Dream Job

What do you do for a living he asked? She looked at him seriously and said, " I sell world Peace." he laughed thinking she was joking, " No really what do you do?" It was the same every time, they always laughed, no one ever took her seriously. But what she said was the truth, although admittedly she did say it to be cute and funny. It invariably worked, people laughed and thought she was charming and clever. She would then explain she was a fundraiser for an organization that was working toward the ultimate goal of world peace by eradicating poverty, etc, etc. They would nod their head and say the same thing, " Who doesn't want world peace." So she used the line often and the result was always the same, but she believed most people really did not get it, that the idea of real World Peace was so foreign to them that they could never understand that when she said it she really meant it. Sometimes at night she would fall asleep thinking about all the things that needed to be done at work and just like any job there were little annoyances she had to take care off and as she fell asleep sometimes these would be in her head but as she dreamed on those nights it was never about the annoyances but about a world full of peace and happiness for everyone, she knew it was a cliche but when she awoke on those mornings after such dreams she felt energized and would smile into her cereal bowl in the morning thinking about how best to sell her product.

Sorry, No Scribble

The teacher had written this on his first piece of art that fateful day in first grade. When he read it his little mind rebelled. Who was she to judge that his scribble was not art. So from that day forward he refused to draw anything but scribbles. They were beautiful in there simplicity. Each time his drawings would come back with comments about his scribbling when he was asked to draw a house or his family. He did not care his teacher was a philistine. In High School his scribblings got darker and richer with color, but all the while he continued to fail every art class he took. But he cared not for their F's and continued to scribble his heart out. Perhaps no one would ever see what he saw in those beautiful colorful scribbles. In college he continued with his art. Having given up hope that anyone would recognize the true beauty of his work he was surprised to be asked to exhibit his art in the annual College Art Show. When he won the first prize he was even more Surprised. 15 Years later he was still surprised of his success. His Art sold for millions and was displayed in every major Art Museum in the world. That first Art Teacher had even sent him a note after his first major exhibit. " I was wrong, scribble all you want!"

Hi my name is......

Sherry and I like long walks on the beach, sunsets and white wine. For the hundredth time that day he heard those same words, hi my name is! It was a tiring job to say the least and he was sure that when his grandmother had paid for is college degree she had not expected that this is what he would be doing with that degree. But getting a degree in English Literature with a specialization in mid 19Th century male nature writers was not the best degree to try to look for work. So he had ended up here editing these dating videos for The Romance Movie Dating service. All the videos seemed to be the same. Long walks and sunsets. For two years he had seen the same thing over and over again. It had in fact made him very cynical about true romance and he guessed he would never meet the woman of his dreams. But the next video changed his mind and life forever. Hi my name is Electa and I like to dance in the rain during the full moon, I like to sing at the top of my lungs while driving and I love to read mid 19Th century British novels about nature.

The Collection

She typed in the secret code and walked into the room. With a whisper the steel door closed behind her. It was in this room that she felt the most like herself. calm and secure. She went over to the large comfy chair and sat down. Then when she was comfortable she flicked the remote control and the lights came on casting a soft glow over her collection. She had spent years assembly this collection and although no one else would ever see it she was proud. Proud of the time she had spent in collecting it. proud of the room she had built to house it and proud of her ability to keep quiet about the collection. If anyone ever found out about it she would lose the collection for sure. They we come for it and her and know one would ever see her again she was sure. She sat back in the chair and looked around. It was truly the most lovely collection ever. It was in fact now after all of her hard work the only collection of its kind in existence and she hoped that it would be so for ever. As she looked at the all war heads in this room and housed in the basements that went deep into the earth surface her pride came back in force. Pride in a job well done. For this collection of warheads was in fact every single warhead on the planet and not a single soul knew that she had spent the last ten years replacing every nuclear warhead in the world with fakes and that she had all the real ones. She took a bottle of champagne from the small refrigerator next to her chair, uncorked the bottle and toasted her collection.

