“I am Johnny Appleseed and I am planting apples. By the way you’re one to talk. What the hell are you doing riding around nude?” said Johnny Appleseed, feeling color in his cheeks.
“You may address me as Lady, Lady Godiva. Didn’t you get the Nail-It note on the pub door? Avert Ye Eyes, shut ye doors, etc. etc. Well to make a short story long, my husband is an ass and I couldn’t find a mule to ride around on so thus the horse. I’m nude in protest of your taxes. Isn’t your name supposed to be Tom, anyway?”
“Lady, this is England, not Texas. As I said before, my name is Johnny. Now I’m going to continue planting my seeds if you’d like to join me,” said the young man, grateful he had caught a buzz at home, missing the pub notice.
“I said taxes, not Tex….never mind, what the hell, I’d be glad to join you Johnny,” said Lady Godiva, revenge still on her mind. “How many apples did you have to eat to get that bag full of yucky cores?” asked Lady, putting on her charm, hiding seductively behind her hair.
“A bushel my Lady,” answered Johnny.
“They must run right through you,” said Lady, thinking nastily of the King’s water supply.
Leave It In Las Vegas
By
Michael Drake
Caty and Lauren had finally ditched Luke and were headed for the slots. They had spent a dreadful afternoon in the sun trying to get to the MGM Casino for the Grand Buffet.
Luke had a motorized scooter but insisted on being pushed to save electricity. Caty, Luke’s wife, struggled to push Luke along the sun scorched sidewalk between casinos. Caty tried reasoning with Luke that the hotel paid the electricity but he wouldn’t listen.
Walking in the sun seemed an eternity as she worked the wheelchair through the crowds. Lauren walked in front clearing a path through the throngs of hucksters trying to shove sex show ads into their hands. By the time they reached the shelter of the next casino, Luke’s lap was full of the smarmy advertisements.
Caty and Lauren thought of ditching Luke right there at Bailey’s but instead drank up the air-conditioning while tuning out another of Luke’s rants about how he can’t stand the smoke in all the casinos.
Lauren wouldn’t have taken her vacation without both her father and mother but after three days of her father’s constant complaining, she was ready to scream. ‘Geez! Just enjoy yourself’ she thought, and began pushing the scooter through the casino.
Caty was sure the slots were singing her name – “Caty” – “Caty” – as they chimed their winnings. She walked past row after row – “Caty” - “Come play”.
Lauren gave her mother a look as they again escaped the triple digit sunshine, finally arriving at the MGM. The look mostly said ‘Shouldn’t we be playing slots and shopping and sitting by the pool?’
Caty spied the maintenance door for MGM’s lion habitat and Lauren nodded in agreement as they pushed Luke’s chair through the entrance and shut the door.
What takes place in Vegas stays in Vegas.
The Michigan Monster
By Michael Drake
The girl ran around in circles, screaming as loud as she could while flailing her arms. The firelight danced off her body and illuminated the other girls around the campfire who were screaming more in laughter than in fear. One of the girls, Sarah, thought the story was preposterous. Who ever heard of a white furred Michigan monster? Sarah was sure she wouldn’t react like that if she ever saw one. She would try meeting with it, not scream like a maniac.
It was the middle of the night, two weeks since the opening night campfire and Sarah had to visit the outhouse. She stumbled down the dark path coaxing her flashlight to keep shining even as it continued to fade. She knew she was close and looked up from the path to see a tall figure covered in white fur bathed in a bluish glow slowly coming towards her.
Sarah screamed and began to run in circles in a panic, her arms flailing. The ghostly figure stopped and covered its ears. Sarah abruptly stopped screaming looking more closely as the figure crossed its arms in front of its chest as if to say “What are you doing?’
At that moment the figure spoke.
“What are you doing child? It’s me, Billy, the maintenance guy.”
Sarah ignored the screaming, arm flailing crowd of campers rushing up behind her until she realized they weren’t screaming at Billy. That’s when she noticed the glowing white haired figure coming slowly down the path. The ghostly figure covered its ears until the screaming stopped and then crossed its arms as if to say “What are you doing?”
The crowd of campers and Billy ran screaming down the hill. This time Sarah just shrugged her shoulders and went up the path to meet the creature.
Milestone on the Moon
By
Michael Drake
Mel and Linda relaxed while sipping tea in the observationpod above their home and lab. Their station was located on the far side of the Moon at the bottom of the crater South Pole-Aitken, the deepest crater in the solar system.
The Thompson’s were at the penultimate moment to the end of an era on the Moon. They knew their job was done, monitoring the collection of icy chunks of asteroids and comets into the vast crater surrounding them. Through a long airlock they could faintly hear the news coming from their monitoring quarters.
The countdown had begun. Mel reached for Linda’s hand, finding it in the near complete darkness. The crater was so deep that the sun never shined in its basin. They were always surrounded by a vast sea of black, but that never seemed to bother them.
