brown grass and wavy, straw-like grains. Then I'd look over the hill and they'd be gone, and the hill became an expanse, a valley, that went on forever. So I forced myself over the hill and then I fell and rolled, but I didn't feel like I was rolling and I couldn't feel the bumps and I should have been bruised but I wasn't, probably because I was dreaming.

And I stood up with my gun at the ready...but there was no enemy, only this empty plain that stretched on forever.

So I sat down and laid my gun on my lap and I had a smoke. Only I don't smoke. So I started coughing. So I dropped the cigarette and it set the grass on fire. And there was fire all around me like in a ring and I got up and gaped at it, open mouthed I gaped at it, standing, ready to shoot something. But nothing came and it was hot. And I was scared.

And then I woke up.

* * *

"So, what do you think, Doc?"

"What do you think, John?"

"I think I'm getting hot under the collar!"

"What is that, some sort of movie line?"

"I think so. Probably not."

"What do you think your dream meant, John?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you have some unresolved conflicts."

"Pffffft. Okay..."

"I think you're angry and helpless. And you realize your only enemy is the one

you can't fight -- yourself."

"Well, yes. That's all true, but..."

"But what?"

"But I think it was about my frustrations..."

"Yes, that's what I said..."

"...about my inability to successfully gain super powers."

"That's funny..."

"You see, I tried to irradiate a spider. But it's not easy to find radiation. They don't sell it at Radio Shack."

"I'd imagine not..."

"Cosmic rays aren't easily available, either."

"I'm not familiar with..."

"So, I've been working in my garage on an exoskeleton. Mostly with scrap metal and transistors, some old machine tools and minimotors."

"And what will this exoskelton do for you?"

"The exoskel-e-ton will give me super strength, of course. and I'll be bulletproof. Mostly."

"So, when you say 'bulletproof' that's really a metaphor for ..."

"Protecting me from bullets, yes."

"And who would be shooting at you?"

"Villains. Look, if you're not going to take me seriously, I'm going to have to..."

"Are you threatening me?"

"... take you to my garage and show you. It's really cool."

"That's okay. I believe you."

"You do?"

"No, not really."

###

Rapelling

Rapel, he thought. I'm rapelling.

"Rapell-ent," called a voice from above. "The word is rapellent. Actually, the word is 're-pellent'. And so are you."

The voice was clear, strong, rich and female, one that brought up unwanted memories of his mother's nagging and great-aunt's psychological manipulation.

"Get out of my head!" Brian shouted.

"Why? It's so comfy in here," she said sweetly. And she began to gnaw upon the rope.

"Goddammit. How dare you?" Brian was feeling rudely violated, and in more than a little physical danger.

"Where are your manners?"

"You stink," she said, sweetly again. Brian bounced faster. His hands burned despite the thick gloves he wore.

"I can change," he cried.

"I'd rather you not," she called. "Or, rather, I'd rather you not knot."

"What?" Brian said, not hearing the silent 'k'.

"No knots!" she called, laughing. Brian hit the ground with a stomp as the full length of rope came tumbling down the cliff like an attacking anaconda.

The laughing from above...stopped.

Brian squinted up.

"You've been repelled."

Drat.

# # #

"Gloom and Despair"

The man in the overalls leaned back against the rotting wood fence. The cross bar slipped out of the hole that once held it so snug and secure, and the man in the overalls stumbled and fell, his straw hat rolling like a tumbleweed till it disappeared into the tall grass.

"If it weren't for bad luck," the man spat, "I'd have no luck at all."

The man crawled into the tall grass. Later, when the police arrived, witnesses were said to have heard a creative string of curses, then nothing at all. All they found was an old pair of overalls and a bloodied straw hat.

# # #

"Strange Things are A-Foot at the Circle K"

A Short Tale of A Man, A Dinosaur and His Foot

Today I took a walk around downtown with a dinosaur attached to my foot. It was, you may have already guessed, one of those really small dinosaurs. The ones they never talk about.

