Flash Fiction: Monster Precautions

Billy was very afraid of monsters. He always carried a flashlight so they couldn't hide in the dark. He propped his bed on cinder blocks to make it easier to check under his bed. He cut holes in his shower curtains so he could see the bathroom before stepping from the tub.

In the end, these measures only allowed Billy to see the monsters before they ate him.

Nirvana on the Las Vegas Strip

Hearing three distinctive snores, I assume my other two roommates sleep silently, what with eight hours of work, an hour of flying, three hours of dancing, a couple of drinks, a warm Matzo ball soup, and the alarm clock glowing 3 A.M. I lay separately, in a sleeping bag, divided from their unconscious slumber by my persistent consciousness. I count time by their sounds of life: a deep cough, a choking snore, or sleepily shifting away from some unknown discomfort. But even as they get closer to me, they quickly slide away, and I cannot follow. For three hours, I scold then beg myself to sleep, sleep, sleep.

At 6 A.M. I realize it is my very desire to sleep that keeps me awake. I quietly get dressed. With the hotel keys double checked in my pockets, I let the door swing against my back then inch forward till the latch clicks quietly into place. I blink as my eyes adjust in the clinically lit hotel hallway. A few doors down, a reluctant early traveler drags a suitcase toward me. I envy his sleepy dishevelment. Trying to show solidarity, I chirp, “Good morning!” He tries to mumble something polite, but he’s a couple of hours from finding his tongue. In the elevator, he pumps the “door close” button. I shuffle past him and take the stairs.

At this hour, the casino walkways are empty interstates, uncongested and vast. A janitor slowly rides by me, perched precariously atop a retro-futuristic riding vacuum. Two workers lounge atop an intricate two- story-high scaffold. They laugh and smile, sluggishly hand cleaning the grand chandelier one crystal at a time. In the lobby, two shopkeepers lean against the counter of their customerless toiletries store. They talk casually, like two retired friends gossiping.

Outside, the desert air breathes cool and crisp. The empty sidewalks are paved so wide I could lay on it and touch neither road nor casino. An ambulance races across the vacant boulevard. Its sirens scream at insomniacs and non-existent cars. A Pepsi truck unloads at a backset dock. The impressive walls of soda are stacked high enough to rival the “Coca-Cola World” tourist attraction across the street. It’s enough Splenda to feed an entire city or, at least, a replica of a city, maybe something like Paris Las Vegas.

I discover the Brooklyn Bridge in front of NY, NY and wonder if I can land a penny on its stanchion. Throwing too hard and too covertly, the coin misses and plops into the water. I look around sheepishly, but there’s no one there to scold me. I miss with cent after cent until I am penniless.

I stand atop a nearby skywalk and I am startled by how short the Strip is. It’s a truncated paradise; a tree that, up close, looks like a forest.

As I wander further, I find myself not at Caesar’s Palace or the Bellagio but rather at Walgreen’s. The store is David dwarfed by the nearby obese, goliath casinos. Though camouflaged in neon lights the place sells hometown items: toothpaste, potato chips, tampons, and half-priced Halloween candy. I basket some Donettes and Blo-Pops and look for bagels but only find white bread. It’s all drugstore overpriced, but not Vegas overpriced. The store is quiet and there’s not a slot machine in sight.

Weighed down by junk food, I return to the hotel casino. The bell hop tightens her collar against the cold, grants me a genuine smile and a chirpy, “Good morning,” then turns to look back up the driveway as though expecting throngs of people to arrive at any moment.

In the room, I lie down briefly, but then get up again in order to search for drugs to ward off an impending headache. Once again, I step into my pants which lay accoridioned on the floor. They telescope conveniently up my legs.

It’s 7 A.M. and a line has formed in front of the buffet, forty or so sixty-somethings decked out in floral print shirts and pressed slacks. They smack their lips in anticipation of overpriced pancakes, waffles, and Keno. They entertain one another with tall tales of fortunes won and lost. In the lobby toiletries shop, I squint at the different single serving pills, having forgotten my glasses in the room. Finding Tylenol PM, I slump to the register, where the shopkeeper stands, alert. She forces a smile and asks, “Long night?” “Long day,” I explain. Her gossip buddy is busy restocking shelves. As I dig change from my pockets, a line forms behind me and the wide casinos aisles begin to bustle with self conscious gamblers looking for redemption. The vacuum jockeys have disappeared, the scaffolding has vanished and each crystal on the grand chandelier sparkles clean.

