Tag Archives: quirky

December 21, 2012

Feline Relations – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

The Christmas edition of the Friday Fictioneers. Click here to look at some more stories.

You are dreaming.

“…I’m dreaming.”

Cats don’t write Christmas cards.

“…Cats don’t write Christmas cards.”

You will mail these cards tomorrow without question.

“…I’ll mail those cards tomorrow. No questions.”

Go back to bed.

“…I’m going back to bed now.”

And open a can of tuna before you go, would you? The good stuff.

“…Uh …okay.”

(two weeks later)

“Hey honey, I just got some Christmas cards in the mail. Do you know someone called Mr. Lynx? Also, there’s one from a family by the name of Ocelots. Oh no, the cat just grabbed them. Now he’s staring at me…”

24 Comments | tags: cats, Christmas, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, hypnosis, quirky | posted in Light

December 13, 2012

Playing Theo – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Another offering for the Friday Fictioneers. Click here to look at some more stories based on this picture.

Theo sat, transfixed by the world he saw in his mind. The images burned with HD clarity: icy spires towering over pristine valleys where the twelve-tusked geffalo stomped beneath skyscraper-high orchids; the Umon people soaring above their island homes; and the Baruk tribes labouring deep in their frozen caverns. Everywhere there was life.

He could see the whole of his tiny, perfect little world spinning like a pearl in his mind, every neuron bursting with the ecstasy of pure creation. He wanted more though: he wanted it to be real.

He started with the globe. That was the easy part.

31 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, quirky, worldbuilding | posted in Light

December 7, 2012

The Hallway Games – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

This is my first foray into the world of the Friday Fictioneers, and I’m excited. Thank you Amy for inviting me. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Friday Fictioneers, it’s a flash-fiction group that writes 100-word stories every week, based around a photo prompt.

Click here to look at some more stories based on this picture.

by Rich Voza

The tension in the air was palpable. Donald looked down at his brother Brad, sitting on the skateboard and wearing a battered football helmet.

“Are you ready?” Donald asked. Brad nodded.

With a jolt, they were off, Donald propelling Brad in front of him. At Room 301, he let go and Brad took off, the skateboard vibrating wildly under him.

Senior citizens stood in their doorways, waving canes and cheering as he rocketed past. “Go, Brad, go!”

He started to slow. Room 312 . . . 313 . . . 314. Brad stopped and they cheered louder. “A new record!”

56 Comments | tags: Brad and Donald, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, games, hallway, quirky, senior citizens, writing | posted in Light

November 23, 2012

I Should Have Brought a Book

By David Stewart

(The following story is true. Only the details have been changed because the real story wasn’t interesting enough.)

I really should have brought a book. Of course, now that I think about it, you should always have a book with you. Even a small volume about nineteenth-century Indonesian politics, written in Arabic is better than nothing. A book can save your life.

On the day when I realized this life-truth I was at the garage, getting my car looked at. It had been making a strange sound whenever I pushed on the gas pedal really hard, sort of like a bird being thrown against a wall: thump-squawk, thump-squawk. I tend to be a bit of an automotive hypochondriac but still I thought it best to get it checked out. They had magazines and a TV there. I won’t need a book, I thought.

The first hour was okay. I watched some inane political chatter on a news channel and read a fascinating article about the spread of the Andorran zap-beetle in a copy of National Geographic. Finally, they drove my car in and a few minutes later, I was called in for the obligatory here’s-what’s-wrong-and-how-much-you-owe consultation.

“We found the problem,” the mechanic said gravely. He had a compassionate look and a bedside manner that rivaled the best oncologists.

Please God, not the transmission, I pleaded silently. “What is it?” I asked aloud.

“There was a loose wire,” he said, holding his thumb and finger three inches apart. “We’ll have to tighten it up for you. Here, I wrote up an estimate.”

I looked at the paper he proffered and for a moment, my mind fogged over, unable to comprehend that the dizzying columns of numbers were supposed to represent money.

“Can I just tighten it up myself?” I asked, helplessly. I might as well have asked a doctor if I could do my own appendectomy and I got a similar patronizing smile.

