Short-sighted sites like m-w.com and Wikipedia limit their definition of a muse as any of the nine sister goddesses in Greek mythology who presided over song, poetry, and the arts and sciences. Things have evolved since the day of the Zeus excuse. (Evidence)

Each of the writing designs below is available in an assortment of shirt styles, greeting cards, coffee mugs, and other items. This means you can create a writing gift set with a t-shirt and a matching coffee mug, for example. — Click on the images in the middle or right columns to navigate to complete index for that design. (Each T-Shirt design image link will open a new window to the index for that design.)
Has your muse gone incognito disguised as a man to fool you? Or is he the child of a muse? Or maybe he evolved to that state. Regardless of how he got that way, if you’re abused by a muse who amuses himself by avoiding you, then you’ll love these blue muse abuse designs!	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design
If you’re abused by a muse who amuses herself by avoiding you, then you’ll love these blue muse abuse designs! (Check out the muse’s designer dress!)	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design
Does your muse abuse you — like make you think of things like the color mauve and then skip out on you? If you’re abused by a muse who amuses herself by avoiding you when you need her, then you’ll love these mauve muse abuse designs!	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design
Does your muse like to make you come up with an idea, promptly make you forget it, and then leave? If you’re abused by a muse who amuses herself by avoiding you when you need her, you’ll love this these pink muse abuse designs!	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design
Does it drive you crazy that because of today’s emphasis on non-sexist language your muse keeps posing as a non-gender-specific, gender-neutral influence? Then you’ll love these brown muse abuse designs!	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design

You can find other Blue Rose Bouquet writing gift ideas designs on the Writing Woes Gift Gear page.

You can see other designs by Pamela Rice Hahn at TShirtCollections.com and Chronic-Illness.org.

Muse Abuse Designs is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Fifteen years ago….

I talked to the man one time. I was standing in my back yard, he in his rented yard next door. He was telling me how he painted on the Golden Gate bridge, had fallen, and was now suing that company plus just about everybody he had met and planned on meeting.

Not wanting to be sued myself, I avoided any further meetings.

Later that summer, on a Wednesday in August, his fourth wife and her two kids (that were still at home, how many others she had I never knew) went out boating on a local lake. She reported boat trouble and didn’t return home until late that afternoon. When entering the home, she found her husband locked in their bedroom — dead from an overdose of various drugs.

There was no funeral. The wife had him cremated and gone by Friday. She was reported to have gone to a sister’s house 50 miles away.

That Saturday night, friends and I celebrated another friend’s thirtieth birthday with mass consumption of wine and beer.

Sunday morning around 8:30 there was a pounding on our front door that matched the wine pounding in my head. It was the neighbor lady and she explained that she needed to go into her house but was afraid. Just waking up and hung over to the max, I found it easier to just go with her. (I ain’t afraid of no ghost!)

The phone was ringing when I entered the house. She ran past me like a flash, grabbed the cordless phone, and ran back outside. Her answering machine was on and the speakerphone was announcing that the party on the other end was a return call from the local sheriff department. They asked if everything was all right. She said that because they hadn’t had an officer available, she had gotten the neighbor to check the house for her.

As I stood in the living room she instructed me — go into all the bedrooms and turn the lights on, check the closets, go into the bathroom, turn the lights on, check the shower. Now check the master bedroom. (Nothing but a big stain on the bed there.) Check the kitchen. Open all the cabinets. Look in the oven, the refrigerator. (What ghost would hide in the refrigerator? I wondered.) Check the garage.

By this time, her yelling from outside was slamming through my head and all I wanted to do was get this inspection over and go back to bed.

With every light on in the house, every door opened, and the house free of any ghost, I exited and informed her it was clear.

She then told me what she’d told the sheriff department dispatcher earlier — that her husband and his second wife had 2 boys in their twenties who lived down in Kentucky. “Those boys accused me of murdering their dad. They said they were going to blow me up!”

It took a fraction of a second for that to sink in.

I had been looking for a bomb.

I didn’t say a thing.

I looked at her through my eyebrows, turned, and went home and back to bed.

Copyright © 1999-2007 by Dennis Rice
All rights reserved.

The Things People Ask You to Do is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Several years ago, my husband and I were newly married and fresh out of college (another way of saying dirt-poor and up to our eyeballs in student-loan debt). He had just begun his career as a junior officer in the USAF and we were stationed at our first assignment in Minot, North Dakota. Unable to bear the thought of our first Christmas away from home and family, and unable to afford airfare, we decided to drive home for the holidays.

In a hurry to get home and not wanting to spend money on a hotel, the plan was to drive the 24-hour trip in shifts and take turns sleeping. As luck would have it, the day we were to leave, an incredible snowstorm hit. We headed off in blizzard conditions in his Mazda B2000 (read: tiny) pickup truck with our 80 pound golden retriever in the cab with us. We were afraid the bed of the truck, even with a shell on it, would be too cold for the dog. After all, the wind chill was over 50 degrees below zero.

There was no place else to sleep, however, but the bed of the truck. Although it wasn’t heated, and wasn’t connected to the cab with one of those sliding windows, we were confident we could successfully take turns sleeping back there; staying warm in my husband’s cold-weather issue sleeping bag. It was the kind of heavy-duty, insulated sleeping bag the soldiers used in W.W.II — the type that zips up completely over your head. The optimist in me (read: young and stupid) saw this all as a grand adventure. I climbed into the bed of the truck to take the first sleep shift. I gave my husband a thumbs-up through the window, zipped myself in, and fell asleep.

When I awoke later, not only was it pitch black inside that bag, and had no idea how much time had elapsed, but the condensation from my breath inside the bag, working against the bitter cold air inside the back of the truck (or some other such scientific explanation) had caused the zipper of the sleeping bag to freeze stuck. I had no way of getting out of the bag, and no way of letting my husband know I was stuck in it since he couldn’t see or hear me. The plan had been for me to knock on the window when I was done sleeping — that obviously wasn’t happening. It took quite a while for me to breathe enough warm air on the zipper to get it thawed out and worked down a few inches. Enough for me to stick one arm out of the bag and wave it around like a madwoman for the fifteen minutes. It THEN took my husband to glance in his rear-view mirror and notice my arm flailing about.

The entire time, I was considering the irony of me, frozen inside a sleeping bag in the back of the truck with the luggage falling over on me, desperately needing to use the bathroom, and my DOG enjoying the comfortable warmth of the heated cab. You can bet from then on if we didn’t have enough money for a hotel, we just didn’t travel.

