100 short stories by mikey - book three

100 Short Stories by Mikey - Book Three

Mikey with his 30 pound squash in 2018.

©2018 Michael J. Pszeniczny


write

/rīt/

verb

1. mark (letters, words, or other symbols) on a surface, typically paper, with a pen,

pencil, typewriter, computer or similar implement.

(Example: How can they write that claptrap and expect people to read it?)

clap·trap

/ˈklapˌtrap/

noun

1. nonsense, especially pompous or important-sounding nonsense.




This book is dedicated to:

My wonderful wife Donna E. Pszeniczny for putting up with my incomprehensibleness.

My father Leonard S. Pszeniczny and mother Marcia A. Pszeniczny from whom I inherited my

active imagination and bombasticity.

My brothers Leonard M. Pszeniczny and Brian J. Pszeniczny for all the good times we had

growing up (The Tracks, The Land, The Ranch, The Ridge, Ron's Green LTD & The Forts).

July, 2016

The latest digital versions of 100 Short Stories by Mikey - Book One, Book Two, etc. are

available at the following locations with the most recently added chapters:

http://100shortstoriesbymikey.weebly.com

http://100shortstoriesbymikey.doodlekit.com

http://100shortstoriesbymikey.yolasite.com

http://100shortstoriesbymikey.zohosites.com

http://100shortstoriesbymikey.dudaone.com

https://100shortstoriesbymikey.wordpress.com

https://www.scribd.com/document/317613648/100-Short-Stories-by-Mikey

http://100shortstoriesbymikey.webstarts.com

http://100shortstoriesbymikey.webs.com



151. R

152. F

153. A

154. C

155. T

156. L

157. N

158. N

159. O

160. R

161. P

162. Q

163. C

164. R

165. S

166. R

167. J

168. B

169. G

170. H

171. T

172. I

173. R

174. Y

175. D

176. S

177. M

178. F

179. E

180. I

181. L

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183. M

184. P

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186. H

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188. E

189. J

190. K

191. Z

192. R

193. A

194. O

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196. S

197. A

198. M

199. A

200. B

100 Short Stories by Mikey 151 Rafi's Cave 3.wps

151. Rafi's Cave 3


©2018 Michael J. Pszeniczny 1


151. Rafi's Cave 3

As Rafi reached his hand up through the hole to freedom and life anew, something grabbed onto

it. It felt more like a someone than a something. Somebody was up there! Yay! The someone

above placed another hand onto Rafi's wrist and pulled with unexpected force. The person pulled

so hard that Rafi thought his shoulder was on the verge of becoming dislocated. He tried to push

himself upward along the wall of the hole, to help his ascent. The walls of hardened lava scraped

his body viciously, but it was well worth the temporary physical agony. The sun shining on his

face was so welcoming that he burst into uproarious laughter. The person who was pulling on

his arm asked, "What's so funny?" When Rafi was completely removed from the hole, he looked

up at a cute girl who was standing there as naked as he was. He told her that he was laughing

because he was so happy from being free of his cave dungeon.

Rafi asked the girl who she was. She said her name was Ifar. As Rafi stood up, he instinctively

covered his peepee with his hands and his cheeks reddened with embarrassment. He was

surprised how casually she stood there with nothing covering her body. He accidentally glanced

at her from head to toe and then quickly looked away, thinking that he had been caught ogling

her. Ifar said that the people in her village wore nothing to cover their bodies, because they didn't

see the need for it. Rafi hesitantly moved his hands from the location covering himself and let

them hang freely. Ifar asked Rafi how long he had been trapped in the cave and he said he didn't

know. She told how her entire village had been covered by the eruption of the volcano and that

there were no living people anywhere. She had been spared because she had been in the village

storage cave, tending to the preserved goods.

Upon hearing Ifar's words, Rafi collapsed to the ground and began bawling. Ifar knelt to the

ground to comfort him and gently held him as he wept. Rafi's fragile mental and physical

circumstances had thrust him into a state of delirium. He had no idea of the disaster that had

taken place in the world above his cave. He fully expected to see his friends and relatives again.

To hear that everyone was gone was too much for him to fathom. His short life had been

overflowing with happiness and contentment until the day of the eruption. He felt that his

interment in the cave had only been a temporary condition and that he would be free eventually.

Now that he was finally free, he felt sledge-hammered by misery and woe. How could the

creator have done such a thing to his people? Why? He managed to sip a few drops of salty

water from Ifar's water satchel and he fell asleep.

Rafi slept for 35 hours and awoke initially feeling refreshed, but then he thought about the loss of

his people and began crying again. Ifar gently caressed his long disgusting hair and he quieted

down a little. She gave him a piece of something to eat, which he managed to choke down after

some reluctance by his taste buds. Whatever the food was, it was unlike anything that he had

ever eaten. He wanted more and she gave it to him. He was soon sitting up and eating and



drinking everything that she had with her. Ifar didn't seem worried about his ravenous appetite

and the fact that he was eating and drinking so much of her provisions. She acted as if she had

plenty more where that came from, which she did. She explained to Rafi that the village cave

was full of enough preserved food and water to last for years for the two of them. Her village of

127 people had always believed in being prepared for nature's occasional mischievous events.

They perfected a method of preserving food by the use of urine. They had another formula for

creating drinking water from urine that had been invented decades before by their greatest thinker

named Leonid.

As Rafi ate and drank from the strange tasting items presented by Ifar, he felt his strength coming

back and his grief becoming lessened. After several days of living in the cave with Ifar and

consuming everything that he could fit in his stomach, he actually began to relax. The strange

girl appeared to have something going on with her left eye. She explained that when the eruption

started, bits of molten lava and rock were flying everywhere. When she walked to the entrance

of the village cave to investigate, her eye had been struck by an object, which blinded the eye.

Rafi thought it coincidental that she also had a blinded eye like him. It did nothing to affect her

cuteness. Another coincidence was that Ifar was exactly the same age to the day that he was. As

his tender age, he didn't put a lot of thought into the strange occurrences in life. She did,

however.

She immediately pointed out the eye and age similarities and how the two of them had been

destined by the creator to encounter each other. Rafi listened to the girl and didn't know or care

what she was talking about. She definitely seemed to have thoughts about things that he had

never considered. All he had ever cared about in life was doing his chores and being happy. Ifar

apparently had grown up in a village of people who had different concepts about life than he was

accustomed to. He wasn't worried about it though. As long as he was in the fresh air again, it

was a start. He was determined to scout around and see for himself if everyone was gone. Even

though Ifar had assured him that she had searched an enormous area around them, he still had to

see for himself.

They packed up satchels of food and water and headed out each day to look for signs of life.

After weeks of searching the lava-covered terrain in ever-increasing radii from the village cave,

Rafi was convinced of the doom of the populace. The two of them appeared to be the last people

alive in their search area. He stubbornly held out hope that there might be people out there

somewhere who had luckily survived as Rafi and Ifar had. There had to be! How can they be the

last of the people? Why? What was the creator thinking? Rafi resigned himself to making the

best of things with his new companion. At least he was no longer trapped in that infernal cave!

Ifar was an incredibly knowledgeable girl for her age, much more so than the girls of his village.

Rafi and Ifar would be able to learn from each other and tackle the huge obstacles that

undoubtedly lay before them.



After a month of surviving together, Ifar suggested to Rafi that they hike to the top of Mt. Uptoo-

Kik. The mountain was named after the wife of the great thinker Leonid. Leonid's wife had been

indispensable to the great thinker as his guinea pig for his many experimentations. Without

Uptoo-Kik, Leonid wouldn't have had anyone to help him taste test his urine-preserved foods, the

urine derived drinking water, the edible poop and many of his other scientific achievements.

Leonid's scientific curiosity had enabled his village to become far more advanced than any of the

neighboring villages. No one could ever figure out how he came up with such great ideas. Some

of his ideas didn't work out as well as others, which was perfectly expected in the scientific

world. One of Leonid's experiments had involved his wife ingesting virtually all of the known

snake venoms.

Uptoo-Kik barely survived the tests and had lapsed into a coma that lasted for 43 days. When

she at last awoke from the long sleep, the silky hair on her head had turned a beautiful shade of

turquoise. Her lustrous leg hair had turned a beautiful shade of emerald. Her bushy armpit hair

and nether region hair had both turned silver. The other women of the village envied Uptoo-Kik

and wished to have similarly colored hair, but it was forbidden by Leonid. He considered the

changed hair color to be a result of a failure of one of his experiments. After a year, Uptoo-Kik's

various hair colors had all returned to normal. She still suffered from a slight lisp that remained

until her passing. Leonid admitted to Uptoo-Kik that he actually liked the lisp, because it gave

her an unusual girlishness that he found appealing.

Rafi looked forward to the journey to the mountain, because it would give him another

opportunity to look for his lost people. He no longer expected to find any of his friends and

relatives, but he refused to give up. Ifar and Rafi packed large amounts of supplies into

backpacks and they set off on their journey eastward to Mt. Uptoo-Kik. It required a lot of

walking, hiking and climbing, but after 17 days, they arrived at the summit. After living his

entire life on the flat lands of his village, Rafi was awestruck by the view of the world up there.

He never imagined how immense and inspiring the earth could be. Even though everything was

encased in hardened lava, it was still somehow beautiful. Scorched tree trunks protruded through

the lava as if to say that they hadn't been beaten by the volcano. Somehow, nature had managed

to plant seeds in the lava, because myriad plants had started growing everywhere. The multiple

shades of green were inspiring. Life managed to continue.

Birds of many species were in flight, small animals were scurrying about and even some larger

mammals could be spotted searching for sustenance. Ifar took Rafi's hand in hers and they

silently took in the scene. He began to feel at ease with himself. Ifar began sniffling and

whimpering. Rafi had been holding back his emotions, but had been pulled into the fold by Ifar.

They both felt the tears trickling down their smooth young cheeks. Rafi gripped Ifar's hand

tightly as they began crying together. Perhaps their respective months of loneliness and

deprivation had accumulated in their psyches. They experienced the release of enormous



amounts of stress and anxiety as they stood there breathing in the warm breeze. Rafi was so

overwhelmed by his new feelings that he slowly rotated his head toward Ifar and discovered that

she had been gazing at him the whole time. At that immature point in his life, he sensed that the

cute girl whose hand he was holding might be somebody very special. They looked at each

other's tear-soaked faces for a moment and then turned back to the view of their world.

