stories

SHORT STORIES

Originally I wanted to create some ‘online-exclusive’ material for the website but I didn’t want to put a whole lot of time into it so I uploaded three poorly edited short stories.  After an onslaught of unsolicited grammar and spelling advice I took the time to reproof the original three, and then at some point added the fourth, which is by far my favorite.  I’ll probably throw a couple of other items in here in the next while.  The fifth set is a a series of flashbacks into Jome’s childhood with his father.  They were originally questions that Jome had ‘answered’ on the website Helium.  I believe all but one have now been flagged and removed.  Ungrateful wretches.

Harry Uses the Microwave

One day Jome sauntered into the kitchen.  He entered just in time to see Harry put what looked like a thin metal object into the microwave, close the door, and use one hairy finger to push start.

“TURN OFF THE MICROWAVE!” screamed Jome, breaking into a mad dash.

Startled and frightened, Harry’s large, knobby fingers struggled to comply.  Within the microwave sparks burst and circled, as if Harry had put a sparkler inside.

As it turned out, Harry had put a sparkler in the microwave.  It wasn’t lit to begin with, but it very quickly became lit.  As the electric current started through the microwave’s bulky components, the metal stick within the sparkler caused a shower of sparks of its own.

After what seemed an eternity, Jome reached the far side of the kitchen.  Stopping the now smoking microwave, he violently snatched the box of sparklers from the counter and shook them in Harry’s face.

“What on Earth were you thinking, Harry?”

Harry lowered his head and fought back big badger-tears.  He knew that he shouldn’t have put metal in the microwave.  Jome had stressed this enough times already.  He had even once gone so far as to buy Harry a little metal toy rabbit, allow him to play with it for six months, learn to love and cherish it (he named it Shinny), only to destroy it in the microwave in a thunderous display that permanently damaged a portion of the box-home’s kitchen.  Harry stole a glance at the blackened cardboard walls.  “Shinny” he whimpered to himself.

Despite Jome’s object lesson, Harry’s memory of Shinny’s demise had been worn down by recently observing Ralf put a number of metal objects in the microwave.  The results of this bad habit has so far escaped Jome’s notice.

“Well?!” demanded Jome.

Harry opened his mouth to begin to try to explain but both were distracted by the loud entrance of Ralf, who immediately brushed by the both of them (“move-it” he muttered) to open the microwave, sweep aside the burnt sparkers and ash, and insert a large belt buckle engraved with a man wrestling a bear.  Unable to find their voices, they watched with horror as Ralf slammed the door shut and punched twenty minutes into the microwave.  The ensuing fireworks display cast his flickering shadow on the far wall as he walked away.

Jome, infused with fury, used his fist to pop open the microwave door, and without looking, withdrew the glowing belt buckle.  Ignoring the smell of burning plastic, he carried it into the living room where Ralf was sitting the couch, watching TV.

Harry, who stood frozen in the kitchen, could only listen to Ralf scream as Jome attempted to reattach the glowing belt buckle.  He smelt smoke.

Ralf’s pants ended up catching on fire, a fire he was too stubborn to put out, and one that Jome refused to do anything about either.  Eventually the pants fire went out on its own, but not before spreading to various chairs in the house.

“Pass the peas please, Harry…” Ralf asked through gritted teeth.  Harry, who was upset that no one would acknowledge that Ralf’s pants were actually still on fire, at the dinner table no less, passed the bowl of peas through the tendrils of smoke, keeping his eyes on the floor.

“Thank you, Harry,” said Ralf in a pained whisper. His pants made a crackling sound as he shifted in his seat and sent up a small flurry of orange sparks towards the ceiling.

“Uncle Jome,” started Harry, looking up pleadingly…

“Yes, Harry?” answer Jome, as he continued eating.

“I think Uncle Ralf’s chair has caught fire…”

Jome spooned a heaping scoop of peas into this mouth and leaned to look around the table.

“Why, so it has Harry,” he said through a mouth full of green mush.  He busily went back to his plate with his spoon and crammed even more peas into his mouth.  He mashed them noisily.  Harry looked back down at the floor and ignored his food.  The next day they all went shopping for pants, a new couch, and a new set of chairs for the kitchen.