“No, it takes a very specialized screwdriver. They’re pretty expensive.”

I looked down the estimate sheet again. $3526.43 for labor, $2450.01 for parts, $7209 total. Something didn’t seem right. “Why are there parts listed here?”

The mechanic glanced over at the sheet. “Oh, we didn’t have the special screwdriver either. I have a guy running out to buy it now.”

“Well, can I keep it when you’re done?”

He looked affronted. “No.”

“Oh. Well, alright then.” I tried to look business-like as I scanned the paper again and then signed my name at the bottom. “So when will it be ready?”

“About an hour, maybe three.”

“That sounds great. Thank you so much,” I said, wondering vaguely why I was being so obsequious.

I decided to go for a walk. It was a beautiful day and suddenly it seemed like the only logical thing to do. The sun was shining brightly and the clouds were drifting lazily across the sky like anesthetized marshmallows. I crossed the road and followed a dirt road that wound back into the forest. After a couple hundred feet, the trees ended in a sea of high, yellowing grass. As I moved into it, I began to see the rusted, derelict shapes of abandoned machinery rising through the stems of brown vegetation. It was like stumbling into the hidden graveyard of elephantine John Deere creations.

The grass was over eight feet tall and I couldn’t see anything around me, so I decided to climb up on a rusty oil tank to get my bearings. I was just admiring the view when I heard a screeching, rending sound and the tank I was standing on collapsed. Before I could even think about catching myself, I had hit the bottom with a resounding clang and a sharp pain in both my feet.

The tank was completely dark except for the ragged hole I had punched in the top of it. I was just trying to think what to do when I heard a most terrifying voice coming from the darkness. It was raspy and a little squeaky, but what made it mind-bogglingly frightening was the fact that it wasn’t mine.

“Who are you?” the voice said and I almost jumped clear out of the hole again.

“Mother of mercy!” I shrieked, most embarrassingly. “You scared the daylights out of me! Okay, okay.” I put my hand on my chest and tried to calm my breathing. The voice had been quite close to me. “Don’t do that again. You don’t know how much of a fright you just gave me!”

There was a measured pause, like someone waiting patiently. “Are you done?” the voice said finally.

“Yeah, I’m done,” I said. “Just give a person some warning before you sneak up on them.”

“What do you want, me to bang a drum or something?” the voice replied sarcastically. “Say something like, ‘Excuse me, I’m about to speak? Commencing speaking in T minus 5, 4, 3—’”

“Who are you?” I interrupted.

“You can call me Pick,” the voice, evidently named Pick, replied. “Even though it’s dark in here for you, I can still see you fine. Pick sees you quite well. I happen to live here, you know. You might not care, but you just landed on my house. I was just coming home from work. Ten seconds later and I’d be jelly right now. Luckily I was fumbling for my keys.”

There was an expectant silence. “I’m glad I didn’t kill you,” I said at last, though I was having trouble mustering enthusiasm. “I actually didn’t mean to come down here at all, so I guess I’ll just be going now.”

“Ha! That’s what you think,” Pick said. “Actually I was also just bringing three thousand of my friends over for a party. They’re here as well.”

“Three thousand,” I said slowly, desperately trying to make my brain catch up and accept my current reality.

“Oh we’re here alright,” another voice off to my right said. “We just didn’t have anything to say before.” A swelling murmur rose and fell around me in the distressingly accurate way three thousand voices might sound.

There was another pause. “So . . .” I said after a moment, not sure why I felt compelled to keep the conversation going.

“So we’re going to kill you,” Pick snapped. “We’re all armed and now we’re very mad. See?” I felt a stabbing pain in my forearm, as if I’d been struck with a Lilliputian branding iron.

“Ouch!” I cried. “Quit it! That really hurts, you know.”

“Now you will die,” Pick said quietly. “Any last words?”

“I should have brought a book,” I mumbled bitterly.

To my extreme astonishment, a howl of fear and anger erupted in the darkness all around me. I looked around me, realized it was futile and then looked back to where Pick’s voice had come from. I held out my hands in a what-did-I-say gesture.