Something unspoken had been acknowledged by the two of them that would be investigated later

on, when they were more capable of understanding it better.

Ifar began to recite amazing stories of her people and all the great accomplishments that were

now buried under the lava. With her free hand, she pointed to different locations and described

what existed there under the hardpan. There were great orchards here and animal corrals there;

there were immense gardens in that spot and the great thinker's mansion in that location. The

more Ifar talked about her people, the more Rafi became impressed by her. The people of his

village were happy and contented, but were apparently way behind the times. Leonid had

devised methods for having plumbing in each hut with hot and cold running water. Rafi hadn't

even heard of plumbing. Leonid had created a sewer system that collected all the waste from

each hut's toilet and deposited the waste in a huge cesspool far away from the village. Rafi hadn't

even heard of a toilet. Leonid had designed a complex lighting system that provided lights for

the paths of the village and for the interior lighting of each hut. The lighting system was fueled

by the methane gas that was generated by all the poop of the humans and livestock. Rafi hadn't

even heard of methane.

As the two children stood there innocently observing the landscape, a flock of vultures had

homed in on them. The lead vulture descended to attack. The others followed. The lead vulture

swooped at Ifar's head and knocked her to the ground. The 2nd vulture in line swooped at Rafi

and knocked him down. The vultures regrouped and prepared to make another run at the kids.

As the vultures ascended, the children scrounged around for rocks to heave at their attackers. As

the vultures came at them again, Rafi and Ifar began firing the rocks. The vultures were too

tough to be knocked down by the rocks and kept coming. Ifar was knocked down again by the

lead vulture, but Rafi narrowly avoided his vulture. Rafi picked up a large rock over his head

that he hoped would have more effect on the savage birds. The vultures made their 3rd run with

a different plan in mind.

The lead vulture grabbed the large rock from Rafi's hands and flew away with it. Four of the

other vultures landed on Ifar and each bird latched onto one of her limbs. The 4 vultures flew off

with Ifar, who was screaming at the top of her lungs. As Rafi became distracted by hurling rocks

at the vultures that had stolen his girlfriend, the lead vulture dropped the large rock onto Rafi's

head. Rafi was knocked unconscious and scooped up by the lead vulture and 3 others. When

Ifar and Rafi awoke, they found themselves high up in a tree in a bulky nest made of branches

and twigs. There were young vultures and vultures hatching from eggs all around them. The



vulture flock had deposited the children in the nest for the young vultures to feed upon. Rafi

wasn't going to allow anything to happen to Ifar and he instantly locked each of his hands onto a

vulture. He employed the gripped birds as battering rams. In a trice, Ifar followed Rafi's lead

and obtained 2 vultures of her own. The children ferociously swung at the young vultures in the

nest and knocked them all out of the tree. The circling vulture flock plunged to investigate. Rafi

and Ifar had looks on their faces like they meant business; so did the vulture flock members.

As the lead vulture casually arrived at the nest expecting a swift end to the children, the bird was

dealt a smack to the face. The lead vulture was knocked out by the impact and plummeted to the

ground. The remaining flock members attempted to destroy the feisty children, but all met with

the similar fate of their leader. Ifar and Rafi triumphantly laughed and hurled to the ground the 4

deceased vultures that they had used as weapons. The kids cautiously climbed out of the nest and

shimmied down the tree to the ground. They stomped the dazed members of the vulture flock

until the birds were essentially headless. The children left the vultures where they lay and

proceeded back to the village cave, scratched and bleeding, but alive. As they walked hand in

hand, they reflected on the saga of their battle and how they would need to prepare themselves

against future animal attacks in their obviously dangerous new world.

They spent the next several days creating bows, arrows, knives, spears, slings and other weapons

of defense. Something transpired in the world that had turned the surviving animals into violent

beings. The struggle for survival had a way of doing that. Rafi and Ifar were the only humans

still standing and it was up to them to remain alive and kicking. They didn't know it at the time,

but they were the new Adam and Eve. The human population would have to be started anew by

them. It would be some time before nature would become apparent to them and work its magic

on them. In the meantime, they had to survive to get to that point. Luckily, they had plenty of

food and water preserved in the village cave by Ifar's people. Rafi thought it strange that it hadn't

rained since he had been out of his secret cave. Perhaps the climate had somehow been altered

by the eruption. Ifar had been wondering about the same thing.

Rafi concluded that the water trickling down into his secret cave must have been from latent

moisture in the soil and not from freshly fallen rain. After months of eating the preserved food in

the village cave, Rafi gradually became accustomed to the odd flavor. Ifar talked often about the

many recipes used for flavoring the food. When Rafi asked Ifar about all the heaps of human

bones and skulls strewn about the cave, she nonchalantly stated that the bones were from her

people. Rafi inquired why the deceased of Ifar's village weren’t buried in a cemetery somewhere.

Ifar said that her people didn't bury their deceased; they ate them. Rafi's eyes opened as wide as

the eyes of an owl that was landing on a mouse at midnight. Ifar told Rafi that she and he had

been eating the preserved remains of her people since the first day that she extricated him from

his secret cave. At first, Rafi recoiled in horror, but then admitted to himself that for the first

time in a long time, he was happy.

100 Short Stories by Mikey 152 Icky's Gold 2.wps

152. Icky's Gold 2




152. Icky's Gold 2

After the last kangaroo of the herd had finished stampeding over Icky, it was the rhino's turn.

The rhino skidded to a stop in front of Icky. Instead of stomping on Icky, the rhino paused for a

moment of apparent reflection and stood there looking down at the dazed Icky in the water. The

rhino seemed to have feelings of sorrow for Icky lying there so vulnerably. The great beast began

squinting its eyes as if it were attempting to hold back tears. A rhino biologist on the scene

might have become emotional at seeing the leathery behemoth appearing to be kind, which was

rare for the creatures. The rhino turned itself 180 degrees so that it was facing away from Icky.

Was it so taken by Icky's situation that it could no longer view the human in distress? Did the

rhino wish that it could somehow help Icky? What was that rhino thinking about? The rhino

inhaled a large amount of air into its huge lungs and exerted a great pressure on its innards.

When the rhino had started the kangaroo stampede and had run along behind the kangaroos, its

gastrointestinal system had liquefied the contents of its large intestine. The rhino was at the point

of no return. The rhino issued a final satisfying grunt. Twenty-eight pounds of steaming rhino

diarrhea spewed from the rhino's anus onto the back of Icky's head. Even though Icky had been

delirious from the kangaroo attack, the smell and sensation of the rhino diarrhea spurred him into

action. He leaped up from the stream and jumped back from the laughing rhino. Icky unzipped

his pants and proceeded to piss on the rhino's face. Even though the rhino felt insulted by Icky's

action, it felt content that it had done enough by pooping on him. The rhino knew that Icky

would stench for many weeks as a result of the rhino poopoo bath. The rhino mischievously

galloped off into the distance and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Icky intentionally fell down into the stream and tried to rinse off the best that he could. Since he

was already accustomed to being perpetually smelly, the stink didn't bother him all that much.

He acknowledged that he would probably stink horribly for a number of weeks, but no worries.

Since he rarely encountered people for extended lengths of time, it didn't bother him. He

resumed singing in his terrible voice and after a bit, completed the assembly of the sluice system.

He hoped that Josephine was going to be the source of his greatest gold wealth. Little did he

realize how large the source would be. He unleashed the water flow to the system and began the

process. In mere moments, he spotted gold dust flowing along with the debris and water. It was

rare to visually see the specks of dust in a stream system, because the particles were typically

camouflaged by silt. To actually see gold dust was a good sign indeed.

Perhaps it had been his lucky day to survive both a kangaroo stampede and being pooped on by a

feisty rhino. The luck was promising to continue. The creator certainly worked in mysterious

ways! He began singing louder and louder until his voice was so distorted that dingoes could be

heard howling from miles around. As Icky retrieved the dust at the end of the long sluiceway, he

quickly realized that he was certainly onto something big. The amount of gold particles in that



stream was so prodigious that in 3 hours, he had accumulated 400 grams of gold worth

approximately $1,000. At that rate of production, he could possibly amass $8,000 per 24-hour

day. He became so involved in the gold collection process that he couldn't pull himself away

from his beloved Josephine. He worked continuously for 48 hours, without eating or drinking.

He pissed and pooped in his pants once and then removed and tossed the soiled clothing to the

side in order to work bottomless. As long as he kept his head and upper protected by the sun, he

felt safe enough from sunburn. As bad luck would have it, he of course obtained a proper

sunburn on his ass, but the money that poured forth made it worthwhile.

Icky had witnessed for himself and heard many tales about how a gold mine had to be monitored

when it started producing, especially when it generated a lot of gold. The mine might continue to

push out gold or it might stop at any second. The key was that it needed to be milked

continuously for all it was worth. Icky was in the zone and planned to keep running the sluice

until he keeled over, if necessary. He began weakening after 55 hours and paused briefly to eat,

drink and put on some pants. His early estimates for the gold output had been eclipsed by higher

actual numbers and as he munched on some dried foodstuffs, he weighed out about $31,500 of

gold dust. He was in the money! He continued singing until his voice had completely gone and

the dingoes stopped howling. He began whistling and humming instead. He enjoyed passing the

time while performing labor-intensive work by somehow creating melodies. It made him happy.

He acknowledged that he was a much better singer than whistler or hummer, which wasn't saying

much. Even with occasional stops for sustenance, the sheer workload was beginning to break

him down. As physically fit and capable of hard manual labor as he was, he feared that he was

approaching a collapse. However, he simply couldn't bring himself to stop working. He could

accept almost any physical malady that would be a result of a physical breakdown. He was

willing to take his chances. Josephine was the goldmine of dreams; he had been searching for

such a mother lode for a long, long time. He was in the midst of such mental excitement, that he

was almost hallucinating. Gold miners the world over would claim to gladly give certain body

parts to be in his current position. Icky was as addicted to the gold as a bee was to honey or a

lion was to a zebra.

