Tag: short story

Friday’s Wandering Thought

I was stripping off my clothes this evening when I spotted a peeping tom at the bedroom’s sliding glass door. Eyes big, they watched everything that I was doing.

Then I saw that it wasn’t a tom — it was Vee, the cat who likes visiting us. She’s not a tom. She’s a queen!

I went over and let her in. Giving a friendly chirp, she popped in and wound herself around my legs.

Knowing the ritual, I headed for the treat bag. Vee trotted alongside, veering right to rub up against my wife’s leg for a moment.

“Who is this?” my wife teased.

“Peeping tom,” I replied. Picking up the treat bag, I gave it a shake and jogged to the back door.

The peeping tom beat me to there. Back outside, I gave her treats, scratched her ears, and admonished, “Now stop peeping on me, girl.”

Busy eating, Vee gave no answer.

1

On A Day Like This

Walking through a sun-filled day, enjoying the shade given by the large old trees, I came up a small hill to the town cemetery. Large crows making a racket descended toward one grave.

They are such intelligent birds, I wondered what had their attention and stopped to watch.

Falling silent, the crows went into the ground.

Gawking, I stopped and waited for the crows to reappear. A wind gently stirred the trees. There must be a hole in the ground which I couldn’t see, I decided.

Looking for traffic, I started across the street but couldn’t lift my feet. My shoes felt anchored to the pavement. Run, my mind shouted. Go the other way.

Then the crows emerged from the earth.

My breath caught.

I swallowed hard. They carried something.

A large body.

The crows carried a limp, black-clothed body with their claws.

Loudly cawing, the birds flew up past the trees, lifting their burden into the blue sky. A black cloud rapidly grew above them. Cawing all the way, the crows took the body into the black cloud.

Then the cloud and birds disappeared, leaving me wreathed in a quiet, late summer day.

I stayed almost frozen, attention shifting between where the black cloud was before and the grave. After some seconds I blinked, refusing to grasp what I saw.

The grave was gone. Unmarked green grass grew where the crows had entered.

Suspecting I probably wouldn’t remember any of this, I strode on, picking up speed. Glancing back over my shoulder, I struggled to recall, what did I see back there?

Laughing at my failing memory, I went down the street, soaking up the late summer day, saying hello to a person on a bike going the other way.

Lifting my face, I deeply inhaled. The weather felt wonderful. Anything is possible on a day like this, I thought.

I looked forward to what it would be.

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The Corporate Merger Dream

I was working –

Though I can’t say where or for who, nor anything like that. Wasn’t anything out of real life.

I was a mid-level manager, mostly working alone. Our corporation was merging with another, a larger one. Although it was labeled a merger, the partner would subsume our company.

I’d ended up providing some important information to make it happen, things which were requested at the last minute. I’d worked fast, long, hard, alone, to make that happen.

Now the merger was taking place.

I went outside. Early dusk was falling over a spare, sort of rocky desert landscape with spiky green plants, along with some thick, squat bushes. Meandering out there, I spotted a wolf.

It saw me.

I cautiously moved back. The wolf closed on me. I moved slowly. As the wolf came closer, I saw it was a husky.

The husky and I regarded each other around bushes, wary and curious. I drifted back into work.

Celebrations about the merger were beginning. Cake was being serves, which was fashioned after NFL teams. My cake was based on the Steelers and had black frosting.

I ate my cake and enjoyed it, then wandered. Speeches were being made. The CEO walked by to make a speech, pausing to slap me on the shoulder and say hello to me.

I moved on, encountering a pair of young men. They were by a pipe. Light lime green water gushed out of the pipe into a large square bright metal pan. The two men sat by it watching. One said to me, “They were asking who you were.”

“Do you mean me?” I responded.

“Yes, they were asking, who are you?”

“Did they mean me or you? I think the know who I am.”

“The new people wanted to know who you were because you were mentioned a few times. They wondered why.”

Shrugging that off, I went back outside to the same landscape. As I walked, I saw orange stripped cats doing different things. A clowder of dark gray kittens were playing at another place. I wondered where the husky was and if the cats were safe.

