Tag Archives: very short stories series

#28 – The Mighty Thumb

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

At times, I like to watch my hands. I delight in the way the fingers bend and articulate; how the nails act as makeshift tools that scratch, tear and, perhaps most importantly, pick. And then there are the thumbs. I adore how those stubby little creatures (the ones that supposedly elevate us above all other sentient beings on this spinning orb) cooperate so well with the other fingers – despite their noble status. 

“What are your thoughts on the thumb?” I ask my friend, James. We’re sitting by the large front window at our favorite café on a late Saturday morning. The café is noisy for my taste and I’m self-stimming by stretching and closing my fingers in a slow-motion fashion – as though they’re underwater. 

James opens his mouth slightly, a devilish grin spreading across his face. “Did I tell you that I saw Ricky last night with that queen from the gym?” he says, the smile morphing into a scowl.

“No,” I say, staring down into my tea. “You just got here. How would you have told me?”

He shrugs.

“Anyhow, you didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?” he asks, his glacial blue eyes bloodshot from last night. I can safely assume he hasn’t yet gone to bed.

“What do you think about the thumb?”

“Oh, yeah. That,” he says with boredom in his voice. He leans back, observes his nails with disdain, and scrunches up his nose. “Honestly? I thought you were being ironic or something.”

“Nope.”

“I don’t know what I think about the thumb,” he whines and lets out a long sigh. “God, Ricky is such a bitch. Can you believe he’d do this to me?”

“You broke up six months ago,” I say.

“So?”

“And you broke up with him!”

James stares at me, perplexed.

“I’m just not up for the gossip today, James,” I say, turning to look out the window. There’s a row of formidable forsythia bushes that are, in concert, coming into bloom. I can almost hear them humming.

“Well,” he starts with a huff and glares at me. “What crawled up your ass?”

“Nothing has crawled up my ass,” I say, defensively. I am agitated, though unsure of the reason. “I’m just feeling, I don’t know… analytical.”

He circles his head and sighs as he leans back in his chair. “No offense, Sasha, but you were much more fun before you got on this Pole Tech wisdom kick.”

“Toltec,” I correct him.  

“Whatever. I’ll take the pole any day,” he laughs at his tired and played-out joke. I roll my eyes. 

I resent his saying this, as I’m not on a Toltec wisdom kick. I just appreciate the Four Agreements from their philosophy. I tried to discuss them with James a couple of months ago and only got as far as the First Agreement, which is to use impeccable speech.  

“Impeccable speech? What’s that supposed to mean?” he’d asked, rolling his eyes and heavily resting his head in his hand to demonstrate his serious lack of interest.

“Basically, it means using your speech to communicate something worthwhile. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut.”

He’d given me a blank stare. “Not computing.”

“It means, for starters, don’t gossip,” I clarified.

He’d looked at me in disbelief, his mouth gaping open, as though I’d just asked him for a lung. Then he’d laughed. “Please!” He’d waved his hand at me and shaken his head. “Everybody gossips. It’s one of life’s pleasures. And how is it not communicating something worthwhile?”

“Have you ever considered how it could be harmful? To the person you’re maligning, and to yourself?”

“Nuh-uh,” he’d said, shaking his head vigorously and placing his hand on mine, a glimmering ruby ring on his middle finger that Ricky had given him last year in one of their many commitment ceremonies. He also wore a rainbow bracelet that signaled to the world he was gay – in case the ruby ring, eye liner, gorgeous scarf, and overwhelming presence weren’t doing the trick. “Silly. You’ve got it all wrong. It’s only harmful if you say it to their face. That’s why you do it behind their back!”

I knew then I was fighting a losing battle.  “Forget it,” I’d said.

“I’d love to,” he’d smiled, then sipped on some ridiculous no fat, no sugar, extra caffeinated coffee drink. It was the same concoction he sipped on now.

“I personally think the thumb is really cool,” I say. “Though I suspect it may have a Napoleonic complex.”