The Writing on the Wall

Dear John,

I am writing this on the back of this match book because there is no other paper in your house and in fact that is one reason why I am leaving you. How can a person live their life without notepads and notebooks. For God sakes I could not even find an old receipt. You have no books! But I digress. It is not you it is me. I was stupid. All I saw was a pretty face and great abs. You have a six pack! I admit I was blinded by your beauty for a while. I had never been with a guy who looked like you before and it was fun and sexy, but I need more. I need someone who will argue with me about politics and religion and world events and why batman is a way better superhero then Superman. I want someone who reads. Reads a lot and wants to talk about those books. I want someone who is willing to make fun of himself and do stupid stuff like dance in the middle of the Museum of Art even when there is no music. Do you even know where the Museum of Art is? Really it is me not you. I am sure there is some woman out there for you it just is not me. I need more! Good-bye John it was fun but I have got to think about myself here.

Have a good Life,

Sylvia

The Industrial Psychologist

He sat there day in and day out listening to them answer the questions that would either prove they would be a reliable employee or they would be a terrible risk to hire. The company he worked for sold paper and before he took this job he had not realized how difficult selling paper apparently was. The questions he asked often brought the perspective employees to tears. It seemed at times there were no sane people left in the world. The door to his office opened and his secretary said, “Your 3 o’clock is here Dr. Lazer.”

His three o’clock walked through the door and he could already tell the man was not going to make the cut. He was interviewing for a job in sales and Dr. Lazer could already tell from his nervous energy that he was going to fail this test. The man sat down and Dr. Lazer began asking him questions, probing his psyche. After twenty minutes of questions Dr. Lazer was pleasantly surprised that the man was doing so well. All that changed with the next question. It was the question that often made or broke the interviewee. So Dr. Lazer asked the man, “If I were to make the statement that in the future only Robots will know love. What would your response be?” The man just sat there with a defeated look on his face and began to cry. Dr. Lazer was disappointed. This is what happened every time he asked this question. Only about 1 in a 100 was able to pull them selves together and answer the question with a semblance of intelligence. When the man sobs finally stopped Dr. Lazer escorted him to the door. It seemed as if they would never fill this job.

Dr. Lazer went back to his desk and sat down. He picked up the picture of his family and felt all his gears and bits and hard drives whir with emotion. In the end Dr. Lazer knew that the last question was unfair to his human interviewees. And there were times he regretted having to use it to weed out the loose cannons because both he and the humans all knew that the future was now.

I get that sinking feeling

She heard the crash before she felt the jolt jar through her body. As it did she lost her balance and fell. The sirens went off as she was rising from the floor. She calmly went to the bed and rummaged under it until she felt the soft padding of the life vest. She pulled it out and put it on over her lovely evening gown. It was her first grown up gown and she felt very beautiful in it. It was a lovely pale blue silk that clug to her body in all the right places. She went to the door and looked out in the hallway. It was empty, which she thought very odd. She realized that other then the siren it was eerily quite, no screaming or running. She made her way down the hallway toward the stairwell. As she approached the stairs the ship jerked violently to the left and she was thrown first to the floor and then as the ship tipped she was on the left wall. Oh no she thought, this ship is sinking.

With a loud roar the ship was sucked into the ocean and the light blue silk quickly turned to midnight as the ocean swallowed it.

Dear Diary

It lay on the table. All of her deep dark secrets contained in the little book. It was lovely to look at with its sparkly flowers embossed on a pale blue background. The only thing keeping those secrets inside was the little lock on the front. To read it would be the greatest violation of her trust, but not to read it would be a lost chance to know everything that went on in her mind. He really wanted to know everything that went on in her mind. He had loved her for as long as he could remember and it was slowly killing him. He never seemed to be able to say the right thing to her to convince her that they were perfect together. So he held the little key in his hand that just may unlock all of his dreams or would it crush them? He was so uncertain. He had never had to face such a dilemma before and he was sure that he would never have to face this kind of dilemma again. He held the key up to the light and watched as the it gleamed. What should he do? He sat for many minutes holding that key trying to decide what he should do. Finally he picked up the diary and took the key and went over to the bedside table. He carefully put the book back in the drawer where he found it and placed the key under the lamp just like she had left it. He left the room, firm in his decision.

20 years later on their 10Th wedding anniversary she gave him a small package. He unwrapped it, expecting to see a watch or some such thing but there folded in the paper was the diary. She leaned over and kissed him as he opened the diary and read the first entry.

Dear Diary,
My brothers friend Steve came over again today. I think I may be in love. He is so funny and smart and handsome. But he is a junior! Do you think a junior and a freshman can date? I really like him! I wonder if he could ever like me!"