They both knew, soon, they had to return to their monitoring duties. Sadly, they also knew it would not be long after that they would have to leave their home. Their services no longer needed.
Linda squeezed Mel’s hand in return, leading him out of his seat and down the air lock corridor with an ease she had acquired in the lower gravity. Mel trusted her guidance.
The countdown ended. The entire crater was, for the first time in its existence, filled with glorious, hot light. The carefully placed ice filled debris melted moments after the first sun fed laser rays hit.
The Thompson’s did nothing to acknowledge the blazing new light that penetrated even their monitoring room. Their findings were complete; the Moon’s first release of atmospheric gases was a success.
Mel and Linda, the only people in the entire crater, didn’t stay upstairs for the light show. They didn’t care. You see, Mel and Linda were both blind.
Murdering Baby
By
Michael Drake
I was a murderer when I was only 9 months old. Who'd have thought I would kill over a dirty diaper.
I didn't do it with my fat pudgy hands; that would have been silly. She dropped me, when she fell as she was dying, I was lucky to have a pile of stuffed animals break my fall into the playpen. Even more luck, the playpen still contained my bottle of juice.
I tried getting her attention with my usual arms in the air "lift-me" pose, to no avail. I tried crying for attention, which usually works but it had no effect and screaming didn't even make her flinch. I screamed for ten minutes just for good measure and realized I’d have to fend for myself. Poopy diaper or not I was hungry. I fetched my juice bottle from the corner of the playpen and settled back to the quiet of the house.
Mom and Dad came home soon after that. They saw the baby sitter on the floor and starting shouting and yelling. I could have told them that that wasn't going to wake her up. Dad looked like he was trying to kiss her but that didn't get a reaction from her either. Mom came right over to me and was blessing the lord that I was still safe in my playpen. Little did she know she had a murderer in her hands. Her sudden scrunched up nose told me I finally had victory. My diaper was going to be changed!
That's all I had wanted in the first place. How was I to know that my screaming in the baby sitter's ear would rupture her eardrum, cause a blood vessel to burst and give her an aneurism and a fatal stroke.
Hey, I'm a baby, poop happens!
Pie In The Sky
By
Michael Drake
Chicken Little had an inner ear infection that caused him to occasionally experience vertigo. During these periodic episodes he would think the sky was falling and would say so to townspeople.
One too many ungrateful responses drove Chicken to the sea. He opened his own tuna factory. People were flummoxed over the name ‘Chicken of the Ocean’ but were glad he no longer staggered around town claiming false doom. The tuna, on the other hand weren’t so thrilled about Chicken’s newfound profession. Charlie, the local tuna in charge, swam to the nearby coast to solicit help from a Mermaid.
“I know that blabber bird,” she told Charlie. “I’ll help you get rid of him.”
The Mermaid swam to the local marina so she wouldn’t miss Chicken while he boarded his fishing boat. Chicken had yet to arrive when three men came up to the waterfront and proceeded to jump in a tub. While Ms. Mermaid thought the two men, one with a butcher knife the other with a pail of scalding hot wax might be exciting; it was the third gentleman carrying a big pot pie that caught her interest.
She swam towards the smell and caught up with the tub of men heading out to sea.
“That pie smells good. What is it?” she asked the man who was clearly an escaped baker.
“It’s Rub-a-dub chicken pot pie. We found a chicken who kept babbling that the sky really was falling, so Butchie decided to spare the bird further grief. I cooked it up for our trip,” explained the baker.
“Well that solves the problem,” she replied. “Be right back.”
Mermaid gave Charlie the good news and rejoined the men just in time for a piece of victory pie.
It was then that the meteor struck them from above.
Puppy Love
By
Michael Drake
Sometimes I wish I didn’t react quite so immediately to that helping voice in me. I had been waiting between inspection gates when I noticed a woman crying. Her dog was being put under, in a cryocase.
“Why do they have to freeze her?” she cried.
“Didn’t you read the rules dear,” I said as gently as I could. “They won’t let you release her from the case until she’s under your exclusive air rations. Otherwise she’d take up a human’s public oxygen provision.”
“I thought quarantine, maybe, for a few days but I didn’t think I would have to travel without her by my side,” said the woman, more to herself than in response to me.
“If you aren’t staying too long she would be better off in the cryocase in one of those lockers over there than on the Moon, or even Mars, if that’s where you’re going,” I said. “Dogs don’t do well with low gravity. They have trouble keeping their food down, if you know what I mean.” I lied.
“I certainly do and I most certainly will not stuff my D.D. in some locker while I’m on the moon!” exclaimed the now enraged, spittle flinging woman.
‘At least they’re not going on to Mars.’ I thought selfishly.
“Is D.D. her name or initials?” I asked, trying to avoid further enraging the woman.
“No, Dorkchester Mahoney Belinda Carlyle Dinkleberry. D.D. for short,” she replied; her eyes utterly vapid.