He worked faster and faster and found that if he increased his breathing rate to just short of

hyperventilating, he was able to sustain his industrial pace. The controlled breathing was

working for him. The hallucinations were staved off. He continued stopping for sustenance at

short intervals and maintained the sluice system at full efficiency. After 71 hours, he calculated

that he was $51,750 richer. It was the stuff of Australian gold miner dreams. To Icky's utter

astonishment, the stream continued producing gold in increasingly higher amounts. He was so

tired at that pint that eating, drinking and controlled breathing weren’t cutting it. One side of his

brain was beginning to crave sleep, but the other greedy side wouldn't permit it. It's funny how

people can become the victims of their own gray matter.



Icky soldiered on through the exhaustion into the 4th day of production. Icky wasn't sure if the

gold output was actually diminishing or if he was becoming too bleary-eyed to accurately

measure the weight. He rested for an hour to gather his thoughts and re-measured everything.

The flow of gold was unfortunately slowing down. By the end of the 4th day, at the 97-hour

mark, he weighed his gold and estimated his profits at $96,890. It was the greatest thing to ever

happen to him. He was now ready to retire in a relative life of luxury in accordance with his

meager living standards. He was so tired that he barely had the strength to bury his treasure. The

gold had to be concealed as he slept, to safeguard his newfound wealth. The experience had

burned him out. He only cared to bury the gold and sleep without doing anything with the sluice

equipment. He didn't foresee himself as being a gold miner any longer. He was done.

When he awoke the next day, he abandoned the empty Josephine gold mine and headed to town

to cash in his fortune. Someone could find that sluice system in place someday and have their

way with it. Icky wished them well. He doubted that the stream had any gold left in it, which

was the way it was out there. The sluice system could be disassembled and would be useful to

someone as spare parts. Icky was exultant beyond all his expectations. He had to keep pinching

himself to prove that he wasn't dreaming. He had heard about old timers hitting it big with mines

out there, but nothing like he had just hit. He was verging on becoming the stuff of legends.

When the townsfolk heard about the amount of gold that he mined, the word would spread like

wildfire. Everyone would want to know how he did it, where it was and other trivia. He didn't

intend to reveal any of the details pertaining to Josephine. The other miners would have to

remain in the dark. He had struggled to find that mine through sweat and toil. He wasn't about

to make it easy for someone else to become rich.

He fully realized the potential danger that he will be putting himself into when he cashes in the

money. There were many nefarious people out there in the Australian wilderness that wanted

easy money. Not everyone was as willing to work as hard as Icky was to get it. He planned to

immediately book a flight to Florida to live in the wilds of the swamps, where no one would be

able to find him. He could easily live for the rest of his life on his money. He would find a nice

simple country girl who didn't want for much who would be able to stand guard with him.

Together they would live in the heat and humidity of Florida and be happy. It seemed like such a

great idea. As he drove, he planned his future and envisioned better days. First, he had to cash in

the gold.

Roo-boy got his name, because he loved eating kangaroo. He grew up in poverty in Australia

along with his brothers and sisters. His entire family subsisted on kangaroo meat, because it was

basically free. Kangaroos were everywhere and there was no limit on hunting them. He was one

of the few family members like actually liked the taste. His siblings only ate it because it was all

they had on their breakfast, lunch and dinner plates each day. Roo-boy never worked an honest

day in his life and didn't care to. His means of survival consisted of observation and conquer.



He scouted for opportunities and waited for other people to do all the work of obtaining wealth

and then he swooped in to quickly abscond with it. Roo-boy had heard about Icky's gold mining

exploits from an old miner and had been following Icky out of sight for the past several months.

Roo-boy's only possession of real value was the high-powered binoculars that he had swiped

from an avid bird watcher. With the precision device, Roo-boy was able to surveil Icky from

miles away.

As Icky carefully motored along in his jeep, a flock of large Australian honeybees was in the

process of flying from one side of his roadway to the other. Two of the bees were trapped in his

jeep with him. As he instinctively swatted at them, one of the bees stung his forehead above his

better-seeing eye and the other bee stung his better-seeing eye. He thought he felt pain before

and was a tougher bloke than most, but those bee stings made him cry like a baby in need of a

diaper change. He stopped the jeep and sat there weeping as his better-seeing eye swelled shut.

The limited vision in his lesser-seeing eye was suitable for driving, but not for doing anything

that required detailed viewing. He began to feel that his immense luck with the gold mine might

be on the downturn. He resumed driving guided by the blurred view of his lesser-seeing eye.

As Roo-boy sat on a boulder watching Icky being stung by the bees miles away, a snake had

slithered unseen into the shade created by Roo-boy's legs. The snake was perfectly complacent in

the cool shade until Roo-boy shifted his position for a better look at Icky. The snake whipped its

poison-fanged head and bit Roo-boy's calf. Roo-boy leaped up from his seated position and ran

as fast as he could away from the boulder. He looked down at his calf and noted the 2 bite marks

that looked like a vampire had just chomped on his leg. The pain was enormous and beyond

excruciating, if that was possible. He saw the bite marks quickly discolor and become ugly. The

snake must have been laden with some neurotoxin, because Roo-boy's head began twitching

uncontrollably. It was just enough of a continuous twitch to affect his eyesight. When he tried to

view Icky through the binoculars, he couldn't focus properly and only saw a jagged image.

Crockie obtained his name from his love of alligator meat. As long as he could remember, he

had always enjoyed eating the stuff. Many of his fellow lowlife acquaintances also ate crocodile,

but not as much as he did. There was something to the flavor that did it for him. The best thing

was that the meat was free for the taking, since the animals were a plentiful nuisance wherever

there was a source of water. Crockie always had several pounds of croc jerky in his knapsack, on

which he could survive for weeks at a time. He had also heard about Icky from an old miner and

had been tailing Roo-boy. Crockie was the lowest of the low type of criminal who existed at a

level beneath Roo-boy. Crockie's successful scheme was to skulk in the shadows while a thief

like Roo-boy skimmed the wealth from someone. Crockie would then skim the wealth from the

Roo-boy thief. Crockie preferred to be farther down the food chain to avoid the possibility of

being spotted by a passer-by.



As Crockie sat in his jeep viewing Roo-boy through his stolen telescope, he felt a strange

sensation in his fingers. His fingers began quivering. He didn't know what was happening to

him. He was unusually healthy for someone who lived in the outback and subsisted primarily on

crocodile flesh. That morning, he had encountered a large croc on the side of the dirt road. He

was too hungry for the fresh meat to think about the atypical presence of the beast. Healthy crocs

were usually careful with concealing themselves. When Crockie had dispatched the croc and

began eating the succulent raw hunks of meat, he detected a slight off-taste, but was too hungry

to question it at the time. After gorging 2 pounds of the rabid croc meat, he got on his way again.

The finger trembling was beginning to bother Crockie as he struggled with the jeep's steering

wheel. His hands began trembling. What was going on? He became nervous. Would he be

capable of skimming the gold from Roo-boy after Roo-boy skimmed it from Icky? He forced

himself to focus and concentrate on driving. He would worry about how to execute his plan

when the time was ripe. He still had to wait for Roo-boy to make the first move. Crockie hoped

that he would be capable of using his crossbow as necessary. The device required some force to

cock the bowstring into position. Putting the arrow into place was no big deal. Holding the

crossbow and accurately shooting the arrow was the issue. He only had one shot and the shot

needed to be spot on the target.

The pain in Icky's bee-stung eye had become so unbearable that he was compelled to pull over to

apply a special poultice on it. The recipe for the poultice was given to him by an old aboriginal

woman, with whom he had a secret friendship. The ingredients were readily available in the

Australian wilderness and were harvested from 6 or so wild plants. The plants were ground to

powder and some urine was added to make a paste. He wrapped the paste in some cloth and

wrapped the poultice around his head to cover the throbbing eye. The pain subsided

immediately. Through his binoculars, Roo-boy managed to discern a shaky image of Icky

standing vulnerably in the open. Roo-boy stomped the accelerator of his jeep.

Through his wavering telescope sight, Crockie somehow spotted Roo-boy moving in for the

skim. Crockie drove as quickly as he could manage the steering wheel without crashing. As

Icky stumbled toward his vehicle, he heard Roo-boy's jeep approaching. Icky grabbed the

crossbow from the back, cocked it, loaded it and stood there waiting for the inevitable. Roo-boy

arrived, jumped out with his loaded crossbow and demanded Icky's gold. The 2 men stood there

"aiming" their crossbows at each other. Crockie soon appeared, jumped out with his loaded

crossbow and pointed it at Roo-boy. The 3 panicking men alternated their crossbow targets from

one man to the other. They were at a nerve-wracked standoff. They each had one trigger click

and one chance for survival. Icky could barely see, Roo-boy's head was wobbling and Crockie's

hands were trembling. One would survive, 2 would survive or all would survive, if they all

missed. The rabid crocodile meat in Crockie's gut percolated and caused him to accidentally

flatulate. Click! Click! Click!

100 Short Stories by Mikey 153 Solomonno's Seat.wps

153. Solomonno's Seat




153. Solomonno's Seat

Solomonno walked down the narrow aisle of the commercial airplane and dreaded every

moment. He had taken many trips via airplane in his lifetime, mostly due to his work as a sales

rep for a major pharmaceutical company. He could easily mange any person-to-person

interchange on a business level, but he despised having to tolerate close contact with strangers in

public encounters. Solomonno occasionally thought back to a time when he was placed on a

Greyhound bus by his adoptive parents and he was forced to endure a 20-hour bus ride all alone

at the age of 16. The bus trip left an indelible scar on his fragile psyche. Between the chatting

people who only talked about nothing, the smells of the man next to him and the rattling of the

old bus, Solomonno was near insanity by the time the bus pulled into Biloxi, Mississippi.

A terrifying train trip at the age of 21 nearly drove Solomonno to a nervous breakdown. It

rained, snowed, hailed, thundered and lightninged; the train tracks were flooded at 3 locations.

The passengers of the train were ordered to evacuate the train when a herd of cows had blocked

the tracks for 4 hours. Solomonno was full of hellish stories involving waiting in lines at the

DMV, banks, ticket centers and clinics. He hated traveling on airplanes more than any other

form of transportation, but the expediency of the trips was a necessary part of his well-paid

position at his sales firm. Who was he to complain about making so much money? All he had to

do was work for the company for another 6 years and he would have his nest egg complete. He

had considered consulting with someone about his social inadequacy, but decided to keep it

hidden inside himself. He had always heard that it was worse to hold in anxiety than to let it out,

but he coerced himself to play the game as unperturbedly as he could muster.

