Short Stories

Like most decent Jovians, I wouldn’t mind shooting me a Chinaman every now and then. Only reason a Chinaman comes to Jupiter is to cause trouble. Don’t get me wrong now, I love all kinds of Chinamen: French Chinamen, Kenyan Chinamen, Syrian Chinamen — hell, even regular old Chinamen Chinamen. Just so long as they stay on Earth and keep buying my wares. Far as I can tell, only thing that happens when a Chinaman leaves China — sorry, I mean Earth: but since China’s the only superpower left, it’s all Chinese to me.

The Dumpster King’s home was a foul-smelling alleyway named The Woods. A place where he felt his hobo soul belonged. Perched on his pal Freckles’ shoulders, he applied a fresh dab of green paint to faded trees. The mural was his attempt at recreating the magical woods of the past – woods long paved over and built upon.

Mabel raised the lid on the stewpot and frowned at the contents. The meat was nearly white, and the vegetables were limp and soft. She tipped a few dashes of salt into the concoction and stirred it again. Better it be too salty then have Horace taste the difference, she thought. She poked her hand into her apron, drew out the small brown bottle and held it up to the cabin’s weak light. It had cost her a month’s worth of egg money, but she knew it would be worth it. That was, if it worked. It had to work.

June 14th, 2014. 11:45pm

Abraham,

I hope this finds you well and New Manchester thriving. The Transporter, who was placed in charge of our shipment to you, as well as this correspondence, is called Cunningham – authorization code: 255CHARLIE. He sticks to the mountains and we use him regularly.

This shipment should have left Ash City at 2am, June 15th. The truck should arrive in New Manchester by 8:30am, June 15th.

Jim stood in front of the bathroom mirror. His eyes had dark circles puddled underneath, and his eyelids drooped. The yellow in his eyes where they should be white was giving way to red. Even the growth of beard on his face looked tired on his face.

“Just go lie down,” he told himself.“ Lie down, close your eyes and go to sleep.” The words escaped his mouth and shot back at him from the mirror.

Rachel rushed into the kitchen. She moved to the marble table that lay in the center of the room and she placed an empty silver tray atop the food filled slab. She glanced up at a swinging wooden door that lay a few feet across from her and she heard the sound of laughter and soft music fill the room.

“Lilies?” asked the florist behind the counter. “People normally choose them for funerals, not weddings.”

Davey glanced at Helena knowingly.

“Yes, Lilies please” Helena repeated.

The blonde woman shrugged her shoulders and went about her work, picking the best flowers from the bucket and wrapping them in tissue paper. Helena took the time to look around the shop. There were hundreds of buckets of different coloured flowers. Ribbons and balloons for every occasion sat side by side with flower arrangements ready to be shipped off to the next funeral.

“I wonder what motivates people to do that to each other?” gulped the long-limbed crustacean, who wore a construction hard hat and a cheap suit. He stood in a dark, dusty chamber with the Detective, a pudgy amphibian and an android. Music, shouts and dancing pounded down at them from a distant hole in the ceiling of the sepulcher-like structure that they stood in. Small clods of dirt, loosened by the commotion above, showered down intermittently. The scent of fresh-dug earth and blood mingled.

A womanwoman’s footfoot shouldn’t look like that. . . . She stared unapologetically as it wiggled back and forth, trying to stuff the calloused heel into the red stiletto. The calves weren’t any better. Dimpled with cellulite, veins bulged like twisted roots under the pale skin. To make matters worse there were prickles of thick, long black hairs sticking up straight off of them like antenna. Suyin handed her a size ten wide, trying not to grimace as the desperately overweight and unkempt woman struggled to reach down and pry them off her feet.

The party was located at 402 Harper, and Derrick hadn’t the slightest idea where that was. He’d been driving around for a full hour without much hope anymore of finding the party. All he wanted was to go home; unfortunately, he didn’t know how to get himself out of the maze he’d foolishly entered.