From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 3
Evening found me eating a ready-made meal with whiskey and water. The television show was one I'd seen before but I couldn't tell you what happened next. Finding a picture was tough and I could only get two channels in that neighborhood; it was the land that time forgot.
Outside the window the usual show was going on, shouting and shooting, sirens and horns; how could people live like that? Why did they stay? Why did I, for that matter?
I decided that I stayed because I couldn't find another place to live in that price range and got up to get myself a second drink. Trying one of my theories: I only had two whiskey and water the other night so that night I poured three. More is better, right?
On the TV, the bad guy was taken down and the commercial came on. I turned the television off, then turned it back on but lowered the sound. I was on my way to get the second drink so I couldn't go to bed yet. I got a fresh glass, just so I could keep score.
With three empty glasses in front of me, I looked up to see that the host's monologue was a repeat; he told that joke before and to just as few laughs. I turned the tube off and fell into bed.
In my dream, Ted took a small envelope out of his shirt pocket and went into the dining room. The envelope was from the lab, blue like those that held samples of Luna-B. He opened the envelope and poured some of the powder into the glasses of iced tea. Ted had tears in his eyes. In his hand he held a piece of paper, white with thin lines and a ragged corner, torn from a pad at the lab. Across the paper he had written, “I love you and the kids.”
I woke up sweating to the sound of banging on the wall next to me. “You wanna shut up in there? People are trying to sleep!” shouted the guy in the next apartment. I held still, gripping the sweat-soaked sheets, hoping he'd shut up.
“It's not like when you live in a house,” I whispered to myself, “where you can scream in peace.”
After a few minutes of quiet, I got up to get a glass of water then returned to bed, looking at the ceiling, trying to think of anything to stay awake. I couldn't think of anything at all other than my dream and my own deplorable situation. I got up and turned on the television. A sexy woman was licking her lips inviting me to call her. She said she was waiting just for me. I laughed, “Not if you could see me,” and turned to the other channel. The late-late-late show was just wrapping up.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Luna Nightmares
From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 2
Horns woke me. I was toppled over onto the couch; my neck and back were stiff. I got up and went into the bathroom, stubbing a toe on the way.
Standing in front of the mirror as the florescent bulb flickered to life, I looked myself over. 'Gees! I look terrible. No wonder Carol left. No, that wasn't it,' I told myself, starting my daily routine, going through the steps as if it mattered. 'It was the fights, the long hours, the second drink, then the third just to tune out the day. Then a fourth to tune out Carol, screaming how I promised her more.' I sighed deeply, picked up a razor and looked at it. 'Not much chance of me cutting myself badly enough to do any good. Might as well just shave.'
An hour later I pulled into the lot at Lunadyne, parking far away from the entrance, hoping no one would see me in a car I ordinarily would have traded two years earlier. The back stairs were rarely used and even more rarely swept; they had become my 'main entrance' so as not to be detected by co-workers I wanted to avoid. Only Ted was in the lab as I opened the door.
“Hi Ted,” I cheerily tossed over to him, already in his white coat and looking over the results of yesterday's tests.
“Hi Phil,” Ted said without looking up. “C might be the one. C seems to be testing like we hoped Luna-A and B would. If these preliminary results keep up we may have something.”
“Glad to hear it. That'll take some heat off.” I said as I busied myself with some items on the desk, trying to get up some excitement for the work. Ted nodded solemnly.
There hadn't been a lot of enthusiasm of late. Word came down that Lunaprex was falling off, people were starting to think of it as the 'old way' to handle depression. “Other brands are touting new cures to new stresses of life,” said the people upstairs in the rarefied air of the board room, “the public wants breakthroughs – Lunaprex is something they already knew about; It's yesterday's news!”
Luna-A, as we called it until Marketing could come up with a catchy name, was the answer. Fewer side effects and a stronger internal formula with a thinner, faster-acting coating made Luna-A a leading contender for the top slot in the anti-depressant race. “A” removed the highs and lows of life leaving a gray middle ground where nothing was very good, but nothing was very bad. It was like whiskey-and-water in a capsule.
There was only one problem with “A”; the subjects died. We couldn't tell what it was that made “A” deadly, because every autopsy result was different, thought the results were the same. After a dose of Luna-A, the subjects would convulse wildly and eventually beat themselves to death. It was ugly and very disturbing to watch. It was a wonder I didn't have nightmares about that.
Luna-B was much better. There were no fits, no convulsions, no beating of oneself to death. It was a breakthrough. “B” was testing well in the lab, then went to the animals where it tested well, then to human tests where one of the subjects simply dropped his head into his mashed potatoes. We went back to the lab.
