Category Archives: Light

November 9, 2020

The Era of Miracle Cherries

They come in a hundred different varieties now, but I remember when they first came out, bundles of little pink orbs with a stalk coming off them. They clearly weren’t cherries. Everyone knew it at the time, but they had that look of a classical cherry with a stem and so the name stuck. Plus, no one knew what else to call them. No one even knew where they came from.

Adapted from “Cherries” by amandabhslater is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

They appeared online at first, of course. Ads began popping up for the super domain miracles891$$ and soon the sheer amount of ads drove the buzz. What people found was a simple storefront site selling one thing: boxes of ten of these pink balls simply labeled miracles. They were $150 per box.

I kind of wonder now who the first person was to buy them, that first brave or foolish early-adopter who went to a random website and paid $150 for a box of miracles. I can imagine them unboxing it in their living room, rolling the little balls between their fingers, holding one up to their nose to see if the smell betrayed what they really were. I can imagine the first person taking that first, tentative bite, wondering if this really was something miraculous or just a scam. Maybe they were hoping it was drugs. It was much better than drugs.

I cannot say if the first person realized what the miracle cherries were, but someone that first day must have. The word “miracle” leads the mind on a certain path. Peter Jirand was the first one that made the news though. He had Stage 4 esophageal cancer and was in hospice when the small box of miracle cherries arrived at his door. He was cancer-free within two days. He ran the New York marathon six months later. After that, sales of miracle cherries went atmospheric.

Still, it took another five months before people caught on to the fact that they were more than just health supplements, however amazingly effective they were at that. Within five months, the medical industry has cratered. For $15 a dose, miracle cherries could cure literally anything. Almost overnight, diseases were practically eradicated.

Of course, the medical industry fought back. They pointed to the fact that no government could certify that the miracle cherries were safe and did not have long-term side effects, mostly because no one could figure out how they were made. They tried to ban them, but no one knew where they were coming from or even who was benefiting. Billions of dollars poured into the miracles891$$ super domain, but no one credible ever came forward as owning it and the money never reappeared. The boxes were mailed from thousands of different places but when the police broke into one of them, they only found an empty room.

Five months after the first miracle cherries appeared, a video went viral of a man flying over Rio de Janiero. Then it was like a light bulb went on over the collective heads of the human race. Miracles cherries were genuinely miracles, it turned out. They would only affect the person who took them, but that still included a lot.

It was the age of superheroes, and supervillains as well. Now anyone who wanted to could fly, turn invisible, become immortal, even transport instantly to another place. The world economy reeled and staggered, as whole industries rose and feel over the span of days or weeks.

Then the day came when a young woman with short hair and glasses appeared on TV. Every TV. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Rachel and I am the owner of miracles891$$ and the maker of what are known as miracle cherries. There are three levels of miracle cherries. You have all been taking the first and lowest level. The second level will go on sale today for 150 million dollars per box of ten.”

She paused to adjust her glasses as the world let this sink in. “As of today, I have 1.563 trillion dollars,” she said, “although I don’t really need it. I have decided that I would like to rule the world. As I have been speaking, I created a headquarters for myself in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I will meet world leaders there and we can discuss how things will move forward. Thank you.” The young woman identified only as Rachel snapped her fingers and disappeared.

This is an odd story, to be sure. I wrote it a little over a year ago and never posted it then. It’s also an open-ended story, meaning it doesn’t have a sequel. Instead, you can think about what happens next. What would level 2 and 3 miracle cherries look like? I like this kind of story, although I realize not everyone does. Maybe if anyone cares enough, I’ll write a second part to it.

5 Comments | tags: cherries, fiction, future, miracle, open-ended story, sci-fi, science fiction | posted in Light

November 2, 2020

Cash and Carry-oke

By David Stewart

“Grocery Store Design | Interior Decor Design | Aisle Signage | Market Decor Upgrade” by I-5 Design & Manufacture is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Cash and Carry-oke

Assistant Manager Mateo Couch bounced from foot to foot, looking at the bank of security camera feeds in the Cash and Carry’s main office. Corporate management had given him one chance to turn around the store’s profits and make it competitive with the Wull-Murt superstore that had just opened across the road. He had put everything he had into this.

