One Minute Stories

A Nighttime Walk in My Neighborhood

2010-09-30T08:59:00.001-05:00

There’s a full moon out tonight. I’m walking in field. Tall grass? Wheat? What is it about narrators that they can always name everything. I can’t name anything. All I know is the pale moonlight making the tall-wheat-grass look like a still frame in a black-and-white movie. I don’t know what kind of grass this is or what kind of rock that is… I just know that I’m here, under the moonlight, and it’s cold and I tell myself I like it, but it’s still cold. So I keep walking.

My street snakes toward the edge of the island…in between are the tall wheat grass fields, ready to be plowed under and turned into more houses in this suburban seaside town. Till then, I can cut across the field, straight down the hill, believing, briefly, that I’m out in the wild, free. Alone.

I look up at the stars and I imagine myself flying, a winged adolescent angel framed by the night sky, flashing eyes and flaming hair. But alas, I’m ever earthbound.
I use my arm like a machete and hack at the grass. Doesn’t do much good.
I look up at the stars and envision vile red-eyed leather-winged, bloody fanged beasts swoop from the sky. I raise my shield to fend off one and flash my sword at another. They disappear in a puff of acrid smoke.

Alas.

And in my darkest visions she’s walking with me, in that pink sweater and that perfume and she’s holding my hand with both of hers entwined around my arm and my jaw is shaking in that way it does when I’m feeling…feeling…and we stop walking and we press our faces close and she feels warm and smells like her and I squeeze my eyes shut and see supernovas of green and orange and red…
And…and…now I’m home.

Alas.

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"A Better Place to Be"

2007-05-11T16:50:00.000-05:00

There was a time when every thing was all right. Wasn't there?

Roslyn stuck her thumb in her mouth then pointed that same thumb out over the highway.

Take me there, she whispered to herself as she climbed into the backseat of the blue convertible driven by the laughing couple with the expensive sunglasses.

Let's go.

# # #

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"Crash! Boom!"

2007-05-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

"It's not supposed to be this easy," Ramrod said as he handcuffed the scruffy, would-be jewelry store robber to the lamppost.

"That's what they all say at first, but you get used to it," said King. King was about six-and-a-half feet tall, in his mid-fifties with grizzled white hair, blue eyes blinking behind a black mask and a perfect physique beneath a black spandex shirt and sweatpants.

"They don't make villains like they used to, do they?" Ramrod asked. He had a lot of respect for the old man, and it showed.

King grunted and spat on the sidewalk. "Kid, the villains make themselves. And no one with half a brain would be a super villain. What's the point?"

Ramrod laughed. "Taking over the world, of course. You got power, you want to rule the world, right? That's what Doctor Dread did, right?"

"Doctor Dread was a mental case who just happened to have access to nukes. Look, how the hell can anyone rule the world? The bureaucracy alone would kill you."

"Well, yeah, but..."

"Shut up, kid." King had a phone to his ear, mumbled a few words, then snapped it shut. "The cops are on their way. You'll want to get out of here."

"What about you?"

"I'll give 'em their report, then I'm out of here, too. I'm too old for this."

Ramrod laughed. King was always saying that. But there he was, every night, cruising the streets, beating up muggers, foiling robberies, busting dealers. Ramrod knew. He'd been tracking King for years. He'd learned his every move, duplicated and even improved upon his equipment. For instance, Ramrod's grappling hook actually worked. And he'd tried a number of projectiles -- billy club, throwing stars, boomerang -- but finally settled on the taser. It just worked better.

Well, Ramrod thought, my work here is done. He shouted a goodbye to King, but the old man ignored him. So he jogged down the street, rounded the corner and tore off his painted motorcycle helmet and mask and started to drive.

He was hungry, so he stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for a coffee and chocolate honey dipped. He smiled at straw-haired girl behind the counter, who ignored him. He sat down on the curb and ate the donut while he waited for the coffee to cool down.

A pair of black leather boots and dark slacks stopped in front of him. Ramrod looked up.

"Got a job for you," said a deep voice that came from somewhere behind dark glasses and a hooded windbreaker.

"Mmmphf?" Ramrod said, spitting pieces of donut. He swallowed. "I'm not looking for work."

"You're looking for this work."

Ramrod stood up. He wasn't a small man himself -- six-foot-three and all the muscle he could grunt out of himself at Jerry's Gym. But this man was huge. Had to be at least seven feet tall. But stood up straight, like a statue of a hero.

Ramrod stuck out his chest and balled up his fists. Always be ready.

"Are you looking for trouble?" Ramrod said to the man's chest. "Because I'm not looking for trouble. But I've got it to spare." Ramrod thought for a moment. He'd never been good at talking tough. He could throw a punch, take a punch, but threats... "Trouble, I mean," he clarified.

"Got a job for you," the man said again. "Follow me."

Ramrod stared after the man, striding like a giant, two-legged cat toward a black Humvee.

"What the hell do you want you sonofabitch!" Ramrod shouted.

The man turned and slowly pulled back his hood. Out of the shadows, his face was remarkably red. Smoke poured from his head. He removed his gloves. Smoke and fire billowed from his hands.

Then all at once, there was a sound, like a sonic boom. Smoke and fire burst from the man's body, advancing on Ramrod. Ramrod screamed. Then he stopped and collapsed in smoking heap.

The man put his hood back on his head, and pulled on his gloves. The smoke and fire dissipated. The man exhaled and looked up at the stars. Nice night.

"It was a good job," the man said, flatly.

He got into his car and drove off.

# # #

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"She Can Kill with a Smile..."

2007-03-05T15:32:00.000-06:00

I didn't think it would be that easy. But it was.

I walked into the flower shop, all casual like. I grabbed one red long-stemmed rose, careful not to prick my finger.

I smiled at the workers in the back, busily snipping stems and arranging arrangements. They nodded back at me. I browsed the Hallmarks for a minute. Then I walked out, the door jingling behind me.

She was in the car. She stared straight ahead, careful not to avert her eyes from whatever she watched as walked in front of the car. I sat down in the driver's seat.

"For you, m'dear," I said, leaning over for what I hoped would be a kiss worthy of a certain kind of cinema.

"Nice," she said instead, looking down at the flower then taking it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. "What am I supposed to do with it now?"

"What do women ever do with flowers?" I said, leaning back, silently swearing at the car roof. "We buy them, you tell us how sweet we are, you stick them in a vase, they die a few days later, you throw them out and life goes on."

"So, it's the thought that counts? That's what you're saying?"

"Yeah. I guess so."

"Nice."

I looked at her, noting how her long black hair was pulled tight over her head and tied into a ponytail. At her full red lips, lightly lipsticked against her light brown skin. Her dark eyes, framed by unnaturally long lashes. I looked at her and I could feel her moving against me.

Moving against me.

"You thought this would make a difference?" she asked, brushing the red petals against her lips as breathed its scent.

"I took great risks," I offered.

She was quiet for some time.

"Did it work?" I asked. I raised my eyebrows for comic effect.

"Not really," she said I and I slammed my palm against the steering wheel.

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Nothing really," she said.

And then she turned to me and smiled.

# # #

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"Bringing 'Em Home"

2007-02-19T13:31:00.000-06:00

"Crazy days, don't you think?"

"How do you figure, Jesse?" I flicked a tiny hunk of meat from a toothpick while Jesse talked at me. I knew from long experience that when we set on the bench in front of Sam's place, we weren't so likely to have a conversation as much as I was going to be the straight man for a soliloquy. I shifted in my seat as to make myself more comfortable and took a pull of cream soda from the bottle.

"How do you not figure, Augie? You got your troops out there in that desert place..."

"Ee-rock."

"Yeah. Eye-rak. What are we doing there?"

"That's what a lot of people are asking these days, Jesse."

"Well, I'll tell you what we're doing there. We're there because the folks in Washington want us to take our eye off the ball, if you know what I'm saying."

"I'm not sure I do, Jesse. Maybe you better help me out." As I talked, I couldn't help but to smile. I took out my notepad and started to sketching a picture of him, just for fun, sitting there in his John Deere cap and overalls, even though he'd never done a lick of farming in all his years, which must have been more than 70 or so.

"What I'm saying is...and maybe you'd better take notes here, Augie...what I'm saying here is that we're over there so the terrorists won't go bother us over here. What I'm saying here is that the longer we're over there, the terrorists will be happy to kill as many of us over there as they can, while the folks here are safe in their comfy beds."

"Well, maybe we'll get 'em home soon, Jesse."

"Get 'em home? Why would we do that? Hell, at least out there, it's a fair fight. Our boys have got guns and tanks and air support and the Green Zone and all that. What have we got here? Nothing! Those Al Qaeda guys ..." He made the name of the terrorist group sound like a fellow that lived down the street. "Those guys can just slip in here and 'boom'! We'll never know what hit us!"

"Pretty damn scary, that is."

"So you want to keep our boys out there? Hell, see that's the problem. We don't want 'em to stay out there -- it's just not right. But mark my words, soon as they come home, all that stuff that's happening there? It's going to be happening here."

"You think so?" I said, scuffling my pencil on my notepad to darken the shadows under Jesse's cap.

"Mark my words, son. Mark my words. We're taking our eyes off the ball."

"So you said. You ought to explain that part."

"Look, Augie. Those boys...and the girls, too... they're the best America has to offer out there, right?"

"Sure."

"Wrong! They're great people, don't get me wrong. I've been there, you know that right? Army, 1953."

"Sure, Jesse."

"What I'm saying is, we've got to show these people the real America. The America that's about folks helping other folks. About letting people be who they want to be, and be ruled by who they want to be ruled by. The America that when we invade a country and screw up, we leave 'em better than when we found them. If it was me, I'd kill 'em with kindness, that's what I'd do. Get every last one of us thinking and working about how to make that country better, and then make it our mission to help those terrorists see that we're here to help. Make sure people know that we're the good guys. Stop at nothing. That's what I'd do.

"Sounds a little Pollyanna to me, Jesse. Maybe those folks just plain hate us, you know?"

"Ah, Augie, I thought you were smarter than that."

"I am what I am, Jesse."

"What are you scribbling at there, anyway?" Jesse asked peering over to my side of the bench. I showed him. A not-half-bad sketch of an old man in a John Deere cap, standing at attention, arm raised in a stiff salute, flag waving in the background.

Jesse chuckled, clapped me on the shoulder, and stood up.

"You're all right, Augie."

"You, too. You take care now."

"Oh I will."

And I watched him go, on his proud, creaky legs, marching home.

----------------------------------
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"A Bold, New Direction"

2007-02-08T16:40:00.000-06:00

If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.
- Lewis Carroll

And they were off!

It was a tight-knit, unusual crew, trooping through the forest trail, single file. Young Harry took the point, 10 years old and full of spirit. "If we run into a bear, boys, just stay behind me!"

Harry had read in his parents' National Geographic (or thought he did) that bears smell fear and have terrible eyesight. Before they set out on their journey, he practiced in the mirror, raising his arms over his head and growling. They'd think you were bigger if you did that.

Behind Harry was Samir, the youngest and smallest of the troop at the age of 8. Samir, skinny and short with a mop of curly black hair, walked in great loping strides to keep up with Harry, whom he idolized. Samir wore a backpack, carried a walking stick he'd borrowed from his visiting Grandpa, and had a purple felt cape tied loosely around his neck.

Then there was Grant, at a burly 10 and a half, who looked as if he was ready for a rest mere moments into the journey. Grant enviously eyed Samir's Grandpa's walking stick and regretted his own knapsack, with its thin black string that cut into his shoulder as he lumbered along behind his fellows.

Pushing up the rear was dreamy Roslyn, a slim girl of nine, and Grant's little sister, whose curly brown hair spilled in shiny ringlets about her face and shoulders. Roslyn insisted on joining the boys, and no one dared argue with Roslyn. They knew better than to take a stand when her turned fiery red and her fingers curled up into cute little fists. She wore a t-shirt that sparkled with comets and stars and a pink knapsack festooned with dangling streamers and trinkets.

And it came to pass that after a long journey through the forest the little crew stopped in a clearing under the trees and unwrapped the plastic from their hummus-on-wheat sandwiches and sipped from tiny straws that punctured their juice boxes that he fell from tree into the little clearing, starting the children so that even brave Harry scurried behind a fallen tree with the rest and peered through the branches as the man carefully stood and dusted off his leafy green jacket.

"Are you lost?" the man said in the general direction of the little crew.

The man seemed impossibly tall, even for a grown-up, and strangely thin and angular, in Samir's assessment. He wore a leafy green jacket that was the color of thick maple leaves in the summer, and knit cap that fit just a little too tight, allowing bursts of blond hair to jut here and there in no certain pattern. His pants were green cloth and his boots were tall and brown, laced almost to his knees.

"What is he, Harry?" Samir whispered.

"Probably a Park Ranger," Harry said, without his usual confidence.

"That's stupid," Grant scowled. "That is no Park Ranger."

"Well what do you think he is, smarty?" Harry shot back.

"Yeah?" Samir said.

"I don't know. But it's no Park Ranger."

"Hmmph," Harry said.

"Yeah, hmmph," said Samir.

Roslyn spat on the ground in front of the boys, and stood up. "I'm going to ask him!"

And amid cries of "No!", and "You can't!" and "Stranger!", Roslyn stamped out of the brush to stand before the tall stranger.

"We're not lost, sir. Are you? My friends and I," and at this point she gestured urgently for the boys to join her, and they reluctantly complied, "are on a journey through these woods. You might call us Explorers."

The man bent down so that his face was nearly level with that of Roslyn, and tilted his head his eyes wide with amusement.

"And what, milady, is it that you seek? Perhaps it is something that I might help you to find?"

"Oh, I'm sure you can't," Roslyn said.

"Oh, you would be surprised at what I know," the main said, smiling.

"If I tell you, you can't tell anyone," Roslyn said, pointing a pink fingernail at the man's rather large nose.

"My word is my bond, milady." Roslyn blushed, thinking that this man speaks like he comes from the land of fairy tales, and the thought crossed her mind that he could well be an elf. That would be silly, she thought, but not impossible.

"Whose word?" Grant blurted.

"Whose? Ah," the man said, understanding. "You may call me Stilt."

"I'll need to talk with my friends, Stilt" Roslyn said. She gathered Harry, Grant and Samir in a huddle.

"Well, he seems nice," Grant said.

"What do you think, Harry?" Samir said.

"'What do you think, Harry,'" Roslyn mocked. "What do you think, Samir?"

"I think we should tell him. He seems, I don't know, magical or something."

"Hmmph," said Harry, and Samir's face turned quickly from pleased to crestfallen. "I think I should get out there and make him go away."

"He's not a bear, Harry," Grant said.

"A Hairy Bear, Harry?" Samir giggled and then stopped at an angry glance from Harry.

"I'm going to tell him," Roslyn finally said. "Sir, we seek the remains of the Last of the Unicorns!"

The man stopped and sat down heavily, head bowed low, arms on his knees, which were about as tall as Harry's nose. Finally, he looked up, gazing deep into Roslyn's green eyes.

"Why do you seek this?" he asked gravely.

"Because it's there!" Harry declared.

"Because it's magic!" Samir shouted.

"Because it's dead!" breathed Grant.

"Because I wasn't going to be left behind," Roslyn said.

Stilt laughed. "That may be the best reason of all, milady." He stood again. "If you must see it, then you must see it. Let us go there now."

Stilt walked into the woods and the children looked at each other and Grant shrugged and Harry nodded and the little troop hurried after him.

It wasn't far. They climbed over a hill, clambered over the rocky, barely visible trail on the other side that led down to bustling little creek. They followed the creek for a little ways till they saw it. The animal lay on its side, its legs limp and bony, its fur a dirty brown and white. As they drew closer, they could see the fuzzy branches of its antlers, and the brown stain in its side...

"Antlers?" Harry shouted.

"Have some respect, young man," Stilt warned.

"But...but..." Harry sputtered. "Unicorns don't have antlers!"

They were close enough to touch the beast now, but no one did. They stood, staring.

"There is no such thing as a unicorn, young man," Stilt said.

"But what about you?" Grant asked, tearing his eyes away from the fallen beast.

"Me?" Stilt asked in mock surprise.

"Yeah. There's no such thing as you, either!" Samir accused, like a prosecutor revealing a witness' lies. Stilt just laughed his long, funny laugh.

"No, you're right. I'm very...magical... is that what you would say? I'd prefer mythological, but to each his own."

"So?" Harry asked, practically shouting.

"So? What?" Stilt paused.

"So how are you here?" Harry shouted, almost in tears.

"Ah. Don't worry, young man. It will be all right, milady," he said to Roslyn, who was wiping away a tear of her own. "You're never too young to learn that some magic isn't real while other magic is very real."

"And how will we know?" Samir asked, smiling, quivering.

"I can't tell you that, my friend," Stilt said, placing a giant hand on the boy's head and tousling his hair. "But I can tell you that every bit of magic lost is a chance to turn this way or that. To choose a bold, new direction. To learn what is knowable and to seek the unknown."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Grant said, spitting.

"You're being rude, Grant," Roslyn said, throwing a handful of dirt at the boy.

"It's OK, Grant, milady. You know what you know now. The poor beast will be here for a long time. But you have places to go, wonders to see, people to be. Go home my friends, go home."

And Stilt doffed his cap and bowed low and Samir bowed low back to him and smiled a happy smile and led the little troop back into the wood trail, back toward home.

# # #

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The Complete "Peter Flak, Big Time Detective"

2007-02-05T12:23:00.000-06:00

Now that I've gotten the sordid tale of Peter Flak, Big Time Detective out of my system, here is the whole thrilling tale in one convenient post:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
Part X
Part XI
Part XII

Thanks for reading... and now, back to our regularly scheduled short bursts of randomness!