As my mind begins to drift into that nonsensical place before sleep, my roommates begin to wake and start lazily discussing what to do with the day. They plan on going to NY, NY, M&M World, and the fountains at Bellagio. I recommend they check out the riding vacuums, Walgreen’s and this particular fabulous, backset loading dock.

Flash Fiction Friday: Rats

When they hear the desperately hungry gnawing and the frantic scratching paws of rats, most people will buy poison. But where’s the fun in that?

I once found a rat under a pot in the kitchen sink. It was soaking wet and stared at me with squinted eyes, blinded by the kitchen light behind me. I ran some hot water. When it tried to escape down the drain, I flipped the waste disposal switch.

Me? I prefer blunt guillotines. I buy rattraps and pray that I’ll find rats.

Today, I’ve lured a big rat out of hiding. He wears a grayish brown jacket. His hair is greased into strands plastered against his skull. In his dirty paw, he clutches a Glock nine-millimeter. The bait, the cheese, is my shiny BMW 350. Strapped to my ankle are nine rounds of .45 caliber rat poison.

“Get the fuck out of the car!” the rat yells.
The trick to swallowing a sword is practice. Do anything enough times and even the most unnatural, gag inducing thing becomes easy. I grab the car key from the ignition, put it in my mouth, and swallow. The stupid look on the rat’s face is almost worth it. Almost.

As he tries to comprehend what’s just happened, I swing the car door open. It punches him hard in the gut. He drops his gun and his face twists as he gasps desperately for air.

“Just breathe,” I recommend as I break his nose with the butt of my pistol. It would be so easy to pull the trigger. But like I said, I prefer rattraps.

I drag him to the rear of the car, open the trunk, point my gun at him, and tell him to put his head in. “What?” the rat mumbles. “Put your head in,” I repeat. He looks at me with squinted eyes, blinded by the sun behind me.

I love rattraps.

Roadside Purgatory

Jennifer walked her fingers up the radio presets. Finding a song she liked, she turned towards her date, tucked her left leg under herself, and settled against the car door. Her date’s eyes traveled from the crown of her head down the curls of her hair to the elegant lines of her clavicles. A white cocktail dress clung to her body; its rounded cut exaggerated her breasts nicely. She blushed. Then, discovering a coquettishness born of alcohol, she raised a bare shoulder and blew him a kiss. Thomas laughed and squeezed her knee. His hand remained and, hearing no protestations, he slid it northward until he could reach no further. As he leaned forward to continue his journey, Jennifer exclaimed, “Wait, wait, stop!”

Thomas pulled his hand back. “Stop the car!” she shouted. He slammed on the brakes, the tires locked, and the car slipped into a violent spin. Luckily, the road was empty. As Thomas caught his breath, Jennifer pointed into the woods that ran alongside the road and said, “It looks like there are headlights in the trees.” She threw open the door, hopped from the car, smoothed her dress, and marched towards the lights to investigate. Thomas called after her, trying to think of some good reason she shouldn’t go. He was wearing new loafers and really didn’t want to sink them in mud and snow. And besides, things were going so well inside the car. But she was already almost to the tree line, so he pulled over and ran after her.

The mysterious car appeared to have a maple growing through the middle of it. A closer look revealed that it had forced itself around the tree trunk, which had cleaved and bent in the metal on one side of the car. Jennifer had her nose pressed against one of the windows and appeared to be talking to someone inside. Stepping beside her, Thomas saw a young girl caged inside the wreck, flattened painfully between the tree and the inside of the car door. The girl’s head and hands were shoved against the window as though she were playfully making faces at them, but the look in her eyes told a different story. With every short gasping breath she took, the glass fogged and she briefly disappeared only to have her terrified eyes reappear a moment later. “What’s your name?” Jennifer asked. “Samantha? Well hang in there Samantha, we’ll get you out,” Jennifer promised the girl. She looked to Thomas for help. He lamely put his jacket around her naked shoulders and shrugged.