The TV screens were set up all around the store, currently showing the specials for the day and the store hours. The shoppers drifted through the aisles to the soporific Muzak coming from the speakers.

“It’s all yours, Couch,” the Manager said. Her name was Jillian Feeney but everyone just called her the Manager, which she preferred.

Mateo hit the switch and the Muzak died away. The screens around the store went dark.

“Where it began, I can’t begin to knowing.” The sounds of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline came over the speakers. A few shoppers looked up and smiled at the lyrics now scrolling across all the screens.

“Hands, touching hands.”

Then it happened, one lone tenor voice coming from the baked goods aisle, singing along. “Reaching out, touching me, touching you.”

“Sweet Caroline. BAM BAM BAM!” The store exploded into singing. Shoppers all over the store were singing now. In the dairy aisle, a small conga line of shopping carts had formed, heading towards the yogurt case.

It was working, it was actually working. Mateo looked back at the Manager. She permitted him a quarter smile, which was the equivalent of a bear hug from someone else.

Someone in the bakery section was filming the scene on their phone. Perfect. This might go viral. They’d be famous as the cool grocery store. He saw people dancing, throwing groceries into the cart with glee. Yes.

The song ended and there was a cheer from the shoppers. This had worked better than he had even dreamed.

The next song came on. Mateo looked at the name. He didn’t recognize it. It started with a whisper. It was too quiet. He turned it up a bit.

“Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the FLOOR!”

Shoppers screamed. A glass bottle of artisanal olive oil shattered in the International Foods aisle. An old man went down, clutching at his chest.

Mateo dove the power button, and the music died. A few seconds of ringing silence passed before the soothing strains of Muzak came over the speakers.

“Great concept,” the Manager said. “Truly original. But please let me approve the song list from now on.”

For context:

Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline

Drowning Pool – Bodies

Since this story incorporates music into fiction, I thought I’d give a shout out to my friend Miles Rost over at Music and Fiction, a writing blog he has been running for about as long as this blog has been going. Go read some of his stories, if you get a chance.

3 Comments | tags: bodies, Cash and Carry, Drowning Pool, fiction, karaoke, music, Neil Diamond, Sweet Caroline | posted in Light

October 29, 2020

Where You Stare into the Story, the Characters Stare Back

By David Stewart

“Check it out what this old man gave me,” Brad said, showing Mark his backpack. “Any books you put in here are weightless. The drawback is you forget how to read.”

“That sounds like that one Rick & Morty episode,” Mark said.

“So?”

“So, do you want to get sued?”

“That’s fiction!”

“So are we!” Mark looked nervously at the edges of the blog post.

* * *

David sat back in frustration. This cursed story generator worked great, but the characters kept announcing the plot and breaking the fourth wall. Still, it was worth it to get Friday Fictioneers ideas every week.

Read all the other Friday Fictioneers stories based on this picture.

19 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, fourth wall break, Friday Fictioneers, humor, Rick and Morty | posted in Friday Fictioneers, Light

October 26, 2020

The Exchange Bank

By David Stewart

The idea for this story came about seven months ago when I was traveling and wondered what it would be like to travel internationally in a purely barter economy.

Prescott stood in a crowd at the exchange bank, meaning a long section of the river bank where you could exchange things. He had just arrived by boat for vacation. This was his one chance for adventure and to see new things. So far, the exchange bank was providing enough new sights, sounds, and smells for at least a month.

Standing in front of Prescott was a man with the word Teller on a placard around his neck. Prescott wasn’t sure what that meant, although it apparently meant someone whose job it was to tell him things.

The teller was looking skeptically down at the sand dollars Prescott had spread out on the table.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “Who would want them? I mean, what do they do?”

“They’re transportable wealth,” Prescott said, feeling an uncomfortable feeling growing in his head. “You can carry them around. And they’re pretty. Look, I just want to trade them for something that would be valuable where I’m going inland.”

“Onyx is big these days,” the teller said. “They hit a big vein just down the coast six months ago. Of course, that means people don’t want it as much either. I mean, it’s pretty, but you’re better going with something practical, like wheat or cheese.”

“So, what should I do?” It felt like a betrayal of his own abilities to even have to ask, but Prescott could not envision himself carting around a hundred pounds of cheese for the next month.