He had laughed hysterically at the many comedic movies involving airplanes and flying by

airplane. When he watched the movies from a safe distance and wasn't actually on the plane

featured in the movie, it was easy. Being on an airplane and being subjected to the many tortures

of flight was unfortunately a different matter. Solomonno felt that young children shouldn't be

allowed on airplanes, because let's face it, no one, not even the parents of a screaming child

wants to hear that screaming. Even the holiest of nuns and most reverent of priests find

themselves cursing the parents of a screaming child for bringing the devilish creature on board

the craft. Solomonno had written countless letters to every airline to have them ban young

children from flying, but profit was too precious to the few remaining airlines for them to

consider forbidding any passengers willing to buy a ticket.

Solomonno hated the passengers who had spent too much time at the airport bar, imbibing on the

ridiculously overpriced alcohol. Solomonno didn't drink, because he had been brought up by

parents who knew better and didn't drink alcohol, in order to prevent presenting their children

with a bad example. When the drunks boarded Solomonno's flights, they made themselves

obvious to the other passengers by their burping, farting and loud voices. Some of the drunks



also emitted a profound stench of alcohol that was so toxic that a match might have ignited their

exhaled breath. Solomonno remembered a particularly annoying flight when a drunk had sat

next to him and talked non-stop for 2 hours and 37 minutes. The man had foul untoothbrushed

breath to begin with, which when combined with several alcoholic-laced drinks had become a

Los Angeles type of smog. The man had spat hundreds of times onto Solomonno's cringing face

the entire unbelievable flight while explaining how he had closed an amazing deal on umbrellas.

Since Solomonno's seats were purchased by his company at no charge to him, he had to sit

wherever the random seat happened to be. He walked to row 21 and found his seat at 21B, which

unfortunately was the middle seat. He tossed his carry-on into the overhead bin and sat down at

his seat. As he sat down, Solomonno always made a point of quickly glancing at the people in

his area of the plane. The people who sat behind him were composed of a family of 2 Hawaiian

parents and a 4-year-old child who sat between the parents, directly behind Solomonno. The

people in the 3 seats in front of Solomonno were composed of 2 Bostonian parents, except that

the child in the seat directly in front of him looked to be about 3 years old. The person to the

right of Solomonno was already sitting there in the window seat. The man was drunk and yelling

something about the convention that he was heading to on the flight. The person to the left of

Solomonno on the aisle seat was a woman who was clutching the paper barf bag already, even

thought the airplane was still on the ground.

The woman with the barf bag babbled on and on about how unsafe airplanes were and to

Solomonno's great discomfort, recited the gory details to him of every major plane crash in the

world, since the 1960's. The people on the airplane who sat within earshot of the woman couldn't

believe how someone could be on a plane while uttering such inane chatter. The woman went on

and on, until the plane finally took off. The woman squeaked into her barf bag as the plane

angled skyward. Fortunately, the take off was fine as far as turbulence and wind sheer. The

plane gradually attained its cruising altitude and the captain mumbled into the PA system the

usual banter about airspeed, altitude, temperature and flight time. No one on the plane could

understand a single word of what the captain said and no one cared.

The Hawaiian kid behind Solomonno stood up on his seat and rested his head on the space

between Solomonno's seat and the drunk man's seat. Solomonno disliked the fact that the kid's

parents would allow the kid to stand there like that, but the plane was flying level and easy. The

kid yelled to the Bostonian kid in the seat in front of Solomonno. The Bostonian kid stood up on

his own seat and looked back at the Hawaiian kid. The parents of the 2 kids thought it was cute

how the 2 kids could be so friendly to each other. The Hawaiian kid was chewing bubble gum

quite sloppily and when the kid tried to blow a bubble, the gum fell into Solomonno's hair. The

kid tried to remove the gum, but only got it stuck more. Solomonno was outraged. The

Bostonian kid tried to reach to Solomonno's head to aid in the gum removal, but the gum was just

too sticky for words.



Solomonno rose from his seat and went to the lavatory to somehow remove the gum. After 3

minutes of making the gum get stuck even deeper in his hair, he decided to try to comb it out.

After 7 minutes of tearful struggle, he managed to remove most of the gum. He returned to his

seat to find the woman with the barf bag still holding the bag to her mouth, as if she were

preparing herself for the inevitability of barfing. The woman resumed her discussion of the perils

of plane travel and continued talking to Solomonno with her barf-bagged voice. The Bostonian

kid and Hawaiian kid were both still chatting to each other and the drunk ordered his 2nd drink

from one of the flight attendants. The usual snacks and beverages were handed out to the

airplane's passengers and everyone seemed a little bit happier with their free goodies. It's always

comical how people will pay hundreds of dollars for a plane ticket and actually be joyful to

receive 33 cents worth of junk food from the airlines.

After about 34 minutes of smooth travel, the captain rang his seatbelts warning bell and mumbled

something about turbulence. The flight attendant captain spoke into the PA system about the

seatbelts warning and the upcoming turbulence. The flight attendants never wanted to create

undue alarm in the passengers about the real hazards of heavy turbulence that could result in a

passenger being slammed into the ceiling. People who were flying for the first time had enough

to worry about and people who were prone to air sickness didn't need any extra coaxing to make

themselves nauseous by psychological means. The barf bag woman stopped orating about plane

crashes and began squeaking louder and louder into her barf bag. Solomonno attempted to

ignore the woman, because based upon his own experience with other airsick prone passengers, it

was better to not talk about it. The sickly people would have to deal with it on their own. They

knew the situation they were in and becoming embarrassed by barfing on an airplane was always

at the forefront of their thoughts.

Flight attendants attempted to make the woman more comfortable, the she would have none of it.

The barf bag woman actually seemed to want to barf and no one was going to talk her out of it.

Naturally, no one on an airplane ever, ever wants to be near someone who is airsick. It is like an

unwritten rule. Unfortunately, it's the luck or unluck of the draw when it comes to airplane seats.

We never know whom we will be sitting near. The flight attendants had the 2 seat-standing kids

sit back down and put their seat belts on. The parents of the kids were advised to watch their

children for their own safety. The drunk man burped loudly and foully as he finished his 2nd

drink. Then the drunk farted loudly and foully and laughed at the sound and smell of the ripe

fart. Solomonno winced. The Hawaiian kid behind Solomonno laughed. The Bostonian kid in

front of Solomonno laughed as well. Kids couldn't help but laugh when they heard a fart. That's

the beauty of children; they don't hold back their laughter. When something is funny, it's funny

and farting is funny.

When the kids smelled the fecal fart, their laughter turned to disgust and they both grunted. The

drunk man continued laughing and the pressure made him fart again and again. The kids began



laughing even harder; they couldn't help it. The kids laughed so hard, that they began farting.

Solomonno wasn't exactly enjoying any of it. He was one of those people who pretended that

farting in public wasn't funny, even though he always laughed as his own farts in private. The

parents of the 2 kids attempted to calm the kids down, which they soon did. The barf bag woman

didn't seem to react to the smell of the farting; perhaps it was because she had her face in the barf

bag. Solomonno admitted to himself that the sounds of the farts were decidedly funny, but the

smells were inhuman. The farts from the kids weren't that bad, kind of fruity actually. The

drunk's farts were something else altogether.

Solomonno was essentially born with allergies and it being allergy season, he had ingested some

allergy medication before the flight. He always used the prescription variety of any medicine,

since he always found that the stuff prescribed by doctors was the most potent available, even

though nearly all prescription medications come with side effects. All he wanted was for the

medications to work; if he became a little nauseous or groggy, so be it. There was nothing worse

to him than sitting in sales meetings with his eyes itching and nose running. His supervisor had

advised him many times about the importance of appearance when in the presence of clients.

Solomonno wasn't at his current level within his company for nothing; he always toed the line

and played by the many rules exactly as they had to be played for optimum success. As the flight

entered into the 2nd part of the 1st hour, he began to feel drowsy, but he was accustomed to the

sensation.

Because of the time of year being so windy due to weather fronts, he had also ingested some

premium prescription airsickness medication that he had appropriated from a co-worker who

swore by the pills. The pills were guaranteed to prevent all airsickness. The co-worker had

admonished Solomonno about possible issues related to mixing the pills with other medication,

but Solomonno wasn't worried. In the high-powered sales industry, the salespeople did what they

had to for the company's survival. If that meant drinking large amounts of coffee to stay awake

or going without breakfast or lunch, the employees did it. In Solomonno's current case, he had 2

prescription medications circulating through his bloodstream and the drugs were verging on

combining. Against better judgement, Solomonno decided to have his 1 free drink that was paid

for by his company and he opted for a drink similar to what the drunk in the window seat was

drinking. The drunk happened to order the same drink at the same time as Solomonno and the 2

toasted each other with the drinks brought to them by the flight attendant.

Four minutes after his drink was consumed, Solomonno began to feel strange. His eyes became

slightly blurred and his mouth became dry. He wasn't sure what was going on as he slipped into

a slight dream state. In his groggy state, he found himself beginning to panic that the airplane

was going to crash for some reason. Unbeknownst to Solomonno in his grogginess, the plane

had entered a turbulent patch of air and was beginning to heave up and down somewhat. It might

have been the turbulence of the plane or other factors, but Solomonno was becoming more and



more nervous. Solomonno's lack of reasoning and judgement compelled him to unbuckle his

seat belt and rise to his feet. He scanned the airplane for any problems and detected none. Why

was he so flustered? He had flown on hundreds of flights during his years crisscrossing the

continent and had never been so bewildered. He couldn't see anything going on, but there had to

be something, hadn't there?

He felt the urge to notify the captain of the plane that the plane might not make it to its

destination. What would he say to the captain? Solomonno was no pilot. The captain had to

know what he was doing. As Solomonno squeezed past the barf bag woman to enter the aisle, he

felt glorified. He was single-handedly going to save the plane and its passengers. It was all up to

him now. There was no turning back. All he had to do was calmly walk up the aisle to the

cockpit, knock on the door and the captain, co-pilot or navigator would let him in. When in the

cockpit, Solomonno would explain in detail his concerns to the captain. The captain would then

take the proper precautions and everyone would be safe and sound. That was it! Solomonno

paused in the aisle next to the barf bag woman. He mustered his bleary-eyed courage and

proceeded forward to the cockpit.

