Stuffed to the Gills

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

The snow was a thick blanket that had dulled the sharp edges on the world outside her bedroom window. It was different then she thought it’d be, which surprised her. She expected dazzling white, sparkling in the morning sun, coating the world with fresh possibilities, but instead it was steel grey, a reflection of the dull clouds that perpetually hung low over the endless plains. She sighed and pulled the covers back over her head. It was Saturday morning, her first day off in a week and a half, and she needed to spend at least a few more hours of it asleep.

The phone rang, a presumptuously optimistic tune cutting through the quite of her apartment, just as she was about to fall back to sleep. She really hated the phone. When she first arrived in town she refused to get one. She was afraid he would somehow figure out her new number, and from there it would only be a matter of time before he found her. But eventually she realized it was impossible to live without a phone, to find jobs, to do a lot of things really, so she got one of those cheap phones they sell at the gas station, and registered it under her middle name and her maiden name. This made her feel safer, how could he know to look for the her she had become? But now the phone was ringing, and it was an unknown number. She didn’t answer.

A few more minutes tossing and turning and she gave up. It was no use, she wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep. She rolled out of bed and that’s when she saw the phone flashing with a message. It was her boss, asking if she wanted to pick up an extra shift that day. “Why not” she said to the empty room. The hours of the day stretched out endlessly before her, she had to fill them with something.

The next thing that surprised her about the snow was how disgusting it was. It was a long walk from her apartment above the laundry mat on Main Street to the gas station at the edge of town. “Layers are key” she muttered to herself as she attempted to stuff her feet, and three pairs of socks into her brand new snow. Downstairs she found the street was sloppy with brown slush from salt and car tires. It would not be a magical walk to work in a winter wonderland.

The store had been empty for a half an hour. The police had set up a DUI checkpoint just down the street and all night the store had been packed with far too many sloppy staggering people drenched in the smell of rancid alcohol, desperate for carbs and black coffee. Finally, though, with only ten minutes left until closing and she was alone, standing in the back filling the mop bucket, when she thought she heard the bell above the front door jingle. She emerged from the back room to find him waiting at the register. As he looked up she noticed the expression on his face was exactly that of a person who had just seen a ghost.

“Anne?” he asked, his voice was small, like it was afraid of the sound of her name.

“Fuck,” she whispered, as she reached down to twirl the wedding ring on her finger. It was a nervous tic, she hadn’t worn the ring since the day she left him, six months ago.

 

 

Feeling Some Kind of Way

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

It would have been a surprise, if surprises were still a thing in the end. In the beginning there were still surprises, though, and surprise was exactly what everyone felt. It was a good emotion, the type of emotion one would expect upon realizing aliens were real, and had suddenly appeared en masse all around the world.

There was some debate who made the first discovery. Was it at an orange orchard in Florida? A sheep croft in Scotland? A rice paddy in Vietnam? It was impossible to know. One night the world was the same boring old world filled with the same boring old life forms that had always been, and the next morning the newspaper headlines screamed out the amazing discovery. Funny little egg-shaped creatures, with large iridescent eyes (were they their eyes? No one seemed to be quite sure, not even the scientists) and smoothly scaled skin mottled with indescribable colors that seemed to be derived from the stars, and webbed talons that they used to peddle their way through the air, as if they were swimming. The creatures could fly without wings.

Of course there was worry, and fear, and curiosity, and a whole litany of human emotions beyond the afore mentioned surprise. Peoples reactions to the news ran the gamut, and then back again. There were theories, and arguments, and conspiracies, and at least 17 new religions, and then there were corporations. It didn’t take long for people to figure out how to exploit the aliens. But the aliens didn’t appear to mind, in fact they look as if they enjoyed it.