“You know what you should get into,” the teller said, with a thoughtful squint. “Sheep. They’re walking meat, milk, and wool. Plus, a caravan came through a week ago and snapped up all the sheep and herded them south. There’s a severe shortage now.”

“Then how am I supposed to get them?” Prescott asked, surrendering all pretense of competence in finance.

“There’s one herd left,” the teller said, pointing to a dirty white clump of bodies a stone’s throw down the bank. “They’re old and ornery, so no one wants them. You’ll get them cheap. All you have to do is drive them ten miles inland to the town of Wakk and trade them for miniature stone carvings of the god Bingbong, the patron god of miniature stone carvings. Those things are valuable anywhere.”

This was sounding like an awful lot of work just to get enough wealth to travel for vacation. It would make a good story though.

“Yessir, you could travel a week on a single Bingbong if you’re careful,” the teller said, answering the question Prescott never asked. “You should be able to get 8, maybe 10 for that herd in these times.”

With thoughts of having his trip financed for ten whole weeks, Prescott made his way over to the sheep herd. He had planned to travel until he ran out of funds, but he had not been sure how far the 48 sand dollars he had collected would take him.

“What do you do with them?” one of the shepherds asked when Prescott proposed the trade.

“You carry them somewhere else and trade them for other things,” Prescott said. He lifted up his right foot and scraped it off on a nearby rock. “And they don’t smell or poop.” The shepherds did a straight swap, trading all 48 sand dollars for the 26 sheep. One of them even threw in his staff as well.

“You’ll need it,” the man said before the two of them wrapped up the sand dollars and ran off, whooping with joy.

The sheep weren’t just ornery, Prescott found. They were also old, decrepit, lame, and in one instance, dead. He discovered this when he made an exploratory attempt at herding (by yelling and accidentally hitting himself in the foot with the staff). The flock had moved a desultory few feet, except for one particularly bad-smelling ewe who stayed put. Prescott found that it was being held up by wire.

He had gotten the flock up the bank and almost to the main road that led out west when there was a sudden buzz in the air, as if a celebrity had just entered the room, or at least an especially large wasp. Prescott turned to see four ships entering the harbor.

“Sheep ship!” he heard. “The sheep ships are here.”

Prescott found a teller. “We’ve been waiting for these for weeks,” the man said. He caught sight of Prescott’s decrepit flock. “Ooh, you might want to get those inland as fast as possible. That’s the only way you’ll get anything for them now.”

For the next few days, Prescott struggled to keep his vile flock moving along the inland road as huge flocks of strong and relatively nice-smelling sheep passed him by. He was almost relieved when five of his sheep got lost in the woods and another two fell in the river.

Finally he arrived in Wakk and made his way to the local exchange meadow. There seemed to be more sheep than people there.

“I’ll give you half a Bingbong for them,” one man said, sizing up the flock. He shrugged. “I dropped it on the ground.”

I think I have a title for my travel memoir, Prescott thought as he walked away. How I Turned 48 Sand Dollars into Half a Bingbong. If he ever got home alive, it would make a good story.

9 Comments | tags: barter, exchange bank, fiction, humor, sand dollar, sheep, supply and demand, tourist | posted in Light

October 19, 2020

The Brushubus

By David Stewart

The phone rang just as I was waking up. To be fair, it was noon, so I couldn’t complain. I looked at the screen: an unknown number, but it was coming from Moldova, which intrigued me. My Romanian was pretty rusty, but I figured even if it was a scammer, it was worth answering.

“Bună,” I said into the phone.

“What?” It was a woman’s voice, sounding confused.

“Who’s this?” I asked.

“Georgette. Is this Apollinaire Jobhy?”

“Call me Paul,” I said. I liked to have it both ways, the distinction of having a unique name without the hassle of actually using it. “Are you in Moldova?”

“What? I’m here in Montreal. Are you in—”

“Your phone says you’re in Moldova,” I said, cutting her off. I liked my conversations as short as possible before I had my coffee.

“I found this phone in my apartment when I moved in,” Georgette said. “It still worked so I’ve been using it. I don’t know who’s paying the bills. Look, are you the paranormal accountant? I need help.”

“That’s me,” I said with a yawn. I didn’t tell her that I had never actually used my degree in paranormal accounting. My college advisor had been way off about how useful it would be. “How did you hear about me?”

“I found you on the Internet,” she said.