Jome Goes Car Shopping

Jome decided one morning that he needed a car.  He was sick of walking everywhere like a sucker.  “Only suckers walk!” he declared a number of times through that morning’s breakfast.  Ralf muttered something about “walkers” but it was unclear if he was making fun of or agreeing with Jome.  Jome decided to let it go.  Regardless of what anyone else thought, he had made up his mind: He was going car shopping.

In the end he decided that he should leave Harry home and take Ralf with him.  Harry tended to be a distraction to Jome when he was trying to make important purchases, while with Ralf there Jome had only a thirty-eight percent change that Ralf would end up stealing something.  While Jome generally frowned on stealing, he appreciated Ralf’s enthusiasm for shopping.

They walked, like suckers, toward the street that had most of the city’s car dealers on it.  They passed a few, watching men in suits (despite hot weather) with hair almost as bad as Jome’s, race each other to be nearest to the fence where Jome and Ralf walked.  It reminded Jome of his short stint as a mailman, where the dogs would bound to the fence to bark and growl.

Jome and Ralf eventually entered Honest Lou’s Carland.  Honest Lou himself met them with a handshake.  Jome watched Ralf unsuccessfully try to lift Honest Lou’s watch from his wrist as he shook his hand.  Ralf fumbled and clutched at Lou’s hand until it became painfully clear what Ralf was trying to do and everyone suffered through an awkward moment.

“Well,” said Lou, bushing the incident aside, “let’s take a walk around the lot, shall we?  Lots to see…”

There indeed was a lot to see.  Honest Lou had nearly four hundred cards on his lot, and Jome and Ralf must have looked at nearly all of them before seeing the dark blue sedan.

“Ooo,” they both said.  Lou’s eyes glistened.

“This here is a classic!” he nearly shouted as he brought down his hand upon the roof with a loud “thwump!”

Ralf began running around to all the tires, kicking them violently until Jome caught his eye and shook his head “no”.  Lou, unfazed, continued by extolling the virtues of the car and his own good character for the next twenty minutes.

It could be said that Jome lost his patience.  It could be said that Ralf was a bad influence.  Or it could be said that they both thought that Honest Lou was a crook and that he was asking way too much for the sedan.  However you look at it, fourteen hours later they let Honest Lou out of the trunk of a very dusty sedan.  He looked quite shaken up.  They left him sitting next to the road with a hundred pesos and began driving back up north towards the American-Mexican boarder.

The newspapers carried the story of Honest Lou’s disappearance for months afterwards.  The city gave the dealership to Honest Lou’s brother, Shifty Tony, who promptly had his named changed to Honest Tony.

In the mean time, Jome, Ralf, and Harry all enjoyed the new sedan immensely.  They took road trips to the country, went on ice cream runs, and took Harry to the vet, something that was always a bit of scene on the public transport system.

And in Mexico City a new car dealership opened up under the name of Honest Pedro’s Autoland.  Honest Pedro did a brisk business there.

Ralf Builds a Time-Machine

One lazy Saturday afternoon, Jome discovered Ralf working behind the box with an odd assortment of gadgets spread about him in the grass.  Ralf was wrapping some copper wire around a light bulb, struggling to get it right, oblivious to Jome’s presence.  Jome coughed quietly and Ralf looked up, startled.

“What?” he asked angrily.

“Well…I was just coming out for a bit of air…what are you working on?” asked Jome.

Ralf looked down at his mess, in little piles in the grass.  He virtually beamed at it.

“It’s a time-machine” he said reverently, his eyes glowing.

Jome took this in stride.

“Do you need any help?” he asked.

“No,” said Ralf, straining to retrieve a tool that was nearly out of reach.

“Well…I’ll be inside…” said Jome, who went back into the box-home.

Free of annoying distractions, Ralf found that things progressed fairly quickly.  The copper wire was quickly secured around the bulb, the old TV accepted the wires that he attempted to attach to it, and the tin foil applied itself wonderfully to everything!

“Soon…” he muttered to himself, twisting here, gluing there.

By four o’clock he had it assembled.  By five he was ready for a test-run.  All he needed was a guinea pig.

Just then Harry walked into the alley and came around the backside of the box-home.  Ralf looked up and locked eyes with the hairy beast.  Fate had brought him just what he needed.