“Hmmmmmm,” he holds out his hands in front of him. “It is the most Napoleon like of the digits. Still, I don’t know. My thumbs are pretty… impeccable,” he mocks.  

I sneer at him. “Very nice.”

“Well, at least I was listening!”

“There is that,” I agree.

He nods. “Because I’m always listening.”

I decide not to address the sheer fallacy of that statement. “I do find it ironic,” I continue, “that scientists are always harping on how the opposable thumb makes us more advanced than all the other species.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” James mutters absentmindedly, betraying his previous statement about always listening. He’s clearly not looking at me, but rather through me at what I can only assume is some guy with a perfect ass behind me.

“And yeah, the thumb enables us to do all sorts of things that no other species can do. But is that a really such a good thing?” I query. “I mean, how many shitty things are we relegated to do simply because we can? And how is that advanced? It seems kind of backwards, if you ask me.”

He glances back at me again.  “Yes. What’s with you and thumbs today?”

“I don’t know,” I say sadly. “I think maybe we take them for granted.”

James squints at me and cocks his head. “You are SO cryptic sometimes.”

I smile. Along with the engineering marvel that is the hand, I have an affinity for words with multiple consonants but just one single vowel holding it all together. Kind of like the thumb. And I’m drifting off into other twisty twirly thoughts when James breaks my reverie.

“Sash?” 

“Huh?”

He holds out his hand, cocks a brow, and extends his index finger. “Pull my finger.”

I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”

“Seriously. Pull my finger.”

I pull his finger and rather than blowing a raspberry, he yells, “Yeeeee-haw!” Several heads turn, some of the faces disdainful. I can’t entirely blame them. He was rather loud. Still, I smile.

“Let’s get outta here,” he says, getting up suddenly and grabbing my hand. 

“Where are we going?” 

“I saw the most fabulous hat at Francesca’s Vintage,” he says. “I don’t want some other ridiculous queen to get it.” We walk out of the café hand in hand; my thumb pressing against his. And I realize that without our thumbs, we wouldn’t truly be holding hands.

“Which reminds me,” he pauses. “You’ll never guess what I heard about her.”

“Don’t go there,” I scold.

“I’m kidding,” he smiles at me and I feel a sudden compulsion to never lose my love for the cryptic, the weird, the irreverent, and, of course, the thumb.

#27 – The Capriciousness of Cartoon Flowers 

Think About It

rebel daisy sits thoughtfully on a rock, composes himself, and begins to pen an angrily worded letter to the National Biscuit Company to… 

“Can we just say Nabisco?” rebel daisy stops me mid-sentence. “National Biscuit Company sounds so… highfalutin. Affected.” 

“Yeah, okay,” I say.

“And lose all the ‘sitting thoughtfully on a rock’ nonsense. What does that even mean?”

I sigh. “I’m trying to set the mood.”

“Well, it’s putting me in a bad mood. So if that’s the mood you’re trying to set, then well done.”

“Fine,” I roll my eyes. 

rebel daisy stands on a piece of paper and begins to pen an angrily worded letter to Nabisco. 

“Is that better?”

“Yes,” he says. “Carry on. I’m dying to hear what happens next.”

I stare at him for a moment – trying to remember what my life was like before this psychotic eight-inch tall flower sporting jeans and army boots marched into my consciousness. I wasn’t even doing drugs.

“Wow. Is that how you see me?” he says propping up his pen, leaning slightly into it, and staring up at me, blinking. “As a psychotic eight-inch tall flower?”

“If the army boot fits…,” I say.

“Ha! Clever,” he laughs, then scratches his pollen-speckled head with the sharp-tipped fronds of his leafy fingers. “It doesn’t lend much to the story though.”

“Can I just continue?” I ask, exasperated. “Please?” 