You see, what the aliens seemed to love more than anything was being around people, and even though the people were scared at first, they soon grew fond of these weird little beings. Something funny happened when the aliens were nearby, people suddenly felt good. Not necessarily physically good, and not necessarily mentally good, but just good good. Poets, and writers, and musicians, and doctors, and scientists, they struggled to describe the feeling, and they failed. The real problem wasn’t describing the feeling, though, it was satiating the demand for it. This was a logistics problem really, the aliens appeared on the farms, and they needed to be distributed to the cities and towns and suburbs and everywhere else that the humans lived. Thankfully the corporations stepped up, and for a nominal fee, everyone was able to obtain their very own alien, and everyone was good.

Then one morning, as suddenly as they had arrived, they were gone. One night, the aliens were there, and the next morning, they weren’t. You would think the void would be immense, how would the humans react with all that good suddenly gone? Would they turn on each other, would they band together to try and find them? As it turned out, they did nothing at all, because they felt nothing at all. The aliens had not been exploited, they had been exploiting. They had been feeding off the human’s emotions, and when the emotions were sucked dry, the aliens moved on to find the next planet blaring feelings into space. But that morning, for the very first time, the sun rose over the earth and not a single person stopped to watch it.

The Neighs Have It

 

Photographer Unknown, 

from the personal collection of Roberta A. Robertson

The recording of the bugle played over the loudspeaker and my eyes flew open. It was morning, I rolled over and looked at my watch. Saturday morning. The summer was almost over, finally!

But first it was breakfast. I was alone again, just me and 40 other girls who had perfected the art of pretending I wasn’t there. And just like every other morning, I watched my eggs get cold while I waited for the morning prayer. This had been confusing at first, my parents were the type of Christians that went to the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service every year, and some years, when they were feeling especially pious, the Easter Sunrise Ceremony too. Still, I got used to the before meal prayers, the Christian songs around the campfire, the bible study, and the Sundays spent in church. I got used to being at summer camp with boys too. Every other camp I had gone to was girls only, but this one, well, it wasn’t as exciting as it seemed, the boys were in a different dorm, sat at a different table for meals, and took part in different camp sports and activities.

Well, the boys and girls were separated for almost all the activities. The only one we co-mingled in was horseback riding. It was the camp’s specialty, and the reason why I had gone here after aging out of my last horseback riding summer camp. Only, the horseback riding might as well have been segregated, because all the boys were automatically placed in the advanced class, and all the girls were automatically placed in the beginning class. So even though I had been taking horseback riding lessons since I was eight, I was stuck walking in slow circles on lazy pony that couldn’t even be bothered to flick the flies off his own haunches with his wispy tail.

Even though my roommate told me to stop being such a big crybaby and chose a different activity if I was so unhappy with horseback riding, I sucked it up, at least I got to be around horses. Now, though, it was almost over. First the camp horse show, and then my parents would take me home. I was warming up my horse in the ring, waiting for the advanced class to finish and the beginning class to begin, when a man in a bolero and cowboy hat ambled over to the gate and motioned for me.

“Young lady, what are you still doing in the warmup ring? Your class is about to start.”

“Oh no, I’m in the beginning class,” I stuttered.

“To hell you are, come with me.”

The look on the riding program leader’s face when I walked into the ring was only bested by the look on his face when I won the blue ribbon because the judges he brought in for the show didn’t get the memo that girls cannot ride better than the boys, actually made the whole crappy summer worthwhile. Okay, not really.

If It Quacks Like A Duck

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

 

There was a commotion in the far corner of our office suite. Whispers, steadily building in excitement, drifted through the rows of cubicles. Little snatches of conversation wafted across my desk, “I can’t believe they did this,” and “we have to do something”, and, “there hasn’t been water in there for months”. Just as I was about to get up and see what was going on the entire data entry team, half of member services, one of the accountants, and the CEOs EA rushed passed me with umbrellas, a mop, a broom, and several trashcans. I got up and followed the business casual mob as they hustled out the front door and made a beeline for the little park area that separated our office building from the one next to it. They were all crowded around what used to be a rather large, pond like fountain, but had been just an empty, fake rock lined hole in the grass since the drought of 2018.

The group was standing there, excitedly pointing at the hole while waving their chosen implements around. Kathy from accounting was lurking around the back of the group, trying to keep her heels from sinking into the wet grass, as I walked up to her and asked her what was going on. That was a mistake, Kathy was great with numbers, but words tended to compound exponentially when she was speaking..