Dream end.

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The Garbage Can

I was in the living room, doing light exercises and watching the television.

It was 10 PM. The temperature had hit 101.5 F at our house. Now it had dropped to 80. I’d gone around, opening the windows to cool us off.

Strong skunk smells began coming in with the cool air. Cursing, I went around closing the windows I’d opened about ten minutes before.

As I was doing this, my wife came in. “I heard something knock over a garbage can.”

“Our garbage can?” I asked. It’s behind a fence so –

“I don’t know where it was. I think it was on the street.”

Confirming that Papi was safely inside, my wife went to the front door. Picking up a flashlight, I joined her, turning on the porch light and unlocking the door. She did a little start. As I went out, she took hold of my shirt and followed.

I shined the flashlight along the dark street. Sirens were rising. Emergency vehicles raced along the main road about a hundred feet below us.

“See any trashcans?” my wife asked.

“Just that one.” I shone the light on a bulky shape across the street.

“That trashcan has eyes,” my wife said.

“It does,” I agree.

At that point, we knew it was a bear. Black bears are common in our area. Down on all fours, the bear looked about four feet tall at its shoulders. It casually turned and took a few steps toward us.

My wife took a few steps backwards.

I laughed.

The bear disappeared behind some bushes lining the street. “Let’s go in the house,” I suggested.

“Okay.” As we went in, my wife said, “I was ready to give you a quick push and then shuffle backwards into the house.”

I chuckled. “I wasn’t worried. I know I’m faster than you.”

She laughed.

I looked back with the flashlight. The beer loped up the street.

My wife said, “I smell skunk.”

We went inside. I resumed closing the windows.

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First World Blues: The Phone Saga

I entered the house.

My wife looked at me with hope. “Did you find my phone?”

“What?” I asked.

She explained. She’d called and left messages. She’d lost her phone.

My phone never rang.

After cursing that, I examined my settings. The phone should have rung. It’s possible it rang and I didn’t hear it.

Anyway…

My wife lost her phone. She thought it happened at the coffee shop. I called them to ask if they had found it. They looked all over as I called the number.

“No, sorry,” Katie told me.

We drove over to the coffee shop to look for ourselves. No sign of the phone.

Then I got a phone call from her phone. Children were making a prank call.

I tried talking to them. I offered a reward. I texted them with an offer to buy the phone back.

No response.

After two days of trying, my wife accepted, the phone was gone. She needed to cancel the service for that number.

She called the support center.

A bot answered. It explained it was a bot and asked her what her problem was.

My wife explained the situation.

“Hold on,” the bot said. A few minutes later, it came back on the line. “Can you explain your problem again please?”

My wife did.

“Please hold,” the bot said. “I’ll be right back.”

The back came back and suggested, “Turn your phone off and on.”

“No,” my wife replied. She explained again: she did not have her phone. Her phone was lost. She needed to cancel the service.

“Hold on,” the bot replied. It went away. My wife listened to hold music. The bot came back: “Turn your phone off and on.”

“That won’t work,” my wife answered. “Let me speak to a human.”

The human had her sorted in thirty seconds. If she had spoken to the human in the first place, the call would have been under a minute.

Instead, she was forced to endure having a bot tell her, “Turn your phone off and on.”

AI.

Right.

0

Crime & Plumbing Dream

The dream found me at home – not my real-life place – with my wife. I awoke to discover that she had hired people to fix the plumbing. Thick, dark dust filled the air from the work. Three men were going all through the house, looking at the pipes and changing things.

I was floored that my wife had apparently decided to do that without consulting me. “First that I’ve heard about it,” I huffed before going off.

Coming back later, the men were in another part of the house. The three were all older, with short hair, white skin, and wore coveralls. Weirdly, usually they stayed clustering, staring at the pipes and talking about what they were going to do.

I came across my wife in another room. Wrench in hand, she was working herself on plumbing in a bathtub. I was like, “What the hell?”