During Solomonno's quest for glory, the airplane had actually begun to become turbulent and

began heaving up and down. He had no idea of how rough it actually was, because his brain was

like a beehive full of honey. The barf bag woman began to dry heave into her barf bag. Because

she hadn't eaten anything before or during the flight, her stomach was empty. The sounds of the

dry heaving were incredibly similar to the sounds of barfing. The Hawaiian kid thought he heard

barfing, which naturally caused him to projectile vomit at an angle towards the drunk in the

window seat in front of him. The kid's barf landed on the drunk's head. The drunk then

projectile vomited onto the head of the Bostonian father in front of him. Upon seeing their child

barfing, the parents of the Hawaiian child projectile vomited as well. The barf bag woman's head

was barfed on and the drunk had still more barf added to his already barf covered scalp.

The barf bag woman continued her dry heaving, sparing the Bostonian mother in the seat in front

of her. However, the Bostonian kid ended up barfing on his mother's lap. The Bostonian mother

then barfed onto the head of the person in front of her. A chain reaction of vomiting erupted on

the airplane. It was like a scene in a Mel Brooks movie. All the flight attendants barfed. The

airplane stunk so horrifically from vomit that the remaining 5 hours and 17 minutes of flight

were destined to be unforgettable for the passengers. When Solomonno reached the locked

cockpit door, he was confused by why he couldn't simply walk right in. What kind of airplane

was he on that he didn't have easy access to chatting with the captain? Solomonno pounded

violently on the door until a barfed-on Air Marshal tackled him to the floor and handcuffed him.

Solomonno was dumbfounded by confusion. In his dizzy state of mind, he was helpless. On a

lighter note, with the exception of the captain, co-pilot and navigator, Solomonno was the only

person on the airplane who wasn't tainted by the vileness of vomit.

100 Short Stories by Mikey 154 Teddy's Run 3.wps

154. Teddy's Run 3




154. Teddy's Run 3

As Teddy tried again and again to free himself from the muck that he had fallen into, he grew

weak with anxiety. He tried to get loose for 27 minutes until his telephone-poled-brain finally

gave out. He gave up trying to escape the mess and simply lay there. He had to rest for a trice

until he could try again. A 1969 Charger pulled up next to him and stopped. A kindly 87-year

old lady exited the car, walked around to the trunk and removed a long cane. She hooked the

cane around Teddy's collar and pulled him from the goo. Teddy could barely make out the

features of the woman, but she appeared to be somewhat attractive, even for an older woman.

She somewhat resemble a young Elizabeth Taylor from the 1950's. Teddy thanked the woman,

whose name was Elizabeth by coincidence. Elizabeth replied that it was nothing for her to rescue

him.

In fact, Elizabeth had been following Teddy's progress for quite some time and she had been

driving by him on the various roads whenever she could between her many daily naps. Luckily

for Teddy, she happened to spot him in his time of need on that day. Elizabeth offered to give

Teddy a ride to wherever he wanted, but he explained to her that he was running to California as

part of a bet with Bruno. Teddy informed Elizabeth that the bet involved winning a 1962

Cadillac. Elizabeth remarked that the Cadillac would definitely be a nice prize for him, but she

preferred the Charger that she had bought at an auction in South Carolina. Teddy admitted that

the Charger was nice, but not as nice as the Cadillac. Elizabeth bade farewell to Teddy for the

moment and Teddy continued his run. As the days and weeks passed, Teddy entered Arizona on

Route 70 and was jogging out of the city limits of Franklin, Arizona when something strange

happened. He was one state away from California and his prize of the Cadillac.

Elizabeth sped by in her Charger and tossed a dozen roses out the window at Teddy. The roses

hit him in the side of the face and scratched him to no end. He noticed the Charger and assumed

that it might be that friendly old lady again. The only problem was that throwing thorny roses at

someone's face wasn't exactly a friendly gesture. He continued running as the scratches

eventually dried to scabs. He didn't know if he should be cursing Elizabeth or not. She did save

him from the muck. What was the woman up to anyway? Elizabeth continued her high rate of

speed, confident in the thought that she had delivered a romantic gift to Teddy. Of course, her

intentions actually mauled him, but she didn't know about it. All she did know was that she was

in love with him and only desired the best for him. She wanted more than anything for him to

make it to California to win his bet with Bruno.

As Teddy entered the city of Duncan, Arizona, he stopped at the Walmart for supplies and at the

McDonalds for hot food. He ate 3 cheeseburgers, a large fries and a shake. He was full and he

was totally capable of running on a full stomach. The weeks of running while empty-stomached

or full-stomached had evolved his physiology into an animal type of being. Since animals in the



wild survived on a feast or famine schedule as far as eating, animals were forced by nature to

perform at full capacity whether they had food in their stomachs or not. Teddy had become one

of those wild animals, of course a human version of it. He somewhat enjoyed being out there

like a machine running and running, with nothing on his mind except the Cadillac prize.

As Teddy trotted into San Jose, Arizona, he slowed down a bit to look around at the sights. It

was a surprisingly picturesque little municipality. Everything was meticulously clean and

maintained. All the grasses were mowed, all the statues were free from bird droppings and all

the people were smiling. Teddy didn't think it a little odd that all the people were smiling as they

traipsed about the town. Why would they be constantly smiling? Teddy thought that the only

time he smiled is when something was funny or when something made him happy. Were all

these San Jose people happy at the same time or thinking of something funny at the same time?

What was going on? As Teddy pondered why everyone was smiling, he maintained a perplexed

thinking look on his face. He certainly didn't blend in with everyone else around him. Everyone

seemed to have the same blank smiling expression plastered on their faces.

Teddy thought about the movie, "The Stepford Wives," in which the women of the community

were replaced by robotic machines. Teddy thought that it had to be only fantasy. There is no

way that an entire community was a bunch of silly smiling robots. As Teddy's thought processes

deepened while he ran, his facial expression contorted into a grimace. He absolutely didn't look

like everybody else at that point. A local constable attempted to stop Teddy as Teddy ran, but

Teddy refused to yield. Teddy increased his pace and ran faster. The overweight constable was

unable to catch up to the speeding Teddy, forcing the cop to heave his nightstick at Teddy.

Teddy was concentrating on evading the constable and didn't notice the stick being thrown at

him. The stick hit Teddy in the back of the head and caused him to stumble and fall to the

ground. As Teddy's wits came back to him, the cop came a running.

Teddy wasn't able to run away. Suddenly Elizabeth came zooming along in her Charger. She

screeched to a stop next to Teddy. Teddy was just clear-headed enough to get up, open the door

and drag himself into the car. Elizabeth sped away in a cloud of burning rubber, dust and oil

smoke from the engine. The constable felt foiled and didn't bother to pursue Teddy any longer.

Teddy sat in the Charger and looked at Elizabeth, who had a weird look on her face. Teddy had

seen that look before, the look of women who had something romantic on their minds. The

thought initially upset Teddy and he barfed. Elizabeth surmised that Teddy had been stressed out

by the knock to the noggin and didn't for an instant think about his real reason for vomiting. As

the car exited San Jose, Teddy requested to be dropped off. Elizabeth granted Teddy's wish; she

didn't want him to lose his bet by cheating in a vehicle. Since Teddy had been maintaining a

communication connection with Bruno over the weeks, it would be obvious to Bruno if Teddy

had been doing anything but running to California.



Teddy had no intentions or schemes of cheating while on his run; he had always wanted to win

the bet fair and square. He never cheated when he was in school and had always been very proud

of the fact. He had been indoctrinated with the great values that all of today's kids should

possess. Elizabeth had a slightly forlorn look on her face as she sped away in the Charger.

Teddy didn't care how forlorn the woman was; he wasn't about to get it on with an old woman.

Teddy was again grateful to Elizabeth for rescuing him from a situation, but he had to draw the

line there. Elizabeth understood in her mind that she might be a tad old for Teddy, but she

continued to hold out hope that someday he would see the light. The only light that Teddy was

seeing on that day was from the sun setting in the west. His almighty quest was the west.

Teddy ran through Solomon and Safford without any issues and in his mind, he was beginning to

smell the aroma of the old Cadillac. There was something about the smell of a car. When a car

was new, it had that unmistakable new car smell. After a while, a new car loses its new car

smell. On the other end of the scent spectrum was the smell of an old car. Depending on how

old the car was, old cars had a distinct smell of their own. If an old car had vinyl seats or leather

seats, it affected the smell. If a car was really old and had those mohair seats, that was yet

another smell. The smell of Elizabeth's Charger was unique to the cars of the era with the vinyl

seats. Teddy thought the Elizabeth's car had a miniscule essence of Ben-Gay, which was to be

expected. Elizabeth was getting on in years and probably applied the ointment to the various

joints of her decrepit body each day. The smell of Bruno's 1962 Cadillac would be like the smell

of perfume to Teddy. So far, he had invested a lot of time and physical suffering to obtain the

Cadillac. He couldn't wait to claim his prize.

As Teddy ran, he neglected to worry about much of his personal hygiene, including his hair.

After months of running, his hair had grown about 3 inches. He was beginning to look like a

redneck with his long greasy hair dangling from his hat. Thatcher was an old-school city with

old-school values. The city loved and stuck to the values of the 1950's, which involved men

wearing their hair short. No men in Thatcher were permitted to wear their hair long. It was

actually written into the city's charter. Naturally, Teddy knew little about the various cities that

he jogged through. Some of the cities were plain looking and others were nicer. Whatever went

on behind the scenes of the cities didn't concern Teddy. He only stopped for provisions and food.

It wasn't his problem if a city had a hair code for men. Or was it?

When Teddy walked into the Arby's in Thatcher, the conversations stopped and everyone looked

away from their meals at Teddy. His long hair caused an instantaneous red flag to go up. Teddy

casually strolled up to the counter to order and before he could order, mayhem broke out in the

Arby's. Everyone in the joint began screaming, "Hippy! Get a haircut! Get out of here, you

freak!" Teddy was pelted by hamburgers, French fries, apple pies, cokes, shakes and cookies. In

minutes, he was covered from head to toes with fast food and bruises. He turned and tried to run

out of the restaurant as fast as he could, but he slipped on some special sauce. The patrons began



kicking him, even the youngest of the children. Elizabeth soared to the site at full speed into the

Arby's parking lot and smashed through one of huge front windows. She screamed at Teddy to

get in the car. Teddy was able to escape as the fiendish people were momentarily shocked by the

Charger crashing into their tumult.