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Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part XII

2007-01-24T08:50:00.000-06:00

The "Thrilling" Conclusion

Flak dug his hands deeper in the pockets of his trench coat. He thought about the sitcoms he hated the most: the comical misunderstanding resulting from a character talking on and on about something to someone who thinks or knows something completely different. Like, say, Jack is going on about his special spicy meatballs to the new chef who thinks all this talk about "balls" is because Jack is gay. It always made Flak squirm. He hated to be embarrassed, even for someone else.

And as he listened uncomfortably to Janey's mule-like bray, he was embarrassed for her. Lucky no one else was around.

"Oh, Petey...stand up straight. And wipe that silly grimace off your face." Janey patted Flak's cheek. "Haven't I told you that you have to look confident to be confident? Don't you want them to take you seriously?"

"Janey...Janey..."

"You're babbling, Peter," she said, hands on her hips like an old schoolmarm. Or a teenager pretending to be one.

"You're dead!" Flak finally blurted.

"Haven't we been over that already? Sit down, Petey. Have a drink." And Janey went to the bar, pressed a martini glass into Flak's hand, shook a mixer and, very deliberately and carefully poured him a drink. "Sorry, honey. No cherries." Flak sat down heavily on the couch. Janey pulled up a chair across from him, spun it around and straddled it, arms over the back, chin on her hands.

"Are you ready for the story now, Petey?"

Flak sipped the martini. The cold ran down his chest like mercury in a thermometer -- thick and slow.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not if you know what's good for you, Petey!"

"You always know best, Janey."

"That's my boy! OK, Petey. Here's the deal: I rounded the corner, got out of the car, and blew it up by remote control."

"Oh Kay."

"It's not that complicated, really. The mob's been doing it for years."

"Hm."

"OK so far? Good boy, Petey. Now, here's the deal. You are going to solve the murder of Laine Bannister. We are going to call the press here to get the video of you capturing the killer. The resulting fame will catapult you into the highest echelons of power. You'll be nominated for commissioner next year, of course, when Grant retires. From there, it's only a matter of time: Mayor, Governor...the sky's the limit!"

"Great plan, Janey. But how am I going to solve the Bannister murder? I hope you have something for me because I've gotten nowhere so far..."

"Petey, you big dumb cutie. I killed Laine Bannister!"

Flak laughed, splashing his drink onto his lap. "Janey! That's silly!"

Janey's face turned pale and grim. "Don't you ever underestimate me, Peter Flak."

"Oh, I won't. But you'll have to do more than just say it for me to believe it." Janey stared icicles at Flak for a moment. Then her eyes warmed. She leaned over, lifted a green gym bag and dropped it on the coffee table with a clank. She unzipped the top.

"Have a look...don't touch it!" Janey said, slapping at Flak's hand, or more specifically, his fingerprints. "It's all there: Icepick, claw hammer, letter opener, electric nail gun, exacto knife, granite paperweight, and that silly Lucite publicity award shaped like a pyramid we won for your Super Cop story. All in resealable plastic bags, at least what would fit. I bet the blood isn't even dry!"

Janey smiled expectantly at Flak, waiting for a reaction. Flak didn't move. But he did notice an audible click and a flash of red from somewhere behind Janey.

"But, why, Janey? Why did you do it?" Janey spat inelegantly, and stalked over to the couch. She sat down next to Flak, leaned in close, whispering in his ear.

"For you, Petey. All for you."

"Janey, I..."

"I love you, Peter Flak. Love me, Petey," she pleaded. "Right here, right now. Before they take me away. Just this once, and it'll be enough forever."

Flak stood, abruptly. Janey's grip slipped from his arm. She fell on the floor with a thud. She quickly stood and fixed her suit, checked her hair.

"Petey, I..."

"Janey, you are under arrest," Flak pointed at her with a dramatic flourish. "For the murder of Laine Bannister."

"Wonderful, Petey, but you can do that after. For the camer..."

"You have the right to remain silent."

"Ooh...handcuffs! Peter, if that's what..."

"Anything you say can be used against you..."

"What are you doing? Not here. Not now!" Janey's head whipped back and forth in a panic, then stopped short as she faced the round black lens of a Channel 5 news camera and the disapproving scowl of Samara Steele, reporter.

"Oh, Petey," she said, straightening her posture and licking her lips. "Touche."

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Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part XI

2007-01-12T23:03:00.000-06:00

Flak took a deep breath, exhaled on his hand and sniffed.

Minty fresh.

He licked his lips, took another deep breath, visualizing himself a lot calmer and his heart beating a lot slower than it was right now as he prepared to insert the key card that would unlock room 215 of the Carstairs Hotel at the request of his recently dead publicist, who, he expected, he would find behind the door.

I can't imagine how this can be good for me. Janey would tell me to leave now and send someone else.

Flak rubbed his temples.

But Janey's dead. Or behind this door.

Irony gave him headaches.

He put the card in the slot.

"So! What have we here?" Flak jumped back from the door as Samara Steele strode smartly down the hallway. "A rendezvous with a secret source? Or, perhaps a rendezvous of another sort, hm?"

"Steele," Flak said, regaining his posture and mustering a nervous sort of condescension. "This is police business."

"Yeah, and this is First Amendment business!" Steele boomed. Flak was impressed. She was just as dramatic live as she was on TV. Shorter, though. Regardless, he wasn't ready to face whatever was behind that door with a reporter. Especially one without a camera.

"Listen, Steele. You're smart and you're cute." That should butter her up! "You'll get your story. But I can't let you in here." He narrowed his eyes. "There's too much at stake."

"Really, Flak," Steele said. "Like what?"

"Everything."

"Everything?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you."

"Where's your camera?" Flak asked.

"Coming up the back stairs. He'll be here any minute. We can go live like ..." she snapped her fingers under Flak's nose... "that."

"Look," Flak said, trying to achieve some sort of 'I'm-on-your-side' tone of exasperation, "wait by the stairs with your cameraman. I have to go in there alone."

Steele bit her lip. "I'll get the story?"

"Exclusive. Do you see anyone else here?"

"Don't screw me, Flak," Steele threatened.

"Not unless you ask," Flak said. Good one, Flak!

Steele turned on her spiked heels and stalked back down the hall toward the stairwell. He admired her ambitious, merciless gait.

Then he slipped the key card into the door, waited for the soft click of the lock mechanism, jammed the handle down and shoved the door open, stumbling as if he'd been pushed from behind. Thus, it was from the floor that he saw her -- the shiny patent leather boots, the fishnet stockinged legs, the wide -- too wide -- leather skirt, the cream-colored silk blouse accented by a chain of gold links. The smiling face, the professionally whitened teeth, the lipstick just a little too red. The big brown eyes and painted on eyebrows. The dark bobbed hair sprayed to perfection, the hair of someone ready to pitch, to sell and any time, any place.

Janey.

"Petey! So nice of you to drop in."

"Janey!" Flak croaked out loud. "You're dead!"

"Rumors, statistics and lies, Petey," Janey said. She knelt down next to Flak and smiled a wide-mouthed grin. "I thought you were a detective." Then she stood up and laughed. And laughed some more.

Flak was getting uncomfortable. This was more laughing than was appropriate.

# # #

NEXT TIME -- Part XII: The thrilling conclusion!

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Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part X

2006-12-14T16:18:00.000-06:00

The Carstairs Hotel had a doorman dressed up like a London beefeater: Red coat, tall fuzzy hat, gold button, bayonet -- the works. It was just that kind of hotel, the kind that catered to top executives, politicians and even media celebrities.

To say the lobby was ornate would be like saying that Limburger smells cheesy. The chandeliers, the plush, dark carpeting, the frescoes on the wall, the gold trim and statues of British generals. The Carstairs defined ...

"Class," thought Flak as he noted that the sand in the ashtray was imprinted with the Carstairs logo.

The real question was, what was Janey doing there? Alive?

Flak stood in the lobby, soaking in its ambiance of wealth, status, prestige.

"Excuse me, sir." The voice had a rough British accent. Flak turned around to find the Beefeater doorman just behind him.

"Yes? Can I help you?" Flak said.

"That's just what I was going to ask you, sir," the doorman said.

"Just soaking it all in, my good man," Flak said in his best British accent. "A fine hotel you have here...old chap."

"Yes, sir, old chap," the doorman cleared his throat. "But is there a place where you'd fancy going."

"Ah, yes. Certainly. Can you show me to the ... lift? I'm meeting a friend in room 215."

"215?"

"Indubitably," Flak said. English accents were fun!

"I have something for you," the doorman said to Flak's surprise and marched to the bell desk, took an envelope and marched crisply back. He handed the envelope to Flak.

"What's this then?" Flak asked, switching to a more Cockney style. Sort of.

"This is for you. I was told to look for you and hand you this. And here you are. And I have handed it to you."

"Inscrutably, I might add," Flak said, then did a double take, realizing that the doorman still stood before him, clearing his throat. Finally, Flak understood, pulling a crisp 20-dollar bill from his money clip and handing it to the doorman.

"My good man," he said, and resumed his post at the entrance.

Flak opened the envelope. Inside, he found a folded sheet of manila note paper bearing the logo of High Profile Communications. On the paper, in Janey's familiar, loopy script, was a note:

"Zip on up, Pete. Right to the top!

Luv,

Janey

Inside the note was a plastic hotel door key for the Carstairs.

Flak turned to the doorman.

"Is there a restroom here, my good man?"

"In the back, behind the fountain."

"Cheerio," Flak said, and walked as fast has he could before the bile in his throat could reach his shirt.

Been doing too much of that...there must be a drug for this, Flak thought, as he carefully washed his faced, scraped the dirt from his fingernails, ran a dab of gel through his hair and sucked vigorously on a fresh breath mint before heading to the elevator.

* * *

"Goddammit you beefeating son of a bitch! You will let me in!" Samara Steele was adorable when she was angry. And she knew it. Rosy cheeks and icy blue eyes and a rock hard 5-foot-three-inch frame that belied a low, booming broadcaster's voice. The doorman took a step back and gripped his bayonet.

"Yes, ma'am. But the camera has to stay outside. We do have strict rules. I'm sorry, ma'am."

"Not as sorry as your going to be. Get your manager."

"Very good, ma'am," the doorman said, and turned to the phone attached to the wall by the door.

Damn, Steele thought. On to Plan B, I guess.

She turned to her camera man. "Artie, run," she whispered. I'll meet you." Artie nodded and jogged off.

"Ma'am..."

"No matter," Steele said, smiling her widest TV smile. "He's gone. If you'll excuse me..."

"Very good, ma'am," the doorman said, holding the door open as Samara Steele strode briskly into the lobby. As the door closed, he picked up the phone and made one more call, smiling.

# # #

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Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part IX

2006-12-08T10:59:00.001-06:00

You might want to start this saga at Part I...

_______________

The message light on Flak's phone was blinking like a debutante. He sat down at his desk, spun on the chair and punched the voicemail button. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied the News 6 cameraman standing in the doorway, red light on. He suppressed a smile as he punched his password into the phone with efficient authority.

Two messages...first message:

"Flak! Johannson. The Commissioner wants a report tomorrow at 6:00 am. No more goddamn press conferences!"

Oh-kay, then, Flak thought and punched six to hear the next message.

Second message:

"Peter, it's Janey. I'm in trouble. It's Bannister. I can't believe this. You've got to come quickly. I'm in trouble and you're the only one who can help. Meet me at the Carstairs Hotel, room 215...I left the key at the desk. Hurry! Love ya."

Hmmph, Flak snorted. Janey was always a bit melodramatic. Great trait for a publicist, lousy for a friend. Fortunately, she's my publicist, not my friend, Flak thought. Or was...before she died.

Right! Dead! Forgot again!

She'd left a message on his home machine last night, but he assumed that was before she died. But this one ... it had to have been more recent... this morning.

Flak dropped the phone, and ran out the door, nearly upending the News 6 cameraman and tackling Reporter Samara Steele. He hastily untangled himself from the reporter and raced for the street.

"Let's follow him," Steele said.

"Like you had to tell me?" the cameraman said.

# # #

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Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part VIII

2006-11-16T16:27:00.000-06:00

"Flak! Flak! Flak! Flak! Flak!"

The media mob sounded like a flock of mallards around a man in a trenchcoat with a bag of bread, but instead of bread the man handed out heaping hunks of news, and these media mallards were hungry ducks.

"Ha ha!" Detective Lieutenant Peter Flak said, raising his hands to quiet the crowd. "I have a brief statement, and then you may ask questions. One at a time, please. You'll all get your turn."

Flak paused looking out over the mob, satisfied at their expectant quiet.

He smiled.

The reporters stared.

Flak smiled wider.

"A statement, Detective?" one of the reporters, a young pixieish girl with short blonde hair and a "News 6" logo jacket, called out impatiently. "We've got deadlines, y'know."

Flak smiled even wider.

"A statement, yes," he said, standing up taller, and summoning up a firm, competent, determined expression. "I have a brief statement, and then I will answer your questions."

"You said that already," growled a grizzled print veteran in a coffee stained white Oxford.

"Yes. My statement is this: We have been working night and day on our investigation into the heinous murder of Laine Bannister. This investigation will clearly be a long, hard climb."

Up the stairs...holding the bannister, he thought to himself.

"Is something funny?" the News 6 reporter asked.

"Of course not," Flak said, recovering his steely expression. "Murder is never funny." He cleared his throat and continued.

"As I said, this investigation will be a long hard climb. But, we are making significant progress. We have uncovered critical clues that already point us toward a number of possible suspects. Our investigative team is interviewing some of these suspects at this very moment."

"Do you know who killed Laine?" News 6 called out.

"Not yet," Flak said. "Do you?"

"No! Why would I...You're the... ?" Ha!

"What can you tell us something about the critical clues you've discovered," the grizzled print vet said in a low voice.

"You know, of course, that I can't tell you that... we are always careful not to tip our hand to the perpetrators of crimes yet under investigation. But, I can tell you..." and at this Flak paused, dramatically, for effect, and among the effects were reddening faces and gnashed teeth inherent to people who spend all of their waking hours on deadline.

"...that we know one key fact about this crime. We believe that Mr. Bannister was on a date the night he was killed. With the killer."

Flak paused again, allowing the revelation to settle in, and, incidentally, tilting his good side to the photographers as flashbulbs burst. When they finished, Flak smiled at the mob... and walked away from the microphone.

"You said you'd take questions, you son of a bitch!" "Get back here, Flak!"

Flak ignored the screams. Janey always told him to keep the media on their toes -- it was better to keep them guessing than to answer questions straight out. She'd never taken it this far, of course, but that's why he was the boss. Or would be. Some day.

As he headed back onto the precinct house, the blonde News 6 reporter caught him by the sleeve and shoved him inside, cornering him against the wall just inside the door, and out of reach of the slowly dispersing media horde.

"Samara Steele," she introduced herself. "News 6. Listen, Detective. I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but Laine Bannister was a friend of mine. You better not be on a fishing expedition here."

"How good a friend, Miss Steele?" Flak said, cocking an eyebrow.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Steele said. Then she shoved another palm into Flak's chest, causing him to rapidly expel a lungful of carbon dioxide at Steele's hair. It had no effect. "Listen, yeah. I was dating Laine. I was his girlfriend for the past six months. Am I under investigation?"

"Hmm," Flak said. Considering that he had no other suspects, this conversation might turn out to be a godsend, he thought. "I didn't say you, specifically, were under investigation. But perhaps you should be?"

"I didn't kill, Laine," Steele scoffed. "And he didn't have any girls on the side."

"How can you be so sure," Flak asked.

"Let's just say I'm very sure. What I want to know is what the hell this critical clue is that you're hiding back there."

"You must understand that I just can't say. My hands are tied," Flak said, demonstrating how his wrists were locked together by invisible ropes and offering a helpless shrug.

"All I know is that your clue better not be one of his goddam breath mints. He eats those things like they're popcorn."

"We knew that," Flak said, quietly.

"I'm sure," Steele said. "Look, Flak. I'm watching you. And I'm watching this case. And I'm going to find out who did this to Lainey whether you like it or not. We're going to be on you. We're going to make sure the public interest is served, and that justice is done. Or else. Got it?" And with that she pointed her adorable pixie fist at Flak's chin and tapped, hard. Then she stalked out of the precinct house.

Flak rubbed his chin and smiled. He was going to have his own camera crew on this one!

----------------------------------------

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Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part VII

2006-11-14T16:57:00.001-06:00

"Well, sir, one thing we do know is that there was someone else in the room with him when he died," Flak said, speaking slowly, trying to remember what it was he was supposed to know about this case.

"Well, lookee here. We got the ever-lovin' Sherlock Holmes here!" Captain Johannson said. "What? Did you think he did that to himself?"

"No, sir! Of course not, sir!" Flak said, snapping out of his stupor. "It's just that, he wasn't alone...if you know what I'm saying."

"No. I do not. Flak..."

"What I mean, sir, is that he had a breath mint."

"A breath mint. Flak! See that window behind you?"

"Yes, sir."

"How high up would you say we are?"

"I'd say we're on the seventh floor, sir, but..."

"I swear to god I'm going to push you out that window, watch you fall seven stories, take the elevator down to the street and start pounding the rest of you with a battering ram if you don't start MAKING SOME GODDAMN SENSE!"

Flak was beginning to realize that his boss was a bit steamed. He figured there was only one way to go from here.

"I certainly wouldn't like that, sir! What I'm saying is that we are working under the theory that Laine Bannister was on a date when he was killed, and that the killer may well have been his date!" Flak smiled proudly.

"And?" Johannson said, leaning forward.

"And what, sir?" At this point, Flak deduced that the expected compliments were not forthcoming.

"What else? Recent dates? Spurned lovers? Desperate housewives? Where's your goddamn list?"

"Sir, we're still developing that sir," Flak said, thinking quickly. "I have a plan to gain that very information very quickly, sir."

"And how, pray tell, will you do that?" Johannson said in mocking tone, completely lost on Flak.