We found what was causing it this time. One of the masking ingredients interacted badly with common foods, resulting in death. You could take Luna-B safely, you just couldn't eat. It was a disaster. Pressure was on from the board room upstairs to come up with a safe product.
Reformulation of “B”, avoiding the pitfalls of “A” brought us to what we called, naturally enough, “C.” When tests began, first in the lab, then on animals, it seemed to be working. Of course, no one breathed that sigh of relief until human test subjects took it without dying.
“Yes, this may be it,” said Ted calmly, not being one to get excited prematurely. “The first returns seem to be within acceptable levels.”
“You mean no one has died yet?” I asked, standing beside Ted looking over his shoulder at the results.
“Precisely!” said Ted. “Of course, we're still doing in-house lab tests.”
We both scanned the reports in silence.
“You up for a coffee?” I asked, once the report was fully digested.
“Yes, I'm ready for a coffee,” replied Ted, putting the report down and turning his attention to more worldly things.
The coffee bar was a long walk from the lab on purpose. We wouldn't want anything falling into the coffee, now would we?
“How's things?” I ventured.
“Things?” replied Ted.
“Yeah, you know, Alice, the kids, life in general.”
“Great! Couldn't be better. Alice is going to start photography classes now that both the kids are in school. They're doing great, seem to get on well in the school environment. All in all, life is good. The only cloud on the horizon is the Luna-alphabet problem.”
“Well, I'm glad things are good at home.” I was, in fact, glad to hear it. Of course, that meant that my dream was totally a projection of my own problems, but that was expected.
“And how are you, Phil. Adjusting OK?” asked Ted.
“As well as can be expected, but I could sure use a bonus.” Carol was financially draining me dry. She must have gotten advice from every divorced friend and sister she had. Carol had three divorced sisters, all full of spite and advice.
“The failures were costly. Some of those test subjects had relatives who want to be compensated. I doubt there will be a bonus,” Ted said, wincing at his coffee.
“They were homeless volunteers – paid volunteers who signed wavers. Any family they had abandoned them years ago. How can they expect compensation?”
“That's the way the world works. People smell money and the third-cousin twice-removed-that-never-got-invited-to-Thanksgiving-dinner suddenly becomes a terrible loss to the family.”
Ted and I stood there, looking into our coffees and pondering the ways of the world.
Episode 2
Horns woke me. I was toppled over onto the couch; my neck and back were stiff. I got up and went into the bathroom, stubbing a toe on the way.
Standing in front of the mirror as the florescent bulb flickered to life, I looked myself over. 'Gees! I look terrible. No wonder Carol left. No, that wasn't it,' I told myself, starting my daily routine, going through the steps as if it mattered. 'It was the fights, the long hours, the second drink, then the third just to tune out the day. Then a fourth to tune out Carol, screaming how I promised her more.' I sighed deeply, picked up a razor and looked at it. 'Not much chance of me cutting myself badly enough to do any good. Might as well just shave.'
An hour later I pulled into the lot at Lunadyne, parking far away from the entrance, hoping no one would see me in a car I ordinarily would have traded two years earlier. The back stairs were rarely used and even more rarely swept; they had become my 'main entrance' so as not to be detected by co-workers I wanted to avoid. Only Ted was in the lab as I opened the door.
“Hi Ted,” I cheerily tossed over to him, already in his white coat and looking over the results of yesterday's tests.
“Hi Phil,” Ted said without looking up. “C might be the one. C seems to be testing like we hoped Luna-A and B would. If these preliminary results keep up we may have something.”
“Glad to hear it. That'll take some heat off.” I said as I busied myself with some items on the desk, trying to get up some excitement for the work. Ted nodded solemnly.
There hadn't been a lot of enthusiasm of late. Word came down that Lunaprex was falling off, people were starting to think of it as the 'old way' to handle depression. “Other brands are touting new cures to new stresses of life,” said the people upstairs in the rarefied air of the board room, “the public wants breakthroughs – Lunaprex is something they already knew about; It's yesterday's news!”
Luna-A, as we called it until Marketing could come up with a catchy name, was the answer. Fewer side effects and a stronger internal formula with a thinner, faster-acting coating made Luna-A a leading contender for the top slot in the anti-depressant race. “A” removed the highs and lows of life leaving a gray middle ground where nothing was very good, but nothing was very bad. It was like whiskey-and-water in a capsule.
There was only one problem with “A”; the subjects died. We couldn't tell what it was that made “A” deadly, because every autopsy result was different, thought the results were the same. After a dose of Luna-A, the subjects would convulse wildly and eventually beat themselves to death. It was ugly and very disturbing to watch. It was a wonder I didn't have nightmares about that.