That was a bad sign. I could only afford to advertise on pop-up ads and I automatically distrusted the intelligence of anyone who would click on a pop-up ad, let alone call the number it gave.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

She hesitated for a minute. “It’s something you have to see.”

Oy, this kind of client: the show and tell kind. She was the kind of person who would refuse to say “my husband’s been murdered” over the phone and would make you drag yourself over to the crime scene in order to point at the mangled body of her late spouse half in the washing machine and then say, “my husband’s been murdered.” To give a hypothetical.

I agreed to come to her apartment at three. She gave me an address in the Mile End neighborhood, which was a good sign that she would at least be able to pay for whatever services I provided.

I got to the house at 2:55 and hung around outside until 3:15 before climbing up the white-trimmed stairs to the second-floor apartment. It’s never good to be on time too often or people start to expect it.

Georgette met me at the door in a terrycloth robe with her hair tied up in a rainbow bandana. She led me into the living room. I didn’t see any deceased spouses half hanging out of anything, so things were looking okay so far.

“Here’s the problem,” she said and untied the bandana. A cascade of auburn hair fell across her shoulders, as lustrous as a shampoo commercial. I stayed silent since I had no idea where this was going. We stared at each other for a second.

“It’s brushed,” she said. “I think it’s even conditioned.”

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” I said quickly. “You did a great job.”

“I didn’t do it!” she shouted. “I went to bed an absolute mess and woke up like this.”

“Good?” I ventured. I took another glance around, just to make sure this wasn’t leading up to a dead husband somehow.

“It’s terrible!” she cried. “I’m an actress, you know. I just moved here to shoot a movie called Legal Animals. I play Kitty, the former Miss Universe-turned-homeless woman with a heart of gold. She’s been living on the streets for years. My hair has to look horrible and shooting starts in three days!”

“I’ve heard of this,” I said, just to stall for time. “Where do you sleep?”

She showed me the bedroom. Clothes were strewn around like the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I reached under the bed and pulled my hand back sharply. My finger was bleeding. Turning on my phone’s flashlight, I looked under the bed.

“Just as I suspected,” I said. I grabbed a hanger lying nearby and fished out a hairball the size of a tennis ball.

“That’s gross,” Georgette said.

“You have no idea,” I said. I pulled out a Ziploc bag and pushed the hairball inside. “This is a demonic hairball. I think I know your problem.”

What was surprising was that I actually did. Paranormal accounting is more about hidden treasure and satisfying the demands of long-dead auditors. We don’t do much with hair that get mysteriously brushed during the night, but paranormal everythings tend to talk. We have conferences and everything and I just happened to attend a breakout session about this very problem at the last conference I’d attended: SpookCon ‘18.

“You’re being haunted by a brushubus,” I said. “It’s a demon that sneaks into your bedroom at night and brushes your hair. Sometimes it even styles it. You can tell they’re around by demonic hairballs under the bed.”

“And by the fact that my hair gets brushed every night by itself,” Georgette added. I nodded sagely.

“So what do we do about it?” she asked. “Shooting starts in three days, and I absolutely have to look like a bum.”

“Can I see your phone?” I asked. I wasn’t sure it would help with the brushubus, but I’d been curious about it ever since she mentioned finding it.

Georgette handed me a beat-up cell phone. The photo album was full of selfies of an elderly bald man in a variety of poses. I instantly recognized Dr. Iulian Turcan, the Moldovan professor of criminal entomological engineering, the incredibly niche field of designing insect-like robots to steal things.

“Here’s the problem,” I said. “It looks like this guy, Dr. Turcan, used to live here. He’s been hiding for years from a group of crime-fighting anteaters. They probably got wind of him and he had to leave quickly, forgetting his phone. He’s bald, so the brushubus must have been starved for anything to brush for that whole time. When you moved in, it took out all that pent-up brushing on you.”

“So what can I do?” Tears were queuing up on her lashes, preparing to kamikaze her cheeks.

“There are two options,” I said. “It is possible to get rid of a brushubus. The first think you have to do is—”

“Make a pentagram of combs!” she cried, clapping her hands.

“Please let me finish,” I said. “You would need someone with even more hair to come stay here. Every day you move their bed a little closer to the door. Soon they’re sleeping in the driveway, and the brushubus will go with them. Over a course of months you move their bed further down the road until it reaches another house and there you go.”