Farmland stretched for forty miles around them. He searched his pockets for his phone then remembered someone had stolen it the week before. Jennifer couldn’t find a purse to match her dress so her phone lay abandoned on her bed. Thomas turned pointlessly in circles. They were surrounded by blackness, a gap of light from the headlights, then more darkness.

Samantha’s eyes were open, wide now with fear and pain, locked first on him, then her. The girl’s mouth moved against the glass and they could hear her softly pleading, “Help me. It hurts. It really hurts.” Jennifer reached out to open the door. “Jenny, I don’t think we should move her,” Thomas said. Jennifer pulled the handle. Nothing happened. She yanked the handle and her high heels slipped as she fell backwards into in the black, soupy mud.

Still sitting on the ground, Jennifer jerked the handle furiously. Thomas tried to lift her up out of the mud and away from the wreck but she gripped the handle with the devil’s strength and screamed, “Fuck!” He let her go. Jennifer sobbed asthmatically, gently pulling the handle again and again, her left hand pressed softly against the girl’s face through the glass.

It occurred to Thomas that there must have been someone else in the car, seeing as how Samantha was only about nine years old. The driver’s side door hung open and seemed to point into the darkness. Thomas followed a snow faded set of footprints for about thirty yards and discovered an older man laying on his back, half camouflaged in snow, his arms stretched unnaturally above his head. “Jenny, there’s someone else over here,” he shouted. She didn’t reply. As Thomas leaned over the man, his nostrils burned with the rank smell of cheap whiskey. Blood seeped from the back of the older man’s head painting a red halo into the snow. He was alive but unconscious. From TV shows, Thomas knew he shouldn’t move the accident victim, but with that gash in his head, Thomas doubted the man would survive long enough for them to get help. He stared at the body for a moment, unsure of his decision then hoisted him over his shoulder. Warm blood splashed from the man’s head and dribbled down Thomas’ white dress shirt.

As he carried the limp body to their car, Jennifer followed closely behind. She sniffed the air. “Is that whiskey?” she asked viciously, “Is he effin’ drunk? With his little kid in the car, he’s driving drunk?” She was screaming.

“We have to go get help,” Thomas said. With his free hand, he tried to guide her towards their car.
“Screw that. I’m staying here with Samantha,” she said, spinning out of his grip.
“Her father will bleed to death if you don’t hold pressure against the wound while I drive,” he shouted at her. He grabbed her arm.
“Good! Let him rot in hell!” she shouted ferociously, shoving Thomas away.

Thomas felt the man slipping from his grip, so he let her go and clumsily continued towards his car. Jennifer stood watching them and secretly hoped that Thomas would accidentally drop the sack of shit on his head.

Having placed the man in the back seat, Thomas returned to her. They stood quietly for a moment, avoiding eye contact. He took her hand and led her towards their car. At first, she didn’t resist then she ran back to Samantha. She put her face against the glass and said, “We have to go get help. We’ll be back, Samantha. I promise.” The girl cried and screamed, “No! Don’t leave me.” Jennifer walked slowly back to their car not daring to look back.

Jennifer slapped the drunk driver hard across the mouth then slid into the seat. She gently held the man’s head in her lap and clamped Thomas’ rented white tuxedo jacket firmly against the gash on the back of his head. Blood spread ominously across the cloth. The heated air breathed thick with the sick, sour smells of blood and whiskey. Though they both knew the man urgently needed a doctor, they sat for a moment and stared at the dimming headlights of the wreck, imagining Samantha’s contorted face her eyes pleading them not to leave.

“Let’s go,” Jennifer said at last. Thomas turned the key and the engine growled to life. A song played on the radio, one of Jennifer’s favorites. Thomas floored it.

Flash Fiction Friday: Small

I remember when she was just a tiny little thing -- the happiest baby I've ever seen. She's still one of the most outgoing, optimistic people I know, but now she's like six feet tall and built like an Amazon. It's amazing how little things change.

Don't Tread On the Flowers

"We could use a tank," Lieutenant Cummings suggested.

"Careful Bob, you're stepping on the violets!" admonished Patrolman Chen.

Officer Cummings looked scornfully at Chen, even as he stepped carefully from the flowerbed.

Cummings continued, "Sir, we've trained with the Army for exactly this situation. We must be decisive," he shouted, slamming his fist into his palm.

"A tank tread would destroy the lawn," Chen worried.