Luna-B was much better. There were no fits, no convulsions, no beating of oneself to death. It was a breakthrough. “B” was testing well in the lab, then went to the animals where it tested well, then to human tests where one of the subjects simply dropped his head into his mashed potatoes. We went back to the lab.
We found what was causing it this time. One of the masking ingredients interacted badly with common foods, resulting in death. You could take Luna-B safely, you just couldn't eat. It was a disaster. Pressure was on from the board room upstairs to come up with a safe product.
Reformulation of “B”, avoiding the pitfalls of “A” brought us to what we called, naturally enough, “C.” When tests began, first in the lab, then on animals, it seemed to be working. Of course, no one breathed that sigh of relief until human test subjects took it without dying.
“Yes, this may be it,” said Ted calmly, not being one to get excited prematurely. “The first returns seem to be within acceptable levels.”
“You mean no one has died yet?” I asked, standing beside Ted looking over his shoulder at the results.
“Precisely!” said Ted. “Of course, we're still doing in-house lab tests.”
We both scanned the reports in silence.
“You up for a coffee?” I asked, once the report was fully digested.
“Yes, I'm ready for a coffee,” replied Ted, putting the report down and turning his attention to more worldly things.
The coffee bar was a long walk from the lab on purpose. We wouldn't want anything falling into the coffee, now would we?
“How's things?” I ventured.
“Things?” replied Ted.
“Yeah, you know, Alice, the kids, life in general.”
“Great! Couldn't be better. Alice is going to start photography classes now that both the kids are in school. They're doing great, seem to get on well in the school environment. All in all, life is good. The only cloud on the horizon is the Luna-alphabet problem.”
“Well, I'm glad things are good at home.” I was, in fact, glad to hear it. Of course, that meant that my dream was totally a projection of my own problems, but that was expected.
“And how are you, Phil. Adjusting OK?” asked Ted.
“As well as can be expected, but I could sure use a bonus.” Carol was financially draining me dry. She must have gotten advice from every divorced friend and sister she had. Carol had three divorced sisters, all full of spite and advice.
“The failures were costly. Some of those test subjects had relatives who want to be compensated. I doubt there will be a bonus,” Ted said, wincing at his coffee.
“They were homeless volunteers – paid volunteers who signed wavers. Any family they had abandoned them years ago. How can they expect compensation?”
“That's the way the world works. People smell money and the third-cousin twice-removed-that-never-got-invited-to-Thanksgiving-dinner suddenly becomes a terrible loss to the family.”
Ted and I stood there, looking into our coffees and pondering the ways of the world.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Short Story Collection for Summer
I've decided to release my three Short Story Collections for Summer. I will begin with the stories of the first collection, "Murder at Thompson Bog."
From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Luna Nightmares
Episode 1
It began with a nightmare; it was one I couldn't shake. I could see Ted in his house, the house I had been to several times before, the house I used to live next to back when we carpooled to Lunadyne Corp.
In the nightmare, Ted is sitting in his kitchen looking at a piece of paper. It's white with lines, torn from a pad like the ones at work. A corner is torn crooked, as if ripped too quickly from the pad. The words are large and in block letters. Ted is crying. He picks up his drink and tosses it back, placing the empty glass back on the counter. Ted then walks back into the dining room where his wife, Alice, and two kids, Tyler and Spencer, are at the table with their heads tilted down, eyes open and staring at nothing, arms limp and spilled glasses ignored. Ted is crying and touches Alice's hand. He places the note on the table next to her and reels to the side, falling to the floor.
That was when I woke up, sweating and shaking. The clock said 4:13. The darkness outside confirmed that dawn had not yet broken. There were still voices coming from the 24-hour convenience store at the corner. Somewhere a siren grew louder, then stopped. I could hear a television through the walls. I sat up, turning and groping for a glass of water. It was empty. I sat on the side of the bed, trying to wake up enough to stand and get more water.
The dream haunted me even awake. Ted had killed his wife and his two beautiful kids. Tyler was in little league and king of third base. Spencer was a ballerina, precious even with a tooth missing. I smiled to think of them. Then shuddered to think that he killed them – only in my dream, of course, but still.
The siren picked up again. A car passed and lights danced across the dingy ceiling. I struggled to my feet and took the glass into the kitchen.
'What in the world could it mean, that dream?' I thought to myself. 'Ted loves his family.'
Who wouldn't? Alice was great! I should have done so well! When Carol and I were fighting over the house and other possessions I would sometimes look at Alice and wish I had met her instead.
Carol sold the house and everything in it, moved back to Omaha and that was that. Keeping her in the manner to which she had become accustomed was keeping me in a cheap apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. At least we had no kids to squabble over, but if I had met Alice and we had Tyler and Spencer, I think I would've been a happy man.