Copyright © 1999-2008 by Kristie Escoe
All rights reserved.

Author’s 1999 Bio:

You can reach Dayton, Ohio author Kristie Escoe by email.

Tortured Travel is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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If there’s one thing that sets apart those who grow up in the country from those who come of age in the urban jungles, it’s the strong family bonds that form as we struggle together to tame the harsh, unforgiving prairie.

And if you believe that one, I’ve got some prime farm land in the Yukon that you can have at a good price.

Despite what you may have seen on the Waltons, we rural folk dealt with the same stresses and strains that any other families did, it’s just that all the writers and TV people live in the city and, like members of parliament, rarely venture out to find out what’s really going on.

Up until my sixteenth birthday, all these stresses and strains were just rumours about what was going on with other families. Things like how only couples seemed to be going to the parties at Mr. and Mrs. Winters’ house. And how everybody ran into the bushes and hid that time when Constable La` France dropped by to return Mr. Winters’ wallet which some good neighbour had found. And I’m not even gonna mention why all the sheep were scared of old Mr. Flannery.

Those things aside, life was pretty serene on our little farm outside Mosquito Flats. That is, until my grandparents got divorced. After thirty-nine years of marriage, Grandma decided to fulfill her dream of living a quiet life on the coast. Grandpa just couldn’t bring himself to leave his beloved fields of dust, grasshoppers, and occasional grain.

Gramps mostly kept to himself after that. When he wasn’t working the fields, he was spending hours fishing out of his little wooden boat on the waters of nearby Lake Sukumunder. He rarely came home with anything other than a nasty sunburn, but it kept him busy.

One night it all changed. I was sitting on the porch digesting my supper, and waiting for my buddy Waldo, who already had his driver’s license, to pick me up for a night of cruising the lively street that was our town. My parents had suggested I spend some time with Gramps, but he seemed to be keeping to his room that night. I figured it would be easy to sneak out, as he would likely sleep until dawn.

“Eddie!”

I looked behind me to see Gramps standing there with his car keys in hand. The scent of Old Spice strong enough that the geese flying overhead began to veer west to avoid it. By the look on his face, I could tell that he was up to something; that he had a definite plan for the evening. In proper historical perspective, I guess you could say that his was the night that Grandpa snapped, but that’s of little importance now. All I could think of, was running.

Just then, Waldo pulled into the yard in his Mom’s old pickup truck. Waldo, who had a particular talent for sizing up a situation at a glance, took a look at the sixty year old “swinging single” standing on the porch with his frightened grandson He slammed his truck into reverse.

While Waldo’s mind may have been adept to making quick judgment calls, it was not much for recall. He neglected to remember how we had thrown out the reverse gear the previous weekend, trying to pull our buddy Larry out of a mud-filled ditch. Not that Larry showed any gratitude or anything.

“Shut that truck off boy!” Gramps bellowed at Waldo. “We’re goin’ out!”

Knowing there was no escape, Waldo reluctantly hopped out of the truck and followed us to Grandpa’s slick new Dodge Newport. On the way, Waldo leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“First chance I get, I’m ditching this scene!” he said supportively. I was relieved that Waldo was there to back me up in my time of need.

“When you do, just try to imaging Jenny Bodacia getting a hold of that picture of you in your elf costume from Halloween a few years ago,” I said, as a way of letting him know I appreciated his support.

“You boys ride up front with me.” Gramps said as he climbed in, “There’s lots of room.”

“Actually sir,” Waldo interjected, “I read somewheres that the safest place for a passenger to be, in a accident, is layin’ down on the floor of the back seat, outta th’ view of…”

‘Crissakes boy, we ain’t gonna be gettin’ in no accidents! Now get in!”

As we pulled out of the lane, Gramps rolled down the electric windows and mashed down the throttle. We barreled off into the prairie twilight; three rebels without a hope. Waldo reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a cigarette and began to light it up.

“What in the blazes is that?” Gramps asked Waldo, with a stern look in his eyes.

“Uh…” Waldo replied.

“I haven’t seen one of those old army surplus lighters in ages!” He grinned, pulling out his own pack and accepted a light from Waldo. “Eddie here doesn’t smoke, but I’m sure he doesn’t mind us lighting up in the car.”

“Of course not Gramps.” I replied, becoming uncomfortably aware of the pack in my jacket pocket that I had been waiting for hours to get at. “The smell doesn’t bother me a bit!” I said, playfully grinding my heel into Waldo’s foot.

As we approached the outskirts of town, Gramps popped in a tape and turned the volume up full. The speaker in the dash was crackling with obvious pain.

“Listen to that sound boys!” Gramps boasted, “They don’t make speakers like that anymore!”

“They haven’t made eight-tracks in years either!” Waldo commented, a split second before I elbowed him in the ribs.

“Had to have it specially installed,” Gramps went on, “at a shop in the city last year.”

“Not to be a bother Gramps, but do you really think Hagwood Hardy was meant to be played so loud?”

“Maybe you’re right, boy,” he mused; then shouted, “Get me that Floyd Kramer tape outta the glove box!” As I complied to Grandpa’s request, I had a flash of brilliance. I knew how to get out of this one!

“Hey Gramps,” I piped up, “do you wanna have a real wild time tonight?”

“Oh, believe you me boy, that’s exactly what I’m counting on. And with three wild, single fellas like us on the prowl, what else could we want?”

“Well,” I said hopefully, “Horsepuck Ridge has three streets, a bingo hall, and it’s only seventy miles away!”

I thought that the very least I could try and do was to use the lure of the big city to steer Gramps away from where we would be seen. Even if none of our friends saw us, old Mrs. Argus (the town gossip) would find out and have the story humming down the party lines to the far corners of the township. Then on Monday morning, it would be all over school that Waldo and I had spent the night out partying it up with my grandfather. Not that I have anything against my grandfather, but let’s face it — when you’re in your teens, it’s just not acceptable to be seen enjoying your family’s company.

“Nonsense!” Gramps retorted. “I been living in this town for over fifty years, and I’m tellin’ ya’, there’s more fun things to do here than you can shake a stick at!” Barring the fact that I had no idea what that saying meant, I knew I was finished. Monday morning I was a goner.

We rumbled into town with the crowd, hanging out in front of Foon Yuk’s Chop Suey House, staring at us in amusement. Unfortunately, Foon Yuk’s was the only restaurant in town and everybody who was too young to get into The Stubblejumper Saloon hung out there. That included everyone we went to school with. It might not have been so bad if Gramps hadn’t dropped the car into neutral, and revved the snot out of his big V8, and yelled “Yahoo!”