“Oh, Roberta” she said, surprised to see me there, “well, you see, this morning Data Entry had their bi-weekly huddle, only Shari was running late, because of the rain. You see she doesn’t like to drive in the rain, so she gets her husband to drive her in, but her husband… oh wait, I’m getting off track, anyway, so by the time Shari got here everyone was already in the meeting . She went to her desk to drop off her umbrella and rain coat before going into the meeting, then she just happened to look up, and that’s when she saw them.”

“Saw what?” I asked, but Kathy didn’t get a chance to answer, because that is when I saw them, “OHMYGOSHBABYDUCKS!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, they're trapped in the pond, without water they have no way to get back out.” She replied as she shifted her feet to unstick herself from the grass again.

“Okay team, lets do this” the CEO’s EA exclaimed as my co-workers poured into the empty pond and began to heard six small, fuzzy little yellow poofs of quacky cuteness. Armed with our makeshift herding implements, one by one, we scooped up each duck in a trashcan and deposit them on the bank, close to their wary, worried mama. Finally, after about 20 minutes, we finished entertaining everyone who’s offices looked out on the park, and mama duck was hustling her ducklings to a nearby bush, we congratulated each other for a job well done and returned back to our desks. It was by far the best teambuilding exercise I’ve every participated in.

Third Times the Charm

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

He stared out of the bug splattered windshield of his Shelby GT350 at the whitecaps as they formed on the Pacific Ocean just over the edge of the cliff. As much as he wanted to blame his assistant, he knew it was his own damn fault. If he didn’t want to end up stranded on a desolate highway perched on the sheer edge of the continent, then he shouldn’t have been driving a 56-year-old car. He looked down at his cell phone one last time, yup, still no bars, and with a sigh he extracted himself from the car and started walking down the shoulder of the road towards the little cluster of buildings he had passed five miles back.

It started the moment he walked in the door; he could feel all eyes upon him. He knew what they were thinking, he knew, despite his sunglasses and his hat, that they recognized him. He knew it was only a matter of time, and there was nothing he could do about it.

It was quiet in the store, despite the seven or so people that had stopped their shopping to stare at him. He ignored them and turned his attention to the slack jawed clerk standing behind the counter.

“Excuse me, it seems my car has broken down a few miles up the road and I cannot get a signal on my cell, do you have a phone I may borrow?”

He braced himself for the words he was sure he was about to hear, but instead the clerk grunted and pulled a phone out from under the counter. He took the phone from the clerk’s hands and frowned down at the keypad. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, “what was the number?”

The first one he dialed ended in a message “the number you dialed is incorrect, or is no longer in service.” He hung up and tried again. The second number he dialed ended at an answering machine for a woman who’s name he didn’t recognize. “Shit,” He whispered as he punched in the numbers again. This time a familiar voice was on the other end.

“Dave, finally!” he exclaimed.

“Hey,” a voice hollered from the back of the store. He turned and made eye contact with the person who was so rudely interrupting his phone call, before he realized the mistake he had made. The yokel smiled, “sounds like third time’s the charm” he exclaimed, clearly pleased with himself.

“Oh,” came the voice of the clerk behind him, “you’re that guy!”

“What guy?” one of the other customers asked.

“The ‘third times the charm’ guy,” her shopping companion replied.

“Come on’” pipped up the yokel, “say it! Say ‘Third times the charm”!”

“Where are you?” came Dave’s voice through the headset.

“I don’t know, some tiny town in the middle of nowhere on Highway 1.”

“Wow, how about that, even in the middle of nowhere they’ve heard of your tv show.”

“It would seem so,” he sighed.