“You have uttered the accursed words,” Pick said and he sounded scared. “You have said the words from hell!”

“No I didn’t!” I protested. “All I said was—”

“Don’t say it! Don’t say it!” Pick screamed and the other voices all murmured in agreement. “How can you not know about the evilest, most diabolical words in the whole world?”

I thought for a moment. “I don’t know what to tell you. I just haven’t come across them before.”

“Really?” Pick’s whole demeanor changed instantly. “Oh, well in that case, let’s all sit down and I’ll tell you about it before we kill you. Come on, sit down. You’ve already demolished the house; crushing the wreckage to powder won’t make a lot of difference now.”

I sat down gingerly and heard a shuffling sound that I could only imagine came from three thousand tiny little people sitting cross-legged on the bottom of the oil drum around me.

“Long, long ago, there was a man named . . . well, actually I don’t remember his name, so let’s call him Jimmy,” Pick said from the darkness beside me. “So Jimmy is a plumber, right, but he doesn’t make a lot of money. One day he’s working and the devil comes to visit him. He offers Jimmy all the riches and power in the world, for free. Jimmy accepts the offer gladly.

“‘All you have to do is come to my office tonight and at midnight I’ll give you everything you could ever want.’ He gave Jimmy directions to his office and then left.

“Late that night, Jimmy followed the devil’s directions and went to a cave deep in the forest. He found the secret door and descended the seemingly endless staircase until he came to a small room. It was square with a few chairs and another door at one end. On it was a note that said, ‘Wait until midnight.’”

There was a clock on the wall that said 11:59, so Jimmy knew he was just in time. He sat and waited for a while but no one appeared. The clock still said 11:59. He started to look around the room to keep himself occupied. There was a coffee pot, but it was empty. A vending machine had cold drinks, but it only took drachmas. A TV on the far wall showed static and there was no remote. Jimmy picked up the only magazine there and found that it was all about mammograms and menopause.

“After a while more, he looked at the clock and saw it was still 11:59. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the hands were welded in place. He turned to leave but saw that the door had been slowly closing and was almost shut. The last words that were heard before the door slammed forever, the words that haunt our dreams, the words from hell: ‘ashudda bradda buk.’”

Pick fell silent. Suddenly I realized something. “Hey, you just said it yourself. I thought it was really bad.”

“I was just telling a story,” Pick said, a distinct note of defensiveness coming into his voice. “It’s not bad if you’re just repeating it. Anyway, now that you know the grievous evil you’ve committed, we’ll kill you for squashing my house. Come on, on your feet.”

“I should have brought a book,” I said, in a flat, experimental sort of way. Sure enough, there was a wave of screams and moans from all around. “I should have brought a book,” I said a little louder. I said it again and again until the whole oil drum was echoing with a cacophony of fear and outrage. Then with a sudden lurch, I leapt up and clawed my way out of the hole. It was a tricky maneuver, considering all the jagged, rusty sheet metal that was pointing down at me around the hole, but I dodged it all and escaped.

As soon as I was clear of the oil tank, I leapt off into space, hitting the ground running. From behind me, I could hear the buzz of small, angry things as Pick and three thousand of his closest friends followed me in hot pursuit. I weaved and dodged through the grass. They were getting closer.

I broke out the grass and sprinted down the dirt track, playing suicidal dodge-car as I crossed the road to the garage.

“Is the car ready yet?” I asked the man behind the counter, as I arrived sweating and panting.

“Oh, the Sonata? No, we haven’t touched it yet so it’ll still be a while. Hey, why don’t you take a walk? It’s a beautiful day out there.”

I really, really should have brought a book.

14 Comments | tags: book, car, fantasy, fiction, funny, garage, pixies, quirky, repairs | posted in Light

November 21, 2012

Volcano Jumpers

By David Stewart

There are few ways of dying that are worse than falling into a river of lava. Molten rock is one of the hottest substances on the surface of the earth, instantly incinerating anything that touches it. Still, there are a select few for whom the extreme danger is a game. They are known as volcano jumpers: few in number, reckless in spirit, ineligible for life insurance.