“This place looks like it’s got some action!” Gramps smiled as he cranked the wheel and gunned the throttle, sending gravel flying as he turned back up the street and pulled up beside Foon’s. I remember wishing at the time that Gramps had still kept his old .44 in the glove compartment. I was unsure as to whether I would’ve used it to force him to drive away at gunpoint or do the honourable thing and end my suffering right then and there. Waldo, on the other hand, seemed rather amused with the old fellow’s antics.

“I sure like the way you drive, Mr. Putnum!” He grinned, “Think you could teach me a few tricks someday?”

“You’re too young to learn how to drive like I do.” Grandpa cautioned him as he slapped it in park, “Ya ain’t been around enough to have seen the Judge passed out!”

“Judge Draco drinks?” I asked with a note of incredulity in my voice. Gramps was quick to shoot me one of his stern looks.

“Shush up boy! Do you want the whole town to know?”

“Well, what’s the big deal?” I asked, “If the county Judge is a drunk, why should it be kept hidden?” Gramps just rolled his eyes and looked at me over the roof of the car.

“Think, Eddie. If the Judge is a drunk, and nobody knows about it but you, don’t you think that that information could come in just a little bit handy someday?”

“Ya oughta listen to yer grampa Eddie.” Waldo commented as we approached the crowd outside Foon’s door. Gramps was obviously flattered.

“Your friend here’s a bright boy, son.” Gramps said, slapping Waldo on the back. “You could learn a few things from him.” Sure I could, I thought. We took a table at the back of the dining room. In the past ten years I had learned many things from Waldo. Like how to hunt rabbits using only gasoline and a match, how to hotwire a tractor and get into the slowest high speed chase in county history, and how much antacid you can feed to a cow before it explodes. That’s was the role model my grandfather just had advised me to follow.

Foon peered out from the kitchen and yelled to our table. “Awight you two!” He said, to me and Waldo, “If you gonna stay here, you gotta eat! And no more cat jokes in fronta other customer you hear?” Funny thing, about Foon. When you were alone with him, he would laugh himself silly at jokes that referred to the absence of stray cats in the vicinity of his restaurant, but if you brought it up in front of other people, he would start yelling at you in Chinese and disappear into the kitchen. For the next few minutes, he would stare at you through the little round window in the door, pointing at you and making chopping motions with a cleaver. What Foon may have lacked in English skills, he made up for with a wonderful gift for pantomime.

After Foon got over his suspicions of us, Gramps ordered a platter of egg rolls and some cokes. When the cokes arrived, Grandpa used his to wash down some of his medicine. What Gramps needed the medicine for, he never said. I assume it must’ve been a rather rare condition, since the medicine was a special kind that had to be imported from Scotland.

Waldo was getting restless. He had hoped for a more fun-filled evening, and despite how well he was getting on with my grandfather, he was anxious to get going. “So, what are we gonna do after we leave this dump?” He asked.

“I heard that you liddle shit!” Foon yelled from the kitchen. Foon had especially good hearing, which comes in handy when you’re stalking stray cats.

His question was answered when Chuck Wytrash strutted through the front door. Chuck was our town’s self-proclaimed “stud”, and local expert on hooliganism. “Hey look everybody,” he pointed in our direction, “Putnum and Hinkley have an old geezer baby sitting them tonight!”

Seconds before his brain engaged, Waldo opened his mouth. “Hey Chuckie! Will you tell your mom to stop callin’ me every night? I told her I already have a date for next weekend!”

In the commotion that followed, it was difficult to see exactly what was going on, but I think it was safe to say that Chuck was getting the upper hand on Waldo, before being dropped to the floor by an errant egg roll that came from roughly Grandpa’s direction.

“From the way that boy went down, I’d have to say the old Chinaman’s cookin’ them things a little too long.” Gramps commented as he poured a little more medicine into a glass. He handed it to Waldo, who was trying to mold his windpipe back to it’s original shape. “Here, boy. This’ll help you forget th’ pain.”

Gramps strolled up to the window and looked over the dimly lit street. “Who’s Duster is that?” He asked.

“What’s it to ya old man?” Replied Chuck, noting that gramps had finished all the egg rolls, and was now unarmed.

Grandpa ignored the comment and asked, “What ya got in it, boy?”

“Three forty, four barrel with a full race cam, four speed, and a posi rear end.” Chuck beamed. He had carefully invested every cent his father had to spare in the car, and according to him, it was the fastest thing on wheels anywhere in the county.

“That’s a good idea son,” Gramps nodded, still looking out at the car. “keeping with a small engine ’till ya learn how to handle a real car.”

Chuck was fuming. Nobody had ever dared to talk that way about his car. “You saying you got something better, old man?”

Gramps just smiled, then walked over to the counter to pay the bill. “Well son, I’ll be down on Horsecart Road if ya wanna find out. Come on boys. We got places to go!”

Waldo and I followed him outside, with Chuck close behind. I was quietly wondering what had caused my grandfather to lose his mind and challenge the fastest car in the county to a race, especially when all he had to back it up was his four door rolling battleship.

“Gramps,” I pleaded as we got into the car, “you don’t have to do this. We can just go home and forget about it!”

“And wimp out?” He asked, with a trace of disdain in his voice. “That boy needs to be taken down a peg, and it don’t look like anyone else is willin’ to do it!”

Horsecart Road was the only road nearby that was wide enough for two cars to race side by side. As we turned onto it a little over a mile south of town, Chuck, with his gang of fellow malcontents riding shotgun, was right behind us. Gramps eased the car to a stop, letting Chuck pull up alongside him.

“So old man, wadda ya’ willing to go for huh? Pink slips?”

“Sorry boy, I don’t gamble. I just do it for fun!” Gramps stated.

“Whatever.” Chuck replied, “Count of three?”

“I’m ready. Belt up boys!” Gramps seemed unusually calm for a old guy in a big car who was about to be humiliated, along with his grandson. We sat waiting as one of Chuck’s minions counted down.

“Three…two…one…GO.”

As I expected, Chuck quickly jumped ahead of us, spraying gravel and dust all over to the point that we could hardly see the road. Much to my surprise however, Gramps was only four lengths behind as we neared the quarter mile mark at the bottom of the hill. It was then that Gramps demonstrated that the eight track player wasn’t the only special option that he had ordered for the car, and I found out just why that big car was so adept at pulling heavy farm equipment around.