"Sir, we must act now!" Cummings screamed.

The police chief thought for a moment. "Fine,” he said, “Send in the damn tank." He waved his hand in the general direction of the house.

“Is a tank really necessary?” the owner of the house, Mr. Hamilton, asked timidly. “I just had my lawns done…” Cummings let out a loud sigh. The Chief chewed on his cigar then turned to Mr. Hamilton and said, “Be a good patriot. We’re doing this for the security of this great nation.” Mr. Hamilton beamed. He was happy to sacrifice his lawn for a good cause. “Get the tank!” the Chief bellowed.

Cummings smiled and ran to the radio. Chen recoiled as Cummings accidentally stepped on an azalea.

It took over an hour for the tank to rumble from the military base, over the highway, down the exit ramp, and through the tight turns of the neighborhood. Children chased after it screaming and cheering, even as the police shooed them away. The tank driver waved.

The tank stopped a couple of houses down the street. Mr. and Mrs. Smith peered timidly at the M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank sitting outside their kitchen window. Their more courageous neighbors posed beside the armored vehicle and snapped photos.

The Army crew conferred with the SWAT team and the Chief of Police. Fire fighters and lower ranking police officers loitered nearby and eavesdropped while pretending to do important things. Cordial introductions were made and everything was decided. The police formed a perimeter by pushing back the bystanders and reporters. The tank roared to life and the metal behemoth rolled forward, misjudged a turn, crushed a pink tricycle and took out a good portion of the Hamiltons' white picket fence. The treads chewed through the lawn, leaving behind two lines of perfectly brown and perfectly bare rectangles. Patrolman Chen looked sadly at the once beautiful grass.

The windows on the front of the house flexed and shattered as the tank hurtled into the home. The frame of the house resisted for a split second before finally caving in, sending the tank jolting forward with a sudden burst of speed. The Abrams shot into the house and disappeared into the dark foyer. There was a loud cracking noise like a dozen trees being bulldozed followed by a booming thud. A hat rack fell from the building. Then everything was quiet.

"We've got a small problem," Cummings said to the chief, holding a radio to his ear, "The tank fell through the floor into the basement. The crew seems to be OK, but they're stuck."

“Brilliant,” the Chief replied, “Whose dumbass idea was this anyway?” Chen grinned and pointed at Cummings. Cummings angrily stomped on a petunia.

The Chief sighed. “Send in the SWAT team. If we can’t go through the house, we’ll just have to go around it.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Chen asked. “I’m worried about the small herb garden to the left of the house.”

“Damnit! Send them to the right then!” the Chief roared impatiently. He was scheduled to present a medal of valor in fifteen minutes and he was going to be late.

The SWAT team assembled and inched slowly around the right side of the house. They menaced a wind chime with their sub-machine guns then disappeared around the corner.

“Don’t move! Come down from there!” a SWAT member shouted from behind the house. The sound of gunfire staccatoed through the air, followed by the distinctive crash of falling branches. The neighbors gasped. The reporters reported. The Chief looked impatiently at his watch.

The SWAT team reemerged. They wiped sweat from their brows and patted each other on the back. Addressing the press and the assembled suburbanites, the team leader shouted “We got her!” and pumped his fist in the air. The crowd cheered.

“Where’s Timmy?” the Chief asked. Hesitantly, a little boy stepped forward.

“Timmy,” boomed the massive SWAT team leader, “We rescued your cat!” He handed Timmy the limp, bullet ridden carcass of Boots, the cat, who until moments ago had been stuck in the Hamilton’s tree.

The crowd chanted proudly, “USA! USA! USA!”

Epilogue:
A neighborhood girl tugged at the police chief’s pants and said incredulously, “This story is so lame. It could never happen. That tank could never have been used because of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.”

The chief looked at her. “Little girl, right now I don’t have time to play around with dolls.”

She scrunched up her face as though someone were forcing her to eat spinach. Then she explained, “Posse Comitatus is a law that keeps the military out of domestic issues. It’s a Latin phrase for ‘the power of the country.’ It implies that a country’s power lies with its people, not the military.”

“Kid, no hablo español. Run along now,” the chief said and looked for someone more important to talk to.

