Save the Florida sanity
Old Professor Michelson walked along his neighborhood streets disconsolately. He was one of those retirees who could not quit working. He had a lab out back of his house and a mess inside it A widower, he couldn’t bother to keep the place once his wife died. He’d been a slob before he married. During marriage, he helped his wife keep the place up because he liked being with her, but when she died he could not bring himself to care anymore.
Dig on This
Four guys had been hired to dig this enormous ditch around a guy’s house. The guy would come out every morning and give them the money for the day. Eight hours of work. The ditch would run 200 yards out from his house, all the way around. That’s all they ever saw of him. He came out every morning and gave them each a $100 bill. He’d tell them to work till 5, take a half-hour around noon.
This is funny
The crowd stood about three deep. They were held back by police tape and the cops themselves, some of whom didn’t have any other job but to stand inside the police tape and look at the crowd. There had been a killing done. A strange and brutal one. A woman had choked to death, but plenty of people had seen it. It was murder. A man had come out fo a fruitstand, they said.
Objectifying Objectives
Living in a studio apartment ain’t easy, yo. Especially when you have no business in a studio apartment. Remember that time you came home for Thanksgiving and your parents met you in ultra trendy Adidas jump suits as you drove in. They stood on the porch, paunchy, goofy and wearing more money than you earned on vacation that day? Right. That’s how much Vickee belonged in this studio. Like watching Michael Jackson roll up to his concert in a Ford hatchback, wearing his glitter glove no less.
Hello, Old Friends
He just wanted donuts. Melvin Scattergood worked as a Dental Hygienist. He made really good money. He could never get over what good money Dental Hygienists make. Mr. Scattergood had a past, though, and he had some bad habits from his past, habits that included donuts. His donut shop was large and very white and sterile looking. Sort of like a hospital reception area except without the fake plants or the magazines.
I Knew You Thru and Thru Last Thursday
“I talked to one.” “You didn’t!” “I did.” “No, no you didn’t.” “I did, Liss, I did.” “God. I’m going to vomit,” Melissa said to her friend Collette. Her best friend. The one she had the sick fascination with. Melissa and Collette were ghosties. ‘Ghosties’ are people who can become intangible and walk through solid objects. About 35% of all humans are ghosties. To them, walls just mean you have to hold your breath a minute.
Lakeshore Path
Alicia had been an athlete all through college. She’d been out three years now. She had been a varsity level near-star on her college’s Women’s Water Polo team. Strangely, most thought, she took up running after graduation. She didn’t want anything to do with Water Polo or swimming or anything like it. Alicia was a strong runner. Water polo: it’s all legs. Over the last three weeks, though, she had found her interest in running ebbing.
Making Friends
Rupert had to drive across country in a U-Haul van with his car strapped to the back of it, rolling along behind. He didn’t really have any help in the process. He had about a 20 hour drive ahead of him and he didn’t think he was possibly going to be able to make it. Especially with the crappy little, no CD Player, radio that came in the van. It was about 3 AM somewhere past Memphis and he saw a roadside weigh station and he knew they had really big parking lots in them.
Pedaling Revolution
At the corner of K Street and Connecticut in Washington, D.C., the downtown, there sits a little park, a patch of greenspace, really. It has one of those classic Washington statues of some military man with four little cannons aiming out in four directions on all sides. Some people know of the park as a summer/fall lunch spot. Others know it as one of the places the D.C. bike couriers hang out between calls.
Changing
Walter John came home from work. Work, these days, was not easy. Walter John had a low level management job with a housing cooperative. Good, non-profit boy work, but the work meant doing whatever needed done when it needed done. One of their buildings had gotten burnt out. He’d helped the workment rebuild it and now he was helping repaint it, put in all the new fixtures and furnishings - refrigerators, dishwashers, washer/dryers.