Brad concentrated on the rock ahead of him. Even wearing a heat suit, the extreme temperatures were making him lightheaded. Just feet below him, a slow river of lava bubbled and swirled lazily.

“Come on, you can make it,” his brother Donald called. They were alone in a low cave that just days before had been filled with a furious torrent of lava. Now it had subsided slightly, just enough for them to make their way along the edge.

Brad reached out with his rock hammer and then swung his leg over the crevice. Another small jump and he was across.

“Now comes the big jump,” Donald said. Brad looked ahead to where Donald was pointing. Two rocks came together over the main flow of lava, but they were still five feet apart, with nothing to grab onto.

“Do we have to?” he asked.

Donald nodded. “We have to. We can’t go back from here and it’s the only way back to the surface.” He took the lead, edging out until he was on the very edge of the rock. Then he made a flying leap to the other side. His foot slipped, but he caught himself, just before it could touch the lava flow. “It’s okay,” he said. “It didn’t touch. My suit protected me. Come on, you can do it.”

Brad edged out onto the rock. Sulfurous fumes swirled up, making it hard to see. He thought of his parents, his girlfriend Jenny, his dog Freddy. If he missed this jump, he would never see any of them again. Instead, he would be burned alive in a river of fire. He jumped with all his might. He missed completely.

THUMP!

“You’re dead,” Donald said from where he stood on the armchair.

Brad picked himself off the living floor. “Move the chair closer next time,” he said.

“Okay, now it’s a shark-infested lagoon,” Donald said.

The sawed-off broom handle in Brad’s hand ceased to be a rock hammer and became a spear gun instead. The patch of living room carpet in front of him became a patch of ominous, blue water.

Sharks, Brad thought. I can handle sharks.

14 Comments | tags: Brad and Donald, fiction, game, imagination, lava, mid-week flash, quirky, volcano | posted in Light

October 22, 2012

Begging for Trouble

By David Stewart

This story was inspired by this post by my friend Sharmishtha Basu.

Johann Bismarck was Tangiss City’s Clean and Collect agent. It’s only agent. There had once been a whole force dedicated to collecting late taxes and apprehending criminals, but now there was only Bismarck. No one else was needed. He was seven feet tall, as strong as a mech, and as fast as a laser beam. People said he could think his way out of a black hole. He was always polite and never raised his voice, and if anyone gave him a problem, he would simply raise his eyebrows in an expression that meant, “Are you looking for trouble?” Usually, no one was. Everyone called him Trouble. It was even on his badge.

It was a Monday and Trouble had a headache. It had not been a good weekend. His wife had made him go out with friends on a cruise around Venus. It was long and tedious and the other couples had talked incessantly about their kids and their hair and their kids’ pets and their kids’ pets’ hair…

He was down in the lower levels, in Block 3442—the last stop of the day. He went to the door and rang the doorbell.

“What?” a shrill voice yelled.

“I’m from the city, ma’am,” Trouble said. “You owe 80,000 krubles in taxes.

“Go to hell!” came the reply.

Trouble sighed. It had been too long a day for this. He twisted the doorknob until it broke and then pushed the door open. A thin woman in a black vinyl suit stood in front of him, holding a laser pistol. He took it and broke it in half.

“80,000 krubles, please,” Trouble said.

The woman turned pale. “Is—is cash okay?”

Trouble nodded and she scurried off, coming back with a wad of bills. She counted out the right amount and he had her sign a paper.

“I’m sorry about your door. Next time, please be more forthcoming,” he said. She nodded quickly.

He fed the money into his pocket depositer, beaming it instantly to the bank. Then he looked up to see a group of men gathering around him, looking menacing.

“How much money you got on you?” one of them said.

“Just sent it all in,” Trouble said. His head was pounding and the last thing he wanted was more work to do. He started to walk forward but the men blocked his way.

“How about those fancy gadgets? We’ll take those.” They were pointing laser pistols at him now.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked slowly. Most people were not suicidal enough to point a gun at him.

“Yeah, I know,” one said. “You’re the guy who’s going to give us those gadgets.”

So they didn’t know. Trouble groaned. “Listen guys, could we do this another day? I’m back here on Wednesday, I swear. I have the same equipment on me every day. It will be exactly like this, but it won’t be today.”