“Why are you asking me?” rebel daisy shrugs, carefully hoists the pen back up over his narrow shoulder, and begins writing his letter again. “I mean, you’re the author,” he says. “I’m just the talent. Though some might argue there’s no story without the talent,” he pauses. “Most would argue that, actually…”  

ANYHOW, rebel daisy is writing said letter to Nabisco because he is upset that they will not honor his request to make a special edition rebel daisy Oreo cookie. They were concerned that his plan for the cookie would be ‘too cost-prohibitive.’ Furthermore, it would ‘deny the laws of physics.’ In the schematic that rebel daisy sent, there is no actual cookie. It’s merely the white stuffing carved out into the shape of a daisy flower. His face is drawn in the center which is dyed yellow. 

“Seems completely feasible to me,” rebel daisy interrupts, dragging the pen across the paper. He’s just putting some flourish on the n in the word ‘moron.’ 

“Well, first of all, just the stuffing isn’t technically a cookie.”

rebel daisy looks over his shoulder at me. “I can’t be bothered with technicalities.”

“And,” I add, “you insisted that each so-called cookie have an operational mouth. I think that might be the bigger issue they’re logicistally struggling with.”

“I’m not willing to bend on that one,” he says, beginning to compose the word ‘genius.’ “It can’t possibly be that difficult.”

“Maybe not in your little buttery head,” I say, frustrated.

“I see no need to be diminutive,” he says, looking back over his shoulder at me. “Plus, it doesn’t become you.”

SO ANYWAYS, rebel daisy is penning this letter to Nabisco when his dear friend Sturmund Drang enters the room. 

“Hi Sturmund!” rebel daisy calls out.

“Greetings,” Sturmund responds in a weary voice that would indicate he carries the weight of the world. 

Sturmund is a small sunflower with a particularly dower disposition – which honors his family’s longstanding German heritage. His attire is a yellow raincoat with matching rain hat and rain boots. He carries an umbrella with him at all times because one can never be too prepared. When Sturmund sloshed into my consciousness about a year after rebel daisy did, I was tickled by his presence. 

“He was my friend first,” rebel daisy interrupts again. 

“Yes, he was,” I say to appease him.

“I’m standing right here.”

AT ANY RATE, when Sturmund introduced himself, I was taken by his name – immediately recognizing it as a merging of the words Sturm und Drang which was, as everyone knows, the late 18th-century literary and artistic movement in Germany influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and characterized by the expression of emotional unrest. 

“It was?” rebel daisy breaks in once again.

“Yep,” I respond, excitedly. “And I love the idea of a sunflower, an iconic symbol of warmth and brightness, having a name that translates to mean storm and stress. It’s wonderfully ironic!”

“Hmmmm,” he lays down his pen and stretches. “I just think it’s weird. Makes me wonder about his parents. But enough about Sturmund. Let’s get this story back on track and start focusing once again on my heroic efforts to be immortalized by Nabisco.”

“You really think heroic is the word?”

“Not enough?” rebel daisy ponders. “Magnanimous maybe?”

“I think magnanimous is accurate,” says Sturmund in a nasal voice. He blows his nose. “I can’t make any sense of why Nabisco would pass up this opportunity. It’s pure folly.”

“Right?” rebel daisy shouts, fired up now and rearin’ to get back to his letter writing. “Magnanimous it is then.”

rebel daisy sets the pen to paper, but then just stands there. “How do you spell it?” he asks sheepishly.

Sturmund shrugs. “I only know how to spell it in German.”

“German?” rebel daisy ponders again, placing his verdant hand to his yellow chin. “Hmmmmm. That could work. It appeals to my rebellious nature. Okay. Go ahead and spell it in German.”

At this point, I’m just standing off to the side and patiently, I might add, watching their antics. I no longer remember where I was going with this story anyhow.

“G-R-O-Eszett,” Sturmund begins.

“Wait,” rebel daisy stops. “What?”

“Eszett,” Sturmund repeats himself calmly then sniffles. 

“What the hell does that mean?!” rebel daisy, by contrast, hollers.

“It’s a letter in the German alphabet that looks like a B but sounds like an S. Eszett.”

“That’s ridiculous,” rebel daisy says, shaking his head and mumbling, “Germans,” under his breath.

Undeterred, Sturmund walks over to rebel daisy and extends his willowy dark green arms so that rebel daisy will hand him the pen. “Here. I’ll show you.” And he carefully writes out the word ‘Großmütig’. “That right there is German for magnanimous.”