‘What a stupid name…’ I thought. I eased away from the woman and headed for the next inspection with my Doogieville Melweed Limburger Picklestein’s cryocase in hand.
After two year’s of planned exile from Mars (and my husband) we finally had enough plants to sustain oxygen supplies for ourselves and a dog. Doogie and I were going home.
Running Lost
By
Michael Drake
I was ready to admit I was lost, though not to the strangers lining my path. I focused on only one thing; I couldn’t stop running. The buildings loomed over me, reflective windows not admitting their users gawked behind them. A gang loitered ahead and only moved to the side as I ran past.
“You lost pretty boy? Take a right then the next left. Maybe you’ll have a chance of rejoining your group. You look like you need protection,”
The sides of my feet dug pavement as I rounded the next corner. Sudden glare from the sun left me blind. The collision with the shoulder and arm of a walking walrus spun the glare and my head down the street. His mustache tusks were undamaged as he spouted epithets through them.
I was lucky to keep my balance and continue running in the previously interrupted direction. A quick glance to my left and the street I was supposed to take caused my feet to maneuver the same as before except this time I was heading across the street.
The fact that I was running at my top speed kept the truck from hitting anything but my shirt tail which was flying behind me.
The buildings here matched the people; depressed for years they had given up even trying not to look sad. Glances from the eldest onlookers willed me to keep running; running to where their feeble bodies had long since failed to take them. Running from let down lives where fleeting moments of joy succumb to the murk of their tenuous existence.
I turned onto a cross street, back on track again. No group ahead of me, but I might catch up to them.
“Look folks, here comes our unexpectedly early winner of this year’s CityScape Marathon…..”
“Ooops!”
Sammy Assembly Required
By
Michael Drake
Sarah had spent the afternoon in her bedroom playing with her first NanBox. She had tried all the factory doll presets. Sarah was a child of the ‘instant gratification generation’ yet had surprisingly found all the assembler creations unsatisfying. She initially liked the preset dolls, but soon bored with their unresponsiveness. Each one she eventually threw into the fuel bin at the back of the machine using it to assemble the next preset.
Sarah’s Crystal AI –Sammy -had been idle until Sarah called its name and asked it a question.
“I want a doll with your intelligence, Sammy that looks like an American Gal. Can you tell the NanBox how to do it?” she asked her longtime companion.
“It would be my pleasure,” replied Sammy. It linked to the NanBox and downloaded its programming and data to the assembler’s import bank.
The NanBox began the creation sequence. Sarah got a bite to eat in the kitchen while waiting for the doll to be assembled. She spent most of the hour watching MoonieLoonies on the FridgeHD until she heard the NanBox completion chime.
Sarah took her new creation out of the assembler; the doll immediately coming to life at her touch.
“Hi Sarah, it’s Sammy!” said the doll to a surprised Sarah. “Let’s play together.”
Sarah’s look turned to disgust at the doll.
“I don’t want two Sammy’s she said angrily. She threw the doll into the NanBox fuel bin and hit a random preset, activating the machine with a slam of the Start button.
“Sammy, I didn’t want a copy of you as a doll. Can you do it again for me?” she asked.
Sarah gasped, seeing the Crystal AI dark and empty. She realized in horror that her impulsive anger had just reassembled her beloved Sammy out of existence.
Six To Three
By
Michael Drake
The Three Big Pigs spent most of the happy hour getting drunk at the bar. This wasn’t unusual since they spend every evening getting drunk. They say it’s to celebrate becoming Big Pigs but the three blind mice knew that happened two years ago.
The Pigs were arguing with Wolf about the effectiveness of planned air displacement for new home structures. Wolf was trying to make a point but no matter how he huffed and puffed he couldn’t get a word in edgewise what with the babbling, inebriated pigs.
The optically challenged mice, sat on the bar sipping spring water, quite sick of alcohol they had been fed in experiments at the lab. They could have had expensive champagne if they wanted, what with the settlement they received after becoming blind in the study o
n the effects of violent video games in a closed (or in their case caged) environment.
The pigs liked the mice because they bought rounds of beer. The mice had been living well since suing the research lab. There was no need to run from the meat man’s wife or waste their lives in cages being poked and prodded. They were finally free, accepted despite their disability. They felt needed at the bar. The bar patrons accepted them wholeheartedly and frequently invited them to come over and play in their hamster’s trail tubes.
It was that fatal evening that the Big Pigs became so blazingly drunk that they forgot about their little furry friends on the bar. It was just before six while making a slurred point that all three pigs simultaneously slammed their mugs of beer onto the bar. The mice never knew what hit them. They turned instantly into coasters. They went from six to three when the happy hour ended three to six.
Break Out The Bacon For Breakfast
By
Michael Drake
The three Big Pigs were stuck, nursing hangovers in jail with the verbose Wolf. The pigs had accidentally killed their friends the three blind mice at the bar the previous evening. Wolf got involved, going to jail with them, just to have a chance to finally make his point in an argument they were having when the tragic accident occurred.