"Tomorrow," Flak declared, "I will hold a press conference!"

"Oh, God," Johannson put his face in his hands. "Get the hell out of here. Flak!"

"What?"

"Just go!"

# # #

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"Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part VI"

2006-11-14T16:57:00.000-06:00

Flak looked at his reflection. Not bad, he thought, and mussed his hair a bit, then flipped up the collar on his trench coat, which he had left on despite having spent the last two hours indoors, pacing the cramped confines of the precinct interrogation room.

The door slammed open, and Captain Johannson entered like a bursting balloon.

"FLAK! Why the goddam hell do you have a goddam publicist?"

Under intense questioning from colleagues clearly relishing the chance to put the screws to the "Super Cop," Flak had been forced to admit that Janey was not a date or a suspect or anything other than his publicist, who he was meeting for drinks at Marty's last night, just before her car exploded. Flak, not surprising in retrospect, had become the prime suspect.

"Well, I don't anymore, now do I?" Flak said petulantly.

Johannson grunted. "I see you cared deeply for her."

"Janey was a great girl. I guess I'll miss her," Flak said.

There was a long silence as Johannson scanned the file, then stared at Flak, and then scanned the file again.

"May I go now?" Flak asked, meekly.

"Sit down. Flak."

Flak sat.

"Flak. Besides evidence that you were sharing appletinis with this...publicist... and the fact that you fled the scene of a crime, which I'm going to chalk up to cowardice..."

"Thank you, sir."

"Ahem. I have nothing I can pin on you."

"Just as I would have expected, since I've done nothing."

"Hurrg," the Captain grunted. "That's what you're best at. I'm going to keep trying, though." The Captain stared at Flak, thinking that if Flak would just flinch or sweat or make any kind of move, he might just sock him one. But Super Cop was cool now, that sonofabitch.

"So," Johannson growled. "What have you got on Bannister?"

* * *

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"Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part V"

2006-10-20T07:41:00.000-05:00

Don't forget to scroll down to read parts I, II, III and IV

-------------------

Flak wearily unlocked the door to his Lakestone Drive condo and undressed, meticulously placing his shirt, suit, tie and trench coat into separate dry cleaning bags and hanging them up by the door for morning.

"What a day," he said out loud. "What...a...day."

He checked his messages. One from his brother:

"Pete. It's your brother. Listen, when you get this, check out Ravistech. Everyone says they're about to do a deal with ... Aw, man, I can't leave this on your machine. Call me."

The get-rich-quick deal of the week, he thought. Maybe when he solved the Bannister murder, Janey could line up some endorsement deals.

Another message, this one from Janey. "Peter, we need to talk about this Bannister thing. There are some things you need to know. Rush right to my apartment, right away, when you hear this. Do not delay. Bye now."

Oh, Janey. Janey was always trying to get him to her apartment. Clearly, he mused, he shouldn't have let what happened happen that time ... that it happened. He chuckled to himself. "You never know what's going to happen when that happens to happen," he said, still chuckling.

Flak was in the shower for ten minutes when he remembered: Janey's dead.

"Janey's dead!"

In shock, he fell backward against the shower wall, slipped and landed on his ass. He stood up, slipped again and fell foward against the shower door, landing sprawled on all fours on the bathmat.

"Deep breaths now, Flak," he said to himself. "There must be an explanation.

Flak considered the situation carefully, and came to a single, frightful conclusion:

"Janey's ghost left me a message!"

Finally, he stood, and dressed himself in neatly pressed button-down pajamas. He slipped into bed and, as he did every night, picked up his microrecorder to set down his thoughts for the day and goals for tomorrow, in the manner he learned at the seminar.

"I have the chance of a lifetime. To really be the Super Cop they say I am. Lane Bannister's murder will be my launching pad!" He paused for a moment, then spoke in a lower voice. "Of course, it is a horrible tragedy, and I am confident that we will bring the perpetrator to justice." Good, Flak, Good. "But this will be a tough nut to crack. It's going to take all of my training, investigative and managerial skills to pull this of, but I'm sure... I am confident...that we will bring the perpetrator to justice!" Even better. Good to get that down right.

"But what of Janey's ghost? How does she figure into this? It sounds like she's trying to help, but is she?" Is she? "What could she know? Or..." Flak rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. "Or...is she trying to sleep with me again? Can you sleep with a ghost?" Good question, Flak! "Maybe I should call Ghostbusters..."

"Or, maybe she's not a ghost, and she somehow made that call before she was killed," Flak said, then scratched his head. "That seems unlikely. She was with me and never mentioned her apartment. The ghost theory makes a little more sense, I think."

Flak turned the recorder off and nodded, still thoughtful. "OK, goals for tomorrow. Check out Janey's apartment and confirm ghost theory. Review conclusions of investigative team. Hold press conference to update TV on the latest. Be smart, be intense, be proactive."

Nice one! Flak thought and closed his eyes. It seemed like he'd hardly slept when he heard the banging on the door. And the shouting.

"FLAK!"

Johannson.

"OPEN THE DAMN DOOR! YOU'RE UNDER ARREST!"

"Coming!" Flak said.

# # #

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"Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part IV"

2006-10-11T22:06:00.000-05:00

"What the hell happened to you, chief?" AK, police department photographer and forensic analyst, looked Flak up and down. Flak's usually impeccable trench coat and suit were smeared with oil, his pale face darkened by black soot.

"Car exploded on 7th Street. My...um..." he generally tried to keep the fact that he'd hired a publicist and agent quiet among colleagues. If they knew, he thought, they'd all want one. "...my friend...was inside."

"Dead?" AK's eyes widened, slightly in awe, mostly in disbelief.

"Yeah, Janey's dead."

"Car just blew up."

"Yeah. We had a drink at Marty's, she gets the car from the valet, turns the corner and just blows up. Ka-boom."

"Come on, Flak. You don't know people who blow up."

Flak frowned. He was being mocked, he was sure of it. He wasn't going to stand for it.

"Well I do now, don't I?" Snap! Flak thought.

"Sorry, man," AK said and shook his head. Then he went back to staring at his flat screen monitor.

Flak stomped his foot on the floor and sniffed. Pull yourself together, Flak. He works for you...

"So, what do you have for me?" Flak said. AK looked up at him blankly. "C'mon. On Bannister."

"Yeah, I know...I'm just messin' with ya. Here, come take a look at this."

On the wide screen, high resolution monitor was a photo of the body that once was Lane Bannister, TV anchor, now mutilated and hollowed out corpse. Flak felt the remains of the egg salad sandwich he'd had for lunch nearly 12 hours ago rising toward his esophagus. He covered his mouth.

"Why don't you just tell me what you see?"

"Breath mint."

"Geez, do I need one?"

"No, look." AK clicked a mouse and zoomed in on a spot to the right of Bannister's head. "Breath mint."

"You want one?" Flak said.

"No, man, look!"

"I don't get it." Flak didn't get it. AK wheeled around on his chair and faced Flak. "Son of a bitch, Flak! Open your eyes!" Flak's eyes were squeezed shut and his hand was over his mouth.

"Just tell me, AK. Please," he said through his hand.

"Just tell me, AK. Pleeeeaaasaasssseee," AK said. "Look, I've zoomed in. You can't see the body anymore."

"You can't?" Flak opened his eyes a crack, then all the way and uncovered his mouth. "Good. I don't have much expertise at forensics."

"Sure. Now do you see that right there?" There, on the plush red carpet, was a round, white pill speckled with blue flecks.

"Breath mint!" Flak said.

"Don't mind if I do!" AK said and filched the box of Altoids from Flak's trench coat pocket.

"No, right there -- that's a breath mint." Flak paused, and began to pace. "So. Our victim was killed in this most horrific fashion. He's stabbed, then shot."

"Shot...then stabbed."

"Right. Shot, then stabbed," Flak said, miming the actions as he spoke each word. "Then, he chokes, and out pops...this breath mint. Sucked upon for, I'd say, approximately 30 seconds."

"Amazing..."

"Yes. I know this because you can still see the blue specks."

"Uh huh."

"Longer, and it would turn white."

"Wow."

He's mocking me again, isn't he? Flak thought. Ignore it. Move on. He'll respect me when I'm chief.

"So," Flak said. "The question is: What makes a man take a breath mint?"

"On a whim, I'd say he had bad breath," AK said, a small, mocking smile playing across his face. Inscrutable, Flak thought.

"Exactly!" Flak announced, dramatically taking the conversational initiative.

"Well. I'm glad we settled that," AK said. "You want to know what I think, Mr. Holmes?"

"Yes, I want to know what you think," Flak said loudly, his impatience rising.

"I think that most people don't pop breath mints when they're alone," AK said. Flak furrowed his brow seriously. He decided it would appear more commanding for him to appear to listen carefully.

"Mmm hm," Flak said.

"Mmm hm," AK said, "and he'd just popped that breath mint before he was shot, stabbed and gouged and cut and whatnot."

"Hm. Yes, go on," Flak nodded.

"And, we know that there were two sets of fingerprints in Bannister's condo -- one set his, and the other unknown. So, I'm surmising here that he wasn't alone when he was shot, stabbed and gouged and cut and whatnot."

"Well of course he wasn't!" Flak could keep silent no longer. "The murderer was with him!"

"Well. Yes," AK said slowly. "But what if the murderer was not dressed in a black mask and striped shirt, like most murderers, but was dressed in, say, a little black dress, when she entered his condo?"

"Why, then..." sputtered Flak, "she'd be a woman!"

"True," AK said even more slowly. "But, more importantly, she would be a woman that knew Lane Bannister. Perhaps she was someone who Bannister thought he might kiss."

"If he was planning a date, as you seem to be implying," Flak said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "he would have arranged his room just right, combed his hair, brushed and flossed, maybe lighted some candles..."

"Yeah? And?" AK said hopefully.

"And," said Flak, "just before she arrived..."

"Yeah...?"

"He'd pop a breath mint!"

"Yes!" AK shouted. "That's it! And so what happened?"

"Bannister's date had just arrived when the murderer burst in and killed him!" Flak shouted triumphantly, then ducked as a heavy, black metal object that happened to be a Swingline stapler flew by his head, grazing his ear. "Hey! Cut that out!"

"Or," shouted AK, "since there was only one other set of fingerprints in the room, it was his date that killed him!"

Flak froze.

"So we find the date..." Flak said quietly.

"And we find the killer," AK finished.

"I was going to say that," Flak said.

# # #

----------------
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"Peter Flak: Big Time Detective -- Part III"

2006-10-06T12:13:00.000-05:00

"You'll make Chief someday. I promise," Janey said over the rim of Marty's special apple-flavored martini. They clinked glasses. Flak laughed.

"I hope so. Dead bodies are disgusting. And Bannister is very disgusting."

"Once you make Chief..."

"If I make Chief..."

"Once you make Chief," Janey said emphatically, non-verbally reminding Flak of the self-actualization seminar she'd sent him to last year, the one on how visualizing the impossible is the key to achieving the impossible. "Once you make Chief, you'll have detectives to see them for you."

"Damn right!" Flak said, and raised his glass, a Manhattan, to his publicist. He winced and tottered slightly on the bar stool.

"So," Janey said, waving to the waitress and holding up two fingers. "Any leads yet on poor Lane?"

"Hmp. Are you kidding? I delegated. The officers are doing the interviews. The labs are analyzing fingerprints and stuff. The ghouls are cutting into what's left of him to determine cause of death. I'll get a report in the morning. I'm sure they'll come up with something."

"I'm sure you will, Super Cop!" Janey flashed a wide smile.

"Janey, you've got a little smear of lipstick on your teeth."

"Where?"

"Right there," Flak pointed to the top of her left front incisor, and helpfully offered the corner of his napkin. She leaned forward and he gently cleaned the stain. She leaned forward a little more.

"Peter, I..."

Flak's phone rang. "Excuse me, Janey. Duty calls." He flashed his own smile, confident in his teeth's perfection. He flipped open the phone, and lowered his voice an octave.

"Detective Peter Flak speaking!"

"Flak! It's AK. There's something funny in the photos."

"The photos?"

"Of Bannister. You need to come down to the lab."

"It's kind of late, isn't it?""

"Just get down here. It'll be worth your while. I think I know who killed Bannister," AK said impatiently.

"AK, just tell me now...I trust you," Flak said, winking at Janey. He and Janey had worked on that line. It was useful for building confidence in subordinates and building their respect for him...and for avoiding the more unpleasant aspects of his job.

"I can't. You have to see this. Just get the hell down here, OK?"

"All right. I'll be there in 30 minutes." Flak flipped his phone closed and sighed. "I interrupted you, didn't I Janey?"

"The media plans. You want me to call the night desk now?" Janey said from behind a compact mirror. "Otherwise," she sniffed, "We can go over it tomorrow."

"I guess we better do that, Janey," Flak said. "Probably a little early to call the press tonight. I'll let you know what we have first thing."

"You got it, Petey!" Janey said, her smile now perfect. She was cute, Flak thought, in her own officious way. A little too short, a little too pushy and a little older than he usually liked, but she did the best with what she had. They hugged and pecked each others' cheeks. The valet drove up with her BMW 9000i and she smiled and waved. Waiting for his own used Audi to arrive, he admired Janey's car as it drove down the block and rounded the corner onto 7th Street.

Love that car. I should get into PR, he thought.

That's when he saw the explosion.

Flak backed up into the glass door of Marty's, and then experienced one of those rare moments in his life when fight overcame flight, and he ran toward 7th Street. The smoke was thick and the fire hot. He heard a crack under his feet -- a familiar pink compact, covered in black soot -- Janey's.

The BMW was a smoking ruin, and Flak shook his head at the waste. He tried to see whether anyone was inside the car, but the smoke made his eyes water. Then through the smoke he saw a gnarled, charred arm rise out of the window, as if waving, and then fall limp. Flak covered his eyes.

What a way to go. Maybe I'll stick to police work," Flak thought, looked around, and, with sirens approaching quickly, more familiar instincts took over and he backed up to the entrance of Marty's, took the keys, tipped the valet five bucks, made a hasty U-turn and headed for the crime lab.

# # #

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"Peter Flak: Big Time Detective -- Part II"

2006-10-03T16:45:00.000-05:00

"This cop will not rest until we bring the perpetrator to justice!"

Flak paused, and flashed his $10,000 grin to the motley armament of microphones and video cameras that recorded his every utterance from the steps of the precinct house. Due to the tireless efforts of High Profile and Janey, his agent, the word was out that Peter Flak, Super Cop, was on the Lane Bannister case, and the city press ate it up. Finally, Flak sensed it was time to stop the questioning.

"I will be here tomorrow with an update. Until then, please, let me get to work. You'd think you've forgotten that the victim is one of your own!"

The reporters nodded and grimaced artfully, and Flak held, for just long enough, highly concerned grimace of his own, turned away from the microphones and smiled at his reflection in the dark glass precinct house door. He brushed a stray strand of hair back into place.

"FLAK!" Captain Johannson appeared, blotting out Flak's reflection. Disappointed, Flak turned to face his boss as he charged out the revolving door.

"Flak. What the hell are you doing here? They're waiting for you at the crime scene. Goddamn. Flak. If you screw this up I'll..."

"Really, sir. Forensics will prepare a very complete report. There's no need for me to actually be on the scene, is there?"

"How the hell did you make Detective? Don't answer that. Just get the hell over there before I punch you in the mouth."

Flak held his hand over his mouth, saluted and jogged for the garage.

* * *

"Ewww!"

Flak covered his mouth with both hands.

"You OK, Detective?" The photographer didn't look up to see Flak's response, a dry heave aimed at the windows that spanned Bannister's high-rise condo like a wide-screen TV. His camera clicked in sync with the snap of the wad of gum he kept at all times in his left cheek.

"Yeah. Pretty gruesome, eh?"

"Well, I've seen worse," said the photographer, a Californian-American of Korean ancestry who everyone called AK.

"You have?"

"Oh, yeah," AK said, snapping a close-up of Bannister's mutilated face. "This one vick down in Lowertown, she had her whole face bit off. Just a skull with hair. You remember that one?"

"Oh, yeah," Flak nodded knowingly, though he hadn't.

"Anything else you need?" AK said, packing up his equipment.

"No, you've done great, thanks."

"Catch ya later."

Something tapped Flak on the shoulder.

"Get away from me!" he shouted at the uniformed officer. He was a young cop, three years on the force, who was known for wearing a perpetual smirk.

"Sorry, sir," said the officer, who's name was Petitte.

"Well. You should be," Flak said, regaining his composure. "What do you want?"

Petitte continued to smirk. "Thought you'd want to hear a report from the officer first on the scene," he said.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do," Flak said. "Get him over here, Petitte."

"Um, yeah. Well, he's here," Petitte said. "He's me. Sir."

Flak didn't like that short pause before Petitte said "Sir." The uniformed cops never seemed to like him much, as hard as he tried to gain their favor. Perhaps he should try harder, he thought.
"Good man," Flak said and clapped Petitte on the shoulder. Petitte looked at Flak's hand and smirked. "Let's hear it," Flak said, resigned to the fact that he was going to have to hear the gory details.

"Alright," Petitte said and flipped open his notebook. "At 9:53 pm we responded to a 911 call from a Jennifer Simpson, intern producer at TV station NBC-7. Simpson said she was to get Bannister and bring him to the station for the 11:00 pm news."

"Hm. He doesn't need much prep time, does he?"

"Just a talking head, sir. But Simpson reports that he should have been at the station by then. She was to, quote, "snap him out of it," unquote, and get him to the station."

"Snap him out of what, Petitte?"

"She wouldn't say," Petitte said, his smirk nearly turning into a grin before getting control of itself. "She buzzed the buzzer and banged on the door, to no avail. Then she called security. Said Mr. Bannister might be asleep."

"Hm."

"Yeah. Anyway, the manager's a big fan of Mr. Bannister, so he let's Ms. Simpson in. At which time, they find Mr. Bannister in the position in which you see him now, sir."