“Harry!” he said sharply.

“Yes,” responded Harry tentatively.

“Go to the pet shop and buy me—no, steal me four guinea pigs!  Do it!”

Harry looked forlornly at his hands.  He turned and walked back out of the alley, whimpering something about “tainted…”

Ralf waited impatiently for Harry’s return, but by six it became clear that Harry was probably unsuccessful in his mission to procure four guinea pigs from the local pet shop.  Ralf momentarily considered alerting Jome that a trip to the police station might be in order.  But he quickly reconsidered, knowing Jome hated the police station with a fury and that, because of Ralf, Jome already had to go there just last week (Ralf had “borrowed” Frank the Spank’s car for the weekend without telling him, then forgot where he parked it).

Ralf eventually decided that he should go to the pet shop himself.  He left immediately.

Thirty minutes later Jome’s phone rang.  He went the hall, picked it up, and listened.  His eyes narrowed.

“Thank you, Officer—I’ll do that…yep…” his eyes narrowed further, “I—I know…he—yes but—“ Jome’s eyes closed as new waves of fury began to wash over him.  “I’ll take care of it…yes…yes………..yes…”

Moments later he was in his new car, circling the box home so as to drive over any time machines that might have been “left out” in the yard.  After a few extra passes for good measure, he headed out of the alley and downtown to the police station.

Three of the four guinea pigs Ralf had had attempted to put in his pants in the pet shop had bit him pretty good.  He got a stern warning and a tetanus shot.

Jome sent him to bed with no dinner, but made sure that Ralf saw into the backyard before he went up.  The time machine was broken beyond repair, and he had never even got to try it.

“Curses!” he whispered, and cried himself to sleep.

Hours later, in the middle of the night, Harry returned to the box-home with four guinea pigs.  He saw what he believed to be Ralf’s time machine in the kitchen, and sent the guinea pigs “into the future.”

The next morning Ralf had to wash out Jome’s brand new toaster oven with bleach to get the smell out.  Jome was pretty angry, understandably.

Jome Loses His Special Coat

Once Jome was walking through the streets of the Big City during an exceptionally bad rain storm, and just as he was starting to worry about catching a cold, he stumbled across a coat lying in the street.  Jome put the coat on, and from that point on it was his special coat.

Jome grew to love that coat.  Once it stopped a bullet, which is pretty good for a nylon coat.  Another time it saved him when his box caught on fire.  Jome told Ralf that it was actually the coat that had dragged him out of the burning box and saved his life.  Ralf, who had very real memories (and burns) from dragging Jome to safety, didn’t believe this.  He clearly remembered the coat waking him up and alerting him to the fact that Jome was in danger, and then HE, not the coat, saved Jome.

Either way, the coat was sort of a hero, and Jome cherished it.  That made having it get stolen all the more frustrating for Jome.

It happened while he was celebrating with Ralf and Harry at the local pizza joint.  Harry had finally learned to tie his own shoes.  They made him start wearing shoes after it became clear that Harry’s toes did not re-grow each spring.   Jome felt it was inappropriate to continue wearing the toe necklaces after that, but Ralf continued to wear his for months after the discovery.

Jome had hung the coat on the back of his chair, and was only gone to the arcade for a few minutes.  When he returned, it was gone.

The newspapers later reported that the Fire Chief himself came out to the old pizza parlor fire and that he had tears in his eyes as he manned a hose.

“Chief didn’t cry when I burned down the old burger joint…” muttered Jome.

“Cop’s Chief did,” said Ralf through a mouthful of stroganoff.

Harry nodded in agreement.  Jome just shoveled more stroganoff into his mouth.  He desperately missed that coat, and cursed himself for leaving it unattended.  It was obviously magic or something…valuable.  Jome got out his lighter and began flicking it on compulsively…

Every once in a while Jome would see his coat on the news:

“…and it appears that the coat saved the whole village from the landslide, alerting tribal chiefs just in time…”

“…and witnesses say that the coat threw the driver from the truck cab just before it tipped over and the gas tank exploded…”

“…FDA chairman credits the coat for alerting him to the dangerous e-coli outbreak in bagged spinach…

Jome punched the off button on the TV remote.  “Stupid coat…” he muttered to himself...