The decision

The decision to do it was not an easy one. After she did it she was pretty sure it was the wrong decision. She should have spent more time thinking about it but she was like that, impulsive. Besides it was too late now anyway. It was done and she could not change it. She resolved right then to be less impulsive and think her decisions through more. It was really too bad that she would never have the chance to put that resolution into practice, but when you decide the fate of mankind on an impulse you really only have yourself to blame. She watched from her window in the Oval Office as the first mushroom cloud appeared on the horizon toward New York city. It was really too bad she was a bad decision maker.

The Perfect Heart

The first time she realized it she was only eleven, but it was not until she was thirteen that she felt it. That day started like any. She put on her favorite pair of jeans and a loose fitting tee shirt and went to school. It was during math class that it happened. The boy was neither a crush nor a friend but when he told her she was fat she felt it. Felt it in her core. From that day forward she felt as if she was a fat girl. In college she made a friend by chance only because she had jokingly commented that if she had lived during Rubens time he would have painted her. In reality she was far too thin for Rubens tastes, but when she looked in the mirror all she saw was fat. She nearly starved herself her sophomore year weighing in at 92 pounds, something she was very proud of at the time. Also at the time she was chased after by men like she never had been before and never would be again. With her 34 double D’s and size 2 body, she was the Barbie doll all men dreamed of. But in reality she was not much more then a skeleton. She gained most of the weight back when she realized she could not go on never eating. She liked food too much. It was not until she was in her thirties that she realized she was not fat. Curvy, womanly, bodacious perhaps but not fat. But the Phenomenon that was the skinny, skinny woman was well entrenched in society and still she heard the comments and occasionally, not often but occasionally still cringed from the sight of her own body. But the day she went to a new doctor and he checked her heart rate and listened to her heart and asked if she did anything aerobic and she replied walked, he said “Well it must be working because your heart rate is perfect, your heart sounds perfect.” Vindication at last. She would have bet her perfect heart that those phenomenally skinny women could not claim they had “a perfect heart!”

Wicked, Wicked Girl

Her first fully formed memory was of her third birthday. She had wanted a Suzie doll. The baby you fed a bottle to and she got a diaper rash. It was all she wanted. What she got was a regular baby doll that only closed its eyes when it slept. She cut off its hair and pulled out its eye lashes and then buried the whole thing in the back yard. Her stepmother called her a wicked, wicked girl. She knew that she was suppose to feel bad about it and that being a wicked, wicked girl was not a good thing but when she repeated the words to herself and they rolled around on her tongue she felt good and liked they way they sounded. So for the next 10 years she did everything in her power to be a wicked, wicked girl. She never did what she was told, she always behaved badly in public and as the years went on she was told over and over what a wicked girl she was. She knew that her stepmother hated her and she did not blame her. So when they sent her to the boarding school she was prepared. it only took her ten days to get expelled. At the next boarding school it only took seven, the next three and the last one only 4 hours. She was wicked and she liked it. The hour before her life changed she was once again rolling the word wicked around on her tongue and as always it tasted good. When the train stopped she did not notice at first. Not until she saw them did she realize what was happening. They converged on the train and people began to scream. She grabbed her bag and sunk to the floor. She knew they would eventually find her and she had to be ready. When she heard them coming she jumped up and sprayed the can of mace right into the leaders eyes. He yelped and dropped his gun. She ran. Ran as fast and as far as her legs would take her. She stopped to rest and tried to think of a plan. she would have to disappear. Her parents had finally done what they said they would do every time she did something wicked. They had sent these men she was certain and if she did not get away they would make sure she was not wicked anymore.

The Large Appliance Department

His name was not Bob but that is what he used while selling large Appliances at the Sears on Lawrence Avenue. He was grumpy and with his gravely voice he scared off some of the pretty young things that come in during the hottest part of the summer to buy a air condition. It seemed like Bob had spent his life around large appliances because he knew so much about BTU,s and electric coils. But Bob had only worked at that Sears for a couple years. Before that he had lived in Tuscon and sold cars, before that he had lived in Topeka and sold mattresses and even before that he had lived in the Twin cities driving a snow plow for the city. If the pretty young things buying those air conditioners had stopped to notice they may have figured it out, but most never took the time. From his dress shoes to his three gold rings and large gold chain around his neck to his slicked backed hair Bob was so obviously not a Bob that it was a common joke among his co-workers. Little did they know that the joke was on them. When they joked about how he did not look like your typical Midwestern Bob, he just nodded his head and said nothing. He liked his job at Sears and the city he lived in and had no real desire to move again, so he kept his thoughts to himself on the subject of his name. What he wanted to say was " That is right you idiots, I ain't no Bob, my name is Tony and I come from Trenton and in the blink of I could break your neck and have your body disposed of!" But he didn't and besides he did not mind the name Bob so much at least it was better then the name he had in Topeka.