I noticed that she was working on the faucet and spigots but she was on the side of the tub and had the floor torn up; but the tub still had its faucet and spigots attached on the end. I wondered, is she putting in new ones on the side to make it easier for her? Or putting in a new tub? I didn’t.

Going outside, I saw that she had people working in the garden and was building something new out there. That worried me. I knew that she had evidence of crimes committed buried there. (I was thinking that it was a murder but I didn’t seem sure.) I went back and told her that I didn’t think that was a smart decision but she was busy with the pipes and didn’t respond.

Returning outside, I saw a large rock being moved; I knew that was crucial evidence. With a sigh, I also saw that a police detective I’d seen earlier was watching and saw the rock. A little later, the police began digging up the area.

I thought, my wife is going to be going away, because her DNA is all over that. That disappointed and saddened me but I also thought, I should be okay because my DNA won’t be there.

Dream end

0

The Big Spider

I was at the front door, staring at the corner to my right. My wife joined me.

We stared together. “The big spider is gone,” I said.

She and I looked around to see if the big spider was just outside of its usual location. “I don’t see her,” I announced. “You?”

“Maybe he went somewhere else,” my wife replied.

The big spider is a ‘daddy longlegs’. I always thought it was a female because it was large spider. Spiders need to carry eggs so the larger ones tend to be female.

My wife disagreed. “I read that some large daddy longlegs are males.”

Windows flank our front door. The big spider had been in the right window for months, a sentry against insect invaders. I’d watch her web become larger and larger. Some days, I came in and she was actively adding threads. I couldn’t figure out the design, though. Made no sense to me at all.

We didn’t mind the spider’s presence or its web. Never bothered us, so we didn’t bother her. Papi never gave her a glance. Although he’s gone to chase down the laser’s red dot, he’s rarely interested in bugs, insects, or spiders.

This is a huge contrast to Quinn. Quinn used to go after anything that moved on the floor or wall, swatting and swatting with his little black paw. The thing is, Quinn was a coward. If the critter turned and headed his way, Quinn freaked out, backpedaling and scrambling to get away, trying to bat the thing as he did. I never saw Quinn ever ‘get’ anything, but any blueberries that found the floor were whacked across the room repeatedly until it disappeared under some appliance.

We checked the web for a few more days but the web remained empty. I asked our other resident spiders if they knew what had happened to her. None ever spoke up.

I guess it was just meant to end.

And we never named her. She was always just the big spider.

3

Sundaz Wandering Thoughts

My wife and I were in Albertsons. A light replenishing mission, this wasn’t a full-on shop. Certain items are only available at Albertson’s or Safeway in Ashland. Albertson’s is closer, and so there we were.

I was in the sprawling produce section, which shares space with the deli and bakery. A frozen section of frozen mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese lines another wall.

Standing on the end, I gazed across these commingled sections and all of their offerings, looking for my wife and trying to remember what she was wearing, eagle-eyed for a purple hat or blue jacket. I think that’s what she was wearing.

As I did, I questioned myself and chuckled, “How many times do I end up like this, looking for my wife in a store?” Seems like every shopping venture with her has a moment like this.

I was perplexed. Everything — just five items — on our list was in the basket, and I had the basket. Clearly, my wife had gone rogue and was shopping ‘off-list’. That happens, but what did she seek? Answering that would let me find her.

I noticed a woman looking at me as she pushed her cart my direction. Not recognizing her, I decided she wasn’t looking at me but something around me.

She came right up to me. “You look confused. Are you looking for the frozen fish? They’ve changed everything around again.”

I smiled. “No, I’m looking for my wife. But you’re right, they’re always moving things around.”

The woman nodded. “Yes, they want us confused and lost, so we spend more time in the store, which might lead to more impulse buying.”

She wheeled her cart away.

I watched her heading down another aisle. She’d clearly given this a lot of thought.

But she was right. Like, right now, my wife was probably pursuing another impulse buy.

Then I turned and added a bag of pistachio nuts to the basket. I mean, as long as it’s there, and I’m there, waiting…right?