Elizabeth jammed the Charger in reverse and backed out into the street at about 40 mph. She

then launched the vehicle westward on Route 70. In seconds, Elizabeth and Teddy were safe out

of town and on their way toward Central, Arizona. Teddy thanked Elizabeth profusely for her

rescue effort. Elizabeth replied that she would do anything for him; all he had to do was ask.

She soon dropped Teddy off at the road shoulder to allow him to continue his running. Teddy

thought about the savages of Thatcher and how even today, people still clung to the old values.

Teddy opined that there was nothing wrong with the old values, but those rednecks in Thatcher

were probably the type of folks to vote for a billionaire to be president. Old values were one

thing; old, feeble, unrealistic minds were something else. Teddy thought about how Elizabeth

kept saving him at just the right moment. She must have been following him and waiting to

swoop in for the save. Did Elizabeth have something in mind for him? He thought about what

might be under the mounded wool blanket in the back seat of her Charger. Naw … couldn't be

anything.

Central, Arizona was famous for its many dog show winners. Teddy had personally never heard

of the city until the day that he galloped into it, but the accolades were everywhere.

Congratulations to this dog owner and that dog trainer and the other dog breeder; blah, blah, blah.

As Teddy entered the city, a puggle came out of nowhere and made chase after him. Teddy

increased his running pace in the hopes of escaping the feisty creature, but couldn't. The puggle

managed to sink its teeth into Teddy's right sock, just above the sneaker. The dog's teeth held

tightly to the cotton socks, but also scraped on the skin of Teddy's Achilles area. Teddy

screamed in agony as he ran. He couldn't shake the dog loose. He felt like a letter carrier on the

mail route. In a minute, another dog came flying down the street towards Teddy. It was a scary-

looking Jack Russell and it was barking and snarling as it approached Teddy at full gallop.

Teddy had no choice but to face the oncoming attack, because if he stopped, the puggle would

probably adjust its grip higher up on the back of his leg.

The Jack Russell arrived and immediately jumped at Teddy. The dog took a hold of Teddy's left

thigh and bit down hard. Teddy screeched. What kind of a city was this? Just because they had

so many show-winning dogs, it didn't give them the right to allow the dogs to run loose! Being

proud is one thing; being psychotic is another. Teddy continued running and screaming with the

2 dogs clinging to his flesh. Teddy had thought that he had felt pain before, but not like the pain

of multiple simultaneous dog bites. The saliva that the dogs were drooling into Teddy's

bloodstream as they mauled him, probably added to the sting of their sharp teeth. Teddy heard

the growl of yet another dog to his right, but was afraid to look. As a Basset hound approached



with its yellow teeth flared and its distinctive deep howl echoing into the street, Teddy wanted to

close his eyes and slip into a dream. Teddy burst into tears and then he heard the familiar growl

of the Charger. Yes! It was Elizabeth coming to save him again!

Elizabeth gunned the engine of the car, sped up and then skidded to a loud tire squealing stop

next to Teddy. The 3 dogs all ran off in different directions with the tails between their legs.

Teddy collapsed with pain and relief. Elizabeth ran to him and dragged his bleeding body into

the car. She raced away from the scene as fast as she legally could, without drawing too much

attention. Elizabeth put the pedal to the metal when they exited the city limits and the speed

limit changed. Teddy looked pretty gory with the teeth marks on his legs and she pulled into a

nice park when they reached Fort Thomas. Elizabeth patched his wounds with materials from

her extra large first aid kit. She claimed that she had been a nurse of sorts in her youth and she

did a great job with the patching.

Teddy allowed Elizabeth to do what she had to do to fix the wounds on his left thigh, but he

cautioned her to stay in the area of the injury. She frowned, but allowed herself the pleasure of

actually being able to touch and caress Teddy, even though it was only in a nurse/patient manner.

After an hour of resting, Teddy thanked Elizabeth and headed back to the road to continue the

trot to California. Teddy appreciated the help that Elizabeth provided, but things were beginning

to become mysterious like a Columbo TV mystery. Teddy felt like he might be on the verge of

becoming a victim of some sort. As Teddy ran, he thought back to all the troubles he had while

running and why Elizabeth wasn't always there to help him. He also wondered if she were in fact

following him, why did she wait so long to respond when he was in trouble? It seemed that she

liked him to suffer a little before she would come to his aid.

She was most likely just a nice little old Catholic lady who only wanted to help people. But,

what if there was more to the story? As Teddy ran, he had a long talk on the phone with Bruno

about Elizabeth. Bruno laughed at the bombasticity of Teddy's trepidations. Bruno claimed that

it was the months on the road that had twisted Teddy's mind, not Elizabeth's. Teddy maintained

that Bruno had to be in his shoes for a while to be able to feel what it was like out there alone.

Bruno acknowledged that Teddy had a point there. When Teddy hung up the phone with Bruno,

he felt a lot better. Bruno admitted that he was going to hate to relinquish the Cadillac to Teddy,

but it will have been well earned by Teddy. Teddy agreed.

Teddy jogged without incident for a while until he switched over to Route 60 in Globe, Arizona.

As the route changed, the maintenance jurisdiction of the road changed as well, because the

conditions of the road and shoulder became crappy. Teddy found himself actually slipping and

tripping on the loose gravelly roadway shoulder. After some hours, he spotted a vehicle pulled

over way up ahead. Was that the Charger? Was it? No it couldn't be! Was that Elizabeth lying

naked on the trunk of her car? It was! No!!!

100 Short Stories by Mikey 155 Ute's Guy 2.wps

155. Ute's Guy 2




155. Ute's Guy 2

The passing of Ute's human father Guy greatly affected Ute. Agatha and the girls Britney and

Chelsea did what they could to console Ute, but he missed caring for humans. Ute had spent so

much time training, caring for and living with humans that he missed it. Ute finally realized that

he needed to go back to being with humans. Living in Guy's house with his beautiful orangutan

family was fine, but Ute craved to do was he was created to do. The agency kept in regular

contact with Ute even though Ute had retired from duty. A member of the agency had consulted

with Agatha about Ute's disposition and Agatha had communicated that Ute wasn't happy. The

agency representative returned to the agency to find a new assignment for Ute.

Even though Ute technically didn't have to work another day for the rest of his life, the agency

felt Ute's pain and wanted him to be happy. Based on Agatha's remarks about Ute's depression

after Guy's passing, the agency decided to step in and help. Since the latest thing in today's

society was all about keeping people living longer, there were millions of old people everywhere.

Nursing homes were becoming overpopulated with people and the ratio of caregivers to residents

kept getting lower and lower. The agency jumped at any chance to better utilize their highly

trained workforce.

After a month of continuous begging and cajoling, Agatha managed to talk Ute into a meeting at

the agency. The agency maintained that there were always opportunities available for their staff

to work wherever and however they wanted. At the meeting, Ute came back to the world and

expressed his desire to keep on working. Ute emphasized that he loved human beings more than

life itself. There was simply something within him that craved to help human beings and assist

them to survive. He didn't know what it was or why he felt the way he did. All he knew was that

he wanted another Guy. The agency knew all too well about the tendency of their trained

orangutans to fall in love with the concept of helping humans. The orangutans were chosen in

the first place as the ultimate service animal for humans. There was an unconscionable aspect of

orangutans that made the beasts born to serve.

Ute and Agatha met with psychologists from the agency who were able to explain to Ute that it

was perfectly normal for him to feel the way he did. It was okay for Ute to miss Guy. The

agency wished only the best for Ute. Obviously, the agency would prefer Ute to continue to

serve the agency's clients as he was originally trained to do. The fact that Ute had been bestowed

Guy's estate essentially freed Ute from having to work again. The agency was fully aware of

that. However, the agency only wanted Ute to be happy and they knew he needed to get back out

there into the caring field again. Ute became elated that the agency actually knew how he was

feeling and that they only wanted for him to be happy. Agatha and the girls wanted their Ute to

be happy as well, obviously more than the agency.

The agency decided to assign Ute, Agatha and the girls to care for an elderly couple who had



both suffered an accident that left them unable to care for themselves. Ute was overjoyed. He

couldn't wait to get back to work again. He knew all to well that he could be setting himself up

for another emotional event, but he would have to worry about it later. Ute remembered reading

about how cowboys would fall off their horses and become injured. Some of the cowboys would

become too afraid to ever get back on a horse. Even though a cowboy's livelihood depended on

their ability to ride a horse, some of the injured just couldn't get back in the saddle. For the ones

who summoned the courage to climb back up on the horse, they felt it was the best feeling they

ever had. Facing and overcoming fears was the most important concept for human growth and

functionality. Ute felt like one of those fallen cowboys. He could do it. He could get back on

the horse. Agatha and the girls would be by his side; he wouldn't be alone.

Mantah was the name of the elderly man and Jubileee was the name of the woman. Jubileee

insisted that her name was spelled with 3 letter E's on the end, not 2. Mantah insisted that his

name ended in the letter H. It didn't matter to Ute and Agatha what letters the elderly couple's

names ended in, because the orangs didn't write. For that matter, Ute and Agatha never

pronounced the odd names either. Britney and Chelsea similarly had no issues with the strange

names. After a meeting involving Ute, Agatha, the agency representative, the girls, Mantah and

Jubileee, it was determined that Ute would care for Mantah and Agatha would tend to Jubileee's

needs. Britney and Chelsea would perform the cooking and cleaning tasks. Within a week, Ute

and his family had moved into the home of the elderly couple and began caring for them.

Mantah weighed close to 400 pounds and Jubileee weighed about 350. Since Ute and Agatha

were so naturally strong, it was no problem for them to haul the old couple in and out of bed, the

toilet, the dining chairs and other locations in the house and vehicle. Ute was an unusually

tolerant orangutan and could put up with just about any kind of teasing or physical torment.

Mantah had a habit of latching onto Ute's balls whenever Ute would pick him up out of bed or

out of a chair. Ute figured it was Mantah's way of gaining some leverage in order to assist Ute in

lifting. Sometimes, Mantah would squeeze Ute's balls a little too hard, causing Ute to grunt

slightly. Mantah smiled whenever he made Ute grunt in that way. Mantah didn't have much to

make him happy and it was the little things each day that made all the difference.