The men laughed. “You don’t get to make the decisions,” a heavy-set man with a long mustache said. “Hand it all over.”

“I’m a city official,” Trouble said. “You don’t want to do anything to me.”

“Oh, a city official, are you?” the man said. “In that case, someone will pay good money to get you back. How about you just come along with us?”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Trouble said. “Look, I’ll be back on Wednesday. I’ll take care of you then.”

“I’ll shoot you in the head right now if you don’t start moving,” the leader said.

Trouble sighed. “Fine. Let me just call my wife to let her know.” He pulled out the phone and called his wife. One of the men leaped forward to grab the phone away. Trouble reached out without looking and snapped his arm in half. The man screamed and fell back. None of the others dared to get too close after that.

“Hey dear. I have a bit of a . . . meeting here at work. I might be a bit late.”

“Late!” his wife said. “You promised me we’d go out tonight at six! I got a babysitter and everything. Whoever it is, tell them they can wait until tomorrow.”

Trouble looked around at the men pointing guns at him and looking a little uncertain. “I tried but they’re quite insistent. Hold on, let me ask again.” He cupped the phone with his hand. “Are you guys really sure you want to do this? You really want trouble?”

“It’s you who’s got the trouble,” the leader said.

“Yes, apparently,” Trouble said. He put his ear back to the phone. “They want to do this now. I’ll do my best, but there are nine of them, all with laser pistols.”

“Stop making excuses,” his wife said and hung up.

Trouble put the phone away, shaking his head. “You have no idea how much of a headache I have,” he said. Then, suddenly, he lunged forward and kicked the leader in the stomach, sending him flying fifteen feet backwards. Trouble jumped into the air as half a dozen laser beams shot at him, hitting four of their own men in the crossfire. He picked up one of the men by the head and swung him like a bat, knocking down two more. The remaining man took off running. Trouble picked a heavy manhole cover out of the street and threw it after him, knocking the man flat and pinning him to the ground.

Trouble called emergency services. “Hey, it’s me,” he said. “I got a pickup for you.”

* * *

The next day, Trouble got a call from the mayor. “What’s this I hear about you killing six men and putting three in the hospital, down in the lower levels?” the mayor asked.

“Hey, don’t blame me,” Trouble said. “They came looking for me.”

“What? Were they suicidal?”

“Apparently,” Trouble said.

5 Comments | tags: crime, fiction, funny, quirky, science fiction, trouble | posted in Light

October 1, 2012

The Taxi Driver

By David Stewart

Jeff climbed out of the driving rain and into the taxi to find that the driver was a pigeon. A giant pigeon, in fact. He hesitated, debated getting out and then, in a dazed sort of way, gave the address.

“My God, I thought we’d never get a cab,” Jeff’s girlfriend, Katrina said, climbing in after him and shaking the water off her coat like a retriever. She hadn’t even looked up yet. Jeff nudged her and she looked up, gave a kind of strangled scream and then tried to cough to cover it up. It failed absurdly.

“That’s a pigeon,” she whispered through clenched teeth, as if Jeff couldn’t tell.

“What do you want me to do about it? I’m not going to go find you another cab in this weather.”

“What if it’s dirty? They’re called flying rats, you know.”

“Hey, don’t be specist,” Jeff said. The pigeon-driver honked at a jaywalker, pulled around a truck and turned left.

“Does it know where to go?” Katrina asked. Jeff noticed she was clutching his arm, like she was afraid of getting attacked.

“It seems to be going there,” he said. “It probably flies all around the city anyway. Probably it knows the city better than we do.” He hoped it wasn’t rude to say it. He didn’t want to be specist.

“Do you think it understands us?” Katrina whispered. Her voice was even softer.

“I told it where to go and it started going. Either it understands or it’s psychic.”

They stopped at a red light and the pigeon down-shifted. It was having a hard time doing it, having only wings and no hands. It managed, somehow. Jeff could not imagine it was comfortable.

“Why would a pigeon want to be taxi driver?” he wondered, still whispering.

