Category Archives: Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

I need to justify paying for my Wordpress site every year so this is my latest attempt at not being such a negligent blog parent. Thus, every week, I will take five random sentences from different sources and weave them together into some sort of narrative (i.e. brief story) that I hope is thought-provoking, amusing, delightfully effervescent, or at the very least, entertaining. At the end of the day, I’m doing this for me to toss my noodle back into the creative writing pot. If you enjoy it, that’s just a nice perk. Carry on.

#4 – Eulogy for a Prickly Pair

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

Hi. Good morning, all. (SHUFFLES) Well, I suppose it may not be a good morning for some of you. (UNCOMFORTABLE LAUGH) To be honest, it’s not a great one for me. You see, I’m not much of a speaker so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m a bit nervous up here. (CLEARS THROAT, PAUSES) In fact, I was a bit surprised that Eunice and Harv requested me to speak at their funeral because they knew this about me. (WINCES, SHIFTS WEIGHT FROM ONE FOOT TO THE OTHER) But here I am. (LONG PAUSE) What can I say about Eunice and Harv? Harv and Eunice? (VOICE SHAKES, LOOKS DOWN AT SHEET ON PODIUM, TAKES DEEP BREATH) Well, I suppose I’ll start with Harv. Harv was a man. I suppose he was, uh, a man of intellect. And I’ll tell you what. If there’s a land in the afterlife where intellectuals go, then he will govern for a long, long time there. (SMILES WINCINGLY, MOVES SINGLE PIECE OF PAPER FROM ONE SIDE OF PODIUM TO THE OTHER, TAKES ANOTHER LONG PAUSE) And then there was Eunice. I think we can all agree that Eunice was, well, a looker. (DEEP SIGH) Even in her later years. But I gotta be frank here. I don’t think I ever saw her happy. Not once. In fact, I asked her one day if she was sad and she said, get this. (PAUSES AND TAKES BREATH) She said, “I am like a child who cannot bring herself to smile.” (SHAKES HEAD) She always had a flair for drama. Said she didn’t see much of a difference between being angry and pretending not to be. (LOOKS UP AWKWARDLY, THEN BACK DOWN TO SHEET, THEN BACK UP, SHAKING HEAD) Eh, who am I fooling? To be honest, there’s nothing on this sheet. See? (HOLDS UP BLANK PIECE OF PAPER, CRUMBLES IT, AND TOSSES IT OFF TO THE SIDE) Because eulogies are supposed to be about remembering all the nice stuff about folks, right? (MURMURS FROM AUDIENCE) And truth is, I just plain don’t have any good memories of Harv and Eunice. They weren’t… nice people. (RAISES VOICE) Harv and Eunice were monsters! I mean, they didn’t eat babies or anything. Though they were monsters to their own babies. (LOWERS VOICE) Why, Young Calvin once told me Eunice expected to be thanked for giving him life. (ELEVATES VOICE AGAIN) Every. Single. Day. (POUNDS HIS FIST FOR EACH SYLLABLE, SHAKES HEAD, LOWERS VOICE) Apparently, she thought it appropriate to provide him visuals on how his birth affected her… nether-regions. (GASPS ACCOMPANIED BY THE CLUTCHING OF PEARLS COME FROM THE AUDIENCE) But Harv was no better. If you never heard him talk down to his kids, believe you me when I tell you it was chilling. Especially the way he talked to Ellie. He’d do it at baseball games, school events, even at her own birthday celebration! (SHAKES HEAD) My stars. That poor girl. Why my own sweet mother, God rest her soul, who only ever had kind words for people referred to Harv as a stomachful. And she didn’t mean anything nice by it, let me tell you. Let’s just say she was even less gracious about Eunice. (PAUSES AND LOOKS OUT OVER AUDIENCE) And yet, here we all are. Remembering and even honoring this vile and pitiful pair by spending valuable time pretending they were something they weren’t. What IS that? What was their secret? What in the world is wrong with us? How did they get this hold on us? (GRABS OWN THROAT AND PUTS CHOKEHOLD) Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll have no more of it. I’m done. Because Eunice was right. There really isn’t much of a difference between being angry and pretending not to be. And today I’m opting for the former. I’m not going to go so far as to set one person’s car on fire and poison another. But can you really blame their kids? Even if they are demon spawn, I gotta admit that the world is a little brighter without that particular brand of darkness that was Harv and Eunice. I’m glad they’re dead. Yessir. (NODS EMPHATICALLY) That’s all I have to say about that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go to the pub, relax, and have a drink and a line of coke. (SMILES) Three at the most.