Jubileee had a habit of spitting in Agatha's face when being lifted in and out of chairs, etc.

Agatha was probably even more easygoing than Ute when it came to such things. Agatha made a

game out of Jubileee's spitting. Whenever Jubileee spat in Agatha's face, Agatha would spit back

on Jubileee's face. The 2 would then erupt into great waves of laughter. It did Ute's heart good

to see Agatha getting along so well with a human; it made Ute think back to his days with Guy.

Britney and Chelsea found it unusual the way Ute and Agatha would put up with being ball-

grabbed and face-spat. When Britney asked Agatha about it, Agatha explained that it was really

no big deal. The humans were trying to be affectionate in any way they could; that was all.

Britney talked with Chelsea about it and the 2 girls thought it was slightly demeaning for humans



to grab the balls and spit in the face of orangutans. Since the girls were still new to the process

of caring for humans, they didn't realize what was expected. After a while, they caught on and

relented in their concerns.

Since Britney and Chelsea were new to the health care business, they were limited in their

physical contact with Mantah and Jubileee. After some time and training by the agency, they

would be allowed more contact. Whenever Mantah saw Britney passing by with the laundry, he

would whistle at her with a sloppy attempt at a whistle. Mantah liked Britney and thought she

was cute, even as an orangutan. It didn't bother Britney at first, but one day when Mantah called

to Britney and said, "Come here little monkey," she became upset. Britney slapped Mantah's face

and he grabbed her by the wrist. Before Britney could pull away, Mantah kissed Britney's cheek.

Britney slapped Mantah again and he laughed. She immediately realized how harmless it all was

and kissed Mantah on the face. Agatha was glad to see Britney getting along so well with the

clients.

Chelsea witnessed the event and thought Britney shouldn't take things so lightly. Britney assured

Chelsea that it was their role as orangutans to accommodate the humans, even when the humans

were occasionally too forward in their actions. Chelsea reckoned if that was the way it was to be,

then she planned to have some fun with it. Britney and Chelsea took turns with their many

cooking and cleaning tasks and when it was Chelsea's turn to cook again, she added something to

the food at suppertime. While snooping around the house, she found some laxative. She added a

slightly above normal dosage to the meals prepared for Mantah and Jubileee. That night, the

elderly couple suffered from looser bowels than usual and they both pooped in their clothing.

Mantah and Jubileee were both thoroughly soiled, as was their bedding. Ute and Agatha had

more than the typical amount of work in the morning cleaning up the old couple. Chelsea

laughed when she came to the old couple's bedroom and saw Ute and Agatha dealing with the

large mess.

Of course, Chelsea's little trick backfired on her, because she had to launder all the fouled

clothing and sheets. Chelsea told Britney about her little trick and Britney decided to play a trick

of her own. Britney knew how Jubileee liked to assemble jigsaw puzzles. Somehow Britney had

acquired a special puzzle that when assembled, portrayed the mating anatomy of a large male

gorilla. As Agatha worked with Jubileee assembling the puzzle over the weeks, Britney and

Chelsea would peek from the doorways to watch. When the puzzle was complete, Jubileee burst

out laughing at the enormous balls of the gorilla in the puzzle. Agatha's face changed color with

embarrassment. Britney and Chelsea squealed and squeaked as only mischievous orangutans

could. When Agatha confronted the girls about the puzzle, they denied involvement. Agatha

realized the girls were just playing innocently with the humans and no real harm was done.

Ute was glad to see that his daughters were getting along so well with Mantah and Jubileee.



However, Ute wasn't confident how well, or even if, the girls would adapt to a life of servitude.

He had noticed the girls playing their little tricks right from the beginning. He had always been a

playful orangutan since birth and appreciated comedy. Britney and Chelsea were getting a little

too far ahead of themselves as far as human interaction and he thought that the girls needed a

taste of their own medicine. He thought about a suitable trick to play on the girls and when he

finally got it in his head, he had to modify his diet a little to pull it off properly. He started eating

massive amounts of canned tuna fish in oil. As anyone who understood anything about

orangutans knew, tuna fish made the poop of the orangs really smelly and gloppy, like wet pizza

dough.

On the 6th day of eating nothing but tuna fish in oil, Ute put his plan into motion. Mantah had a

birthday party that day for his 97th birthday. As usual, Britney and Chelsea made the cake and

other dinner items. Agatha wrapped all the presents, except the ones prepared by Ute. After the

luscious dinner, the cake and ice cream were brought out. After the cake and ice cream were

devoured, the dinner table was cleared for the many gifts. Some of the gifts were mailed to the

house by the friends of Mantah and Jubileee, the 2 or 3 friends that were still alive. Mantah

began opening the gifts and Jubileee read the cards. When Mantah arrived at Ute's gift, the

present seemed a little heavy. Mantah unwrapped the paper and opened the box to find a

steaming heap of Ute's tuna-derived orangutan poopoo. When everyone looked at Ute, Ute acted

as if he didn't know what was going on. Ute looked at Mantah and then he motioned his eyes at

Britney and Chelsea. Because the girls had been doing so much practical joking lately, Mantah

assumed that they had switched Ute's present with the pile of poop.

Ute giggled to himself as Mantah scooped out a large handful of poop from the gift box and

nailed Britney in the face with it. He then heaved another handful of the wretched mess at

Chelsea. Ute could contain his mirth no longer and burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that

his tuna-loosened bowels had caused him to fart and poop like crazy. Britney and Chelsea

started laughing, wiped some of the poop from their faces and threw it at Ute's face. Some

poopoo landed in Ute's open laughing mouth. Jubileee started laughing and scooped some of the

poopoo from the gift box. Jubileee threw it at Agatha and because Agatha was already laughing,

she was hit in her open mouth with the poop. Agatha cleaned some of the poop from her face

and threw it at Jubileee. In seconds, it was an all out riot of poop throwing at the dinner table.

Ute kept pooping violently in his chair, so that he had a more or less continuous supply of fresh

hot poopoo to launch at everybody.

Britney and Chelsea lurched up from the table, because Ute was bombarding them with so much

poop that they were almost unidentifiable as orangutans. The girls made their way to the front

room in the hopes of avoiding Ute's bombardment. Agatha and Ute ran to the front room to

continue the poopoo fight with the girls. The family of orangutans began making so much noise

with their gleeful growls and squeals that a passerby had phoned the Police. The person outside



the house thought there was something unbelievable going on in the house. There was. As the

Police arrived, Britney and Chelsea had just made their way onto the front lawn. Ute was at the

point of pooping directly into his hand for his ammunition. Ute didn't see the cop standing

behind Britney when he threw the poop at her. When Britney ducked, the poop hit the cop in the

face.

The police officer started laughing, wiped the poop from his face and hit Ute in the face with it.

Agatha ran outside and began pelting Ute, the girls and the cop with poopoo scooped from the

gift box. They were all laughing and pelting each other with poop. Since Mantah and Jubileee

were in their motorized carts at the dinner table, they motored themselves outside to join in the

fun. The cop wished Mantah a happy birthday, because he saw the poop-smeared birthday hat on

Mantah's head. Neighbors from next door and across the street came over to the front yard to

join in on the merriment. The neighbors all brought over handfuls of dog poop collected from

their front lawns. The scene then involved a combination of dog and orangutan poop being

tossed about. Mantah and Jubileee reached into their diapers and scooped out some of their own

fresh poop to add to the show. It was really a scene to behold.

Some of the neighbors ran back to their homes to gather cat and bird poop from their pets. There

was so much poopoo flying around hitting faces, necks and arms that it was like being in the

monkey cage at the zoo. Eventually, the smell of all the different poops began to morph into a

toxic fog. The combatants were beginning to get queasy from the smell. There were things

occurring chemically with the poop combinations that even the greatest scientists hadn't

imagined. It was only logical that someone would barf from the queasiness. That someone was

Ute. He projectile vomited onto the face of the cop. The cop instantly barfed on Chelsea, who

then spewed on one of the next-door neighbors. The poop pelting festival became a barf festival.

It couldn't get any worse. As Ute vomited, he continued pooping, because the tuna diet had taken

a toll on his gastrointestinal tract like he couldn't believe. Ute vowed to never eat tuna fish in oil

again.

Ute wasn't sure if he had taught his daughters a lesson or not, but it was an incredibly memorable

day anyway. Agatha told Ute that night that she was head-over-heels happy living with him and

their girls. She couldn't wish for a better life. Ute shared some emotions with Agatha that he

hadn't uttered since their earliest mating days together. Ute agreed with Agatha's every heartfelt

statement, but he had to run to the bathroom to poop. Agatha could hear the girls laughing in

their bedroom at the sounds of their father grunting and groaning on the toilet. Agatha giggled as

quietly as she could as well. The girls won again, because the lesson that Ute had tried to teach

them had backfired on him. It was all in good fun though. Agatha heard Ute farting in the

bathroom and then she heard him laughing, because farting always made Ute laugh. Agatha then

heard Ute's explosive diarrhea, brought on by the tuna diet and the pressure from laughing.

Agatha loved her orangutan husband; he was a genuine character.

100 Short Stories by Mikey 156 Norberto's Pool.wps

156. Norberto's Pool




156. Norberto's Pool

Norberto had been a swimmer for most of his life; in fact, he taught himself to swim at the age of

5. He swam every day in the pool at home; he was on the swim team all through school. He

loved swimming. When he got older, he had been forced to live in the city for financial reasons

and he had to resort to living in an apartment. He had to enter the much talked about world of

public pools. He figured he if could get to the local pool early enough, he would be able to do

his laps with relative ease. Of course, that wasn't the case. Public pools were the most sought

out entities in the summertime. Norberto was determined to swim, in spite of the crowds. His

local pool was named after Abraham Lincoln, arguably one of the greatest men in history.