Flash Fiction Friday: Useless Samaritan

“Eggs, milk, tomatoes. Eggs, milk, tomatoes.” Between two cars, a woman wearing a black cocktail dress stands over a scattering of nuts, a hub cap, a spare tire, and a jack levering rod. “Eggs, milk, tomatoes,” I say then ask her, “Do you need a hand?”

“Yes, please!” she says, “It was all going so well until the last two bolts.” Her voice chokes slightly with despair.

Being small has its advantages. I’m comfortable in coach class. I get better gas mileage. It takes less soap to get clean. But it does not help me change a tire.

After twenty minutes, my hands and pants are black with brake dust, my face drips sweat, and the two nuts are in the exact same spot. “Grrr!” I shout, hoping to intimidate the tire into submission.

“Do you need some help?” a gruff voice asks. “Yes please!” the woman says quickly as though fearing I might say, “No, thank you. I think we’ve got it.” I step aside. Instead of applying constant pressure, the muscular man bounces on the tire iron a couple of times and… it turns!

“Oh, that’s because we loosened it for you!” she says good-naturedly.

“Your jack is too low,” he says. “Right! The weight of the car will keep the tire on,” I interject.

“And you should check to make sure the handbrake is on,” he says. I look inside the car. “It looks like it’s engaged,” I say, not completely sure.

He looks at my jeans and t-shirt, looks at her cocktail dress, figures out we’re not together and says to me, “You can go.”

I finish my shopping and return to the parking lot. They’re still working on the tire. “Good luck!” I say as I walk by. “Thanks!” she says. He just grunts.

He cuts his hand on something and curses. Then it starts to rain.

Just Another One in a Million

“Why can’t a guy and a girl just be friends?” I ask trying my hardest to impress her. I struggle to keep my eyes on the eight ball but she stands across from me, agreeing, and I look at her bright dimpled smile instead. I scratch.

Ana walks me out of the pool room, her arm tucked playfully in mine. “I’m gonna go check out the Southeast Asian Society. You should come,” she says, tugging my arm and gesturing with the tip of her head. It’s yet another of her multitude of random, unfocused interests. Thankfully, for the time being, she seems uncharacteristically focused on me. I leave her but she stays on my mind.

Ana is an army brat without an army. Her parents were National Geographic photographers, nomads following the shoot. Because she moved around so much, she developed the magical ability to charm and connect with people moments after meeting them. Later she tells me that the best thing about Yale is that she can finally stay in one place for four whole years.

I use food as an excuse to visit her. My parents send me sweets in bulk as though New Haven were shrouded in some candy embargo or great famine. I bring the food to her room, share with her roommates, and make small talk. It’s all an excuse to see Ana.

We sit outside her window sill, our legs dangling over our fellow freshmen. We drink tea and chat about how beautiful rain can be. More than once, she accidentally calls me “Sam,” the name of her long distance boyfriend.

We study in her room and battle ourselves to work and not talk. After hours of Eigen values and partial derivatives, I start to feel sleepy so I collect my things to take a nap. She stops me and invites me to sleep in her bed. As I curl up she slithers beside me, against the wall, her textbook still in hand. My heart races and I can’t sleep.

We spend too much time together. Our schoolwork suffers and our social lives slack. Then, for two days, she suddenly disappears. On both days, I share gummies with her roommates, but they don’t know where she is. For forty-eight hours, I’m lost. When I finally see her again I ask where she was, trying to sound casual. She replies vaguely, “Oh I went on this Southeast Asian Society retreat thing.” “You didn’t tell me. I was kind of worried,” I say, still trying to be casual. She simply shrugs.

When I see Ana again, she cheerfully tells me that Sam, her boyfriend, is coming to visit for a couple of days. I wonder how he can afford to skip school so early in his freshman year. Then I look at her and I understand.

Sam arrives and she introduces him to everyone, but there’s no way he can remember all of our names. I grip his hand as firmly as I can without trying to seem macho. He holds on and says, “Ana has told me all about you.” From the way he says it, I believe him. As we eat, I try to make general conversation but our lives are all so intertwined that no conversation is general. Sam observes from the periphery, barely saying anything.

The next day, Ana asks me to entertain her boyfriend for a couple of hours. She wants to try writing for the school paper or some other random thing she’s always doing. I spend the day with him, accommodating him as I would an estranged cousin. But he and I both know what our hanging out really means. He’s travelled all the way from Michigan to see her and instead he gets me. It feels like we're trying to have fun at a funeral. Around dinner time, Ana finally returns and again he’s lost in our conversation. He doesn’t even end up sitting by her.