“Who wants to be a taxi driver?” Katrina said. “Everyone’s gotta earn money to live.”

“Yeah, but why doesn’t it do something else?”

“Like what?”

“Like be a flying courier or something.”

She actually smacked him on the arm. “That is so specist of you! Saying that just because it’s a pigeon it has to do something with flying.”

“Well, why not? That’s what it’s good at, right?”

“Well, you’re good at doing dishes. You want to be a housekeeper?”

Jeff looked at the pigeon again. Its left wing was squashed against the door in an uncomfortable way. It could put it out the window, if it wasn’t raining so hard.

“Well, as long as it gets us home, that’s all I care about,” he said finally.

There was a pause. The rain drummed incessantly on the cab roof. The windshield was getting fogged up and the pigeon driver kept reaching up to wipe it off. The windshield was streaked with feather marks.

“You should talk to it,” Katrina said.

“Why? What would I say?”

“I don’t know, but you’re never going to have this chance again. How many pigeon taxi drivers could there be? Come on, ask it something.”

“I am not going to ask it anything. You ask it something, if you’re so interested. Anyway, it might not talk.”

“You said it understands. Why wouldn’t it talk?”

“It’s not the same. Look, I’m not going to talk to it. What would I say?”

“Ask it where it’s from. It’s not from here, I’m sure. Maybe it’s got a family back home, like a clutch of eggs and a wife pigeon or something.” Katrina sniffed. “I’m getting stuffed up. I think I’m allergic to it.”

“We’re almost home.”

She sniffed again. “Just ask it a question. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

“No. If you’ve been secretly studying Pigeon and want to give it a crack, be my guest. Otherwise, let it go.”

Katrina gave a small noise of exasperation but was silent until they got home. As soon as the car stopped in front of the building, she opened the door and bolted towards the front entrance, not even waiting for the umbrella.

Jeff looked at the meter: $8.50. The pigeon driver didn’t say anything, but Jeff could see it looking in the rearview mirror, waiting. He pulled out a ten.

“Thanks for the lift. Keep the change.”

The pigeon gave a deep cooing sound, like he’d heard from birds on the street, but deeper. It was such a common sound and yet so alien in that situation that Jeff lost his nerve. He dropped the bill into the front passenger seat and bolted out of the cab too. The cab drove away, turning the corner at the end of the block and disappearing from sight.

“I feel like we should say something to someone,” Jeff said as he joined Katrina in the front steps.

“Well, I guess being a taxi driver is okay,” she said. “Maybe if they become doctors.”

14 Comments | tags: car, fiction, pigeon, quirky, rain, ride, taxi | posted in Light

September 27, 2012

Mech Babies

By David Stewart

Inspired by the article How Baby-Driven Robots Could Help Disabled Children. I think it’s a great idea.

Roger Preston was dropping his son Phillip off at daycare when he was attacked from behind by a robotic spider.

“Bye bye, Phillip. Daddy’s going to go now,” he had been saying. “Have a great time here with the other—oof!” He fell forward as something hard hit him in the back and he narrowly missed falling on his son. Phillip clapped and giggled at silly daddy.

Roger scrambled away from grasping metal legs and looked back to see a 3-foot wide robotic spider with a toddler sitting in its midst. The way the child sat motionless with its head lolled to one side, while the robot moved around it, produced a very odd picture.

Roger found the teacher right away.

“I guess I should have said something to you about Warren,” the teacher, Mrs. Fredericks said. “We just don’t want to judge or make any child feel different. Warren has a muscle disease and can’t move on his own, so he has his little Creep Around to help with that. Now he can keep up with the other children at playtime.”

“How exactly does he drive it?” Roger asked. “I didn’t see any controls.”

“It’s connected to his brainwaves, so he can drive it just by thinking,” Mrs. Fredericks said, as proudly as if she had invented it herself. “Now, Mr. Preston, I guess I’ll see you this afternoon?”

“I think I’m going to stay and watch a bit today,” Roger said.

There were hard plastic chairs at the back of the room where parents could wait if they came early or just wanted to observe. Roger called his work to tell them he would be late and then settled in to watch Warren in action.