"What's your sign?"

“What’s your sign?” The man sitting next to her asked. She glanced over at him with disdain. Did he really just ask that question? Had she some how been transported back in time to 1978? He looked normal enough and was actually kind of cute so she wondered what he was thinking by using such a silly pick-up line. When she turned back toward him he was gone. That was weird she thought but as she sipped her drink and tried to forget about her terrible day she forgot about him and listened to the inane conversation her friends were having about some celebrity. The next morning as she was just coming out of that deep refreshing sleep one achieves from just a few glasses of wine she recalled the guy and his “ What’s your sign?” line. The more she thought about it the odder it seemed. That afternoon while she was sitting at the café drinking her coffee and typing on her laptop the last thing she expected to hear was that same question “What’s your sign?” This time it came from an elderly women sitting next to her at the coffee shop. “You look like a Gemini, are you a Gemini dear?” She could only nod her head yes as the woman started to babble on about Gemini and their traits. She packed up her lap top finished her coffee and escaped. Two days in a row the same question, this was getting weirder by the moment. The next evening as she walked her dog along the path by the lake she heard it ever so faintly wafting on the breeze from the beach, “What’s your sign?” She jerked her head up and looked toward the beach but did not see anyone there. Weird! After several days with no one uttering those three words again she forgot about the weirdness of it all and after several weeks it did not cross her mind again. So the day it happened she was not prepared for it, if she had maybe noticed the signs she would not have been walking alone that night along that stretch of road where he was known to have struck before.

The next morning the paper waited on her front door step. A door step she would never cross again. The headline read, “Gemini Killer Strikes again.”

It Started With a Scab

She picked at the scab on her knee. It felt good and when the scab slowly peeled away leaving a shiny bloody spot it felt even better. That was how it started, the cutting. As a remembrance of that day she first picked at a scab as a small girl. Now she cut all the time and each time she did it felt better then it had the last time. She hid the cuts behind long sleeves and no one had guessed yet and that also made her feel good, knowing that it was her secret.

He was a Hit and Run Hugger

As he crossed the street he did not notice the taxi that was zooming toward the intersection. Perhaps the taxi driver was distracted by the pretty girl in the back of his cab but he failed to notice the red light and ran it, hitting the man crossing the street. There was a slight thump as the taxi winged the man’s right leg but he remained upright and although he would have a nasty bruise he was uninjured. The taxi screeched to a halt, the driver jumped out ran toward the man and screamed, “Are you hurt?” The man shook his head no and then as if possessed the taxi driver reached out and hugged the man. He released him as quickly as he had hugged him and ran back to his cab, screeching as he fled the scene.

The Corn

When she left the city on the lake to drive home to her parents for a week-end or a holiday she would drive straight down the interstate. With each proceeding mile the city would become a distant memory of steel and concrete as the cornfields and cow pastures grew more numerous. She would exit the interstate at a small town 9 miles from the tiny town she grew up in and although she cherished every minute in that city on the lake she always felt like she was coming home as she sped through the fields high with corn. That is how she remembered her childhood. Corn. It had been everywhere. Across the street and up on the hill and surrounding her High School. She recalled long summer drives on lone country roads with corn six feet high on both sides. She and her brother and friends had built a corn fort one summer. Knocking down the stalks in a circle that surely from the air looked like a crop circle. Corn. It had played a large part in her world in the country. In the city she only found corn in cans or in a farmers market stall. But she could still conjure in her minds eye a dark night lite only by the moon with corn surrounding her as she walked the country road near the house she grew up in and if she tried really hard she could still remember the scent of the corn in the night.