Anyway, he bit my shoe. It hurt a lot, like a small animal was sinking razor sharp teeth into my foot. Exactly like that, actually. I howled. I kicked. The really small dinosaur wouldn't let go at first, so I went to the drugstore, all calm-like, and purchased a bottle of Vaseline. I rubbed it all over the dinosaur's mouth and head. I heard a little avian-reptillian coo, which I think meant he liked it. Glad your so HAPPY! I thought. Then I gave another kick and slammed him against the cornerstone of a skyscraper. The Dino fell to the ground, and so did I, and then I swiped at him with my foot one more time, just because I could, because I'm big and he was small and dammit isn't that the way it's supposed to be in the world, when natural selection takes over and big people with hands and feet and the ability to purchase Vaseline encounter smaller, weaker species?

The feisty little beast came to quickly and scampered off... I threw a rock at it. It stopped, turned around and I could swear that evil lizard mouth curved into a smile. Because in its little, not-quite-atrophied hand was my shoe. And in my shoe was a single, bloody foot in a black argyle dress sock.

Ouch! I said, and hobbled back to work, rethinking my feelings on natural selection.

# # #

"Kid's Stuff"

"G'mornin'," she said and I groaned.

"Hiya, angel," I said and stuffed my face back in my pillow.

"How'd you sleep?" she asked sweetly.

"Like a herd of sheep was marching on my head all night," I said into the pillow.

"Hmm," she purred. "Maybe we shouldn't have...you know."

I bolted upright, wrenching my back. "Maybe we should have," I growled.

She laughed. She always does that. Or, at least I imagined she always does that.

Anyway, she was already out of bed, sashaying into the bathroom. I watched her ... sashay. I listened to the toilet flush, and the water splashing in the sink. I listened to the soft thump of her feet on the floor. Then to silence. Then to the clatter of plastic and metal and a resounding crash of shattered glass, squeals of pain and shrieks of laughter. Then it stopped.

I raced to the bathroom and threw open the door. She sat, cross-legged, blood dripping from her arms and cheeks, amid the ruins of the shower door and the shards of the mirror, amid the clutter of toothbrushes, bars of soap, lipstick and makeup. She sat smiling, holding a small, squirming figure by the tail.

"Mouse," she said, unecessarily.

# # #

"Try, Try Again"

I held the flint in one hand, and the steel in the other. Clack, clack, clack.

Nary a spark.

I kneeled like a penitent over the tiny twig teepee stuffed with bark, wood shavings, leaves and pine needles. I closed my eyes. The sun was settling into a thick, rusty pink glow over the lake and the air turned colder, more solid, like you could bite it.

I opened my eyes and struck steel to flint. Sparks flew. Again and again. Clack, clack, clack.

Something rustled in the leaves above me, but I didn't look. Squirrel, probably.

Clack, clack, clack.

Sparks flew. One fell on a leaf and sent wisps of smoke from the kindling. The leaf dissolved from within, forming a ragged hole.

Clack, clack, clack.

More rustling in the trees, but I couldn't be bothered.

Something hit me in the head.

"Son of a bitch!" I said.

Acorn.

Clack, clack, clack.

Sparks flew with a vengeance, and a leaf caught fire. Small orange flames, billows of smoke. I blew gently on the kindling and the flames leapt up in thanks.

"Son of a bitch!"

Another acorn.

I laid carefully chosen sticks gently upon the teepee and watched the fire with deep satisfaction, like I'd just rescued a kid from drowning or something. I smiled and looked around for some sign of recognition.

It was completely dark now. The moon was high in the sky. Some thirty tents surrounded me, all zipped closed and dark. Cursing, I looked up to see a gray squirrel squatting on a low branch. I swear it was looking right at me. It held an acorn in its forepaws and must have had a half-dozen in its cheeks. I waved at it and then held my hands to warm them over the fire, and then I decided to...

"Son of a bitch!"

# # #

About "One-Minute Stories"

One Minute Stories are fast and focused pieces of fiction.

They are weird, funny, sometimes disturbing little tales.

And you can read them in a minute or so.

One Minute Stories began as a stress relief exercise. I'd be at work with 15 minutes or so before a meeting. No time to start a new project. So I'd post to my blog, My Chronic Impending Disaster. And I'd write these strange little stories that distinctly represented, in a highly obscure way, my mood, or something on my mind...or nothing whatsoever.

I'll try and update every other day...either with new stories, or stories moved from the other blog... and... and...

...and if you like One Minute Stories, try it yourself ... email me your One Minute Story to kkadet@gmail.com and if I like it, I'll post it here... no pay involved ... just for the sheer thrill of joining in the fun.