"What's the, uh, cause of death?" Flak said, feeling the bile rising again into his throat.

"Let's see. A lot of stabbing. Couple gunshots. Slashes. You noted the eye gouge, I'm sure..."

"Yes," Flak said weakly.

"Yeah, well, that's not the most unusual thing." Petitte paused, waiting to see Flak's reaction. Flak stared back, silently gritting his teeth behind his thin, tightly pursed lips.

"No, for that you'd have to look at his midsection. He's almost completely emptied out. His guts were sealed neatly into plastic bags." Petitte held up a gallon-sized bag for Flak to see. Flak's eyes widened.

Flak said something incoherent.

"Yeah, pretty sick, huh? But you know, Wilson, the forensics guy? He was almost appreciative. It takes all kinds, doesn't it, sir? Sir?"

Flak had already passed the officer and was racing down the stairs, frantically trying to brush off the mess he'd made on his trench coat before he reached the bottom.

NEXT TIME:

Eww! Gross!

Will Flak be able to stand the sight of dead bodies long enough to solve this mystery? Find out, as the mystery deepens, and the glare of publicity closes in...

# # #

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"Peter Flak: Big Time Detective -- Part I"

2006-09-25T14:58:00.000-05:00

"FLAK! GET THE HELL IN HERE!"

Detective Peter Flak didn't flinch. He smiled, because he'd been practicing not flinching at Captain Johannson's roars, and it filled him with pride to know that he'd succeeded.

He stood slowly, careful not to hurry. Flak smiled and nodded at the Captain, who stared smoking holes in his skull as he strode, slowly, to the coffee pot. His ceramic mug was a favorite. On it was printed an old-fashioned camera with a bursting flash. The tagline was "Smile! You're on Candid Camera!" He calmly, slowly, filled it with steaming coffee, then carefully tore open a packet of sugar and poured the sugar into the coffee in a circular pattern around the edge of the mug. Then he reached for the tiny cups of creamer and, turning the opening flap away from him to avoid splashing half-n'-half on his suit, he very deliberately peeled back the cover and poured it into the coffee, again in a circular pattern. Then, Flak reached for a stir-stick, dipped it into the coffee, stirring around and around, and then in a figure-eight pattern to ensure that the coffee was properly...

"FLAK!"

Flak flinched this time, but didn't look up. He could feel Johannson's hot breath on his cheek, and the pungent odor of salami, brown mustard and provolone that his obviously long-suffering wife must have packed him for lunch that morning.

"Coming right over, sir!" Flak said brightly.

Captain Carl Johannson and Peter Flak were a study in contrasts. Where Flak was tall, thin and wiry, Johannson was built like a block of concrete. Where Flak took great care of his full head of thick dark hair, Johannson's morning routine included just enough time to comb the remaining wisps of long steely gray hair over his bald, oily scalp. Where Flak's face seemed sparkling and smooth even at midnight (due to his frequent trips to restroom with the electric razor he kept in his coat pocket), Johannson's five-o'clock shadow sprouted by noon and by 8:00 pm when he threw on his tan trench coat and time-worn fedora, you could have forgiven the cops at the front desk for sometimes assuming they were letting a homeless man out on his own recognizance.

It was five-o'clock, Flak noted. Johannson looked like he had gray nails sprouting from his jowls.
"How's your day going, Captain?" Flak said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Flak." Whenever the Captain said his name it was always began and ended the sentence. "Shut up. You've already taken up more time than I have for you."

"Sorry, Capt..."

"I said shut up. Flack. You have an assignment."

"That's great! I..."

The Captain cut off Flak with a a low growl. "Take a look," he said, and slapped a folder down on his cluttered desk. Flak grabbed the folder, sat up a little straighter. Paper clipped to the inside cover was color glossy of a well-coiffed man -- blond hair, blue eyes, strong trustworthy chin, thick healthy hair -- and Flak recognized him immediately -- it was Lane Bannister, the new anchor for the NBC-7 11:00 pm news.

"That Bannister...he's a good looking guy, sir," Flak said. "For a guy, sir."

"Not any more he's not. Look at the next photo."

Flak lifted the photo to find another color photo. Past the deep bloody gashes and cris-crossed knife cuts, the chunks of bare scalp and the garish hole where the left eye used to be, Flak recognized the same strong, trustworthy chin that made Bannister the hottest newscaster in the state.

"What a shame, sir," Flak said, choking back the bile that suddenly lodged in his throat.

"Yeah? How so?"

"He won't be much good on TV now, sir," Flak said, swallowing. He flipped the pages of what was obviously a rather extensively detailed forensic report.

"Damn right, you jackass. He's dead!" Johannson exploded. "And those sons-of-bitches down at the station have specifically requested the 'Super Cop' they profiled last month to lead the investigation."

"Well! I'm quite flattered, sir!"

"Listen. Flak. You know and I know that the Super Cop profile was a snow job put together by the Mayor's PR department. You know and I know that there is no way I'd let you anywhere near this case," Johannson snorted, and cleared his throat, which sounded something like a vacuum cleaner trying to suck up a sock. "But, the conglomerate that owns the TV station informed the mayor's office, who informed the police chief , who informed me that they expect nothing less than our own Super Cop on this case, on penalty of budget cuts." Johannson spat into his ash tray. "So the Super Cop they will get."

Flak smiled, his full set of teeth gleaming.

"Don't worry, sir," Flak said, still smiling. "The station, the mayor and the public can rest assured that I will not rest until we find the vicious animal who did this to one of our most beloved citizens."

"Flak."

"Yes, sir?"

"Just don't screw this up. And stay away from the cameras."

Flak smiled more broadly.

"I'll do my best sir. But it always seems to be the cameras that find me!" he said.

Flak left Johannson's office practically bouncing. He walked quickly past his desk, dashed down the stairs and out the front door. From the sidewalk, he pressed a speed-dial code on his cell phone.

"High Profile! Janey speaking!"

"Janey. Pete."

"Pete! Super Cop! How's the screenplay coming?"

"Janey, listen. This is it! A heinous crime against a high-profile media celebrity...and it's mine!"

"No, kidding? Bannister, right?"

"How did you know?"

"Are you kidding? Everybody knows! Poor Lane..."

"Yeah. Listen, your my agent. Make the most of this, right?"

"You know we will! Keep your hair in place, Petey. You got your soundbites?"

"Of course."

"Let's hear it, Peter..."

"'This cop will not rest until we bring the perpetrator to justice!'"

"Gold! I'll meet you tonight at Marty's. 10:30?"

"See you there!"

Peter put away his cell, looked up at the sky and took a deep breath of city air -- the mixture of exhaust fumes and tobacco smoke delivering a unique sort of buzz. This was it. Even more than with the Super Cop story, this was going to make him a star. And from there? Technical advisor in the movies? Maybe even some on screen roles.

Damn! he thought. I've gotta go home and shower!

# # #

NEXT TIME:

Will Flak resist the siren call publicity in the case of a celebrity murder?
Can he keep his teeth clean and hair in place?

and...

Who killed Lane Bannister?

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"Dreams Have Eyes"

2006-09-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

Leaves falling. Colored leaves -- red and yellow. Deep and beautiful. These aren't just fall leaves. They're the Autumn leaves from which all others were shaped and colored. I'm on the Massachusetts Turnpike amid the foothills of the Berkshires. I drop down the off-ramp like an eight ball in the corner pocket, like I'm rolling off a table, like I'm falling off a log....

I wake up on the floor. Twisted my arm. Get up. She'll see. To the bathroom. Take a leak. Wash hands. Take a drink. Water's soapy.

Go back to bed...Nah, not yet.

Step downstairs, quietly. Can't wake the kids.

Slide the door to the deck back...slowly. Shoot. Gotta fix that.

Bare feet in the snow. I don't care. Flurries falling on my hand. So sharp...so...ephemeral. No rhyme or rhythm...it just falls.

I'm on my knees now. So cold. What was I thinking? I want to go back. To the Autumn. To the fall. Where everything is ... perfect. Where there's not so much pain. Where what you see when you close your eyes is what you see when you open your eyes.

She's here. I can't see her but I know she's there. Her arms are crossed and she's shaking her head. She's saying something. Something about frostbite, about losing my toes. She's right, of course. She's always right. Usually. She was right on the day we met, when I told her she was lucky she found me that day, besieged as she was by that sad collection of geeks and losers when I slipped in and held her eyes long enough that the rest slunk off and disappeared into the bar, and I told he she was lucky she found me. And she said, with this twinkle in her eye, she said, no, there was no luck at all. It all happened the way it was supposed to happen. Meant to be, she said. I laughed. But she was right.

I want to scream. But I don't. I won't.

I'm flying a kite on the beach. Chatham. Cape Cod. White houses, The ocean is choppy. The kite fights me. I fight back, pulling back, letting out a little line then yanking the line like I'm setting a hook. The wind comes steady, then in gusts, a slap in the face. The kite dips and I run until it catches an updraft and I sit, digging my heels into the sand. Got it. I could do this forever. A dog runs by. Golden retriever. Bumps my knee. I trip, and fall. I let go. The kite shivers, shimmies and shakes. It's gone.

She's grabbing my shoulders. Pleading. I can't move. She pulls harder, cursing. Very rude. Can't talk that way in front of the kids.

I fall. I'm on my back.

Look at that sky!

The snow, falling harder now, lonely white crystals in a black night sky. The frozen breath of an unseen god. Oh, please.

Hard to believe these tiny, lonely specks join together into something so thick, so strong.

So cold.

I'm moving. Sliding. My head hits the floor. She's begging now. Is she crying? Really crying? I didn't think she...

I rise. Stumble, grab her shoulder for support. She lifts me up. I go to hug her. She stiffens.

Dreams have eyes, you know. They're watching. Like a suspicious lover, they know when you're true, and they know when you've strayed.

Forgive me.

* * *

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"The Shortest Story"

2006-09-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

I went down to the coffee shop just down the block from my office to buy myself a coffee when all of a sudden this car drives by through the puddle left by the rain last night, the first we've had in a long time what with the drought and all and I remember the thrill we had last night when I sat with my kids by the window, counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, wondering how close the electric flash was to the old maple tree in the front yard and secretly imagining it split in twain with a tremendous, dramatic crack, but nothing like that ever happens here, which either makes us really lucky or really unlucky, depending on how many dramatic surprises you want in your life, like your mom suddenly dropping dead from anyeurism or an airplane heading toward your 53rd floor window and not stopping like it's supposed to, or a Jetta weaving to the right just so, so its tires could splash through a deep puddle like a toddler in a yellow slicker and rainboots and soak a passerby who just wanted to get himself a latte and forget, for a few minutes, that the really cool stories always happen to other people while stuff like this just happens to me, although I guess that's OK because when the really cool stuff happens to those other people, they don't often live to tell the story.

# # #

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"A Distant Shore"

2006-08-30T11:02:00.000-05:00

"So. Here we are," Anna said.

Martin and Anna sat at the edge of the little pier, dangling their sandaled feet just over the water so that every third wave or so would lap at their toes.

"Here we are." Martin didn't look at Anna. But he didn't have to. He knew that he'd see her blue eyes staring out over bay, the corners of her mouth crinkled just so, they way she did when she tried to suppress a smile. He knew she was wearing that paisley sundress, the one with the spaghetti straps, and that the morning sun was glistening off her tanned shoulder and that if he looked he'd want to run his fingers over her skin and lay his palm across her collar bone and wait in silent hope for her to tense in refusal or slide closer in casual assent...

"You didn't call last night. I thought you were going to slip out of here without..." Anna said.

"Yeah, well. Maybe that would have been better."

"Better for who?"

"Whom."

"Whom? No one says 'whom'. Not out loud."

They sat silently. Tied to wooden post next to Martin, the sailboat bobbed. Windy day. Good sailing weather.

"I suppose," Anna said, "you won't be able to correct anyone's grammar out there." She fingered a pendant between her fingers. It was an opal held by a greying silver chain. Martin had found it among his mother's effects, and gave it to Anna on the occasion of their first year together. She rubbed the stone with her thumb, and looked to the sky.

"I guess not," Martin said. "Anna, I... this isn't personal. You know that, right?"

"Everything is personal, honey."

"What I'm saying is that, you know, I have to do this."

"No you don't. But you're going to." Anna smiled, and brushed away a single tear. She sniffed, and looked Martin in the eyes. "It's OK."

"Really? Is it really OK?"

"No, not really," she said, and stood up. Martin closed his eyes and imagined grabbing her legs, clinging to her like a three-year-old. Anna took off the necklace and held her hand out to Martin.

"I've made my choice," she said. "What's yours?"

Martin stared into her blue eyes for a long moment. Their first kiss had been on a morning just like this one. They hadn't slept all night, just sat on the beach, staring at the ocean and each other, reveling in the perfect conversation, each afraid to break the spell. Finally, the sun rose in an orange wave and he reached out and brushed her cheek with his hand and her lips with his and, later, as their shadows began to lengthen and then disappear they left, hand in hand.

Martin closed his eyes. He knelt down and unwrapped the rope that tied the boat to the pier. Anna gripped closed her hand around the pendant and threw it as far as she could into the ocean.

# # #

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"A Clean, Well Lighted Place" - A Comic

2006-08-18T08:51:00.000-05:00

NOTE FROM CHRONIC, The Author:

I've been trying my hand at writing comic book scripts over at PencilJack, and having a lot of fun with it. I connected with a terrific illustrator, who drew up a script 'o' mine, which was an odd, possibly funny (though Mrs. Chronic didn't think so) little slice of life/horror story. 'Twas the first time I've ever had a script illustrated, and I'm quite pleased with the results... enjoy!

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"Burrito Dreams"

2006-08-07T12:42:00.000-05:00

I had a burrito for lunch today and I think I'm going to pay. It was what "Burrito del Soul" calls an "Especial", stuffed with guacamole, cheese, pico de gallo and chopped steak, wrapped in tortilla about as big as my thigh.

I actually brought my lunch today -- leftovers from last nights stir fry in a Tupperware bowl -- but I couldn't face it. Just had to get out of the office. So I emptied the bowl in the trash and rinsed it out so the wife would think I was saving eight bucks today. It's the little lies that get you through the day sometimes.

Like last week, when I was sitting at Burrito del Soul, eating this very same Especial, munching on nachos, sipping a soda and mulling the Sudoku puzzle when this woman walks by. I call her Jane. I call her Jane because she looks like this character named Jane in an American version of a British TV show that was on air a few years ago for about the blink of an eye. Jane is dark haired and curvy, with big blue eyes and a penchant for wearing bright red lipstick and tight white sweaters or loose button-down tops and pants that hug those curvy hips.

I don't know Jane, but I've ridden the elevator with her a few times -- up to the 47th floor, down to the parking garage. One of those characters you see all the time who you never talk to but you make up stuff about just for fun. I'm a married guy, you know? I don't just go chatting up women. There's only one reason to chat them up, you know?

So Jane ends up sitting one table over facing me. She's got her own soda and one of those taco salad tostada bowls, and she's by herself reading this chick lit book about a young mom whose husband cheats on her and she ends up reviving her life and getting to choose between four different suitors, including that skunk of an ex husband. Hey, my wife read it...I was just looking over her shoulder, okay?

Anyway, I'm looking at Jane and she looks up, I catch her eye and I smile and nod, because that's what you do when you see someone you recognize but don't know and you know that she knows she's seen you before but doesn't know you either. And she knows that too so she smiles and nods and goes back to her book and I go back to my Sudoku. And then I look up again and for some reason say:

"That Chad sure is a bastard, isn't he?"

Now, you see, that's not a pickup line. Because no one man in his right mind would broadcast the fact that he'd read this trashy chick novel, and no woman would be impressed by this. At best, she'd assume you didn't go for the opposite sex. At worst...let's not go there.

"What?" she says back with a 'you talkin' to me?' sort of look.

"Chad ... in that book ... can you believe she'd even think of taking him back?" Then she laughs, which was what I was going for. Anything for a laugh some days, you know?

"Well, they were married for seven years. There's a bond there."

"Yeah, but if I'd slept with one of my employees in my wife's bed ... I'm pretty sure my wife would call that 'unforgivable'." See, I even mention my wife here.

"Well, may she just 'didn't understand him'," Jane says, still smiling. I laugh back.

"You'd make a great girlfriend," I say and suddenly get this shiver through my whole body...and I mean my whole body.

"Too bad," she says, smiling and holding up her left hand to show off the silver band there, the silver band I had, of course, noted the very first time I'd seen her in the elevator on the way to the 47th floor.

I can't speak, so I just smile and laugh a short, breathy laugh. She shakes her head and goes back to her book. I look back at my newspaper and shove a nacho into my mouth. I'm gonna pay for this.

# # #

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"Sign of the Times"

2006-08-01T10:35:00.000-05:00

"Here ye! Here ye!"

"No, no. It's 'Hear ye!'"

"That's what I said."

"No you didn't. You said 'Here ye! Here ye!"

"You're telling me there's a difference in what I said and what you said?"

"Well, yes, of course. In the first instance, you are, perhaps, calling people over to speak, crying 'over here! over here!' You're speaking of a place aren't you?"

"I suppose, but..."

"Now, in the second instance, you're crying 'Attend to me! Listen! For I have news! Hear, ye, to the important tidings which I bear."

"Bare? Far from it, I'd say. As a matter of fact, I'm rather sweaty in this ridiculous costume. But the king requires it, so that is what I wear."

"What are you talking about? Where?"

"Well, right here, in fact."

"I'm sorry. What did you hear?"

"I said that I'm right here. That's what I said."

"Well, I'm not sure I should write anything here, but if you have a quill and some ink, I'm sure I could scribble out something for you."

"What were we talking about again?"

"Your town crying. You're spelling your cries wrong."

"I most certainly am not."

"You are."