It soon became clear that the robot more than made up for Warren’s disability, at least in movement. At playtime, the children all rushed for the toy chests. Warren, on the other hand, took a flying leap, six feet over their heads and grabbed a toy first. He picked up a teddy bear with two steel pincers and stroked it lovingly with a third. Only once did he become too greedy and tipped over after trying to grab toys with the legs he was standing on. It only took a moment to right himself and scuttle back into the fray.

Roger was impressed, although he wasn’t sure about the brainwave-driven aspect of it. During nap-time, Warren’s robot’s legs suddenly spasmed and he leapt six feet in the air and clung to a wall. Night terrors, Mrs. Fredericks explained. Roger ended up spending the whole day at the daycare, watching Warren with a sort of macabre fascination. Phillip didn’t seem to mind the cybernetically-enhanced boy and played with him just the same.

Roger told his wife Maggie about it when he got home. She was outraged.

“That’s not fair in the least,” she said. “Here this other boy is getting an unfair advantage over the other children. There is no way Phillip can compete with a kid who’s half robot.”

“Well, he’s not really a robot,” Roger said. “Plus, he wouldn’t be able to move otherwise. Phillip didn’t seem to mind him at all.”

“I know, but what about later in life? This is probably the way of the future anyway, so this Warren kid will already be used to the technology when Phillip is just be learning it. I want you get Phillip one of those robots.”

“Yes, honey,” Roger said, and then realized what she had said. “What? No way Phillip is getting one of those!”

“He doesn’t have to use it all day, but he’s getting one. I won’t have my Phillip being upstaged by a robot kid.” She stalked off before he could argue.

Roger looked into it and finally bought the thing. It was easier than arguing and he secretly though it was pretty cool that his 3-year-old son could drive a robot. He bought a smaller version of Warren’s spider walker, but one with a large battery pack that promised higher speeds and a longer jump. This one had manual controls too.

Phillip took to his robot walker as if his mother had been a Borg. He never wanted to get out of it, so Roger rigged up a strap to put the whole thing into the back seat of the SUV. When he dropped Phillip off at daycare, however, Mrs. Fredericks approached with an awkward smile on her face.

“I’m not sure we can allow Phillip to have one of these as well,” she said.

“Well, Warren has one. What’s the difference?”

“Well, Warren is, uh, differently abled. These robot walkers are more for people in his unique life situation.”

“I know how much you don’t want people to feel differently,” Roger said. “That’s one reason we got this. Warren must feel so alone and outside things, beings the only one in a special walker. We wanted him to feel included by getting Phillip one too. At home, we call it the ‘sympathy machine’.”

“Oh, well I see what you mean,” Mrs. Fredericks said. “I guess it’s okay then.”

Roger called Maggie on his way out. “I won her over. It’s all good.”

It was all good too, for a while. Then Roger noticed that other kids were showing up to daycare with movement-assistance robots. In two months, two thirds of the kids had them and the ones without could never keep up. They either stopped coming or got ones of their own.

Warren didn’t seem too happy either now that he could not always get the first toy or jump over everyone to get to the lunch line first. One day, when his parents dropped him off, he was sitting in a new hover chair that floated a foot off the ground. After that, it was total war. The daycare finally capitulated and changed its name to Bridge Grove Mechanized Daycare.

A memo from a year later:

7 Comments | tags: babies, fiction, funny, mech, quirky, robot, science fiction | posted in Light

September 9, 2012

A Morning Cup of Danger

By David Stewart

A wise man once said that danger is like a fine wine but to Brad it was more like strong coffee: it was a good way to wake up in the morning.

He had recently given up coffee for the same reason an alcoholic gives up keg stands or a gambler gives up Las Vegas: a total lack of moderation. He would drink four cups before work, six cups during work and another four to six cups after work. After a while, he got the impression that this was probably not the healthiest habit—something about the way his doctor kept shouting it at him.

Quitting coffee cold turkey was like eating a grenade: painful and messy. Three days later, Brad’s head pounded like a pile driver, and he felt drugged on the way to work.