The Birthday Girl

She stood on the corner in her party dress. The lyrics from that song that everyone can sing kept running through her head. “It’s my party and I will cry if I want to, cry if I want to. You would cry too if it happened to you.” She was not crying, but she was very tempted to let the tears she was holding back flow. The party was not supposed to end with her standing on the corner in her party dress. She was supposed to be dancing and laughing and having a great time. It was her birthday after all. But no she was standing here, waiting for a bus. This was supposed to be the best birthday ever and it had so far turned out to be the worst, even worse then the year she had chicken pox. A single tear slid from her eye as she tried to force her mind from the depressing images that flashed before her eyes of the spoiled cake and screaming match that had occurred, her friend’s looks of horror. Her hand still hurt from where she had slapped him. Slapped harder then he deserved but when what you expected as a present is so far from what you get you may become a little irrational. Was she really that hard to read? Did her friends and family really think she would want a gift card to Home Depot? Who were they buying that gift for, certainly not her! The worst birthday ever, but still the waiter did not deserve that slap. It was just a little water.

Zombie War

The mask slipped down a little. She was sweating and her hair and face were slick with the sweat. She tightened the straps on her mask to make sure it slipped no more. If any of the rancid air got in she would be dead. She gripped the machine gun in her hand even tighter. Her team of hunters were tired. This was the 10th patrol in a row they had taken, but so many of the other patrol teams had lost too many members to take this, the most dangerous patrol of the night. She walked slowly behind her captain as she heard the large town clock strike midnight. Twelve gongs rang out through the night, signalling the beginning of feeding time for them. THEM, that is what they called them. THEM, those who had been their loved ones once. THEM, those who ate the flesh of humans, THEM, those who should have stayed buried in the ground but now walked among the living. She clearly remembered the night she was on patrol and finally encountered a former loved one. Her sister! She had done what was necessary but it still had hurt her heart when she had severed the head of the thing that had been her sister. Her family was all gone now and all she had left were the men on this team, they were now her family and she would do anything to make sure none of them were ever turned into one of THEM. She tightened her mask again and prepared for the fight that would surely come as THEY began to feed.

Turning Back Time

The room whirled and danced as she spun herself around and around just like she had as a small girl. Her vision started to blur as she spun faster and faster. Finally she landed with a thump on the floor. Rubbing her thigh where she had landed and was sure to have a bruise later she wobbled her way to the kitchen still dizzy from the spinning. She checked the clock on the microwave and then went to the calendar, hoping to see the calendar turned back to April. But it was still firmly set at June. She new it was futile these crazy attempts at turning time back, but she had to do something. She had ruined it and the only way to get a second chance was to go back in time. She had tried everything, pleading, begging, crying, cajoling, everything! Nothing had worked. He was gone and he was not going to ever give her a second chance. The restraining order was sitting on the coffee table as she wandered back to the family room. Had he really done that? Had she really been that bad? She knew that the calls and e-mails were endless but did he really have to file a restraining order, she only wanted a chance to explain. Explain that it had been a mistake and that she was really sorry. Was that really too much to ask for? She lay down on the floor and looked at the ceiling. The spinning had been her tenth attempt at turning back time, all ideas she had gotten from the internet. None had worked. Tears started to leak at the corners of her eyes as she remembered the confrontation two months ago. He had been so angry and she had done a terrible job of trying to explain and that was it. It was over. She cried herself to sleep that night knowing that there sometimes were no second chances.

The Ocean Voyage

When she saw the ship slowly moving into the port she knew her freedom was over. She had married him in that spur of the moment movement that was sweeping across the country in the first years of the war. He had been funny and handsome and was leaving in the morning for the war front where he might possibly die. They had spent one night together, their wedding night and in the morning he was gone. She was not even sure she could really remember what he looked like. She had spent the last three years marveling at the freedom the wedding ring on her finger gave her. With a husband over seas fighting she was granted the freedom to live alone and work and spend as much time with her friends as she wanted. It was the first time in her life she had never had to report her whereabouts to anyone and she loved it. Every minute of it. Free, like the waves of the ocean which were bringing that freedom to an end.

He sat on his bunk as the waves of the ocean lapped at the sides of the ship that was slowly making its way into the harbor. He tried to drown out the voice in his head by listening to the slap of those waves against the ship, but it was no use. The voice kept repeating one word over and over and over again. That word was Idiot. He had been an idiot to marry a girl he had just met and knew nothing about the night before he left for war. But he had been sure he was going to die in that war and she had been funny and pretty. And now here he was. Stuck, trapped, and imprisoned in a marriage with a woman he did not know. As the waves drew the ship closer to shore he closed his eyes and tried not to think about the freedom he would lose when this ocean voyage ended.