“I think it’s time I put the pedal right to the floor and showed this little punk just what a four forty six pack was made for,” Gramps yelled. When I questioned him later, he explained how my Uncle Ed (who was a Sergeant in the RCMP) had been able to obtain a police pursuit engine for it, back when Gramps had ordered the car.

The engine made a sharp howling sound as Gramps smashed the pedal all the way to the floor, and even though we were already nearing the hundred mile per hour mark, the back tires kicked up a cloud of gravel behind us as we flew past Chuck’s, now pitiful looking, Duster.

“See ya later, punk!” Gramps yelled out the window. We reached the crest of the hill. On the other side, something was waiting which would make the evening even more eventful than it already was.

When Constable Serge La`France was first assigned to the Moose Tail RCMP detachment which patrolled the Mosquito Flats area, he had hoped it would be a quiet place which would make his first assignment after graduating from the academy an uneventful one. In most respects it had — until he looked up and saw four headlights bearing down from the top of the hill at a high rate of speed.

Many people would have panicked in that situation, but you have to remember that Serge was a highly trained professional police officer. He held his cool as Gramps and Chuck each veered halfway into the ditch, letting him slip between the two cars. In further testament to the constable’s great skill, I must note here that he accomplished this while (from what I could see briefly as the headlights illuminated him) he kept his eyes closed and made crossing motions over his chest.

Grampa crossed back onto the road, but Chuck had had enough. He chose to turn off and head down another road towards the east. “I think we better slow down Gramps!” I said, while helping Waldo pry his fingers off the dashboard.

Grandpa looked up at his rear view mirror. “Don’t think that’s a good idea son!” he said. I looked over my shoulder and saw what he meant. The flashing red and blue lights indicated that Constable La`France had regained his composure, and was now looking to extract some justice for our momentary disregard of the Highway Traffic Act. “Don’t sweat it boys!” Grandpa grinned, “I got an idea.”

Great. That was how we got into this mess in the first place.

With the constable still far behind us, Gramps roared around a curve. The road led into the woods near the west shore of Lake Sukumunder. When La`France’s lights were no longer visible, Grampa shut off his lights, then started to pump the emergency brake.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“God’s sake boy, don’t you know anything?” He replied, “This way, there’s no brake lights to give your position away!” When we had slowed down enough, Gramps pulled off into a driveway, and steered in behind an old shed in the back yard. Seconds later, we heard the siren blaring as La`France roared by heading east, oblivious to our hiding place. Grandpa pulled out a cigarette, offered one to Waldo, then got out of the car. “Think we’ll rest here a bit, till things cool down some.”

I’d just got out of the car when the yard light flicked on, then a shadowy figure appeared onto the back porch, holding what appeared to be a shotgun. “Who the hell’s back there?” The voice bellowed.

“Put that blasted old thing away before you hurt someone, ya’ old coot!” Gramps yelled back.

“That you Putnum?” The voice replied. As he flipped on the porch light, it became apparent who’s yard we had driven into. My blood froze as I pictured us all in solitary confinement.

“Come on Draco,” Gramps retorted, calmly taking another drag on his cigarette. “who else would come visit a miserable old son-of-a-bitch like you?”

“I thought it looked like your car tearing in here.” The judge chucked, “You still tormenting the Mounties at your age?” I was stunned by the judge’s good natured attitude towards our little high-speed chase. This is the same judge that had sentenced Waldo’s older brother Bart to two weeks at hard labour, after he interrupted the judge to protest a parking ticket — who was busy in his chambers trying to watch the Stanley Cup finals.

“Just teaching the boys a thing or two.” Gramps said as he walked up to the porch, shaking the judge’s hand. Even at this point, I had no Idea that it was Gramps who had pulled a wounded Sgt. Draco off the beach at Dieppe in 1942, and carried him out to a landing craft to be rescued.

That was one of the many stories we heard that night while sitting on that back porch listening to Judge Draco, and Gramps droning on about old times. Grandpa’s affliction seemed to be less rare than I had first thought, as it seems that the judge also kept a rather large supply of Scottish medicine around.

As the sky began to brighten in the east, Waldo was at the wheel, Gramps was asleep in the back seat, and we were heading home. “Ya’ know what?” Waldo yawned then said, “Your grandpa’s pretty cool!”

“Told ya so.” I answered, trying hard to stay asleep. After we got home, I wanted to sleep till noon the next day, but Gramps had me up at six to help him feed the cows. And just as I had thought, the word got out about our little adventure with Grandpa.

Sure enough, I had to hear all about it at school. I took it like a man at first, but after a while it started to get to me. My patience was beginning to wear thin. I mean really, when your schoolmates have a party and invite your grandfather, isn’t it only fair they invite you too?

I would think so.

Copyright © 1999-2008 Troy More
All rights reserved.

Author’s 1999 bio:

Troy More a.k.a. wyzaz is a Canadian author who  writes humour, science fiction, and alternate histories. He is the author of several plays, a hundred or so newspaper columns, as well as humour and science fiction series in magazines from Toronto to Kuala Lumpur. Along with illustrator Maritza Campos, he also publishes the single panel cartoon “True Romance” — soon to go into syndication. Troy is an op on several IRC channels, including #Authors and #Brisbane (where he’s pictured on their gallery pages); he is channel manager for #science_fiction and Managing Editor for Planet 3 ‘zine. Troy is also the new editor of “Undercurrents” — the Undernet’s newsmagazine.

Grandpa’s Night Out is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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The heat of South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley is not to be trifled with. I moved to the Valley with my third wife (now don’t get me started on that–) and daughter.

I was young, adventurous and somewhat naive about risk. I took a job as loader for a crop dusting operation. I’m sure you’ve seen crop dusters. They are tiny specks in the sky, which grow into noisy yellow Ag-Cat(tm) flying machines, spewing noxious fumes and spray — in dive-bombing mode.

I was the guy who mixed, then loaded the Noxious Fumes and Spray on the Ag-Cat. One day I stood in the hot sun of South Texas, mixing a brew (which I would learn was the same chemical the military called Agent Orange) and trying not to inhale the fumes, when I saw a car pull up just outside the fence. The policy was: no citizens inside the fence. I dropped the paddle with which I’d been mixing the NF&S, and walked to the fence, greeting the man and his wife as I went.

“Hi folks. Can I help you?”

“Is this an air strip?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir. It’s a private airstrip. It belongs to the Redolent Air Agriculture Service.”

“Air Agriculture? You mean crop dusting?”

