A high school student called to the principal’s office for “acting gay.” Based on a true story.
March 16, 2011
You Can’t Outsource the Plumber
People look down on the trades, but you can’t beat the job security…
February 24, 2011
Tom Cofferwillow Comes Undone: The Podcast
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‘Twas half-past Criventide and getting toward dark on the road to Torkson’s Manor where I kept my crackling hearth. I glanced up from my studies and reached for a nail, but my hand found the scutter empty.
Who’s been smoking in my drawers? I wondered. And with the shops closed for the night? Ah, well. Perhaps a cranny-search on hand and knee would yield a prize or two.
With a skiv-leather flam I marked my place in the queersome treatise I was endeveling to read–and of which I’ll soonly tell you more. I had just begun a-sniffing in the Lestward corner of my sitting room when I heard a commotion through my open window…
Righteous: The Podcast
Stream:
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Here’s how I fell in love with Josie, and why we had to leave Knockytown.
Josie’s watching FreeVee while I try to make something edible out of half a can of sardines and a bunch of dandelion stems. We hadn’t known each other long then. Maybe two weeks or so. Mostly I was hoping to get laid. But that wasn’t happening at all.
So I hear her making these low growling noises like she has a hairball or something, and pretty soon she’s throwing stuff at the screen. I go in to see what she’s so worked up about, and she’s got The Reverend Colonel Smoot’s Jehovah Power Hour on Channel 129. He’s all gyrating and huffing and going on about Sodom and Gomorrah.
“What the hell you watching that tripe for?” I ask…
February 22, 2011
Stream Jockey
Hound knew something was wrong before he turned to latch to Gage’s office. It was the smell he noticed first. The new-plastic smell of a laptop, just out of the box and starting to heat up. Where was that that stale, illicit-cigarette-in-the-dark-alley-tobacco-smell that usually announced Gage’s presence?
“Enter,” said a voice, but when Hound did, no one was there.
“Come in,” the voice said again. “I shall explain.”
“What the hell is this?” Hound said, backing toward the door. “Show yourself.”
“Step around the desk,” the voice said. “Look at the monitor.”
A goddamned AI, that’s what was talking to him. “Where’s Gage?”
“Step around the desk, agent 483, surname Wilkins, indenture contract dated 05/05/24, nickname
‘The Hound.’ Lay your hand on the touch pad and give me a print.”
“Where’s Gage?” Hound asked again.
“He’s not here. Verify your print, then I shall explain.” (more…)
February 18, 2011
Rat Games
“You’re so cute when you’re angry,” Veinc cooed as she slid one tentacle around my waist.
“Cut that out,” I snapped, and tried to push her away.
“Aw, Burnsey-Wurnsey is a sore loser? Come on, pay up.”
I fished out my debit card and slid it into the AutoTrans in the center of our table. I touched the screen and six thousand credits swam from my account to hers. I sighed. Served me right for trying to beat a Zirxan at darts.
Six thousand was soy nuggets compared to what I owed Franco. His thugs had been hounding me almost daily. My eyes scanned the bar involuntarily. That’s when I saw the lady approaching. (more…)
February 17, 2011
Oscar’s Temple
Originally published in Shimmer, Summer 2006
Deputy Mayor Walker Brooks tripped over an alien on his way to take out the garbage. He lost his grip on the bag and dropped it right on top of the visitor.
“Sorry,” Walker said. He wasn’t all that surprised to find an alien living next to his garbage cans; it seemed like every day there was a new species profiled in the papers or making the rounds of the talk-show circuit.
Walker bent over the dark brown gelatinous mound to pick up the bag, but stopped short. Wisps of milky discoloration swirled across the surface of the alien’s body as the bottom of the garbage bag dissolved like melting ice cream and disappeared.
Did this thing eat garbage? Walker hesitated, then lifted another bag from the garbage can and dropped it on the alien. The second bag disappeared too.
“That’s a pretty cool trick,” Walker said.
He checked his watch. Damn. He was going to be late for briefing the mayor this morning. (more…)