A couple of days later, Ana knocks on my door, crying. Through her sobs, she tells me she’s just broken up with Sam. I hold her, telling her that sometimes these things are for the best. I feel guilty because I’m suppressing a smile.

Later that week, I wake up to loud talking and someone shouting, “Shhh, some of my suitemates are asleep!” I try to pat down my angry hair as I shuffle into the common room where I find Ana and some of my roommates. They're all Ted-Kennedy-drunk. One of my roommates carries Ana to his bed and we find him collapsed on her, his tongue deep down her throat. “Whoa whoa whoa!” I shout. Suddenly, I’m that guy friend, the one who acts out of brotherly protectiveness, but really it's nothing more than a thin guise for jealousy. An ex-high school football player carries her to her room and I follow like a lame sheep. I spend the rest of the night holding back her hair as she vomits. On an old dirty tiled bathroom stall, she cries and holds me for the last time.

A few days later, I find her sitting on some guy’s lap in the RA’s room, a room I would later occupy as a senior. They’ve both been eating blue lollipops and she’s running her fingers over his teeth. My dentist does this to me all the time, but like an ob-gyn exam versus being fingered, some things are more sexual when your crush is doing it. My face turns red. The RA looks at me and asks, “Aren’t you two dating?” And I shrug, honestly unsure. After blue tooth guy leaves, I find Ana and rant my head off. I don’t have the courage to tell her how I feel, but I do have the rage to insist that she’s leading blue tooth guy on. She listens quietly and doesn’t say a word. I spend the night angrily kicking pebbles across the courtyard.

For the next year, I only see her occasionally at parties and in large groups. I’m disappointed if she’s not around but don’t get to talk to her much when she is. One rainy afternoon, she taps on my window and crawls through it, leaving muddy footprints on my desk. At first, I smile then moments later I feel like I’m going to vomit. I hope she will never knock on my window again.

Two years later, due to some cosmic round of Russian roulette, I end up in Seattle and she’s there too, living with her new boyfriend, Kelvin. Out of some pig-headed politeness, I agree to hang out with her and when her boyfriend is out of town, she invites me to stay over. We chat like old lovers, but sleep on separate halves of the futon. When her boyfriend calls the next morning she gleefully says, “Guess who spent the night? Alex!” On my way out, I check to see if my teeth have turned blue.

By senior dead week, I’m barely speaking to her. I don’t force myself into her schedule like I used to and as always, she simply distracts herself with whatever new comes her way.

For dead week, we end up in Georgia with a large group of friends. Complaints filter down to me about Ana and some bad trip to Puerto Rico. Everyone is annoyed with her.

They claim she’s become a whiny know it all, challenging people’s opinions and offering her own in the most baseless fashion. I desperately want her to be flawed. I want to hate her. I hope her faults will rise to the surface like rotting, maggot infested sour grapes. But I can’t muster any anger or loathing. I simply don’t care.

Right before returning to school for graduation, we end up on the beach together. She asks me to put sunscreen on her back. Her half-Asian skin is tanned like a Brazilian model’s. My heart skips a beat. But the woman I loved is gone. Sitting before me with her hair gathered in her hands is a glossy Playboy centerfold and I am just some underage boy flipping through an old magazine.

I brush a grain of sand from her back. It falls to the beach amongst the other millions of grains of sand.

Flash Fiction Friday: White Elephant

A ray of sunlight snuck past the curtains warming her face. She could have lay there for two eternities but the sounds and smells of frying bacon lured her out of bed. Besides, she didn’t have an eternity to spare.

Downstairs, her boyfriend stood in front of the stove intently watching bacon turn golden brown. Her too small apron hung absurdly from his tall frame. She sipped orange juice and watched him cook.

“Shoot!” she abruptly cursed, “I really shouldn’t be drinking this” and poured the sugary juice down the drain.

“It’s Saturday; the calories don’t count,” he joked. Unable to resist he added, “Besides, you really should just slow down and enjoy things once in a while.”

She frowned. For an otherwise brilliant man sometimes he said the most idiotic things.