The man’s wife, a woman in her late forties with a flowery scarf tied tightly around her neck, spoke up. “We saw a crop duster just this morning! They fly very dangerously. Don’t they honey?” she said, looking to Honey for verification.

Honey’s response was preempted, as our yellow Ag-Cat roared overhead. There are some very unique sounds in life: the sound of a Harley Davidson motorcycle; the sound of your child’s laugh; the sound of a 13 cylinder rotary aircraft engine — with the throttle pushed to the fire wall.

Honey, and wife nearly left the ground themselves. Benny, a returned Vietnam Veteran helicopter pilot, added abusive amounts of power in order to stay in the air. Benny loved to do that; he would sneak up on me in a silent glide, then scare the bejeebers out of me by running the engine up to full throttle just barely over my head.

We watched as Benny made a cross-wind turn, lined up on the narrow dirt strip, and kissed the clay with the wheels of the aircraft. The side of the aircraft’s pilot well folded down, and Benny unfolded his six-foot-and-change frame from the cramped cockpit.

Mrs. Honey started talking before he reached our group. “Are you a crop duster? That must be exciting! Do you fly very low?”

Benny grinned; “Well, yes ma’am. I do fly low. It’s the only way to land an airplane.” His grin was charming enough that she didn’t even notice the sarcasm.

Benny could, and often did, charm the ladies.

Mrs. Honey continued, “We saw a crop duster do some very dangerous things. We think he should be reported! Don’t we Honey. You tell them…”

Mr. Honey surged in with, “That’s right. Why, do you know — the fellow flew below the electric wires?”

I could barely contain myself. I’ve seen Benny fly inverted, just above stall-speed along side a road, in order to see if he could look down a woman motorist’s top.

Benny grew very solemn, shaking his head from side to side.

“The fool. The incredible fool. A man like that has no business in our profession.” He turned, and walked away — leaving me to contain myself in front of our guests.

Copyright © 1999-2008 by Robert Marcom
All rights reserved.

Author’s 1999 Bio:

Robert Marcom aka RRascal is a published travel writer and essayist. He resides in Houston Texas. Robert is the moderator for an on-line writers’ community: Net Author. You can reach Robert by email.  RRascal spends lots of his spare time loitering in the #Authors on the Undernet chat channel.

Flying Low is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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This issue’s Critique Corner: See the author’s bio at the end of the story regarding how to contact him to comment on his story.

It is hard to say how long it has been since Muriel has heard the voice of another human being. The last time she thought about it she suspected it had been a few weeks, at least. As Muriel sat on her blue satin pillow next to the window watching the rainfall she wished for another voice aside from her own. Perhaps Harold would telephone and ask how she was, but that was just wishful thinking and nothing more. Her son Harold had not called in more than five years, yet every time the phone would ring she held onto a glimmer of hope it might be him. Three years ago during a rare telephone call with her brother she had found out where he was. Harold had found himself a job managing a fancy new restaurant on a long pier in Florida. She suspected he was doing just fine. Harold had always loved people and he always loved the sun and sea. He would be happy there as there was little for him to smile about in Vancouver.

Muriel tried her best to look through the rain but her eyes are not once they once were years ago. There had been a time when she could have shot a marble of a post from a distance.

As far back as her memory would recall her father had loved guns. He polished and cleaned his favorites daily, stroking them like a lover and purring to them like they were his babies. Muriel sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor in her yellow dress would stare up at him awestruck. Her father never said a word during his gun cleaning rituals, which usually lasted a few hours. Many long hours had been spent with her teaching exactly how to handle and shoot a gun safely. Muriel learned every inch of her gun and was able to strip it down, clean it, and reassemble it before she ever fired her first live round. Now, at age sixty-five, she was lucky to see more than a few feet out into the rain.

All life on her block had seemed to have come to a complete standstill. There were not even any cars on the street as far as she could hear, which was rather well. God had, so far, been kind enough that if he was to start taking her sight from her he would leave her hearing alone. The lack of sound made her feel more alone than ever. At least with the sounds of life carrying on outside of her world was some comfort to her old bones.

Why do you look so sad China Doll?

“You know why I am sad, please don’t make me explain. You know how I hate that,” Muriel said to the voice and rested her forehead against the cool glass.

Why do you do this to yourself? You sit in front of that window day in and day out yet you cannot see anything. Why not listen to one of your records or play a book on tape. You know you like those. Just please dear do not sit there like that all day. It breaks my heart.

Muriel was not listening to him, forgetting all about her earlier wishes for the sound of another voice. Instead, she focused more intently on the rain. Finally the sound of a car, likely one of those boxy mini-vans (her son had told her about them in one of his last visits) that everyone was buying lately. The only car she had ever owned was a Cadillac, the same make and model her father had driven. Her father had loved Cadillacs almost as much as he had guns, so Muriel loved them as well. It was always that way, her father’s likes when she was a little girl quickly became her own and his enemies were always hers too. They were inseparable from the age of four until she turned eighteen and he passed away suddenly. The doctors could not give them a clear reason why he had died. All they could say with any certainty is that he did not suffer when he went. Muriel thought that her father had missed her mother too much to continue on anymore, constantly wishing she were still there. She had read the statistics when couples reach a certain age and one passes away, that the other generally follows soon after. Living alone and thinking of her husband every hour of every day, that scenario never left her mind.

I can see that tear you know, you cannot hide these things from me. The voice from behind her spoke again.

“It is my house I am allowed to cry as much as I want to,” Muriel said, sounding rather indignant. After all she had worked very hard to have a home while others she knew moldered in old folk homes.

This is far from a party, if you happen to be crying about that, but if it is your party. I guess you can cry if you want to.

She thought she could hear soft laughter following his comment.

“Very funny. Now please dear, no more jokes today.”

Muriel sighed and looked away from the window to the voice, at the body of her husband who not have been there but was. “You look well I guess, all things considered.”

All things considered, yes I do” He smiled and she looked into his soft gray eyes with a clarity that was impossible. The rest of the room was its typical blur but her late husband was clear as day and crisp as a photograph. He was a ruggedly handsome man, very stocky with extraordinarily broad shoulders. She had noticed him back in college from a seat thirty rows up at a football game. Her college had been very much a football college as it was all that mattered to most of the students. The stadium on game nights was always filled right to the rafters with screaming, hollering intoxicated fans.

How she had been so blind not to see him until then she never understood and they would joke about this throughout their marriage. Vincent would laugh so hard sometimes that he would double over in his chair saying he had decided to turn on his blinker that day. Whatever it was, blinker or not, she had seen him the moment he stepped out onto the field that day. He was much larger than the other players, who she later found out all affectionately called him ‘the bear’.