“How have you been doing these days, post coffee?” Brad’s co-worker Terrence asked. Brad looked up hopefully; he had only heard the word “coffee”.

“Urghh…” he said finally.

“If you want to really wake up, you should ride in my carpool,” Terrence said. “Sid the janitor insists on driving most of the time, and riding with him is like taking a rollercoaster with no seatbelts. It’s scary, is what I’m saying.”

“Do you think I could?” Brad asked. “Ride in your carpool, I mean?”

Terrence stared at him. “I was just kidding, but yeah, if you really want to. There’s always room in that carpool. I think I hold the record for the longest anyone’s ridden with Sid, and that’s only been about a month. The crazy thing is, he has never had an accident—not even a fender bender or scratched paint. No one can figure it out. Still, not many people can take the intensity for long.”

Brad nodded. “I think I need this. Sign me up.”

The next day, they met at the train station. As usual, Sid was driving. He said he felt uncomfortable being a passenger.

“If you want the maximum effect, sit up front,” Terrence whispered. He jumped in the back seat before Brad could say anything.

Sid had a passion for tropical fish, and rarely talked about anything else. “Do you know anything about tropical fish?” he asked Brad as he whipped left out of the parking lot without checking traffic. He was already eating a donut with one hand, and pulling at the wheel with the other, weaving in and out of morning rush hour traffic without slowing or signaling.

“I’m thinking of getting some Kaudern’s cardinal fish. They start at about 25 bucks, so I probably can’t get more than three. Hold on.” Sid pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen, steering with his knees.

Brad saw the brakes lights of the Chevy Tahoe ahead of them go on, but Sid was still accelerating towards it, frowning at the phone and muttering something about a dentist appointment. At the last minute, he glanced up, dropped the phone on the floor and jerked the car to the right, just missing the Tahoe and cutting off a dump truck in the next lane. He reached down and felt around on the floor for the phone while the car drifted towards the shoulder, still doing 70 miles an hour. They hit the rumble strip just as Sid got the phone and he pulled the car back the other way, overcompensating and almost slamming into the car in the left lane. Brad braced for the rending screech of metal but there was nothing and Sid brought the car into their lane.

“Anyway,” he said in the same tedious tone, “the tank I have is a 64-gallon frameless aquarium with a hyper flow water pump …”

Brad felt like he was truly alive. This was the most alert he had been since giving up coffee. Twenty more minutes of tropical fish lecture and near-death incidents, they arrived at work with Brad awake and ready for the day.

“That was amazing!” Brad said to Terrence later in their office. “It’s like he’s a perfect balance of incompetence and luck. How does he do it, living on that knife edge between safety and utter annihilation all the time?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think you’ll be able to stand it very long,” Terrence said. “I’ll give you two weeks before it all starts to get to you.”

But it didn’t get to Brad. He rode with Sid every day and arrived at work, awake and ready to work. If anything, the effect of Sid’s insane driving dulled over time. Two months after he had started riding with Sid, Brad confessed this to Terrence.

“I don’t know, but it’s not the same anymore,” he said. “Like yesterday, when Sid hit that patch of ice going 90 miles an hour, did a complete spin in front of the snowblower and just missed going over the embankment into the river. Honestly, it didn’t do that much for me. I mean, yeah, it was dangerous and all, but where’s the thrill?”

Terrence laughed, a little uneasily. “Well, I suppose it could always be more dangerous.”

“Do you mean like drugging Sid or loosening up the bolts on his wheels?” Brad asked. “I thought of that, but getting up early and going by Sid’s house every morning—it seems like so much work.” Terrence gave a little nervous laugh and bolted out of Brad’s office.

Two days later, Brad got an envelope from his doctor. Inside were two pieces of paper. The first was a note that said: Your co-worker told me about your situation. I hope this helps.

The second paper was a prescription for one cup of coffee, taken (orally) every morning.

Epilogue

Brad stopped riding with Sid every day. He found that one cup of coffee was enough to keep him functional and employed. Every so often, he would ride with Sid for the same reason other people go to an amusement park. Sid never got in an accident, and later changed careers to become a demolition derby driver. He attained legendary status as the only driver in the history of the sport to never lose a car.