It is Tuesday, after all. 

(excerpts from Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu)

#3 – Sharp-Toothed Snails

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

“Inside everybody’s nose,” Gertie begins, cocks her brow, glances off to the side, then shuts her thin-lipped mouth. She looks at me. 

I wait, lean in toward her a little. I wait some more. She has an odd smell like rancid caramel. And I wonder if the scent means that she’s sick. I suddenly feel like one of those animals that can smell illness in people. She still says nothing.

“Inside everybody’s nose what?” I finally ask her. 

She gives me that world-weary sigh of hers. As though I really am nothing more than a disease-sniffing animal. Lord knows I’ve been called worse. “Inside everybody’s nose, there lives a sharp-toothed snail,” she finally says in a matter-of-fact way.

“Ah,” I nod in agreement. “Yes. I suppose that’s true.” No point in arguing it really. I turn back to my task at hand – which at the moment is washing Gertie’s dishes. She says she hates washing dishes. That it’s below her station. Whatever that means. I suspect she just plain doesn’t like washing dishes.

“Are we going to the store today?” Gertie suddenly yells as though I’m in the other room rather than just six feet from her. “George!?”

I turn to look at her. My hip hurts when I move my chin. It’s peculiar and I wonder what this condition might smell like to an animal. “Yes,” I say calmly. “As soon as I finish cleaning the dishes.” I could have added your dishes, but what’s the point really? I don’t so much mind washing her dishes. It calms me. And Gertie isn’t capable of gratitude anyhow. Not since the accident. (Though if I’m being honest, she wasn’t all that grateful before it.) I gently wipe down each piece of silverware with the drying towel and place them carefully into the drawer. I like the sound they make when they settle into one another. Like far flung friends brought back together.

“You don’t owe her anything,” both Ma and my sister Rose like to remind me. Usually when I’m heading out the door to come here to Gertie’s.

“She is my oldest friend,” I have to remind them; at which point Rose always rolls her eyes and says something like, “Some friend,” or “It’s not your fault, George.”

I know that it is though. My fault. Still, it’s not the only reason I keep coming back here. 

“There was a boy in our town with long hair,” Gertie blurts out as I reach for the casserole dish from last night’s macaroni and cheese. “Did I tell you about him before? He was strange,” she tightens her face as though she’s just sipped vinegar. Then she smiles and stares past me out the window above the sink, her face softening. “Probably a queer,” she whispers the last word.

“I believe you’ve mentioned him before, yes.” I scrape off a particularly aggressive glob of cheese hanging on for dear life to the edge of the casserole dish. I don’t have the wherewithal to tell her once again that that boy was me and that she had once been my sergeant-at-arms. My ally. The keeper of my secret. She wouldn’t believe me anyhow. 

“Done,” I say, shaking off the towel and folding it neatly over the cabinet door. “Are you ready to go to the store?” 

“Well, it’s about time,” Gertie stands up from her seat and holds out her arm to link with mine. “Shall we stroll, darling?” I smile. She used to say that a lot. Back when. She giggles like a young girl and my heart jumps then sinks just a little when I recognize the spark in her eye. I take her arm in mine as we walk slowly toward the screen door. The floor creaks beneath our feet and Gertie suddenly stops short of the door and looks at me. “Are they gone?” 

“Are who gone?”

“The people,” she speaks in a low tone, eyes wide open.

“The people?”

“The people!” she says more emphatically. “You know. The people!” 

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

Again with the sigh. “The other day there on Hanover Street,” she points to the door. “Over by the church. I think that the traffic light simply would not turn green so the people stopped to wait. They must have been there for hours, George! Hours!” 

“Oh, those people,” I nod, though I have no clue what she’s talking about. That doesn’t mean there weren’t people there though. She’s taught me that much. “Yeah. They’re gone. They all went home.”

She calms herself and leans her head against my arm. “Oh good. That’s good,” she sighs, but this time in a peaceful way. “Home is the nicest place, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I say. “It is.” 

Ma always says God knows when to send you exactly what you need. But then she’ll say on the same breath that I should just ditch Gertie and get on with my life. I know one thing for sure. Either Ma’s wrong, or else God is. 

(excerpts from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein)

#2 – Who Is A. Flora?