She had asked a girl sitting beside her who the large man was near the bench. There was just something about him that even from a distance had deeply intrigued her. At the time it was only budding curiosity. It took another year for it to evolve into something as potent as love. The girl beside her had looked at Muriel like she was from another planet and told her it was the bear! That and where the hell had she been for the past three months of the season?  It was a valid question as after all she had been to every game so far that season.

She had found out that Vincent had been just that, a bear, when she met him a week later behind the school near the faculty parking lot. Only he had no aggression in him off the field and she saw that his eyes were much too small for his large cranium. It truly gave him the look a stuffed, chubby bear. However Muriel had seen the streak in him, the kernel inside that allowed him to explode on the field and tear a hole through anyone in his way.

The man had been stubborn as well — so very damn stubborn as most men are by their very nature, she supposed. It had been a struggle to win his eyes and a long battle to get his heart. If her father had taught her anything, and she felt that even after a lifetime of her own experiences that he had taught her a lot, it was to never give up.  Muriel did not give up and another year rolled by when she finally got her prize.

“Are you putting on weight again?” Muriel asked the portly wavering image of her husband. After graduating from college, he had weighed in at just over three hundred pounds. This was taking into account that for a man of his size and stature, two hundred and twenty-five is average.

Me? Vincent asked and ran a hand through his ash-colored hair, what was left of it anyway. I will eat as much as I please! You know that as much as anyone that no doctor ever did manage to tell me what to do.

“Yes dear. You were thickskulled all the way and it got you far it did,” Muriel said, now standing a few feet from her husband.

Yes, Vincent said, letting his head hang down like a bulldog accepting scorn from its master.

“Oh come over here love, I am sorry,” Muriel said and walked toward her husband until she came into contact with the wall beside the fireplace. She looked back to see that he was still standing there and saw a tear in his eye. They each stood together in silence and looked at each other hands at their sides like department store mannequins. The room around them might have looked like a painting if you were to have stood back against the window and looked at them.

There came a knock at Muriel’s door a few minutes later, which received no immediate answer.

Harold stood outside in the rain wondering how long it would take his mother to answer the door this time. It had been some time since he had visited, much too long, but even back then it took her a year to respond. He continued to knock awhile longer, then tried the door, which was not locked.

Harold stood in the doorway like a deer caught in headlights. He was afraid to move. Never in his entire life had he ever known his mother not to lock the door behind her. It had just become a habit to lock the door when he came home and to triple check that it was locked whenever he left. The fact that at this time of night, at least eight-thirty or so, and in this weather that her door was unlocked meant only one thing.

In his mind he could clearly see her lying in the middle of the living room floor. Her eyes opened wide staring up at her carnival glass sculptures that littered its landscape. Many years had pointlessly gone by without contacting her, even so much as a few minute telephone call never happened. He would have very much liked to have a solid explanation, but he did not. The rain was soaking through his clothes as he stood on the threshold staring into the dimly lit front hall. Soft light streamed from the living room as well as the sound of what was likely a radio.

As Harold took his first cautious step into the house, he immediately felt like turning around and going back home. Whatever it was he was going to find, he felt would be easier to handle if he received it as a phone call rather than in person. His eyes looked to the living room to the door and back again. Harold was about to turn around when he heard voices coming from the living room.

“My dear bear, now look who is crying.”

It was the voice of his mother.

Then came another voice he had not heard in a long time. His father’s. And, while it had its old familiar edges, it sounded very old.

I do not know where to start love. Too many things to say.

“We have all the time in the world,” he heard his mother reply.

My China Doll.

Harold walked into the living room feeling more frightened than he ever had before in his life. Everything up until that point in his later years would seem nothing more than a blur. He saw his mother sitting beside the window with her eyes closed and a smile across her burgundy-colored lips, a small brown teddy bear with tiny blue eyes clutched tightly in her arms. He could see no one else in the room or signs that anyone had ever been there.

“Mother?”

He asked quietly at first, not really hearing himself. “Who were you talking to?”

She gave no reply or even turned her head and opened her eyes. In fact, she seemed to be perfectly still, like an old doll or a mannequin from a department store.

Copyright © 1999-2008 Bryan Dobson
All rights reserved.

Author bio:

Bryan Dobson aka PeeJay is an author from North Vancouver, British Columbia Canada, who says that “once I manage to finish editing my first novel, I may make it somewhere. Any day I can go through less than seven cans of coke to make it through another two pages of text is a good day.” Peejay spends much of his time online in the #Authors on the Undernet chat channel, where he is an op. You can learn more about Bryan at his Web site. Bryan welcomes your comments about his story; send them to him via email.

Muriel is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Mickey swore loudly as he jerked his unpolished, size eleven winklepicker boot at the side of the jukebox, trying for yet another free play.

I sat transfixed by Lorna’s steady, dark gaze and faintly challenging smile, lusting after her more than she could ever have realized. But Lorna belonged to Mickey – it was like that in those days – and if he picked up even the faintest idea of what I was thinking, I was a dead man. I tore my eyes away from hers and stared at the floor.

His kick was as well-aimed as usual and some new bloke called Cliff Richard started singing about his Living Doll for the third time; Tom shot a daggers look at us, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he shoved a cup under the espresso coffee machine and tried to drown the music with the equipment’s hissing and gurgling. Tom was the owner of the Bluebird Cafe and a bit of a hard-nut, but I think he was as frightened of Mickey as the rest of us were.

The Bluebird was near the bus station and was frequented mostly by drivers, conductors and delivery men during the day. But at night, it was ours. We’d strut and swagger, resplendent in our drainpipe trousers, winklepicker shoes and sleekly swept back DA hairstyles with the mandatory curly bit at the front. We’d straddle the chairs back-to-front like they did in the American films, and swig coffee or cola into the early hours.

None strutted and swaggered more threateningly than Mickey. He’d made menace into an art-form before most people had even heard of Brando, and it was common knowledge that he carried a cut-throat razor in his pocket.

‘Davey’s rotten quiet tonight,’ Lorna said suddenly. ‘Arncha, Dave? You all right?’

I’d been covertly staring at her breasts, sharply thrusting inside her angora jumper, and I nodded dumbly, wishing she’d not drawn her boyfriend’s attention to me just at that moment. He stared at me, Brylcreemed quiff quivering slightly above his heavy, pock-marked face, and a silence settled abruptly over everybody. It was a sort of expectant hush that I had dreaded being the subject of often enough.