“What’s the second option?”

I told her. She took that option.

Georgette insisted on paying me my hourly rate of $60/hour. Unfortunately since I was so good, that left me with ten dollars for my work. Taking my advice, she made a reservation at a hotel for the three weeks of shooting where her hair would remain as messy as she liked. When it was over, she could return and have free hair care for the rest of her life.

“Just watch out for the demonic hairballs,” I said. “They bite. But they do eat all the dust bunnies, so it’s not all bad.”

Putting my ten-dollar bill carefully in my wallet, I went outside and down the stairs. Another case successfully solved, another client happy. But as I walked to the bus stop, a nagging discontent pricked at my mind.

Was I ever actually going to use my degree in paranormal accounting?

3 Comments | tags: accounting, brushubus, demonic hairball, fiction, funny, humor, Moldova, Montreal, paranormal | posted in Light

October 3, 2020

Eluci-Date

By David Stewart

I keep meaning to write and post the Friday Fictioneers story on Wednesday, but the last few weeks have been crazy busy here. I work in international admissions at Gannon University and we have new students coming in for the October session. Next week should calm down a bit, relatively speaking.

“Describe this picture!”

This was the final round of Eluci-Date, the show where two contestants competed for a date with a lexicographer by creatively describing pictures. It had been called Meta-For-a-Date until it was bought by thesaurus.com.

My mind froze like a naked Floridian in Greenland.

Sunny. Stripey.

My opponent Lewis looked smug.

3…2…1…

“Angelic safecracker!” I bellowed.

Kristina, the lexicographer, gazed at the picture. “Lewis?”

No! She wanted a comparison.

“Smeared titanium white on the palette of creation,” Lewis said, smirking. “With a #6 fan brush.”

Kristina frowned, then grinned at me. “Why would an angel become a safecracker?”

What do you see in the picture? Let me know.

14 Comments | tags: elucidate, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, game show, lexicography, light, safecracker | posted in Friday Fictioneers, Light

June 3, 2020

The Clue of the Pickle

By David Stewart

I froze when I opened the trash. There was a pickle.

I hate pickles.

And I live alone.

Someone was in my house! Eating pickles.

Then a man walked into the kitchen.

He screamed.

I screamed.

Not for ice cream.

I called 911. He did too.

911 came.

They arrested me! They said I was living in this guy’s attic for months.

That doesn’t seem right, but it’s true I’m not in any of the framed pictures.

Which is strange.

They ordered a psych evaluation.

I just have one question.

Who have I been paying rent to all this time?

27 Comments | tags: 911, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, home invasion, humor, pickle, rent checks stuffed into the bird feeder | posted in Friday Fictioneers, Light

June 1, 2020

The Ones Left Behind

By David Stewart

The Ones Left Behind

After an hour, I gave in and texted again.

Did you have supper? It was after breakfast, mid-evening over there.

No reply. My heart beat faster, irrationally. His friend Amber was there too. She’d learned Vietnamese, he’d said.

The phone chimed. I jumped for it.

“Is that Stan?” my husband asked from the kitchen.

“Yeah.”

He came over to read the reply.

Yep!

A picture popped up of a glowing building and a lotus flower fountain.

“It’s gorgeous,” I said. “My lucky little boy. Still, I worry.”

“He’ll be fine. After all, he’s nine now. He’s not a baby anymore.”

This Friday Fictioneers story is very late, but since Rochelle chose my picture this week as the prompt, I wanted to make sure I wrote one. I took this picture in Ho Chi Minh City when I was there on business a few months ago. I wrote a kid’s book about my travels called Stanley and Amber in Southeast Asia, about a kid and his unicorn friend traveling around Southeast Asia (it started out as a Flat Stanley project for my niece; thus, the name). So, I thought I’d write this from the parent’s perspective.

25 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Flat Stanley, Friday Fictioneers, Ho Chi Minh, parents, Southeast Asia, Stanley and Amber, Vietnam | posted in Friday Fictioneers, Light

May 8, 2020

Ringing

By David Stewart

tinnitus

The doctors were perplexed, although not enough to do much about the problem, which was that Tonya’s ears had been ringing for the last month. The low tone monotone squeal made Tonya want to rip her hair out and stick her head under the water. She played loud rock music whenever she could, but then at night, when the noise departed and silence washed back over the house, the ringing resurfaced.