"I think we'll just have to agree to disagree."

"I disagree. I'll do nothing of the sort."

"I can't here you...."

"Stop that!"

# # #

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"Checking Up"

2006-07-19T09:02:00.000-05:00

A one-minute sequel to this One Minute Story...

The woman stared at the door of the little house, wondering if she should ring the doorbell. Or knock. Or, if she stood there long enough, would the occupant sense her presence outside the door, the way her husband used to flinch and growl when she stared in the early morning, careful not to touch his sleeping face, bristling with days of scruffy beard.

She shifted the bundle of cloth so she could cradle it gently with one arm. She pressed the doorbell. Hearing no sound, she knocked weakly, then firmly on the door.

No answer.

She sighed, dramatically, as if someone might be watching. She looked at her bundle, the mysterious bundle she'd received a few hours before, with such a rush of hope and possibility. What had she been thinking?

She carefully unwrapped the bundle, just to look at it. The blankets held an old shoebox. She pulled the top off of the shoebox, which revealed an old ragdoll, blonde-haired and pig-tailed. It smiled up at her. She picked it up, put down the shoebox, and, looking around now to be sure that no one was watching, hugged it close, the yellow yarn brushing her cheek like a soft kiss.

The doll was surprisingly warm, and growing warmer.

When she was a girl, she used to stand by the dryer, waiting for her mother to unload her favorite blanket. She'd grab it and swaddle herself in its warmth, quickly, before it cooled. She thought about her blanket and her mother -- now older and sadder -- as she held the doll and rocked back and forth on the porch of the little house where the man had sent her with the doll.

But the warmth didn't fade like the blankets. In fact, it grew warmer.

She drew back to take a closer look, cradling the doll's head so it wouldn't flop. There were the little black knit eyes and the wide, red stitched smile.

The eyes...blinked. A puff of sweet air brushed her face.

The doll wriggled.

The woman stumbled back, nearly falling down the porch's concrete steps.

"What are you?" the woman breathed.

"Shhh," the doll said, and closed its eyes.

The door opened, and a black girl, no more than six, stood, nearly eye to eye with woman. The girl didn't speak, just stared, at this strange, disheveled woman on her sidewalk.

The woman stopped, composed herself, brushed the folds from her business suit. She took two steps to the doorstep, now towering over the girl.

"I believe this is yours," the woman said. The girl's eyes widened. She smiled.

"Can I have her?"

"Are you OK?"

"Uh huh," the girl said and thrust both of her arms out expectantly. "I am now."

The woman handed the doll to the girl, who mumbled a 'thank you' and closed the door, leaving the woman standing at her doorstep holding a child's blanket.

As she turned to go, the house began to glow, and she heard shouts of joy and laughter.

# # #

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"Customer Service"

2006-07-10T12:54:00.000-05:00

She drives up in a white Toyota Corolla, one of about a dozen brand spanking new Toyotas that just came off the car carrier here. Why buy a white car when you can rent here for $37 a day? That's what I always say.

She rolls down the window and hands me the rental agreement.

"Thanks. How you doin' today," I say, like I always do. It puts the customers at ease, y'know? I'm here to help.

But she looks at me and frowns. I look at her folder. Jennifer Grayson, 39. From Chattanooga, Tennessee.

"You from Chattanooga?" She nods, still frowning. Tapping her foot on the gas. "Pardon me, boys!" I smile my best smile. Yeah, she's probably heard that joke a few times, but not here. I'm smiling like I want her to smile. Sometimes, I just need a smile out of 'em, you know? And I think maybe they need a smile, too, as they head out of the lot to their business trips and their family vacations and who knows what else. I'm here to help, right?

So, I'm smiling and she's just sitting there, tapping her foot and scratching the back of her head with those manicured fingernails. I think they call that color "fuschia". Or maybe "ecru".

"Can I help you get somewhere, ma'am?" I say, still smiling.

"Away," she says, real quiet, like a sigh.

"What's that ma'am?" Thought I'd best ask again, just to be sure.

"Nothing, nothing," she says, staring straight ahead now.

"That's funny," I say, "because I thought you said you were trying to get away..."

"I did ... forget it. It was a joke." I lean out of my little hut. Nobody's waiting behind Ms. Grayson.

"What are you trying to get away from? If you don't mind me askin'..." I say that last part just to be polite. I always find that a little courtesy goes a long way in this business. Lets you get to know folks.

"Everything ... just everything," she says, and then she looks right at me for the first time. Pretty girl. Green eyes. Blonde hair, cut short. Nice tan. Sleeveless T shows she's been working out her arms. She says, "Have you ever just wanted to go some place...some place where no one and nothing can find you? Not your husband, not your kids, not your boss, not anyone. Have you ever just wanted to go away?"

She's shaking now, shivering like the temperature just dropped 40 degrees. But it hadn't.

"Well, you know, ma'am," I say, laughing a little. I'm hoping to put her a little more at ease. "I just have this little hut here, all day long. There's not much of anywhere to go for me."

She smiles a little, let's out a weak laugh.

"But you know," I say, "in my experience, people who say they want to get away, they really just want to have something to go to. You know what I mean?"

"I think so..."

"Here," I say. Hold on just a minute." I turn around and pull out an old cardboard box. It's got a logo from one of those dot-com companies, from when I ordered up that book about the Civil War and the big book about President Lincoln. The one 'bout how he freed the slaves. I think...haven't got to reading it yet. The books aren't in it now... now it's full of, well, all sorts of things. I find what I'm looking for.

"Here you go...you take this." She takes the yellow bundle and looks at it like it's some kind of alien egg, like something's going to jump out of that little bundle and bite her on the nose.

"What...what is it?"

"It won't bite you, ma'am. Open it up."

She unwraps the bundle and finds the little doll inside it -- little blonde yarn pigtails, blue dress and all that.

"Why...who does this belong to?" she says, staring at the doll.

"I don't know for sure, but look on the back." She turns it over, and she reads the label on the back, which the words, in a child's handwriting, 'If I'm lost, call my mom!" and then a name, 'Tanya L.' and the first five digits of what looks like a phone number.

"Is this a local number," she asks me.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Have you tried to find this little girl?"

"Yes, ma'am, but I can't really get out to do a proper search." At that she smiles a real smile, looks at me with this furrowed brow like she's trying to decide whether to hug me or call the cops, and then she laughs.

"That would be some place to go to, wouldn't it?"

"It certainly would, ma'am," I say.

She laughs, shakes her head at me. I hand her back her rental agreement and step back into the hut as the white Corolla drives off down the frontage road to the highway.

That's what I'm here for, you know? I'm here to help.

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"Ants in One's Pants"

2006-06-12T09:01:00.000-05:00

"I'm feeling a little uncomfortable," said Joannie.

"Don't worry," said the man in the white lab coat with his back to Joannie. "This will only take a few minutes."

"Could you be more precise?" Joannie asked, with an emphasis on precise that hinted of her two semesters in Oxford 20 years prior and a lifetime devoted to increasing her ability to account more accurately for life's variables, from the careful planning that reduced her wake-up-to-office time by 20 minutes to the meticulous pruning of her diet to those foods that allowed her body to extract maximal nutrients and minimal waste such that the time she wasted on the toilet was down to three minutes and 37 seconds each week.

The man in the white lab coat, who she knew only as "Simpson," said nothing, but turned around and tightened the thick leather straps that held her wrists, and she articulated a clipped grunt. From her prone position on the steel table, she lifted her chin adjusted her eyeballs downward to get a better look at the man, Simpson. She couldn't see much: thick dark hair, dark eyes, two-day stubble, white lab coat, head down, always down as he reviewed the checklist on his clipboard, pausing here and there to check the computer monitor with the red and blue graphs and simulated dials.

"I mean," Joannie said helpfully, "I would like to know when this will be..." She paused, seeing the right word, and then decided upon... "...finished."

"We're ready," Simpson said in the low, throaty growl that substituted for a proper speaking voice.

"When you say, 'we'," Joannie said, voice cracking slightly, "does that include me? Because I'm sure that I'm not ready."

Simpson again said nothing, and Joannie sighed and resumed counting the visible squares created by the cross-hatched bars that held the white speckled, factory-issue drop ceiling. She was at 48 when she felt the needle prick the skin on the underside of her left forearm and at 64 when her body stiffened and tensed, her back arched and teeth ground so hard that she could feel the sharp edges of the flecks of hardened calcium newly trapped under her tongue. Her fortunately smooth nails dug into the palms of her hands. Her skin screamed, as if Simpson had attached millions of tiny fish hooks to every inch of her skin, and then, all at once, each tiny fisherman pulled, and reeled, and pulled.

"I'm feeling very uncomfortable," Joannie said.

"Don't worry," Simpson said. "A few more minutes."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

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"What They Knew"

2006-05-14T14:00:00.000-05:00

They didn't know it when they saw it.

You know how you're always told that you will? That you'll know it when you see it? It doesn't matter if you're talking about love, art, obscenity, or, in this case, a two-story, four-bedroom house of recent vintage in a decent school district, Jason had always thought that he'd "know it when he saw it" -- know that it was the right place and the right time.

But he was wrong. She knew it. He didn't. So they didn't know it.

When the walked in the door, before she even took off her shoes, Rachel gave a little leap and clapped her hands; Jason imagined she did the same thing on her seventh birthday when she tore off the gift wrap on a new Barbie.

Jason felt nothing.

It was an OK house with high ceilings, shiny wood floors, stone counter tops and stainless steel fridge and stove. The reproduction had an automatic ice maker, which Jason thought was cool. But, you know, big deal, right?

Rachel dashed up the stairs with a stream of "look at this! Oh, this is nice's, I've always wanted that's..." while Jason stared out the window, over the massive deck where he imagined kicking his feet up with a beer on a little plastic table and his guitar in his lap singing out off-key tunes to the night sky.

"So?"

"So. What?"

"How do you like it?"

"It's OK."

"OK? OK? Don't you think it's just perfect?"

"Well, sure I guess." Jason thought about the back deck in their own house. You couldn't even go back there in the summer, with all the mosquitoes. Probably the same here, he thought.

"I need to know how you feel. Jason. Wake up!" Rachel's voice was sharp, crisp, like a drill sergeant and it snapped Jason to attention.

"What does it matter? We'll like what you like."

"But I want to know what you like. I want you to care."

"Well, maybe I don't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know. I'm just talking."

"Talk some more."

"I...I don't care where we live. I just want to live somewhere. If it makes you happy, it makes me happy. I really could live anywhere."

"Jason."

"What?"

"Jason." Rachel said again.

"What? What?"

"That is the biggest load of crap I've ever heard."

"Oh, I'm sure you've 1eard bigger."

"No, I don't think so."

"Look, what can I tell you. Maybe this just isn't the right place."

"What does the right place look like?"

"I don't know... I'll know it when I see it, right?"

"Yeah, right," Rachel said, and she turned her back to Jason and slipped on her shoes. Jason stared after her, and then followed suit. Back in the car, Rachel drove, and Jason started singing the song on the radio out loud, drumming on the dashboard..."Mis-ter Jones and me...runnin' through the barrio..."

Rachel didn't take her eyes off the road.

"What are you so happy about?" she said.

# # #
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"The Story of the Story"

2006-04-28T09:03:00.000-05:00

Living as he did, moving around, cross country every few years, Seth didn't have any childhood friends. No one who knew him now could tell you what he was like back then, and how that got him to the place he was at now.

Not that this was necessary, but it would have been... useful... given the circumstances.

In the small conference room with the window that overlooked the river, Seth took a moment to reach between his legs to grab the lever and pull, carefully, so his chair would rise just a couple of inches. He placed his elbows on the brown melanin conference table, wiggled his seat so the chair would settle, and waited.

The door opened with a loud click and the the managers stepped into the room. The non-descript lady from HR with the brown hair, glasses and sensible suit sat down first. Seth didn't look at her. The tall man with the close cropped blonde hair entered next. He was the Vice President of Operations, and while he wasn't happy, his clothes were as sharp as his pointed chin. His shoes and his hair glistened with polish. His socks matched his belt and tie, and blended artfully with his three-buttoned suit.

The Vice President of Operations smiled. Thin-lipped. Grim, Seth thought.

"How have you been, Seth," he said.

"You really want to know?" Seth said, smiling.

"What I really want to know is what's wrong. What's happened."

"I think you know that already. What, specifically, do you want know?"

"You want specifics? Here." The Vice President opened a manilla folder. "Missed meetings, here, here and here. Missed deadlines. Missing projects."

"And?" Seth said, still smiling. The Human Resources lady handed a binder clipped sheaf of papers to the Vice President.

"Here's a report from IT, analyzing your computer use," he said.

"We do that?"

"Yes. In fact we do. Just about every keystroke."

"What's it say?" Seth said, smiling wider, openly curious.

"This one is just for yesterday. Twenty-two minutes on something called 'websudoku.com,'" he said.

Seth laughed. "That was a record."

"What?"

"Nothing. What else?"

"Pointlesswasteoftime.com. Thirty-two clicks between 12:30 and 1:57 pm. I'm guessing that's not related to our work here."

"Hmp. Probably not," Seth snorted, looking up at the two managers across the table to see if they were laughing with him. They were not.

"Here's one called 'marvel-dot-com-slash-digitalcomics. Seems like you were on there for about 97 minutes."

"They put up new ones."

"New what?"

"New digital comics. Didn't I just say that?"

"So, you're telling me that you read comic books for 97 minutes yesterday?"

"Well, probably not that long. I'm sure I got up for coffee at some point."

"I'm sure. What about this latest..." the Vice President of Operations paused. "...incident? Can you explain it?"

"Which incident? You mean...?"

"You hurt people, Seth. They feel betrayed."

"Most of them laughed."

"Most of them didn't know that you were serious."

"It didn't take that long to clean up. And the smell is almost gone."

"What were you thinking, Seth?"

Good question, Seth thought. I was thinking that people needed a good laugh. That I needed a good laugh. That I needed something creative, something innovative, something surprising, unuusual or even fortuitous to happen here, where nothing of the sort ever happens. I was thinking that an eruption, an explosion of sorts, would be good for our souls.

"I don't really know," Seth said.

The Vice President made an "Mmmhmm" noise and stared at Seth for 10 long seconds. Seth stared back for five and then looked around. It was a dark day outside -- on TV they said rain was coming this weekend. Hundreds of feet below, on the edge of downtown, the river looked choppy as it flushed over the old dam.

"Is there something you want me to say here? What do you want me to do?"

"I want to get your reaction to this. Is this the contribution you think you should be making here? Is this the contribution of someone who wants to be here?"

Seth looked down at the table. The he stood up and turned around, toward the window, and the river. He thought about what it was like, a long time ago, in the summer by the river, to tell his Mom he would meet her in two hours at the picnic tables and take off with his friend, Clay, into the heart of the fair with ten dollars and a stack of ride tickets. And how Clay stood by him when he threw up on the Tilt-a-Whirl and they each won a plastic bow-and-arrow at Skee-Ball and spent the next hour hiding behind the bench next to the roasted corn stand and seeing if the suction-cup arrows would stick to girls' backsides.

"What do you think?" Seth said.

"Are you playing games with me?" the Vice President said.

"Alan!" the Human Resources lady's voice rose, concerned.

"Seth. I don't see how we can keep you here. We're going to have to end our relationship."

End our relationship, Seth thought, and laughed. He exhaled, deeply, realizing he hadn't been breathing for quite a while, as breathing goes.

"Thanks," Seth said. And he shook their hands.

# # #

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"Inky Black Depths"

2006-04-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

There's no crying in war, thought Roger as he peered over the craggy, khaki-colored clay of the trench where he and his team lay in wait. Nothing yet. He exhaled, deeply, his mouth a brown, round "O," like he was blowing smoke rings. He didn't smoke, of course. No one in his family did, what with the stories coming down from when they were young about how Grandpa Larry died of emphysema and Dad had his lung collapse at 18 after a six-year, two-pack-a-day habit that seemed, from the old pictures, to be driven by a need to have two Marlboro packs rolled up in the sleeves of his white t-shirts, just so.

But he found himself thinking about what it would be like to be leaning back against the counter of his Dad's 7-11 store back home in Middletown, wearing that garish polyester uniform, crossing his arms, just so, taking a drag and blowing out slow.

He peered over the trench again. There's no crying in war, thought Roger. There was movement on the other side, under the white angular, rusted outdoor rooftop that covered filthy metal tables and flimsy plastic chairs of what once was a cafe on the edge of this desert town. Not a lot of movement...a shifting shadow, hunched and quick, that disappeared behind an overturned table.

Roger motioned to Lopez and Jake with two fingers and then pointed. Take 'em out. Two cracks of automatic rifles, a shout and a cry and it was done.

Roger hopped out of the trench and walked to the cafe, impatiently, and the two men followed. He didn't want to run, but wished he could just be there, now, instead of watching the overhang and the chairs and the tables and the bodies grow larger with each heavy step.

The bodies lay on the concrete patio. It was a man and a woman -- a boy and a girl, really, their faces smooth and hopeful to their last breath. Her head was on his chest, like they were laying together at night in a park, looking up at the stars. Only the growing red stain told a different story, seeping out through and behind her long, coal-black hair, soaking his white cotton shirt.

"Couple of kids," Lopez said. "Shouldn't have been here."

"Just where we thought they'd be," Roger muttered.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jake said, startling Roger. He nearly raised his gun.

"Nothing. It's nothing, Jake."

"So what do we do with them?" Lopez asked.

"Nothing," Roger said. "Let the locals take care of it."

"Of them, man. Of them," Jake said.

"That's what I said."

"No, man. You said 'it'. You called them 'it'. They're not 'its'. They're them. They're people. Two dead people. Dead kids. Don't even know what they did or what they're doing here. No guns on them. Look at them! They look like a couple of sweethearts out on a date."

"They are," Roger said. "Don't ask me any more questions."