It's The Cheesiest

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

It was supposed to be a three-hour tour. Bryson had gone with his parents on a sightseeing flight over the Grand Canyon. Sure, the plane was small, but Bryson wasn’t scared, or at least he thought if he pretended like he wasn’t scared, then he wouldn’t be. His parents didn’t seem concerned though, so he climbed aboard and buckled his seatbelt. Once the plane was in the air he started to relax, plus the views below were amazing and helped distract him from the loud whirring noise of the propellers.  He had just spotted the rim of the Grand Canyon looming in the distance when he realized the loud whirring noise had stopped. He looked wildly around the cabin until he made eye contact with his mother, and then the plane dropped out of the sky.

Bryson woke up still strapped in his seat, only the rest of the airplane was gone. Instead he was surrounded by red desert and scrubby hills. He unlatched his seatbelt and stood on shaky legs. He stumbled forward a few steps, then called out for his mom, his dad, anyone, but the only reply was from a hawk soaring overhead.

He had been stumbling through the desert for what felt like hours in the hot afternoon sun when he finally found a cave who's shade beckoned him to rest until nightfall. When he woke up the sky outside had darkened, and an impossible blanket of stars created a canopy overhead. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and decided he had better get moving. He needed to find a town soon, he’d never been so hungry and thirsty in his life. Through the darkness he walked, towards the ever-retreating horizon. He tried to count the stars to distract himself from his growling stomach.

The sky was just starting to turn pink when he found another cave. Or at least he hoped it was another cave and he had not been walking in circles all night. He could already feel the heat of the day begin to smother the land and thought he had better hide out in the shade of the cave again. As he approached the entrance, he swore he heard a tinkling noise, like water trickling over rocks. Could it be? He hurried into the cave just as dawn broke, sending a beam of light into it’s black mouth, and he was astounded by what he saw. A pool of water sparkled crystal clear and cool, and next to it? A cooler filled with Cheetos and Twinkies. He descended on the cooler, and just as he was about to rip into a bag of chips, he heard his name being called.

“BRYSON!”

He woke with a start and was surprised to see the four walls of his bedroom instead of a desert cave. Then his door flew open and his mother burst in.

“Bryson, what are you doing in here, it smells like a Grateful Dead concert!”

Shit, he thought, busted.

Whatever Floats Your Boat

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I couldn’t breathe. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, I could breath, but the air was thick, like I was in a very small room filled with far too many people who were all talking and exhaling their hot breath and had probably just came from the gym, oh, and also really needed to brush their teeth.

The second thing I noticed was I couldn’t see. I was pretty sure my eyes were open, but I blinked a couple of times to to check. That’s when a voice suddenly cut through the darkness.

“Relax,” it said, “your eyes will adjust.”

I tried to sit up, but a gentle brush of a hand across my forehead encouraged me to lie back down. “Where am I?” I whispered.

“You’ll find out soon enough” the voice replied, “but for now go back to sleep, you still need more rest.”

I was about to reply that I felt fine, but the words never came out.

I woke up again with a start. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I was surprised to see the room was now bright, too bright. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands and slowly the room came into focus. I was sitting on top of a table, but there was nothing else in the room except the curved wooden boards of the walls and a small round porthole like window. Whoever had been talking to me earlier was no longer there. Carefully I swung my legs around but just before I jumped down a door I hadn’t noticed swung open and a rather unkempt woman appeared.

“Careful,” she scolded as she reached out and grabbed my shoulder, “make sure you have your balance before you step down.”

“What the hell is this, why am I…” but my sentence was cut short when the room suddenly shuddered and tiled at an odd angle, nearly sending me crashing to the floor. “Wait, are we on a boat? Did you kidnap me and put me on a boat?”

“Well...”

“No, I’ve heard about this, you ship captains, you drug people’s drinks, and then when they pass out you load them on a boat and force them to work for you!”

“It’s not exactly like that”

“What do you mean its not exactly like that?”

“Go, get up, look out the window, just be careful, walking is going to be a bit trickier than you are used to.”

I slid off the table, and leaning against the wall I made my way to the window, but when I looked out, instead of the endless blue horizon I was expecting, I saw blackness, and stars. I turned and looked at the woman, but before I could say anything she spoke.

“While this is a ship, as you can see, we are not at sea.”

“We’re, in space?” I stuttered.

“Yes, now sit, there is much to discuss.”