“No,” rebel daisy responds.

“Yes,” Sturmund points. “That’s it.”

“No, I mean I don’t like it!” rebel daisy stomps his boot on the word. “It doesn’t look magnanimous at all!”

Sturmund stares down at the word but says nothing.

“Erase it immediately!” 

“I’ll do no such thing,” Sturmund says, stoic and indignant so as to, once again, not betray his German heritage. “Furthermore, I cannot erase pen ink.”

“I’ll tell you what you can erase,” rebel daisy shouts, his petals shaking. “Our friendship!” 

I’ve had enough. I begin to meagerly slink away and attempt to escape this flagrant display of floral decrepitude. I tiptoe to the kitchen to have an Oreo. A real one with actual cookies. And without an operational mouth. As it should be. 

“I heard that,” says rebel daisy. “Because I’m still right here.”

I close my eyes and sigh. “Yes,” I think, sinking my teeth into the cookie and the stuffing. “He’s always right here.”  

#26 – Ignorance Is Bliss

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

Dick “Tater” Titsworth wondered what it might feel like to drive into a tree. A sturdy tree like an ancient oak or sequoia that could take the hit without much noticing. Just another day in its seemingly endless 628-year-old life of conversing with other trees through complicated but exceedingly efficient fungal networks that ran beneath the ground. He would have to gauge just the right speed though. He’d need to go slow enough to keep the tree from sustained injury, but fast enough to ensure his ending rather than render him a drooling vegetable. He sighed. The whole plan already felt like too much work. Tater was never one much for plans. Or work. Nope. He’d need something more spontaneous.

So he pondered instead driving off the edge of a craggy, rocky cliff. Aside from the logistical problem that he knew of no such cliff, he was concerned about the flora and fauna that may suffer as a result of his actions. Driving off a bridge might be better. There was no shortage of bridges dotting greater Longbottom County. But Tater didn’t much care for water. And anyhow, the amount of time in flight from a cliff or a bridge would certainly be enough to make him regret his choice. By then, it would be too late. That was just a shitty deal. And Tater was no stranger to regretful choices that resulted in a shitty deal. He had plenty of proof of this.

There was the mortgage he took out on the leaky trailer that smelled of mold and that he called home. There were the track marks winding up and down his arms and a few scars between his toes. There was the estranged ex-wife and son who lived across the country and wanted nothing (except alimony) from him. And there was the new wife he wished were estranged but was instead ever-present; systematically breaking him down with unkind words that rivaled those of his mother.

Perhaps instead he could just turn around and drive to the carnival that recently set up on the edge of town. It was a pathetic old affair with rickety rides that had always been deemed death traps. Yet despite their being repeatedly assembled and disassembled by sundry fentanyl addicts with pocket wrenches, carnival fatalities were surprisingly low. He shook his head. The odds weren’t good he’d meet his maker that way. And while poor odds hadn’t stopped him from gambling away his house and car five years ago, he felt certain he was a changed man now. A better man. The type of man who was considerate enough to burden the world no longer with his presence. His father had been right all along when he accused his young son of breathing air that was meant for someone who belonged here. A person who mattered. And yet…

Tater couldn’t find it in himself to end it all. Not yet. He needed to stay around long enough to vote in the next election. He wasn’t going to be posthumously accused of being a bad American. He was a good American, after all. His vote could make a difference in his son’s life. Even if he couldn’t personally be there to show him the ways of the world. Thus he would cast his vote for a great American man; a genius of the most stable nature; a hero who would get the country back on its feet and provide a brighter future for his son. Sure, Tater had made some bad decisions in the past and gotten some raw deals. But who hadn’t? This time he knew he was onto something big. Something real. And it felt good, dammit! As he drove into the parking lot of the Planned Parenthood clinic with his ‘End Aborsion Now’ sign (and zero awareness of the misspelling on it), he waved to the other demonstrators and smiled for the first time in nearly a week. 

Things were looking up.