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

Adam sat at the edge of the ocean the day after the storm, holding a notebook wrapped in a floral cloth sheath. The trees near the shore were wind-torn and weary, though restful now. He appreciated their adaptability. Always had. 

He glanced out over the water, momentarily trapped in a stare. “The sea is not boiling hot,” he said aloud to no one but a small skittering crab. “Though one day, about five billion years hence, it will be.” He dug his toes deep into the cool sand and scanned the sky for birds. None were to be found. There was a group of seagulls congregated on the beach. 43 of them, to be exact. But they were quiet. Eerily so. This was most certainly the calm after the storm – the calm that nobody ever talked about. 

“Whew! That was one for the books,” Clem had said early that morning when he came upon Adam on the old town road going into Fernandina. Clem owned and ran the bait and tackle store on the island. Everything about him reminded Adam of leather. His skin, his scent, even his voice somehow. Clem couldn’t have been a better fit for the role of ‘old guy who runs a bait and tackle store’ had central casting sent him. “Don’t reckon we’ve had a storm around these parts like that since ’99.” 

“That’s what I hear,” Adam had responded. A new transplant to Amelia Island, he’d already been privy to plenty of talk about the tropical storm that hit near Tampa back in 1899. “Sank a schooner right off Fernandina Beach,” they’d all say with the same downward tilt of their heads as though it were island-issued. The old-timers at the diner spoke of it often enough that one would think it happened recently rather than 53 years ago. Then again, they did that with a wide array of topics really; perhaps in a vain attempt to resurrect their youth.  

Whatever the case, Amelia Island and its residents suited Adam. So too did its birds. An ornithologist by trade, he had recently fled his place of birth (or breeding grounds, as he called them) for parts unknown. He lacked wanderlust in any true sense of the word though. Thus, he settled a mere two days later on this quirky little island south of his former home in Savannah. It was far enough away that he felt liberated from the disapproving glances of his classmates and colleagues who now deemed him a reprobate. It wasn’t far enough to skirt his father’s admonishments though. He’d hoped by now his father’s disappointment would have met the same fate as the elephant bird; extinction. It had not.

He sighed.  

It wasn’t that Andrew ‘Buzz’ Flora was a bad father. He was certainly a misguided one. No crime there. Like many a father, Buzz had had big plans for his son. It’s just that they didn’t include… well, his son. A respected engineer in Savannah, Buzz assumed that Adam would follow in his rather gargantuan footprints. “That’s just what you do, son.”

Never mind that his mother also had a successful career. And as an obstetrician, no less – a rare breed in 1952. His mother had never pushed him toward medicine though. She understood Adam’s love of science; believed he’d inherited it from her. And she encouraged his bird-watching; sometimes sitting with him in the woods behind their house while he pointed out birds with funny names like Brown Thrashers, Tufted Titmice, and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. 

He recalled one afternoon, swatting at mosquitoes while watching a Turkey Vulture circle gracefully overhead. He thought it magical that such an ugly bird on land could be so beautiful in the sky. “It’s like he defies gravity,” he’d said.

“It is,” she’d responded in a dreamy voice that belied her usually logical demeanor. “You know, I believe that if you work hard enough, opportunities for defying gravity open up everywhere.” He wasn’t sure what that meant, but it felt correct.

As he grew progressively more distant from his father, Adam’s conversations with his mother moored him. With her, he could happily share, with painstaking detail, the lengthy mating dance of the red-capped manakin. And she would explain, with the same startling attention to minutiae, the drawback of the human’s big brain and how it made childbirth exceptionally difficult and painful. In his mother’s orbit, there were no drawing boards, no brainstorming engineers, no wind tunnels testing prototypes or scaled-down models. There was just them. She loved and celebrated his gentle and sensitive nature. 

The very things that made his father squirm. 

Adam finished writing his ornithological observations in his journal, scant as they were for the day. At the bottom of the page, he wrote A. Flora, as he always had – the same name on his father’s business cards. And in that moment, it dawned on him. His father’s disappointment may go extinct, but it would never be gone. Not completely. It was forever embedded in his heart like the remains of the elephant birds. 

So he carefully tucked the book back into its fabric sheath, gathered himself, and headed toward town. That night, after a rather animated conversation with Clem, he would have fried chicken and a milk shake at the diner, banter with the beleaguered waitress whose name was Alice, and devise new ways to rise above. To defy gravity, as it were.  

***(Sentences taken from Flights of Fancy, by Richard Dawkins)***