The first doctor suggested a few things she could try—none of which worked—and charged her $150 for the 10 minutes of terrible advice. The second doctor spent 20 minutes with her and prescribed her medicine. But he charged $180, and the medicine didn’t work.

Tonya was watching TV five weeks after the ringing had started and kept turning up the volume to drown out the sound in her ears. Finally, she hit her right temple just once with the heel of her hand, using defective-alarm-clock logic to stop the ringing.

The ringing stopped.

She muted the TV just to make sure. Blessed, blessed silence.

“Hello?” a tentative voice said, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Hello?” Tonya said, looking around her chair for tiny home invaders. She checked her phone to make sure she hadn’t butt dialed anyone.

“I’m glad we could reach you,” the voice asked.

Tonya got up and moved to the kitchen. “Are you still there?”

“Yes. Thank you for answering. We’ve called you several times.”

“You have?” The voice seemed to be following her. It seemed to be in her own head. She thought about the medicine she was taking and wondered if hallucinations were a side effect. Tonya looked under the kitchen table.

“Oh yes!” the woman practically cooed. “We’ve been calling and calling.”

“So . . . what do you want?” Tonya asked.

“I’m glad you asked,” the woman said. “We have this great limited time offer on a new Pan Am credit card, only 45% APR for eligible customers, with 25% on balance transfers and very affordable annual fees. You gotta act now though.”

Tonya hit her left temple. She did it a couple times until the woman’s voice suddenly cut off. Well, that was that.

A minute later, the ringing started again.

It took five minutes before Tonya broke down and hit her right temple. The ringing stopped.

“Hello?” she said.

“Good evening, ma’am,” a man’s voice said.

“Are you from the credit card?” Tonya asked.

“Credit card?” the man said. “Goodness, no. Nothing like that. I was just wondering if you were satisfied with your long-distance service. Deseret Telecom now has a package deal for this month only—”

Tonya hit her left temple so hard she only most knocked herself out.

* * *

“Let me get this straight, you want me to prescribe you medication that will put you on a no-call list?” The doctor’s forehead wrinkled so hard it looked like a geriatric pug. Tonya thought she could see his hand straying towards the speed dial button marked Psychiatric Ward.

“Well, not exactly,” Tonya said, “but essentially, yes.”

The doctor prescribed her medication to help her relax and charged $240 for the service.

* * *

“I don’t think you’re lying,” Tonya’s sister Debbie said that night. “You don’t have the imagination for it.” They were sitting on Tonya’s couch eating Slovenian takeout from their favorite restaurant, Little Ljubjana.

“But you think I’m crazy?”

“Eh.” Debbie shrugged. “Is it still ringing?”

“Nonstop. I’m going bonkers, no joke.”

“So answer it. Answer it now. Let’s see who it is.”

Tonya set down her Styrofoam container of štruklji and tapped her right temple. “Hello?”

“Congratulations, you’ve won the lottery!” a cheery woman’s voice said.

“So, how much did I win?” Tonya asked, picking up the štruklji again.

“Ten million lievers!” the woman crowed.

“Oh, really? Ten million levers?” said Tonya, who couldn’t see how the woman had spelled the word. “So what is that in real money?”

The woman’s confident tone faltered. “I’m sorry?” The conversation had apparently gone off script.

“What’s a lever?” Tonya took a big bite and gave Debbie an apologetic look. Debbie, who could only hear Tonya’s side of the conversation, was looking worried and fascinated and a bit like she had to pee. Worrinated, Tonya decided. I won the lottery, she mouthed.

“It’s . . . money,” the woman said. She appeared to find her place again. “So anyway, we are all ready to send you your winnings. All we need from you first is—” Tonya tapped her left temple and hung up.

“I’m not ruling out insanity,” Debbie said, when Tonya had relayed the call to her. She held up a finger messy with prekmurska gibanica. “But, you may be getting telemarketing calls from another dimension. I’m not saying you are, but it is either that or insanity.”

“Okay, Stephen Hawking, so what do I do about it?” Tonya asked, stabbing a piece of štefani pečenka with her fork.

“Do whatever you want,” Debbie said. “What are they going to do, steal all your money? Good luck getting it from wherever they are.”

