Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
He bought a fire pit and bottle of wine for Solstice, and filched a log from the neighbor’s stack. He lit the log and drank the wine, taking a sip each time the he fed the fire a rejection letter. One hundred sixty-five letters, two hours, and a bottle of wine later, he felt much better.
The cache was cleared. Good things were going to start happening for him now.
Deadly cold sucked the heat from my bones’ marrow as I surveyed my surroundings.
“Here,” she said.
Here? Here was a sloping field of snow glistening like icing in moonlight. Here was a field edged by elderly pines draped in snow. Here was a starry black night and the pond of a moon staring down on us. Here was a wind slicing through my gloves, shearing off my ears, and paring down my cheeks.
“Here?” I said.
I looked at the traveler. Smiling like she knew Mona Lisa’s secret, she pointed past me into the sky. As she did but before I turned, I caught sleigh bells’ tinny ringing.
Distracted by the famous sound, I turned so quickly, I slipped on the snowy field and would have fallen, had the traveler not caught my arm and kept me upright. After thanking her, I gazed through my breath toward the sound and spotted the immortal silhouette of reindeer pulling a sled commanded by a pudgy elf.
I gasped. “Santa.”
“Yes,” the traveler said.
“He was real.”
“Of course. It was on this day that he was last seen, long before his existence trickled into your dimension’s awareness.”
I nodded. Then this was was where my story begins. “I shall find him,” I whispered into the silent night as the sleigh bells faded and the wind nuzzled me. “I shall find him and bring him back.”
Driving through the snow,
one hand on the wheel,
while reading a text on the phone
in my other hand.
I never saw the truck,
nor the other car,
I never even saw the sign,
or tried to stop my car.
Oh, jing —
I was sitting and chatting with a friend the other day when my body said, “Pee.”
“Excuse me,” I told my body, “but that was very ru — ”
“Pee!”
“I was talki — ”
“PEEEE!”
“What are you saying? It sounds li — ”
“PEEEE!”
“In a minute. Let me finish this conver — ”
“PEEEEEE!!!”
Sighing, I stood. “Excuse me a minute,” I told my friend, and went off to the restroom.
Honestly, sometimes my body is like a spoiled, willful child, and it gets worse as I get older.
Saw a headline slug, “Driverless Cars Return”.
An imagined television news report about a driverless car getting lost and living on the streets by itself for years climbed into my head, and then came the happy reunion, when the driverless car returned to its family for a happy reunion.
“We thought our car was gone forever,” Patty McLaren said about the brown four-door Ford sedan. “We looked for it for everywhere for weeks. We never gave up, really. Every time a driverless car went by, we looked to see if it was our car. Though I never stopped hoping, I never really believed it would come back, though. It’s like a dream come true.”
The car is a little older and rustier, with bald tires and faded paint. Its radio and speakers are gone, apparently torn out by thieves, and the engine smokes.
“Who knows what it went through?” Mrs. McLaren said, stroking the car’s front fender. “I’m amazed it’s still runnin’. I’m just so happy it’s back.”
Mrs. McLaren said that they were going to get the car a new coat of paint and tires. “Then we’re just going to put it in the garage and keep it there, and pamper it.”
Her daughter expressed disappointment that she wouldn’t be allowed to take the car to college with her.
They encountered each other every day, and every day, the ginger-bearded young man said, “Hey, man, do you have any weed?”
Every day, Mitchell said, “No, sorry.”
After the first three days of this, Mitchell wondered, why is this man asking him for weed? Mitchell wondered, does he look like a man who might have weed? What makes a person look like he might have weed? He had his own conceptions of this. To his mind, he didn’t look like one who might be carrying weed.
The other thought Mitchell had was, perhaps the man greeted everyone like this. Mitchell laughed at the idea of this man saying to everyone met in town, “Hey, man, do you have any weed?”
After five days of this, Mitchell encountered the man while crossing the street, and said, by way of greeting, “Sorry, I don’t have any weed.”
The weed man looked at him like he was crazy.
Which made Mitchell laugh.
Watching the mothers watching their children playing, he said, “I often forget that adults learn to be parents as they go, and that every child, every day with a child, is another test.
“Some parents never learn how to do it.”
Seven in the morning. It’d had already slid into another shitty day when Don’s mind shrilly and loudly said, “I can’t take this fucking shit.”
That tone cut Don’s ear drums. As Don winced and clapped his hands over his ears, his mind stomped through his brain. “I’m fuckin’ outta here.”
Looking up, Don said, “No, wait,” beginning to stand as all this happened. His mind wrenched his brain’s door open.
Used to being closed, the door shrieked, “Hey, what the fuck? I was sleepin’, man.”
Stepping out, his mind slammed the door shut behind him, rattling Don’s empty head. The door said, “That’s fuckin’ better. Now keep it down. I need some zzzs.”
Just like that, Don’s mind was gone again.
Sitting, Don sighed. Sipping his soda, he picked up his phone with his little hands and opened Twitter. It was gonna be another mindless fucking day for him.
“I have to eat, Tucker,” he said as he hurried into the house and past the cat. “I’m ravenous.”
Whiskers drooping, Tucker grew still. His eyes widened. He lowered his tail.
The man glanced at his cat. “No, I didn’t say, “I have to eat Tucker.” Well, that’s what I said, but there was a comma in there. I was saying, “I have to eat, comma, Tucker.” There was a comma in there.”
He went to his cat and scratched the feline’s head. “You know about commas, right? Yes, you do. Good kitty.”
Tucker closed his eyes, reassured that he wasn’t going to be eaten. It was just an unheard comma.
Don’t you hate it when you say that you’re going to do something at nine thirty and discover it’s already nine thirty-two? Almost as bad as picking up your coffee cup and finding it empty.
Yeah.
Michael Seidel, writer 