'So why would I dream that Ted killed them?' I leaned against the sink, turned the faucet and let the water run – it was still warm. The noise from outside the open window, a mix of sirens, dogs barking, drunks cursing and cars passing, even at four-something in the morning, seemed a fitting sound track for my life. What a mess I had made of it. And now I was having nightmares in which my best friend kills his family and then himself.
'But Ted is happy,' I thought, standing straight again. I held the glass under the spigot, filling it to the top. 'He has a good job – stressful, but still good. He's one of the top chemists at Lunadyne, one of the men who came up with Lunaprex, the leading anti-depressant on the market. He has a great life – there is no reason why he should do such a thing. So that's it.' I end the conversation in my head with the only answer, 'It's not Ted, it's me. I am reflecting my own disheveled life onto him in my dreams and in the process scaring myself silly. Am I going crazy? Is this the first sign of dementia?'
I drank the entire glass of water and held the empty glass under the still running spigot. I let the water run over onto my hand. It felt good. I wondered, was I drinking too much or too little lately. 'I only had a couple of drinks last night: whiskey and water, not large. Maybe I should go to three. Maybe I should go on the wagon. Either way, something has to change.'
The lights of passing cars played across the ceiling and wall as I walked to the couch. When the glass was empty, I put it on the table and stared into space.
From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Luna Nightmares
Episode 1
It began with a nightmare; it was one I couldn't shake. I could see Ted in his house, the house I had been to several times before, the house I used to live next to back when we carpooled to Lunadyne Corp.
In the nightmare, Ted is sitting in his kitchen looking at a piece of paper. It's white with lines, torn from a pad like the ones at work. A corner is torn crooked, as if ripped too quickly from the pad. The words are large and in block letters. Ted is crying. He picks up his drink and tosses it back, placing the empty glass back on the counter. Ted then walks back into the dining room where his wife, Alice, and two kids, Tyler and Spencer, are at the table with their heads tilted down, eyes open and staring at nothing, arms limp and spilled glasses ignored. Ted is crying and touches Alice's hand. He places the note on the table next to her and reels to the side, falling to the floor.
That was when I woke up, sweating and shaking. The clock said 4:13. The darkness outside confirmed that dawn had not yet broken. There were still voices coming from the 24-hour convenience store at the corner. Somewhere a siren grew louder, then stopped. I could hear a television through the walls. I sat up, turning and groping for a glass of water. It was empty. I sat on the side of the bed, trying to wake up enough to stand and get more water.
The dream haunted me even awake. Ted had killed his wife and his two beautiful kids. Tyler was in little league and king of third base. Spencer was a ballerina, precious even with a tooth missing. I smiled to think of them. Then shuddered to think that he killed them – only in my dream, of course, but still.
The siren picked up again. A car passed and lights danced across the dingy ceiling. I struggled to my feet and took the glass into the kitchen.
'What in the world could it mean, that dream?' I thought to myself. 'Ted loves his family.'
Who wouldn't? Alice was great! I should have done so well! When Carol and I were fighting over the house and other possessions I would sometimes look at Alice and wish I had met her instead.
Carol sold the house and everything in it, moved back to Omaha and that was that. Keeping her in the manner to which she had become accustomed was keeping me in a cheap apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. At least we had no kids to squabble over, but if I had met Alice and we had Tyler and Spencer, I think I would've been a happy man.
'So why would I dream that Ted killed them?' I leaned against the sink, turned the faucet and let the water run – it was still warm. The noise from outside the open window, a mix of sirens, dogs barking, drunks cursing and cars passing, even at four-something in the morning, seemed a fitting sound track for my life. What a mess I had made of it. And now I was having nightmares in which my best friend kills his family and then himself.
'But Ted is happy,' I thought, standing straight again. I held the glass under the spigot, filling it to the top. 'He has a good job – stressful, but still good. He's one of the top chemists at Lunadyne, one of the men who came up with Lunaprex, the leading anti-depressant on the market. He has a great life – there is no reason why he should do such a thing. So that's it.' I end the conversation in my head with the only answer, 'It's not Ted, it's me. I am reflecting my own disheveled life onto him in my dreams and in the process scaring myself silly. Am I going crazy? Is this the first sign of dementia?'
I drank the entire glass of water and held the empty glass under the still running spigot. I let the water run over onto my hand. It felt good. I wondered, was I drinking too much or too little lately. 'I only had a couple of drinks last night: whiskey and water, not large. Maybe I should go to three. Maybe I should go on the wagon. Either way, something has to change.'
The lights of passing cars played across the ceiling and wall as I walked to the couch. When the glass was empty, I put it on the table and stared into space.
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