"I didn't ask you any questions. I was telling you. These are people. That's all I'm trying to say."

"Jake, you better calm down. Right now," Roger said and he turned his back to his comrade. He looked down at the couple, at the girl and her boyfriend, how nice they looked together and how strange and aloof she's seemed when they met the first time, months ago, and she told him what her father said about Roger, his people, their mission. He asked, and she told him what she thought, and he recalled how her speech widened her eyes and wet her lips as she pointed and gestured and her slim fingers grabbed and held his wrist with startling strength. She had passion that was...unquenchable. Until now.

Roger heard the stamp of boots on concrete, felt his neck muscles stiffen.

"You having second thoughts? Are you thinking about what we've done here? Are you even human? You'd better be thinking." Jake grabbed his shoulder firmly.

Roger spoke without turning around. "Lopez."

A loud click. Two steps. A long pause.

"Shit. I'm cool. I'm cool," Jake said, finally, raising his hands and walking away.

Roger raised the first three fingers of his hand to his right eye, and curtly wiped away the wetness that had gathered there.

"Let's get out of here," he said.

# # #

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"An Afternoon in Autumn, When Johnny Had Nothing Better to Do"

2006-03-25T16:30:00.000-06:00

Johnny sat at the desk, hands poised lightly on the keyboard. It was a child's desk. Small, brown wood stained with old cheap metal handles on each drawer, dangling like door knockers.

On the desk was a green folder labeled 2005 taxes, a nearly spent spindle of recordable discs, a plastic cup adordned with colorful letters spelling the names of two kids, he guessed, Brian and Ben, filled with some strange, be-ribboned poupourri. The desk was dominated by the laptop computer, large keyboard and screen fitting uncomfortably close to the cheap HP printer with the cables and wires crumpled about in a vain attempt to keep out of site.

To the right was the "in box" on top of the old black steel filing cabinet -- blanketed by a pile of unopened bills and unfiled papers arranged like a still life of a waterfall. The checkbook was balanced, open, in between like a bridge from the filing cabinet to the desk.

He stood, stretching like a calico cat in his orange and black Bengals sweatshirt, and decided he needed a snack. Paydirt -- an unopened box of Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies. He quietly broke into the package, took three...and then three more, poured himself a glass of milk and shuffled back to the office.

"I sure wish they'd get home soon," he said out loud, to himself, just to hear a voice speak. The words came out in croak, like someone else's voice, and he was startled for a moment, but only a moment.

Johnny ate a cookie, gulped down a mouthful of milk, wiped the excess away with the back of his hand and reassumed the position, fingertips at the ready...asdf...jkl;

A click. A key turning, lock sliding back, like a turtle going into its shell. Door opening with a grunt. Coats rustling, children's footsteps drumming across the kitchen and up the stairs. Heavier footfalls. Her. Down the hall. Toward the office. Door opens. Gasp of surprise.

"Who the hell are you?" she says.

Johnny stood up quickly, dark brown cookie tumbling over his three-day beard.

"Johnny," he said.

"Get...out...of...my...house," she shouted with authority, but he could see she was trembling.

"I was just, you know. Working," Johnny said, trying to be helpful.

"Working? What do you mean, working? Who are you?" She had brown hair and brown eyes and wore a red sweater that stretched over her hips. She wore thin black leggings and New Balance running shoes.

"It's me. Johnny. Don't you remember?" Johnny thought he was going to cry, and was determined not to. She didn't speak.

"In the grocery store. I was right behind you. Told that little boy of yours that Reese's would rot his teeth. You thanked me and smiled. You have a nice smile."

"So?"

"So I thought you'd want to return the favor."

"Return the favor? We chatted in the grocery."

"I needed to borrow a computer."

"Get out. Now. I'm calling the police."

"Oh, now that wouldn't be very nice."

She turned and ran, heading for the kitchen. Johnny grabbed her arm. She spun and socked him on the head with her other forearm, then kicked him in the crotch. He fell to the floor. He heard the tell-tale "beep...beepbeepbeep" of a cordless phone dialing 911 and swore under his breath. The he saw a rainbow flash of light as something hard and resonant struck him in the temple. An old brass tea kettle or something... he'd seen it on the fireplace when he walked in.

"I'm really not very good at this," he thought as he lost consciousness.

* * *

"So ma'am, you really don't know what he was doing here?"

"I have no idea. He said we chatted in the grocery line. I sort of remember. I think it was like a month ago."

"And he was working on the computer?"

"I don't know. He was in the office. That's what it looked like."

"Hey sarge! Come over here," a voice from the office called. The sargeant and the woman entered the office, where a young detective was peering at the laptop screen.

"Did you write this, ma'am?" the sargeant asked.

"Are you kidding me?"

"I don't kid," the sargeant said.

"No, sargeant. I did not write that."

"Well, ma'am, this is one for the books," the sargeant said, and walked out of the office. "I gotta get some air."

"I'll join you," the woman said.

A young uniformed officer tapped the detective on the shoulder.

"What does it say?"

"Hmmph. Read it yourself."

The officer peered over the detectives shoulder and read:

I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...I like to eat, eat, eat...apples and bananas...

# # #

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"Cold Feet"

2006-03-17T09:04:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting on the ground. Brown dirt, tree roots, grass. My feet are in the grass. The green shoots wriggle up between my toes. Cool, damp.

I lean back. Tree bark. Rough, thick, knotted, grooved, carved by gnarled fingers.

I look up at the sky. Branches, leaves. Seeds encased in tiny propellers. Blue sky, clouds. Wispy white faces, skeletal hands, grasping, clawing at...blue.

I breathe. Deep, full. Exhale. Dramatic pause. Just another day in paradise. This is supposed to be relaxing.

Crack, crackle, rustle above. Bird? Squirrel? Chipmunk. Red-brown, black and white. Arms outstrectched, leaping, running.

I look out, straight out. Wide green field. Park. Soccer net. Sunny day. Too sunny. Squint. Glad I'm in the shade. Seagulls, gliding. How did they get to Minnesota?

Tickle on my hand. Tick! No, ladybug. Smash! No, brush off, lands on a blade of grass. It's outside, her home, not mine.

Rumble, grumble, ramble, hiss. Truck. Driving, interrupting.

Time, ticking. Time to go. Time to pick up kids, make lunch, play, remember, remind, cajole, convince. Discipline.

What to do next? Plan ahead. What's next? Plan ahead. What's next? Plan ahead. What's next?

Decide later. Time to go.

Another day in paradise.

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"With Great Power..." - A Dom Parker Story

2006-03-09T10:33:00.000-06:00

A Dom Parker Story

* * *

Dom had flown too far, too fast. Again.

At least I brought a shirt this time, he thought.

The last time he flew, he'd wanted to see how fast he could go. He'd spread his wings and circled high over the skinny part of the bay that the locals called The River. He built build up speed, then shot like a cannon. He'd flown miles before he splashed down in the ocean at the southern end of the island, cold, shirtless, with just enough pocket change to take a city bus back home.

This time, he came prepared. He was glad he'd told his Dad he'd go biking with him. His Dad immediately came through with gear useful to a kid with 16 foot-transparent wings that sprouted from his back on command. Skin-tight spandex pants and shirt, and a little pouch where he could fold up a matching windbreaker and stash his house keys, cash and a cell phone. He'd cut two slits in the back of the shirt, so thin you'd never notice them, but just right so he could slip his wings through without ripping the kind of gaping holes that had been baffling his mother of late. He looked like a superhero. A really, really skinny superhero.

But landings. In the comics, everyone lands so gracefully. I land like God's using me as a skipping stone.

He must have flown eight miles tonight. His back ached his arms and elbows were scraped red and raw. So he sat for awhile, on the beach, staring at the ocean, picking at the sand. He made a small pile: Two clam shells, no clam; a stick that once held a popsicle, or maybe a corn dog; four cigarette butts; six flat stones, two round ones; one penny, the most money he'd ever made at the beach. Michelle said she found three dollars once, but Dom found that hard to believe.

Where are you, Michelle?

A golden retriever ran by, splashing, chased by a couple in sweats. Dom waved. It was late, too late for the bus, so he'd have to fly back home, no matter how much his back hurt. He stood and started the climb the the hill, to the rocky cliffs on his right, where he could more easily get some air.

Funny that I land here, Michelle. It had been almost a month now, when they walked here and watched the sun set and talked about life and friends and what the stars might have to say. And then it was time to go and she said she'd be leaving for awhile, and she couldn't say where or why but she was and then she kissed him, briefly but so softly on the lips and walked back to her car and Dom's mother shouted, so he rejoined his family on the beach as they packed up the blankets and towels and cooler for the drive back home. She was gone ...

Then she screamed. Screamed? No, that's here, now. Where?

Another scream.

He looked around frantically. Two silhouettes, at the top of the cliff, the tourist overlook, the one with the binoculars for a quarter. One cringed, arms over her face, by the railing, fending off what, in the moonlight, looked like a swarm of bees. The other figure looked like a vampire -- guiding the swarm like a conductor.

Cyril. What's he doing here?

Without thinking, he ran. Up the cliff, clamboring over rocks.

Cyril turned to look at him, his face, even paler in the moonlight, framed by his long black hair.

"Dom. So nice you could join us," he called.

What's with the evil genius voice, Cyril? Dom kept his thoughts to himself. He was on the trail now, the one that led up to the vista point, so he could run.

Oh great, Dom thought. Cyril had turned to face him and the swarm turned on him, a pale cloud of rocks and dust and shells and bottle tops and popsicle sticks and whatever other garbage Cyril could find.

Dom kept running. He closed his eyes.

I can't do this.

His jaw clenched. He could feel tears welling. He was breathing hard.

I can't do this.

He opened his eyes and saw the girl, leaning on the railing, staring at him in horror.

Not Michelle. Dammit. Tracy...from Calculus.

The swarm had almost reached him, and he nearly froze. The last time, he'd felt it's sting -- death by a million cuts. There was pain, and it never stopped.

"I can't do this!" he shouted out loud. But inside he knew.

I will do this.

Dom leaped. The wings blossomed from his back, great and ghostly. They carried him over the swarm. From the top of his arc, he glimpsed Tracy, on her knees, eyes wide in awe. He stopped for a moment, as Cyril tried to redirect the swarm.

Then, Dom dove, and in a moment, his outstretched slammed into Cyril's chest, knocking him to the ground. Dom stood over him, not sure what to do. Cyril smiled his most ingratiating grin.

"Well played, Dominic. See you in school." A cloud of dust burst in Dom's face. When he finished coughing, Cyril was gone.

"Who...who are you?" Tracy called. She doesn't recognize me.

"I just wanted to help," Dom said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"Do you have a car?"

"Yes. Yes, I do." She was recovering, getting her bearings. Staring at him. Dom backed away and turned to the side. She walked toward him.

"Good. You can drive right? 'Cause I don't have a car here or anything."

"I'll be okay, now." She paused. "What are you?"

"I'm just a kid, you know? I just wanted to help."

They stared at each for a moment, Dom half in shadow, Tracy's pretty face cut and scraped from the swarm.

"You make a funny angel," she said, and smiled a little.

Angel? Angel?!

Dom had an overwhelming urge to run.

"I...I'm glad you're okay."

And he ran.

# # #

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"Swing and a Miss"

2006-03-06T10:44:00.000-06:00

I never saw it coming.

Here I am in this dank, mildewy basement, with the rotted wood frame, creaking under the weight of the old house above me. Here I am, leaning on a metal shelf filled with old paint cans and brushes and pans, my feet kicking a stack of cardboard boxes, each overflowing with yellowing newspapers and lined notebook pages, poking out the sides. Here I am in the dark, surrounded by concrete walls, down the shag-carpeted stairs from the locked and barricaded door.

What had I done to deserve this?

I check my hands. I've found that's the best place to start. Caked in white-gray powder. Thick patches of dirt under my finger nails. There's something dark on my arms...paint? Multiple shades, splashed lengthwise down my forearms, shaped like Bob Marley's hair.

Elbow scratched, bruised. My hands and arms are, too, I realize. I must have fallen down the stairs.

Sneakers? Caked in mud. Thick mud, dried. How long have I been down here?

I hear a creaking, the click of a latch. I look to the stairs, but the sound is coming from above. A door opens in the ceiling, and I squint in the bright light. I see a silhouette of a man.

"So," I call out. "It happened again?"

"Yeah," the voice said. Male, curt, all business.

"You OK?" I ask, because I should.

"Fine," he said. "But that's just me. What do you know."

"Dirt, mud cakes, paint and dust and dirt on my hands."

"Anything else."

"I'm cold and tired and would like to get the hell out of here."

"Unlikely,"the voice said. It must have been bad this time.

"When?" I figured I should sound intereested. I guess I was. The truth was, if I could get him to feed me, I could hang out here as long as I had to. Beats working.

"Don't know yet."

"What happened? Can you just tell me what happened?"

"You really don't know."

"I really don't know." I was starting to get angry. Not a good idea.

"What's the last thing you remember," the voice asked.

"Who are you?" I said, testily. Testing.

"It doesn't matter." Oh well. "What's the last thing you remember?

"I remember arriving at Greenwood. Am I still in Greenwood? Stopped in at this burger place. Sat in the booth by the window. Had a burger and a cup of coffee, a danish and some hash browns. The food was delicious."

"And then?"

"And then I ask for a glass of water. And the waitress comes back, but she's not wearing that little pink and white number she'd been wearing. She's grown four arms, out of her side, like a spider. And her face and body are all hairy. And she's got these sharp needles for teeth and these pincer things sticking out of her mouth. Her eyes are big black goggles, like a bug right? Only giant. And she starts walking toward me, and I realize that the cooks look like this too --just as beastly only wearing aprons and chef hats."

"So what did you do?"

"Well, first I asked for more coffee, but she didn't seem to have any. She said something I didn't understand. I remember I said it again and again, but she didn't seem to understand. The others started gathering around. There must have been dozens of them."

"Thirty-four."

"What?"

"There were 34 people. In the diner."

"Wow, that's a lot."

"Yes. It is a lot." He sounded very grim, kind of mean.

"So anyway, I kept yelling and they all started crowding me, you know? Getting closer and closer."

"Then what happened?"

"I don't know. That's the last thing I remember."

"Convenient."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"I think you can tell me. I think you can tell me now. NOW." I jump. It must be like 12 feet in the air, and I hook my hand around his leg, start scratching at the floor. My eyes are closed because the light is so bright now I can't see a thing, but I can tell this guy's wearing rough cotton-polyester pants and has on tall leather boots. Something hard hits my hand and its slips off his leg. My nails -- long, almost claw-like dig deep grooves in the wood floor. I growl, just to let him know I mean business. But the growl is met with a sharp blow to the jaw, and I fall back down to the floor, knocking over a cardboard box and sending papers scattering all over the floor.

I'm pissed. "Tell me now!" I scream again and again and again until the door until the ceiling slams shut and the latch clicks and I'm all alone again.

Thirty-four. At least I won't be hungry for awhile.

# # #

----------------------
What do you think? Click below to comment, or go to my profile to send me an email.

"Chicken Little"

2006-03-03T11:20:00.000-06:00

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Jackie hung by the tips of her fingers from the edge of the six-story Randall Building, her long, lavender nails leaving a thin white trail on the concrete cornice.

"Me neither," Jackie said to the voice from the roof, straining to hold on a few moments longer. "But here I am. A little help please?"

"Let me get back to you on that," the voice said. Jackie stiffened, and her too-sweaty fingers slipped a couple millimeters.

"Don't take too long." Sonofabitch, she thought. I left the coffee pot on. I left the coffee pot on and my place is going to burn down. Shit.

"Oh, I'll take my time. I'll take all the time I need."

"I'm getting kind of hungry," Jackie said, trying to be funny, though she knew the woman on the roof was in no mood to laugh. Not with her, anyway. It had been self defense, of course, but the woman on the roof wouldn't take that into account when assessing who is to blame the mess in her apartment. The mess who'd been so...together...in bed with the woman just a few minutes ago.

The woman on the roof peered over the edge. She had short blonde hair, blue eyes, and thin lips hidden by thick red lipstick. Jackie noted that she was filing her nails. Great.

"I'll bet you are. I just have one thing to ask you. " She paused.

"What, already?" Jackie could feel her plams growing more wet and slick. She closed her eyes and whispered a short prayer.

"Testy, testy."

"Wouldn't you be? C'mon!" Her hands slid another inch. She opened her eyes and spied a ledge about 10 feet below. It looked too far the first time she saw it, but now, if she could angle her legs just right...no...impossible.

"What I want to know is, who..."

"Who? Who what?" Jackie shouted. There wasn't much time.

"Who is the one who ..."

Too late.

# # #

What's Your Story?

2006-03-02T10:01:00.000-06:00

Hi, it's me, Chronic. The Author. Just thought I'd check in. How do you like the site so far? Good? Great.

From what I can tell, about 100 or so people have visited, and most have left quickly. That's good. That's the idea.

And they haven't come back. That's not so much the idea.

If you happen to drop by today, or perhaps tomorrow, or even another day, drop me a line. And if you're so willing, answer the following questions:

1) How do you like the stories? Delightful? Odd? Boring? Really boring? Make you want to throw myself through a plate glass window?

2) What's your favorite? Why?

3) What's your least favorite? Why?

4) Are you interested in writing a story for One Minute Stories? Would be happy to share the spotlight (more of a candlelight, or a matchlight, really, but you get the idea).

Thank you for your support.

PS -- My take is twofold, by the way: 1) some of the stories are pretty cool, some are kind of boring, and I've been in a kind of thematic rut that parallels a real-world rut. OK for me -- it's therapeutic. 2) People aren't looking for a daily dose of rip-roarin' really really short story action. They're looking for amusement. The blog needs more amusement.

"I didn't say that"

2006-03-01T00:01:00.000-06:00

So, you say you want to be a cowboy.