‘She spoke to yer,’ he said with a kind of quiet sarcasm. ‘Aintcha gonna answer her, Davey?’

‘Er… yeah, ‘course,’ I mumbled. I could feel myself shaking and hoped it didn’t show. ‘Sorry, Lorna, I wasn’t thinking. I’m fine. I’m OK.’

‘I’m fine, I’m OK,’ Mickey mimicked, to sycophantic sniggering from the others. ‘Well, Davey, you make sure you stay that way, eh?’ Then, without any warning, his left foot smashed into the leg of my chair and I went sprawling to the floor.

I felt my neck reddening amongst the hoots of laughter as I scrambled to my feet and it was then, in that very moment, that I determined that I would somehow get even for this insult.

. . .

It was a week or two later that Mickey failed to turn up one night. His seat remained empty all evening and every play on the jukebox had to be paid for. Nobody seemed to know what to do; this was an unheard of situation and even though a few of us knew where he lived nobody was sure whether or not it was a good idea to call at his house.

‘Someone oughta find out what’s up,’ Lorna said, at about half-past nine. ‘Go round, like. What about you, Davey?’

I shook my head. I’d known Mickey since school days and was very much aware that you simply didn’t check up on him if you knew what was good for you. Anyway, I’d met his mother in the high-street earlier that day, and it was no surprise to me that he wasn’t there. But I didn’t tell the others what I knew.
‘I’ll go.’ It was Don who had spoken. He was a newish member of our crowd. ‘Anyone got his address?’

Lorna gave him directions, then fixed me with those dark eyes of hers. ‘Let’s hope nothing’s happened to ‘im, eh?’ she said, to nobody in particular. There was a kind of anticipatory edge to her voice which, for some reason, seemed to hold a promise that sent erotic thrills surging around my loins.

Don was back within the hour. ‘Oh, er, he’s in the nick,’ he said in answer to everybody’s question. I knew that wasn’t the truth, but kept quiet. Don would have his own reasons for such a statement. ‘He’ll be in for about three weeks,’ he added airily. ‘Maybe four.’

‘But why?’ Alec said, mystified. ‘What’s ‘e done?’

Don tapped the side of his nose and looked conspiratorial. ‘Can’t tell yer that,’ he said quietly. ‘You know Mickey. I’ll let ‘im tell yer, when ‘e gets out.’
The rest of that evening will stay in my mind for as long as I live. I flirted ardently with Lorna and she, in turn, flirted back, fluttering her lashes and hooking her elbows around the back of her chair, so that those wonderful breasts achieved even more prominence than usual.

. . .

It was the next night that Dawn arrived. Dawn was almost the opposite of Lorna; where Lorna had a sleek black beehive hair-do, Dawn’s golden blonde tresses hung in loose curls down her back. Her eyes were blue and clear and her lithe figure was flattered by the wide belt she wore around bottom hugging, white trousers. Thrusting bosoms, she had not, but there a promise of a softness and feminine warmth beneath her crisp linen blouse that was quite enthralling.

‘Can I join you lot?’ she asked, plonking herself down on an empty chair. ‘Only, I’m new in town and I don’t know anybody yet.’

Alec, Don, Bert and his girlfriend – I never could remember her name – and Johnny all stared; Lorna simply glared. Then the newcomer shot me a smile that turned my legs to jelly. ‘I’m Dawn,’ she announced.

I instantly wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anybody. My God, how I wanted her. It was exquisite.

But Mickey would be back in three weeks, maybe four, and he’d have her. It was the unwritten rule; he had to have first pick and if he wanted her, everybody else would have to pretend not to. And if she didn’t want him… well, that was most unlikely, because he seemed to have some hidden charm, some special power over females, that to my knowledge had never once let him down. That was how he’d got Lorna. But once he’d seen Dawn, Lorna would be history – unless I could think of something. I began to form a plan in my mind.

A week later, I went into action. It was a Thursday evening and everybody was there. First, I selected an Elvis Presley record on the jukebox; Elvis was persona non grata as far as Mickey was concerned and I got some odd looks from the others. But it was two-and-a-half minutes later that I really began to stake my claim. As the record came to the end, I strolled over to the jukebox to deliver a sideways kick in what I hoped was the right place.
It worked perfectly. Everybody stared in disbelief as the strains of “Blue Suede

Shoes” filled the room again, and even Tom forgot to be angry at this abuse of the machine. It was him, in fact, that started a very slow hand-clap and within seconds all the others joined in. ‘You ain’t arf gonna be in trouble when Mickey gets to ‘ear about this,’ Bert muttered, with a leer. ”e’s gonna paste yer.’

I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly and without a word, grabbed Lorna by the wrist and jerked her onto the clear bit of floor between the tables and the yellow laconite counter. As the others stared in open mouthed disbelief, I began to jive with her. The six easy lessons I’d had at Mimi Legrand’s dance academy the previous week paid off, and her stupefied expression gave way first to amazement, then impressed pleasure, as I spun her from one hand to the other.

‘Mickey’s gonna kill ‘im,’ Alec whispered.

The others nodded in agreement and Dawn looked from one to the other of them with a puzzled expression on her face; she didn’t yet know how it was with Mickey.

Dawn was truly nice. She even took the trouble to see where had Don had got to when he didn’t turn up for a couple of nights and loudly admonished everybody for laughing when she announced that he’d got measles. I noticed that she was grinning faintly herself, though, and was entranced when she caught my eye and the grin suddenly became a radiant smile. My plan simply had to work. It just had to. Dawn had to be mine.

For the next two weeks I lorded it over the rest. I kicked the jukebox every evening and was rewarded by Tom making the expresso machine hiss and gurgle even more loudly than he had for Mickey; I danced with Lorna frequently enough that we moved in a practised unison that was almost sexual in its own way; and I took charge of the evening meetings, setting the pace and the tone of the conversation. I even changed the sitting habits of the entire group, from the reverse straddle, to balancing precariously on the back legs.
Everybody seemed to accept my leadership without much question, even apparently growing tired of speculating how Mickey would kill me on his return. They began, instead, to idly contemplate how I might defend myself or maybe even try to maintain my new position, though the consensus of opinion was that this was unlikely and anyway, it was akin to blasphemy to even think such a thing.

My own stubborn refusal to answer any questions seemed to convince them all, Lorna included, that I possessed some special power like Karate or Judo, or something. But they were wrong. I had nothing but my wits.

