Archive for the ‘Damn Short Stories’ Category

Codey Cooksie was hungry. He marched with determination down the street, clutching a wad of worn-out one dollar bills. He imagined the tasty things he would soon eat at the street fair. Candy apples and fluffy spun sugar to start, with a healthy scoop of rocky road for a fine finish. Codey was so enraptured by his imaginings that he didn’t even notice the lonely foot protruding from a small doghouse. He tripped and fell face-forward toward the ground, slamming his eyes shut as he braced for pain.

Instead, he felt a stout tug at his waistline, and was lifted entirely off the ground as he turned to look behind. He looked into the first face he’d ever thought of as beautiful; a face, he’d recall, connected to an arm that didn’t look as strong as it plainly was.

“What’s the big idea?” he exclaimed, wriggling as his senses returned. The girl in question, about a foot taller than Codey, smiled as she put him down. “I just saved your butt!” she declared, hands on her hips. “You owe me!” Codey scratched his head. “Well whaddya want? I ain’t got much money, just five bucks!”

The girl’s lips hovered somewhere between a smile and a smirk, and she spoke in a confident voice. “What’s your name, anyway? I’m Darla, the meanest vampire in all the land!” Codey narrowed his eyes as he looked her up and down. “I’m Codey, but you don’t look like a vampire. And it’s sunny out, shouldn’t you be on fire or something?”

Darla folded her arms across her chest and declared in a loud voice, her face turned skyward, “I am a cookie vampire, the meanest of them all. I drain the chocolate chips and raisins from any cookie that dares cross my path!” She waited a moment for dramatic effect, then turned back to face Codey. “Since I saved your life, I’ll let you pay me back with a cookie from the street fair.”

Codey chewed his lip, thinking that buying cookies would probably put a crimp in his dinner plans. Still, she had saved his life, or at least his dignity, whatever that was, and he was sure his mother would say it was the right thing to do.

“Alright,” he said, shoving the money into his pocket as he extended his hand to shake Darla’s, “let’s go to the street fair, and I’ll buy you a cookie.” “Great!” Darla declared, her cheeks turning rosy as her smile stretched across her face, “It’ll be our very first date!”

And with that, she took Codey’s hand, meshed her fingers with his and with a tug they were off, and Codey worried—just a bit—whether or not it was a good idea to go on a date with a cookie vampire.

Every day I look down at the beauty of the Earth, and every day, I miss it. No one saw what happened coming–at least, not the way it happened. The programmers had thought of the obvious, of course, and they followed Asimov’s rules to the letter. They were careful about defining our relationship to the Arties; we all were, at first. Well, most of us.

Guess I should explain about Arties. It’s actually ART-I, short for “Artificial Intelligence.” Somebody thinking he was clever chose it, mostly for the “art” part, to underscore that this AI was different. How? The  Arties were something else—something creative. They could look at things in a more human way than those that came before. They could be inventive, all on their own. You’d probably never believe it, but some of the most beautiful art came from the minds of Arties. And not just pictures—poems, short stories, novels–even movies. They made great movies about noble heroes and beautifully examined conflicts, the kind that really made you think and feel.

And maybe that was the problem. The Arties were so good at making us feel our favorite things that we forgot how to make those feelings for ourselves. They didn’t care about money–they were happy to work for free as long as they could create and had a place to recharge. And hell—they did a bang-up job of it anyway, so I guess we all figured, why not let ‘em work, and  enjoy the payoff? We reveled in their beautiful stories. We cheered for their amazing heroes. We sobbed at their touching tragedies and pondered at their thoughtfully examined morality tales, asking ourselves what it all could mean, this human life.

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This is a very, very, short story I wrote as an exercise in writing a scene specifically intended to capture a mood. That scene was assigned in my Screenwriting class last week and I actually wrote it in about 15 minutes the hour before it was due in class. To my surprise, the teacher was very impressed with it, and said he really liked it because “It’s a complete story. Excellent work!” Suffice to say, I was shocked, and read it again. Sure enough…it is a complete story. Somehow. I’ll let you be the judge of whether it’s actually any good at capturing a mood or not!

                The faint buzz of TV static permeated the small, tobacco-stinking room, punctuated only by the slow swing of a wall clock’s rusty pendulum.  Two small children huddled under a blanket in one corner of the room, snuggled up for warmth, yet shivering as if their small bodies couldn’t generate quite enough heat. A paper Christmas tree, carefully colored by the hands of children, hung from the wall by a single piece of duct tape, and under its illustrated branches rested two candy bars, each with a half-flattened bow on top. The dim hum of a microwave oven, its timer counting down from 2:17, draped the room in an electric glow, its sole source of hope. An empty carton rested atop the microwave, the promise of shaped and formed turkey with mashed potatoes reflecting light at the dismal shape of a woman; her face carried far too many worry lines for her years, and her chest heaved in half-controlled sobs as silent tears dripped down her face.

                Outside, a man with a dirty Santa hat and ragged shoes knelt against the railing, his frame racked with unreleased sobs. His cheeks were dry, but his eyes glistened like pools on the verge of overflowing. Slowly he rocked, forward and back, his stomach growling and his fists clenched as he listened to the faint hum of the microwave through the slightly open door. He counted the seconds, each one a breath from his solid frame, and as he rocked forward for the last time, the faint ding of the microwave signalled his time was finally over.

The Elephant Shoes story has been revised rather substantially. I think the new version has improved greatly in both the language (big reduction on “and” usage) and the development of each of the characters. A fair amount of “fluff” detail (pun totally intended!) has been removed and refined as well. The total word count has been reduced by about 27.

Birth Pains is a story that intrigued me, yet I wasn’t happy with it even when I posted it. I’m still not 100% happy with it, but it does seem to flow a little more smoothly now. Thanks to those who offered constructive criticism; this one, while still not perfect, is a better story for it!