I didn't say that.

Of course you did. Everyone wants to be a cowboy.

I don't.

Don't be silly. Why else would you be here?

The sign said, "Fulfill Your Dreams." I figured it was bullshit, but I'm lonely and pathetic. I'm walking around, it's late, I'm never going to sleep, I figure what they hell, has to be worth a laugh.

Yes. I understand. You want to be a cowboy.

Umm, OK, so this is a metaphor, right? Like, being a cowboy is a metaphor for fulfilling your dreams, for getting in touch with your inner child. So, being a "cowboy" is sort of like doing what you truly want to do, deep inside, right?

If you say so.

If I say so?

If you say so. You're the one who came in here. People come in here for all sorts of reasons. They have all sorts of dreams. You know, it's hard to fulfill dreams from a streetcorner shop.

I'll bet.

I mean, you don't usually get to pick up fulfillment at retail.

That's true.

Damn right it's true. And yet, here you are.

Here I am.

So. What can I do for you?

What do you mean? I came in here because the sign said you could fulfill my dreams. I get here, they take my 54 bucks and they send me back to this office with cheap wood paneling and shag carpet, and you telling me I want to be a cowboy. I don't want to be a goddam cowboy. I've never wanted to be a goddam cowboy.

No need to shout.

I'm not shouting!

I said there's no need to shout, but you can if you want. Shout all you want. Just tell me what you want.

I want my dreams fulfilled.

Yes, of course. But what dreams?

You don't know?

Did I say I did?

Kind of. You said I wanted to be a cowboy.

Well you do, don't you?

Now we're just talking in circles.

Look. Everyone has dreams. Everyone has the ideal life they wanted to lead, but somehow got off track, just like you. And they find themselves wandering around late at night wondering if the answer to all of their questions is in a little storefront on the street where the tourists come to shop. And you know what?

I guess I don't.

The answers are here.

Really...

Yeah, really. If you're willing to take the next step. To cross the line.

The line...?

The one that separates your reality from the dream. I have in my hands two pills...

Like in The Matrix, right?

Yes. Like in The Matrix. Christ, that movie screwed up this business. I have half a mind to sue those bastards. As I was saying .. I have two pills. The pill in my left hand will show you your dream. The pill on the right will transform you. You will be the man who embraces the dream...the man who embraces his destiny.

Right. How will it do that?

It changes your life.

How?

You take it.

I don't get it.

I imagined you wouldn't.

You're full of crap. I want my money back.

No refunds. You signed the form.

I'll call the police!

You do that. Look, I tried.

You tried? You sold me a load of bunk. You jabbered on and on about destiny. You call that trying?

You're right. I'm full of crap. I was just messing with you.

You were?

Depends.

Depends? On what?

Nothing. Just, go, OK?

Alright. I'm going. You're nuts, you know that?

I know. Take care of yourself.

* * *

"So, Boss. How'd it go? That guy looked pretty pissed."

Sorry, Jane. You took care of him, right?

"Yah. He'll be OK. But he'd have made a lousy cowboy."

You think so?

"Oh, yeah. Looked terrible in the hat."

# # #

It's Only Rock and Roll

2006-02-27T09:36:00.000-06:00

A man and a woman sat alone in the dark.

"I'm miserable," she said.

"You are not."

"Am too."

"Why, pray tell?" he said.

"I just am. Isn't that enough."

"No. You need to let it out."

"Says who?"

"That's what they say."

"They do not. They are not miserable."

"I guess that's why they call it the blues..."

"Oh no."

"What?"

"You're going to quote song lyrics at me, aren't you."

"Am I blue? Blue for you?"

"Please stop."

"In the name of love?"

"No, in the name of all that's holy!"

"Once more, in the name of love."

"You know, if I could leave right now, I would."

"If you leave me now, you'll take a way the biggest part of me."

"Whoo, hoo, hoo... Okay, that was funny."

"I'm easy. Easy like Sunday morning."

"You're going to be dead. Dead like a door knob. You know, quoting lyrics is not wisdom. It's a substitute for wisdom. It's a substitute for thinking. It's a substitute for empathy. I need a little empathy here. I need a little understanding. It's not like you don't know why I'm miserable. It's not like you have no responsibility here."

"I will be you father figure..."

"I don't need a father figure. I need you. I need your mind. I need your heart. I need your soul. I need you to listen to me. Not to judge, not to joke. Not to see it as one more chance for you to show off how clever you are at coming with up vaguely appropriate song lyrics. I need you."

"I know..."

She stared at him for a long time in the silent dark. She thought back on their time together. How they met at the Simple Pleasures show. How they danced, slow and sexy. How his wit and humor dazzled, how his passion flared. And she recalled how she'd realized that this wit and charm and passion may well have been all there was to him, and that, maybe there was nothing left to learn, this was all there was, that if you scratched the surface of this man, all you'd find was...more surface. She sighed, and took his hand.

"...and what do you know?"

"...that it's only rock and roll..."

"And?"

"And I like it! Oh yeah!"

# # #

"I'm Not Listening"

2006-02-23T21:34:00.000-06:00

My name is Frederick. I'm standing atop a rock. Or a mountain. It's really high. I'm above the clouds and I see gray all around me. Oh, look, there's a bird. An eagle? It sees me. It wheels gracefully in the sky, high above. Now it's coming for me. Claws outstretched. Like my face is a fish...definitely an eagle....

I took the helmet off.

"Not bad," I said. "The clouds are a little blotchy."

"Thanks. I'll make a note of it."

"And the eagle, man. "

"What eagle?"

"The eagle. The bird, with the claws. It came after me. With the claws, man."

"There was no eagle, dude." Crouch looked at me like I was crazy. Like maybe he was a little scared. But that didn't make any sense.

"Ah, yeah. There was an eagle. I saw it. I was standing on your mountain."

"Yeah, I saw that. No bird, though."

"Listen. I was standing on the mountain, looking around at the clounds."

"Right. I saw that. Mountain and clouds. A little wind to blow them around. You saw them moving, right?"

"Yeah, I saw that. And then this great big bird. I swear it was an eagle. It sees me, and then it goes tearing after me with its claws."

"And then what," Crouch says, staring at his monitor.

"And then I got out of there. I thought it was going to tear my head off."

"Yeah, right. It's VR, man. It can't hurt you."

"Ha. So there was an eagle."

"Um. No."

"So how do you explain it?"

"Maybe you fell asleep. You dreamed up the eagles."

"One eagle. Were there supposed to be more?"

"No. There weren't supposed to be any. Didn't you hear me? There weren't supposed to be any," Crouch looked almost manic. He grabbed my arm. I pulled away. He stood up and glared at me.

"I heard you. What makes you think I didn't hear you? But I'm telling you there was an eagle. In the program."

Crouch looked like he was about to grab me again. I wasn't going to let that happen. We locked eyes, just for a second. Then he shook his head and laughed.

"You're right," he said. "I was just messin' with you, man."

"I knew you were. You son of a ..." I was laughing now. "I'm outta here. You coming?"

"Nah. I have some stuff to clean up here."

So I left him.

Two days later, I call Crouch at work to see if he wants to buy me that drink he owes me for testing his VR thing. The receptionist tells me he doesn't work there anymore. So I call his apartment and I get his machine.

So I go to his apartment, and I buzz a few times and then I turn to go and then, I don't know why, I mean, I don't know him that well, but you know, something seemed wrong or something. So I buzz the manager, this well-meaning long-haired goateed guy in a black Judas Priest t-shirt, and I tell him Crouch hasn't been at work for two days and we're kind of worried about him, so we trudge up the three flights of stairs to his room and he knocks and knocks. And the manager guy turns and looks at me and I look at him and I point at the door and he shrugs and turns the key.

I push past him, because I have to see, you know? And there's Crouch, just where you'd think he'd be, laying there on the couch his jeans and no shirt, but he's wearing that funky VR helmet wired to his notebook and his mouth is open and there's this little run of drool running down his cheek.

I shake him and he doesn't move, so I take the helmet off his head and he lets out a little groan while the manager guy is dialing 911. And without even thinking about it, because if I thought about it I would have thought better of it, I put on the helmet.

I'm on the mountain, in the beautiful sun above the perfect clouds drifting gently in the wind across the bright blue gray sky. And then I see it, the eagle, soaring into the sun, a limp human figure gripped tightly in its claws.

# # #

"Friend of the Devil, Part 1"

2006-02-20T09:47:00.000-06:00

Part 1 of 2
------------------
I sat on the pier and and admired the yachts. Loved the names they gave. Pride of Nantucket. Sally's Revenge. First Million. Aqua Holic.

Hell, they might have been Legos for all I cared. I had a job to do and it was time I got back to it. I stubbed out my cigarrette on the weather-beaten wood planks and slung my notebook case over my shoulder.

Once more into the breach, I thought.

I ducked under the chain leading to the cabin cruiser at the end of the pier, the Sea No Evil. No signs of life evident.

"Anyone home?" I called out. Something shuffled from below decks. Seconds later, a tall, thin man in a white Polo shirt and white shorts, anachronistic pencil-thin mustache and gelled, jet-black hair emerged from below.

"You're here! You're here! Welcome, welcome. Permission to board." I'd been warned about his penchant for saying everything twice.

"Thanks," I grunted and gingerly hopped onto the yacht. I hated boats. I've always hated them. Nothing against the sea or boaters per se, I just prefer to know what's underfoot, that if I stand still, I'll stay still. I just like it that way.

"Grant Schuster," I said, putting out my hand.

"A pleasure, a pleasure, Mr. Schuster," he said. He had a weak grip, but I'd learned a long time ago that judging a man by his grip tells you more about yourself than the other guy. "Your reputation precedes you. One's reputation always does, doesn't it? I've read you for a long time. A long time."

"Call me Grant, Mr. Fastenal. You mind if I record you?" I took out a microphone that was wired to the notebook in its case.

"Not at all. Not at all. And you may call me Bal. Everyone calls me Bal."

"Bal," of course, was short for Ballentyne Preston Fastenal, as he knew I knew. It was a name tailor made for headlines, and the New York Post copy editors were no doubt delighted. His buddies were "Bal's Pals" and his girlfriends were, you might have already guessed, "Bal's Gals." When he briefly dallied and then broke up with the lovely actress Valerie Gusera last month in Los Angeles, the headline writers could barely contain their glee: "BAL DUMPS GAL VAL IN SOCAL!" blared the tabloids in 36 point type. But that's not why I was here.

"OK, this is Grant Schuster, Providence Informer, interview with Ballentyne Preston Fastenal... Bal ... June 17, Newport. Mr. Fastenal."

"Bal, please. Call me Bal."

"Bal. Are you ready to get started?"

"Of course, of course. Once more..."

"...into the breach, yes. Mist-...Bal, you're heir to a vast fortune. You've been a playboy, a philanthropist, a sailor and..."

"...and a bit of writer as well, like you."

"Yes, and a ... writer. I did read your autobiography. Fascinating." It was, of course, self-involved drivel. Did I need to tell you that? "So, what I think our readers want to know is this: With all that you have and all that you've done and all that you are, why did you decide to operate an international criminal cartel?"

"What? What?"
-----------------------
Check back in the next couple days for Part 2!

"Cold Feet"

2006-02-17T23:05:00.000-06:00

This one's a little long...I know, it's against the rules. But hell, it's my blog.

Hope you like it...as always, let me know what you think...

-- Chronic --
-------------------

It was winter. The chirpy meteorologist on Channel 11 said that the mercury would dip to 12-below today and the weekend wouldn't be much better.

It couldn't have been much worse.

I'm the guy who works the night shift down Miller's Tool and Die. Like Harry Chapin said, "I watch the metal rustin'...I watch the time go by..." Unfortunately, there were no mysterious women at the diner that night to love me and leave lonely. Just a plain, tired looking waitress named Tracy and the Mexicans who, you know, sling the hash and stuff, back there in the back.

That 12-below morning I finish up my usual breakfast -- a stack of buttermilks and a side of corned beef hash -- and head outside. It really is cold now, the kind of cold where even the air feels hard, like you could crack it in your teeth. I pull my collar up and walk fast, head down like Joe Frazier, and go straight at my Olds.

"Gotta light?"

I look up from my crouch and shove my hands in my jacket pocket. There's an old guy leaning on my car. No hat, no jacket, just an gray sweatshirt. I said he's old but he's tough old. Square jaw, square military haircut, big, weathered hands holding a pack of Marlboro's. He might have been an old Marlboro man for all I know.

"Naw," I said. "Sorry, buddy." I stopped in front of him. Expected him to get the hell away from my car. I looked him in the eye. He held my stare. I took a step back.

"What do you want?" I said, my voice almost cracking. I was wondering what the hell was wrong with me, why I was so spooked. I would have wondered more, but I was too busy being spooked.

"I need a ride. You're gonna give me a ride."

"Where're we going?" I said, playing along.

"I'll drive." You know, I didn't even look to see if he had a gun or a knife or something. His voice was a command.

"What the hell," I said, "I got nothing better to do." I tossed him the keys and got in the car.

After a few coughs and gasps, the Olds engine turned over and we got on the highway. The old man didn't say anything for awhile.

"You gonna tell me where we're going?" I finally said.

"Back to work."

"My work?"

"Yeah."

"What, you think you're gonna rob the place? There's nothing to steal there."

"We're gonna blow it up."

"With what?" I thought I'd play it cool.

"Stuff I got in the trunk."

"My trunk?" He didn't respond. He had this sly little smile. Made me want to punch him. But he was driving.

"So," I said, calm as I could be. "I'll bite. Why are we blowing up Miller's Tool and Die."

"Do you like it there?"

"It's OK. I do what I have to." Where was he going with this?

"No. Do you like it there? Is this the life you imagined? As a kid, did you dream about this?"

"About what? Doing security on the late shift? Who would dream about that?" Not me. First I was gonna be a cop. Then I joined the army when I got out of high school. Signed up to be a paratrooper but I washed out. Too much drinking. I guess I didn't apply myself.

"It's time for a fresh start, Joe." How'd he know my name?

"Who are you, my guardian angel?"

"Ha. Yeah. Something like that."

"Ha...what? Something like what?"

"I'm here to take care of you, Joe. It's time to start over."

Clearly, this guy was insane. I'll tell you, I thought about jumping out of the car right then. But we were going down the highway about about 80. I wasn't dead yet, so I decided I'd let this thing play out a little longer.

"I don't need anyone to take care of me. Who the hell are you?" The old man just laughed. "Come on!" I was yelling now. "What's your name?"

"Please...allow me to introduce myself," he said, still laughing. Or maybe he sang. I kind of think he sang it.

We careened off the exit without slowing down. We skidded around the corner and down the service road that led to the plant.

"We all have dreams, Joe," the old man said, and it was almost like he had a tear in his eye. But he wasn't sad. "We all have dreams. We want to be powerful. Men of action. We want to fly. Leap tall buildings. Right wrongs. But we grow up. And we do what we can. We submit. We let teachers tell us our potential. We let bosses rule our days and spouses rule our nights. But you can take it all back. You can start over Joe. What would you do, Joe, if you could start over?"

I shook my head. I think I'd drifted off while he talked. I was thinking about Mayzie and how she said goodbye when she went to college and I went into the army. I wondered how she was doing. You know, I bet she has a half-dozen kids by now.

"I don't know. Maybe college. Maybe I'd have tried a little harder. You know, done a little more." I admit it - I was flailing around ... I didn't know what to say. "I have to tell you, I don't really think about it."

"You think about it, Joe. Right now. You think about it."

And, you know, as he parked the car got out and pulled a wooden packing crate out of the trunk, my trunk, I guess I did think about it a little bit. I mean, I didn't know what the hell this guy was talking about, but I thought about it. Wouldn't you? And you know, I made my choices a long time ago. I can live with what I'm doing.

I mean, it's lonely. I live alone. I work at night. Not much chance to meet women that way. Haven't really been with anyone in a long time. I guess that's why I still talk to Mayzie. Not that she hears me - I'm not sure where she is now. My boss is a jerk, but I can take it. The job, well the job's a job. It's not police work but it's security. And it's secure. But damn, it's boring. I mean, can you imagine, sitting in that chair, eight hours, every night, staring at the same four TVs, the same four channels, where nothing moves. Eight hours a day. Nothing moves. I don't even know what they do there -- I never see anyone working there. It's must me and all those machines, all that metal.

"Help me out with this, Joe." And the old man takes out this contraption. All wires and tubes and stuff. Hell, I mean, I knew what it was. I helped him take it out of the crate. Why? I don't know... it was like I was hypnotized. Not really, but like that. Like the more he talks the more I think and the more I think the more I notice that all I hear is this voice and this voice commands. You know?

Your right. I don't either.

We take the ... thing ... over to my desk. I wonder where Matty is, but not for very long -- there he is, laying just like you found him behind the desk, blood still gushing out the tear across his throat.

"Open up," the old man said, and without even thinking, I pressed the button and the doors buzzed open. I know, I know ... I'm the security guy ... I never have to deal with a single threat in eight years, and I let this guy in.

So we put the thing down in the lobby. There must have been five or six bodies there, just like Matty's. He unrolls this coil of blasting cord... yeah, that's what it was... and I follow him. He rolls it right out of the lobby and all the way into the parking lot. He attaches the cord to he detonator. It was a classic ... you know the kind... the big red box with the plunger... push it down and kaboom! I felt like Bugs Bunny was going pop out of the bushes.

And then he stands up and looks at me.

"Joe, this is it," he says. "This is your chance, Joe. A new beginning. A fresh start. Everything is new. Clean slate. You stand up, you push it down and everything old is new again. You'll decide. You'll choose your own destiny. You'll be cleansed in fire and made whole again. You'll be you, but more so. For the first time, you'll be alive."

"So..."

"So all you have to do is push here. Just push here."