All in all, I was having a wonderful time, and actually began to feel quite cocky. But all good things come to an end and one evening, Bert came bursting through the door, his eyes alight with excitement.

‘Mickey’s back!’ he yelled. ‘I was on the top of the bus an’ I saw him in the garage with ‘is bike.’ He grinned triumphantly around at everybody. ‘Gettin’ petrol,’ he added, unnecessarily. I had long been aware that Bert could scarcely wait for this moment and now his enthusiasm began to rub off on the others.

‘You’d better run, Davey!’ Alec advised.

‘You might as well just die now,’ Johnny said, to laughter.

‘Watcha gonna do, Davey?’ Bert leered.

In answer, I strolled to the jukebox and dropped my threepenny bit into the slot. I deliberated for a while, somehow controlling the shaking which had started in my stomach, then jabbed at the button to play “Blue Suede Shoes”. Then, to gasps from everyone present, I grabbed hold of Lorna’s wrist and jerked her onto the floor.

I had timed it to perfection. The door opened just before the record stopped, and Mickey stood there staring, open-mouthed; his gape became an angry snarl when I nonchalantly tapped the side of the jukebox with the side of my foot to start the music again, and I thought he’d burst a blood vessel when I began to twirl Lorna back and forth.

‘Oy!’ he yelled, finding his voice suddenly.

I let go of Lorna’s hand. ‘Stay there!’ I commanded her, and she obediently did so. As I said, that was how it was in those days.

I walked up to Mickey, staring fixedly at him, as the others looked on expectantly. ‘Everyone thinks you’re a tough guy who’s been in the nick,’ I said, quietly enough that only he could hear it above the music. ‘But if you hurt me, I’m going to tell them all that you’ve simply had measles. I saw your mum and she told me. And now Don’s got it – caught it from you, of course, so they’ll all have to believe it.’

It was touch and go. He glowered at me for what felt like half an hour, then his eyes narrowed. ‘Have you told anybody?’ he asked.

‘Not even Lorna,’ I answered steadily. There was a kind of honour in it, now I came to think about it.

He pushed past me, kicked the jukebox in a different place so that the record stopped with a screech, and glowered challengingly at me for a long moment before taking his usual seat and stabbing his forefinger at the chair next to him. Lorna practically fell over in her haste to get there, and everybody watched me, waiting for the next move.

But I had already achieved my objective. I had been seen to encroach on every single bit of Mickey’s territory and yet live to tell the tale. And more importantly, he had been seen to reclaim his property.

‘What on earth did you say to him?’ Bert’s girlfriend asked me in an amazed whisper. I knew that every single one of them was just as astonished as she was and I revelled in their awed silence.

I smiled mysteriously at her, put my forefinger theatrically to my lips, then went and sat down next to Dawn.

Copyright © 1996, 1999-2008 Terence Watts
All rights reserved.

Author Bio:

Terence Watts is a writer and hypnotherapist.  Hypnosense, his web page, contains a wealth of information about hypnosis.

Drainpipes and Winklepickers is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Images by Peter S. Conrad

Copyright (c) 1999-2008 Peter S. Conrad
All rights reserved.
Any use of these images is forbidden
without the expressed written consent of the artist.

You can learn more about Peter S. Conrad  by visiting his Web site.

The Art of Peter S. Conrad is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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I looked up toward the clouds one afternoon, and saw something falling toward me. It was a safe. Splat. End of story.

I was walking down the street and I was hit by a car. Whammo. End of story as I waited for the ambulance that never arrived.

I opened the door to my house one morning, and a member of the Bloods shot bullets through my head with an uzi. Boom. End of story.

One morning I got up and nothing happened, so I killed myself. No sound, it was a hanging. End of story.

Then one day I got up, and nothing happened. I decided it was best not to kill myself again, and then something changed.

I was a bum. I was standing on a street corner, leaning against a lamp post. It was early morning, about six. I stretched and yawned, and leaned over to feel my back. Apparently my latest body was old and worn out. I’d been reincarnated into the body of a homeless, old man.

I saw a wallet on the ground, a new, shiny leather one with a large bulge in its money pouch. Nine-hundred dollars in it. Nine-hundred spanking new bucks. I could buy a cup of coffee with that. Maybe another power crystal, so I could find myself and get out of this mess.

It all began at Woodstock. This fortune teller around afterwards, she told me that I had many lifetimes waiting for me. She didn’t tell me they were all going to be short. So, secure in that prophecy, I lived the good life–scandal, corporate raiding, junk bonds, Columbian snow, and good ole’ soul searching. Well, a couple of years back I wanted to see who the real power was in the universe was, so I could buddy up with it, and in this channeling session I guess I got that Big Brother in the Sky mad at me, ’cause I haven’t been the same since.

Well, I walked into the local cafe, and low and behold, I saw this young kid in a suit, upwardly-mobile I guess, couldn’t be older than thirty-five, sneering at me. And I waltzed up to the counter to ask for a coffee. I was thirsty, you know. Well, the guy said he wouldn’t serve me ’till I pay, so I dropped a c-note, and the kid saw the wallet and said, “Hey, that’s my wallet. Give it back!”

“Prove it,” I replied, gripping the smooth leather with my dirty fingernails.

“Driver’s License is Jonathan Hearly,” he said.

“So it is,” I said, checking the inside. “Funny, that’s my name too.”

He got all hurly-and-burly after that. But he wasn’t used to street fighting, so I clipped him in the jaw before he could even think of grabbing his cellular phone. The waiter brought the coffee and gave me my change. Meanwhile the kid rose to his feet.

“You’ll pay for that, old man,” he said. I remember back in the sixties screaming not to trust anybody over thirty. Then I turned thirty (and twenty-two, and fifty-one, seventy-six, eight, hell, I don’t remember how many ages). I wonder what happened?

I looked him hard in the eye. He was probably just like me a few years ago. I gave him back the wallet saying, “You gotta change, kid. This world ain’t just for you, y’know.”

“Right on,” he said, and hit me in the face with his notebook computer.

Don’t trust nobody over thirty. I flew into the shop window, and a sharp piece of glass sliced my jugular open. As I blacked out, I heard him cry, “Koombaya, Obi-Wan.”

End of story. I never even found out if he got arrested.

Copyright © 1999-2007 Rab Haney
All rights reserved.

Author Bio:

Currently a computer support technician in Detroit, Michigan, Rab Haney published a short story (In Defense of the I.R.S.” in college and in his hometown newspaper. He is currently working on publishing a science fiction novel as well as a few short works.

End of Story is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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