Tonya’s ears started to ring again. She tapped the side of her head. “Yep?”

“Good evening,” a young man said, clearly reading off a script. “Do you dream of a vacation away from it all where you can relax and be your true self?”

“Yes,” Tonya said. “Yes, I do.”

“Oh. Good!” the man said. “Um, when you take a vacation, do you like to lie on the beach or go mountain biking?”

“I like to ride a mountain bike on the beach,” Tonya said. “Look, just give me your most expensive package.”

She heard pages rustling. “You mean, the month-long getaway on a private island in Viti Levu?” the man asked in a tone pregnant with commission payment calculations.

“That’s the one. Make it for two. My sister’s coming with me.” Private island, she mouthed.

Everything went well until they got to the credit card. Tonya made up a number and gave it to him.

“I’m sorry, what kind of card it this?” he asked. “We take Adventure, BNY and Bourse. Oh, and Discover, of course.”

“It’s an Adventure card,” Tonya said, winking at her sister.

“But all Adventure card numbers start with a ‘P’, the man said, sounding confused.

“Right. Sorry, I’m skydiving at the moment and couldn’t read the card number well.”

She tapped her temple and hung up. “I got us a month-long trip to a private island.”

“That’s great,” Debbie said. “Good for you.” She held up container. “You want any more jota? I’m stuffed.”

* * *

Over the next week, Tonya answered as many as twenty calls a day. She signed up for everything that was offered, plus promised to co-sign a loan for a prince from Abyssinia, and even agreed to pay the IRS $4500 in back taxes with Barnes and Noble gift cards. It was better than the constant ringing, at least.

The next Sunday, Tonya was on the treadmill when the ringing started up again. Her ears were not ringing all the time these days, so it seemed that answering it was doing something. She tapped her temple.

“Hello, sign me up,” she said.

“By Moroni’s beard,” a voice said. “It’s really you.”

Tonya stepped off the treadmill, still breathing hard. “Who is this?”

“You don’t know me, but everyone knows you,” the man said. “You’re the sign-me-up lady! I thought you were just an urban legend.”

“What do you mean?”

“They say that when you’re working the night shift and the call center only has a few operators, every so often a line will get switched and a woman answers. She has no idea about normal things like money and credit cards, and she can’t name any of the eight original Beatles, but she’ll buy anything. You take all her information and then she disappears, and none of the information works.”

“That’s me,” Tonya said. “My name’s Debbie.”

“Hey, just like the president!” the man said. “My name’s Jimmu. I don’t suppose you’re going to want to sign up for an explosive earwax removal system, do you?”

“I think we both know that I do want to sign up,” Tonya said. “But that’s up to you. Hey Jimmu, I don’t suppose you can put me on any sort of no-call list over there, can you? This is fun and all, but the constant ringing is driving me nuts.” Even as she said it, though, she wasn’t sure if it was true anymore, at least not completely.

“I don’t even know your number,” Jimmu said. “My screen says that this is the number for Adelardo Bess. You don’t know him, do you?”

“Not even a little,” Tonya said. “Have a good night. Who knows, maybe you’ll get me again sometime.”

“I’d like that,” Jimmu said. “Oh, the giant ant alarm is going off again. I’d better go.” And for the first time in Tonya’s life, a telemarketer hung up on her.

10 Comments | tags: Abyssinia, alternate dimension, Deseret, ears ringing, fiction, funny, humor, Pan Am, prekmurska gibanica, Slovenian food, struklji, telemarketer, tinnitus, Viti Levu, štefani pečenka | posted in Light

May 6, 2020

Going the Distance

By David Stewart

The door closes, coffin-like. The interior is stifling. I’ve trained years for this moment, braving broken bones and lost hair.

A muffled thump and I’m airborne. I’m tumbling freely until I can work the controls enough to level out.

Impact. I’m slammed mercilessly into the unforgiving sides.

Light streams in. Assistants help me outside to wild cheers. I survey the scorched field strewn with other fridges. I’ve gone two lengths further than the Chinese fridge.

My gold medal for the Fridge Nuke around my neck, I go explore the rest of the Hyperbolympics. Maybe I’ll check out the shark jumping.

Nuke the fridge - The Top 10 Everything of 2008 - TIME