And I stared at it for a long time. I don't know how long. Could have been hours for all I know. And then, I feel his hand. It's big, rough. He grabs me by the wrist and puts my hand on the plunger.

"It's your choice," he says.

Well. What would you have done?

# # #

"You're a Winner"

2006-02-16T16:54:00.000-06:00

"They announced today that the lottery reached a world record. You want me to buy you a ticket?"

"Why?"

"Why? Because for a couple bucks you could be a gajillionaire. Pass me that plate."

"Here. Yeah, well, you could have bought a ticket yesterday and still have been a gajillionaire."

"So?"

"So, what's so different today? What, $150 million isn't good enough for you but now that it's $365 million, now that's real money?"

"Ha, ha. So, you're saying we should buy tickets every day."

"I don't buy them at all."

"Why not? You don't win if you don't play."

"I don't believe in it."

"You don't believe in the lottery?"

"That's what I said, yeah."

"What don't you believe."

"That it's worth pissing my money away. You might as well throw your money into that garbage disposal."

"Whatever. You have a stick up your butt."

"What? What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're afraid to take risks. You're sitting on the sidelines. You're afraid to hope."

"That's deep, man. So, what would you do if you won?"

"Well first thing is, I'd never work at Denny's again."

# # #

Another Note from Chronic

2006-02-16T01:54:00.000-06:00

To those few, proud souls who are checking this out once in awhile: I'm once again falling behind on updates. While writing a One Minute Story is supposed to be an exercise in speed and stream-of-consciousness storytelling, it actually takes more mental agility than you'd think (or, anyway, than you'd think from reading these).

For what it's worth, work has gotten in the way of such healthy diversions. And now, preparing for a [major work project that will remain unidentified], I'm on the couch at nearly 2 am watching The Net, which states fearfully that our whole lives are on the computer! Wow! Look at Sandra Bullock hack!

Never fear (or fear a lot, if you'd like): I'll be back...

"The Sword of Harlan"

2006-02-14T09:29:00.000-06:00

A Magical Adventure Story

"You have a simple choice: submit or die," Lord Larkon said, pale eyes gleaming with bloodlust.

Harlan said nothing. He waved his sword as he had been taught as a child in the danja school. Like a cobra, Master Wirt had said. Steady, seductive. At the cusp of battle, enemy will not know whether you'll strike or sleep. Harlan smiled despite himself -- Master Wirt's lessons made as little sense now as they did then.

"You smile. You are a fool. You know you don't have the power."

Harlan's smile grew. Your enemy will boast to mask his weakness. He will insult to hide his ignorance. His rage will be your strength. He waved his sword, back and forth.

The sky crackled with eldritch energies and Larkon, towering over Harlan and flush with power, drew back his spiked mace.

"I'll make your head my standard and crush your body to dust!"

When he shouts, he'll strike, Master Wirt had warned. Like the cobra, you'll dance.

The mace came crashing down and Harlan danced nimbly backward, and with one fluid motion brought his sword down on Larkon's arm, its keen edge cutting through the chain mail and drawing the evil one's black blood. His eyes widened, lightning lit the sky. Larkon clutched his arm and hissed. Harlan backed away.

Strike once, and you'll live to bite again. Stay, and the mongoose gets stronger, more clever.

"Master Wirt sends his regards," Harlan said, saluted, then turned and ran, laughing.

# # #

"Lies, All Lies"

2006-02-13T13:30:00.000-06:00

The Halpern County Botanical Garden was the last place I expected to find myself on a cold, blustery winter afternoon, but there I was, admiring the orchids, zinnias and austrolopitheceze afriansers or whatever the heck flowers they had growing here.

Natalie was with me, of course, or I wouldn't have been there. Natalie loves flowers and gardens. She's such a girl. She even wore a flower print sundress, I noticed, flowering out like an inverted tulip from under her off-white hand-knit wool sweater.

"Jason," she said. "Look at this one. Do you think we could grow one like this?"

"Sure," I said. "But you'd have to turn the heat up. It's hot in here."

"I hope it's not too hot," she said and grabbed my arm, hugging it close.

And it was. My arm, sweatered, under a wool trenchcoat I was too lazy t0 carry, now itched like I'd just rolled around in poisin ivy. I was just short of sweating, and felt a little ill, the way I'd felt in September, when I'd finally finished cleaning out my apartment, and packed away the padlock that locked the storage room that held the boxes of pictures, essays, stories and old letters I'd carried from home to two universities, three dorm rooms and five apartments before we'd moved in together. The last boxes wouldn't fit in the car, so I left them, thinking maybe I could come back later, and maybe, maybe I just wouldn't. And I didn't and now I can't help but wonder what it was that I was thinking, to leave those boxes behind, with the sci-fi story I'd written in 8th grade and the 50-page unfinished fantasy novel and the much-lauded sermon written and delivered for the senior class youth service and the letters and pictures from Jeannine and from Laura.

And my skin prickled because it was just hot in here, and Natalie's bright blue eyes looked at me playfully, but with an edge of what? Yearning? Hope? And I remembered the time we went ice skating just after the ball dropped on New Year's eve and she glided so smoothly over the moonlit surface of the lake and I pushed my legs back and forth, me swinging oafishly like a porch swing following her, shimmering like a luna moth, and how warm I felt, uncharacteristically free and unusually perfect I was in her presence and how I reached for her hand and my fingers just touched the tips of her red woolen gloves, not so much that she even noticed, and I stumbled on the ice, caught myself, and knew I would try again.

And in the garden, I squeezed her arm. "It's just fine," I lied.

# # #

"I Sing the Body Electric"

2006-02-09T21:33:00.000-06:00

"The hills are alive...!"

Oh, God.

"...with he Sound of Muusssiiiic!"

Please stop.

"The songs that we siiiinnnnng..."

He's not going to stop, is he?

"For a thou...mill..lots of yeeeearrrrs!"

You need to stop now.

"The hills are aliiiiiivvvve...."

No, you really really need to stop now.

"With the sou-ou-ound of mooooosiiiiiicccc!"

OK. I'm leaving.

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers and kittens..."

I'm walking out that door.

"Bright yellow panties and warm woolly mittens..."

I won't come back.

"Bright yellow packages tied up with string..."

You'll regret this. I'm gone. I'm never coming back. You'll miss me. I'm taking the car. There will be consequences!

"These are a few of my favorite things!"

Good bye. I'm closing the door. Good bye.

"Thank God."

# # #

The Boy Who Could Fly

2006-02-08T01:14:00.000-06:00

Not a story...a note from me:

I've been working on this comic book script. I'd written about 50 pages of this novel about a kid who grows psychic wings and can fly, when I ran into my usual problem with plotting (thus the genesis of One Minute Stories, where the story is over before I need to think of more plot points...but I digress). So I got the idea that maybe what I have is comic book characters -- where instead of an intricately plotted novel I can create intricately plotted episodes around characters. Oh, and I can't draw for @#$#.

So anyway, it's really late, so I thought I'd share the comic book script as it stands so far... it's on my other blog, the appropriately named My Chronic Impending Disaster.

Click here to read Part One ...

Then click here to read Part Two...

If you do read this thing, your comments or suggestions would be most welcome...thanks, y'all! G'night!

"The Waiting"

2006-02-07T09:02:00.000-06:00

"Call me back in like...two minutes."

"Gotcha. Two minutes."

"That'll work for you?"

"Oh yeah. It'll work."

Pause.

"Is it two minutes yet?"

"No! And it's two minutes after we hang up."

"Oh."

"Okay then?"

"Yeah. I got it. I'm going to hang up now."

"Good."

Pause.

"Why haven't you hung up?"

"Why haven't you hung up?"

"I wanted to make sure you were off."

"Aha! But if you hung up, it wouldn't matter, would it?"

"I guess not."

"So you're the one who's not hanging up!"

"The one...besides you."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"You want me to call you back?"

"Nah, I think we're good. I'm smiling right now."

"Me, too."

# # #

"Wire Taps"

2006-02-06T13:00:00.000-06:00

"Did you see it?"

"Of course I saw it! Did you?"

"Well, duh. Yes, I saw it."

"What did you think?"

"I thought it was, you know?"

"So it was...?"

"Sort of...I mean...what did you think?"

"I was only half watching, really. I never thought they'd actually show..."

"I know! I can't believe it. Just the other day, I was talking to Janie after Geometry, and I said, 'there is no way...I mean... no way... they are actually going to do that ... I mean, they can't even..."

"Well, they could ..."

"Yeah, they could, but remember what happened to..."

"Uh huh..."

"Well, right."

"Good."

"See you at the thing?"

"Surely."

* * *

Nearby, there was a truck that boldly proclaimed Sinclair Cleaning to be the "Finest of Riverwood's Dry Cleaners...Free Delivery." It was a ruse: Sinclair Cleaning was indeed a fine dry cleaning establishment, but no better than most. Moreover, the truck itself was jammed full of sophisticated audio and video monitoring equipment and two men, one with close-cropped gray hair and a gravelly voice, the other a fresh-faced 22 year old.

"What do you think," said the younger of the two.

"You want to know what I think?"

"Yeah. That's why I asked."

"You want to know if I think these two can do what we were sent here to find out if they were planning to do...what we thought they might...do?"

"Yeah."

"You know what I think?"

"No. You going to tell me?"

"I think the longer I listen to these two, the stupider I get."

"That'll happen," the younger man said.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, what's the point, right? We're supposed to be protecting..."

"From this?" the older man growled.

"From this, right."

"You're smarter than you look, kid."

# # #

Taking the Weekend Off

2006-02-04T23:33:00.000-06:00

this...is...not...a...story

So, I've managed nearly two weeks of daily stories...as a reward, I'm taking the weekend off.

I know, I know. Please...don't throw yourself off a bridge. I couldn't handle the guilt.

Although, you know, I'd feel a little...like...proud...you know, as a writer and stuff...to have that kind of influence over other people...my readers. I mean, wow. That would be...powerful...stuff.

Except for, you know, the part about you being dead.

# # #

"Nervous Breakdown"

2006-02-03T00:21:00.000-06:00

I'm feeling a bit obsessed. The other day, I counted the lines in the brick fire place. Not all of them. Every other layer (157).

I studied, deeply, the colors of my socks. I'd thought they were grey (actually, they are threaded with steel blue).

Did you know that there are 38 lines in the ceiling vent? And that there is a little glass bowl of poupourri on the third tier of the bookshelf over the television. I'd never seen that before.

Today, I want to Sassy's and sat at the counter, where I usually sit. The waitress asked me if I wanted "the usual." I was surprised and pleased: I did want "the usual" -- gyro, fries and a Coke. I realized that whenever I order Italian, I order spaghetti and meatballs. And, I'm a Coke guy -- no Pepsi. I'll avoid Pepsi restaurants, even if I like the food. There's a whole Pepsi food court just across the street from my office -- I don't go there anymore.

Like I said: I'm obsessed.

Like the other day, when I got home from work and I noticed that my phone was making this crackling noise. I picked it up, and on the line were voices. Well, one voice, really. A woman.

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."

"Well, me, too."

"I can go one better than that. I once caught a guy rifling through my pajamas. When I asked him what he wanted, he said he was looking for a pair of socks. But you know what?"

"No! He took a camisole."

"Yes I'm sure."

I hang up. Then I lift up the phone again.

"I won't do that."

"No, I won't."

"Not that either..." laughing.

"Speak for yourself!"

"Uh huh. Me too. Bye."

I hung up again. But over the next two days, I stared at the phone for eight hours -- four hours after work, two hours in the morning before work, two more that night, while eating a steak, cheese and bean burrito, waiting to hear the crackle again. Sometimes, I pick it up to see if she's on. But she never returned.

Today, I sat on the front porch of my apartment and watched for some sign... a voice, or a look. But there was none.

But tonight, she'll be back. I'm sure of it. I wait.

* * *

The phone rings. I pick it up, but I don't speak.

"I just have one question," her voice says on the other end.

"What?" my voice comes out like a croak -- I haven't spoken in...five hours.

"Did you hear?"

"I heard..."

"But did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Did you hear?" She is shouting and I shout back, more of a scream.

"Did you..." She screams again, and then the line goes dead.

I sigh, and leave a voicemail for my boss at work. I'm going to be here for awhile.

# # #

"Reading the Tea Leaves"

2006-02-01T23:37:00.000-06:00

Rebecca stared at the cup between her hands. Tea leaves, she thought. What is it about tea leaves. She looked up, catching the eye of the skull-capped, black t-shirted, goateed guy in the corner table. He smiled, she quickly looked away. Here was a couple, buried in his-and-hers newspapers -- "sports" and "people."

She looked back at her cup...yellow-green tea of unknown name and origin, fresh leaves floating amid.

Tea leaves, she thought. I could Google it, I guess. Or, perhaps some things should remain a mystery. She smiled to herself, a smile that used to lead Ben to accuse her of hiding something, something that, in the end, she couldn't deny any longer. Skull-cap-black-t-shirt guy smiled, too; Rebecca pretended not to notice but she couldn't help but notice out of the top of her eyes. He was one of those guys who just invited staring. Not good looking, but striking. What the hell, she thought.

She stood up, a tall woman with dark, Mediterranean features, curly brown hair, brown eyes and that smile. Still holding her cup, she walked deliberately across the room. He watched her, laughed a short, nervous laugh and buried his head in his journal. When he looked up, she was standing at his table.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey." She stuck her cup under his nose, and he jumped back. "What do you see here?"

He sat up a little straighter and peered over the edge of the cup. He looked up, at her crooked smile and laughing brown eyes. "A convertible, an open road, a long highway and surprise..."

"Surprise?"

"Surprise. Who knows?"

She sat down.

"What kind of convertible?"

# # #

"Takin' It To The Streets"

2006-02-01T00:15:00.000-06:00

"I'm mad as hell, and I'm..."

"Not going to take it anymore...yes, of course," I said drolly. This was becoming tiresome.

"But I really am. I'm ready. It's been so long."

"Four years."

"Four long years. I'm ready."

"I'm sure you are. You should have thought of that before," I said, and began packing up the assorted papers and file folders I'd spread across John's desk. The piles of papers and folders and documents and magazines already heaped thereon made it hard to tell which papers were mine and which were his.

"That's mine," John said.

"Yes, yes, of course."

"I told you I'm ready to do something. What are we going to do?"

"What would you like to do?" I said, sighing and sitting back down, briefcase closed upon my lap. The crimson Mont Blanc pen turned over and over in his hands.

"Something. I'm going to quit. And tell the media. I've had enough of the lies, the deception, the sheer callousness..."

"Yes, well... I have to advise against that."

"Would you?"

"Yes. It would be. Unwise. The people are counting on you."

"Exactly. That's why..."

"You'd only find yourself alone. Ostracized. Jobless. Is that what you want?"

"Yes! I mean...no, not really," John looked sad, and conflicted, and I realized that he had told the truth the first time -- like Garbo, he wanted to be alone... but he wanted it to happen to him...not to happen because of his own actions.

"There are always consequences," I said. "Every action is a decision, especially when you can predict the outcome. What will you decide to do today?"

"I don't know yet. I have a lot of work to do."

"Don't we all." We locked eyes for a moment, and then he looked away, put on his half-moon reading glasses and pointed the pen along the lines of some report or another. But in that brief moment, I thought I saw a flicker of the fire that so many saw in him, and then the restless anger I'd grown to know so well in these past few months, through the election and its aftermath. I'd seen him pace hotel rooms like a caged animal and stood a lonely guard as he rocked back and forth, head in his arms between shots of Dewars from the honor bar. I'd seen all this, and still did what I had to do: Make him stay. Make him carry on.

"You can go now," he said.

"Stretching"

2006-01-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-01-30T00:30:00.000-06:00

"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"

2006-01-29T09:00:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-01-28T21:00:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-01-27T15:17:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-01-26T09:14:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-25T11:53:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-01-25T11:51:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-01-25T08:43:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-01-24T22:29:00.000-06:00

"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"

2006-01-24T22:16:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-01-24T21:45:00.000-06:00

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.

One Minute Stories

A Nighttime Walk in My Neighborhood

"A Better Place to Be"

"Crash! Boom!"

"She Can Kill with a Smile..."

"Bringing 'Em Home"

"A Bold, New Direction"

The Complete "Peter Flak, Big Time Detective"

Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part XII

Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part XI

Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part X

Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part IX

Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part VIII

Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part VII

"Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part VI"

"Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part V"

"Peter Flak, Big Time Detective, Part IV"

"Peter Flak: Big Time Detective -- Part III"

"Peter Flak: Big Time Detective -- Part II"

"Peter Flak: Big Time Detective -- Part I"

"Dreams Have Eyes"

"The Shortest Story"

"A Distant Shore"

"A Clean, Well Lighted Place" - A Comic

"Burrito Dreams"

"Sign of the Times"

"Checking Up"

"Customer Service"

"Ants in One's Pants"

"What They Knew"

"The Story of the Story"

"Inky Black Depths"

"An Afternoon in Autumn, When Johnny Had Nothing Better to Do"

"Cold Feet"

"With Great Power..." - A Dom Parker Story

"Swing and a Miss"

"Chicken Little"

What's *Your* Story?

"I didn't say that"

It's Only Rock and Roll

"I'm Not Listening"

"Friend of the Devil, Part 1"

"Cold Feet"

"You're a Winner"

Another Note from Chronic

"The Sword of Harlan"

"Lies, All Lies"

"I Sing the Body Electric"

The Boy Who Could Fly

"The Waiting"

"Wire Taps"

Taking the Weekend Off

"Nervous Breakdown"

"Reading the Tea Leaves"

"Takin' It To The Streets"

"Stretching"

"The Downsizing Blues Paradigm"

"Maintenance"

"Weak in the Knees"

"Bulk Smash"

"Comic Book Dreams"

Rapelling

"Gloom and Despair"

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

"Kid's Stuff"

"Try, Try Again"

About "One-Minute Stories"

What's Your Story?