2

Twozdaz Wandering Thoughts

Enshittification! J’accuse!

Okay, this is a first world rant. Part of the first world blues I’m always singing.

My recurring prescription drugs are supplied through Express Scripts. And it works great. Except when it doesn’t. It didn’t this week.

I received a message from them to give them authorization to start an autofill on one of my prescriptions. I logged in and did as required. Another message came in: you have one item in your cart. Please complete your purchase.

WTAF?

I didn’t ‘complete the purchase’. I gave them feedback. Asked them to call.

Which they did. It was Kelly. She explained why she was calling in a chipper, professional voice edged with a little nervous quiver. I explained why I was annoyed. How I felt the system was telling me to do two different things. She then began explaining to me why my interpretation wasn’t correct. Nothing she was saying aligned with the messages or my experience. Reaching the point of irritation and recognition that nada was getting changed, I thanked Kelly and prepared to hang up.

“Well, do you want me to take care of getting the autofill restarted?” she asked.

Well, I thought I’d done that when I logged in and clicked on a button to start autofill. “Yes, please,” I answered. Kelly talked through the process of what had happened, what she was doing, and…

Her tone faltered. I sensed that she saw exactly what I meant in my complaint. Then, she finally said in a low voice, “Sometimes this system doesn’t make sense.”

Vindication!

I smiled.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Kelly asked.

My smiled stayed. “No, Kelly. You have a great day and a great week.”

“Why, thank you. You, too.”

With that, we said our goodbyes and I basked in my tiny, tiny victory.

1

Mundaz Wandering Thoughts

I have been reminded of how privileged I am. How easily I succumb to convenience.

I’m back in my regular drive. Mazda CX-5. Nothing fancy, we’ve had it for ten years. It’s packed 64,000 miles around its waist. The thing about this, though, are the automatic creature comfort features. And the key.

When we were visiting family in the Pittsburgh, PA, region, we trundled around in an older Toyota RAV4. Fine car but nothing special. But it lacked things like a key FOB that let me unlock doors just by pressing a button as I walked up to the car. The FOB permits me to start the Mazda without taking the key out of my pocket.

Man, did I miss that. I ended up putting the RAV4 keys in and out, out and in of pockets multiple times across the day. Oh, the horrors, right? But see, this is a matter of connections. With the FOB, I stick it in my left pants pocket and leave it there. With this RAV4 key, I was constantly putting it into a pocket or setting it down somewhere and then asking myself, where is that fucking key?

Wife and I approach car. It’s cold. About 40 F. Gray, with a light drizzle falling.

ME: “Wait.”

“What?”

“I can’t find the key.”

Wife stands, stares, waiting, not tapping her foot but looking like she’s on the verge.

Pockets are patted and felt, squeezed, then reached into it. “Here it is.”

My wife’s restrained look called me IDIOT so loudly, it hurt my brain.

One time I got out of the car to put gas into it. When I returned, it’s like, OMG, where is that damn key? Pat pockets again and again, dive into them…”Oh, here it is.” Damn it.

It was one of those big, long keys on a clunky handle. The key itself could be swung close to make it ‘more compact’. That was good because otherwise that thing gets caught on clothing. You press a button to flick it out, like a switchblade knife. This all required additional thinking about what I was doing, soaking up Neurons’ limited attention.

Me: “Where’s the key?”

Neurons: “We don’t know.”

Me, looking around and feeling pockets. “No one knows?”

Neurons: “We weren’t pay attention.”

Me: “Here it is.”

The button is clicked. The long key extends. I unlock the door. Put the key back into pocket. Get into car. Go to start it by putting my foot on the brake and pressing a button. The button is missing.

Neurons: “Dude, what are you doing?”

Me: “Trying to start the car.”

“You need the key. You must put it in the ignition and turn it.”

“Oh, yeah. Where’s the key?”

Neurons: “We don’t know.”

Thank tech that I’m back home where I just stick the FOB into my pocket and forget it.

I’m very, very good at forgetting.

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