On the first day at the Lincoln pool, Norberto arrived at the 9:00 am opening time and to his

amazement, he had to stand in a long line to get in. The line was clogged with young kids on

their summer vacation from school. There were some adults of all ages as well. The kids were

all chattering at the top of their voices, as kids do. Norberto didn't see any infants or toddler kids,

which was a good sign. Of course, those younger characters might appear later on. The

lifeguards were already milling about inside the fence, performing some last minute pool

cleaning, as was part of their duties. Norberto doesn't remember ever seeing a lifeguard

anywhere actually rescue someone. He had heard that the lifeguards in California really earned

their keep. In Minneapolis however, the lifeguards mainly did a lot of whistle blowing in their

feeble attempts to maintain some kind of pool order.

When the gate was unlocked, the kids in line cheered and Norberto impatiently made his way

into the large fenced pool area. The Lincoln pool was huge. Obviously, a big city needed large

public pools to handle the bulging population of swimmers. Norberto laughed to himself how

referring to pool occupants as swimmers was a misnomer. The average person in a pool doesn't

swim; they kind of bounce along and flap their arms about. When the kids attempted to swim, it

was usually only for 10 feet or so, during which time they essentially made a splashing ruckus

with their arms and feet. The adults usually only clumsily "swam" for a few feet and then

resorted to bouncing along. Norberto had always been proud to be one of the few true swimmers

wherever he swam. One of the many facets of public pools was the limited amount of space for

people to swim any real distance, assuming they could swim, that is. Norberto had hoped that he

would be able to swim the pool length in spite of the many bodies, but it was difficult.

He didn't care; he wanted to swim his way. He put his towel down on a chair and headed to the

pool. He scanned the large pool and saw a boatload of people. He climbed done the ladder at

one end and attempted to swim. He always wore swim goggles when swimming to keep the

water out of his eyes. The public pools were so heavily chlorinated that goggles were a necessity.

At first, he was actually able to make it to the end of the pool, but as he flipped to do another lap,

he encountered resistance. When people were in pools, they didn't care about anyone else in the



pool, unless they knew the person. The kids were always in their little cliques. If 3 or 4 kids

were together playing in the pool, they were oblivious to anyone trying to swim a lap. Even

when adults were in a couple talking together, it was rare for the couple to break and allow a

space for someone to swim through.

Public pools were not suitable for true swimming; that was all there was to it. Norberto was

adamant however. He demanded his right to properly swim in a swimming pool. He boldly

swam in his straight-line laps. He encountered kid cliques that refused to break and he broke

through. He smashed his way through couples. He bumped into anybody who stood in his path.

He didn't care. He was there to swim and achieve valuable exercise from the motion. Some of

the people who Norberto bumped into muttered under their breaths. He didn't hear their

mutterings. He had every right to be there and to swim. On the long list of pool rules on the big

sign outside the gate, there was nothing there about pool occupants bumping into each other.

There was nothing on the list about courtesy. It was understood by most public pool people that

if someone were spotted swimming along, a reasonable space would be created for the swimmer

to swim through. The problem again was that no one truly cared.

All the churchgoers who babbled their various hymns, prayers and chants were usually the first

people to stubbornly block the passage of a real swimmer in a public pool. The real swimmers

only demanded their rights and nothing more. Once in a while, an older person would slap

Norberto on the back when he bumped into them, but Norberto ignored the slap. The lifeguards

were usually the first to see what was going on as Norberto did his laps. There was little that

they could do to stop him from swimming and bumping into people. It was a pool designed to be

swam in. The lifeguards all loved swimming and actually applauded Norberto's efforts to swim

the way that he did. A public pool wasn't really the proper venue for doing laps though.

Norberto began to actually enjoy bumping into and pissing off people who stood in his way.

Occasionally a macho type would purposely stand in Norberto's path and be bumped into by

Norberto. The macho fool would say, "Hey, watch it buddy!" Norberto would say nothing in

return, pretending not to hear the bozo. Norberto defined the macho types as those of low self-

esteem who hid behind a mask of macho. The "macho mask" was typically defined by people

with earrings or other piercings, tattoos, tee shirts with the sleeves ripped off, "wife beater" shirts

or by cigarette smokers. The machos drove motorcycles and vehicles with loud exhaust systems.

Because of their low self-esteem, the machos decorated themselves in some way to mask their

hidden low self-esteem induced inferiority. The macho types reckoned that by wearing their

macho masks, the men with self-esteem would be intimidated or set back just long enough until

the macho dudes could escape the confrontation, before their hidden inferiority could be

revealed.

As the summer progressed, Norberto had actually become acclimated to the public pool, as



difficult as it was to swim in. One day, a surprising emergency occurred when Norberto bumped

into a little old man who was treading water. The man was probably about 5 feet tall and utilized

the pool for exercise. The pool was only 3 feet 9 inches deep all around, but the little guy treaded

water in such a way that his large Charlie Brown head was barely above the water surface. The

little guy probably shouldn't have been in the pool in the first place, but his doctor had

recommended swimming for better health. The little guy had been treading water for a while and

as Norberto approached on his lap, the little guy's back was to Norberto. Norberto gently

bumped into the guy and upset the guy's concentration. For whatever reason, the little guy

stopped treading and went under the water. Norberto kept swimming as he usually did after

bumping into someone. He had no idea what happened.

Suddenly, whistles were blowing and lifeguards were barking orders and jumping into the water.

It was chaos. The kids were screaming and the pool was emptied. Norberto climbed out at the

end of the pool as he finished his lap. Everyone watched as the lifeguards resuscitated the little

guy as they waited for the EMT's to arrive. Norberto thought nothing of the goings on and

proceeded to eat a Snickers candy bar that he had extracted from his backpack on the chair. He

liked the Snickers bars, because they had the peanuts. Norberto liked the Three Musketeers bar

as well, but that bar didn't have the peanuts. He toweled off and observed with the dozens of

other pool goers, as the little guy was stretchered away. After a quick pool check by the

lifeguards, the pool was reopened and the pool people were once again freely frolicking.

Norberto climbed down the ladder into the pool and continued his laps.

On Saturday, some kids decided to play the old Baby Ruth bar trick, popularized in the movie

Caddyshack. One of the gang of 4 sneaked a Baby Ruth bar into the pool via his swim trunks.

The demonic youth then worked the bar out the bottom of his trunks and into the pool. Another

of the fearsome foursome announced the discovery of the faux piece of poopoo. Whistles were

blown, the pool populace shrieked and the pool was emptied of people. Even though it was a

classic trick to play in a pool, the gang of 4 fools actually ended up reducing their hours in the

pool by 2. The public pools had a strict policy concerning several biohazards, such as human

feces. Even though the pools were already contaminated with the maximum allowable amounts

of chlorine, a piece of alleged poop was always a red flag for evacuation and sweeping. The 4

kids initially had a little laugh at their childish display of power and afterwards realized how dim-

witted their efforts were.

Norberto chuckled at the silliness of the kids, but silently rewarded them for their efforts. It was

the rebelliousness and recklessness of those 4 kids that made life more interesting for the

average, tow-the-line people who existed in vastly greater numbers. The many blah pool goers

went home that day and had a little story to tell about the unknown rotten person or persons who

had slightly ruined the pool day. It was funny how life for the most part was the same old thing.

Even though the average person enjoyed living life at a moderate safe pace, it was nice once in a



while for something to happen that spiced things up. If an average someone's life could actually

be spiced up by having a story to tell about being evacuated from a pool, that average person

quite possibly needed to get a life, as the not-so-average people would think. Of course, many

people choose to fill their lives with as many trivial activities as possible in order to list those

trivial activities on a flyer mailed out at Christmastime. We must all remember that the great

Thomas Jefferson's "pursuit of happiness" phrase was to be determined by each individual, as

inalienably given to the individuals by the creator.

On a Wednesday, the inevitable took place. A toddler wearing a swim diaper had jumped into

the pool, breaking one of the many pool rules. The little girl must have had to poop at the

moment that she jumped into the pool. Who knew? The girl knew, but she wasn't about to

announce it to the world. The swim diapers were engineered to contain all but the most unwieldy

poopoo scenarios. Jumping into a pool wasn't one of those scenarios. The girl's diaper tried as

hard as it could to keep all the slimy substance within the engineered diaper, but alas, it failed.

No one noticed at first, except the mother of the polluting child. The mother's face immediately

became red with embarrassment. She hoped against hope that she would be able to enjoy having

her kid in the pool without creating a huge melee. The mother of the diaper-leaking girl moved

away from the brown water as quickly as she could, but it was just a matter of time before the

discovery of the mess. A 9-year old girl who had been indoctrinated by her parents to spot poop

in a pool had screamed bloody murder.

The lifeguards whistled and the Lincoln pool was evacuated. Norberto had just started his laps

when the evacuation had taken place. He only had 3 laps in when the whistles were blown. Not

having any kids of his own, he was unable to relate to the wishes of a parent to have her child be

happy on a hot summer day. Norberto didn't care; he just wanted to swim his laps. He was

beginning to wonder just how phony people were who would go to church and blather this and

that and then go out in public and really not care about the other people around them. For a

parent to allow their diapered child into a pool should be considered a crime of some kind, even

with a swim diaper. Norberto just wanted the pool to be cleaned and blessed by the lifeguards.

He needed to get back to his swimming. If people had to have it their own way and not care

about others, so be it. It was a public pool after all.

Norberto had noted with some satisfaction that the mother of the pooping child had been singled

out by the other mothers. The other mothers had rightfully chastised and berated the guilty

mother for not having her daughter clothed in a swim diaper. When the guilty mother had

pleaded that her daughter had in fact been wearing a swim diaper, the other doubting women spat

on her, swore at her and eventually drove her out of the pool area. When the pool was reopened,

Norberto felt that justice had been served. He resumed swimming his laps in the chlorinated,

feces-laden pool. It was somewhat comical that a swimming pool polluted by human fecal

matter could be made safe again by some sweeps of a pool sweeper and a short passage of time.



When it came to big city, busy public pools, modern technology took a second place to user

satisfaction. There were various health standards in place that ensured the safety of the

occupants of a public pool and that was good enough for most folks. People didn't care. When it

was hot during the summer, those kids needed to be cooled off. The pools provided a place for

the kids to burn off a lot of energy that would ensure the kids sleeping good on those summer

nights.

Once while swimming his laps, Norberto was hit in the head by a poorly thrown ball. Two teens

were playing catch in the pool with a small football and one of the kids made yet another errant

toss to the other. Norberto had never seen anyone throwing any kind of ball in any body of water

where the throwers were at any good at throwing and the catchers at catching. It seemed that

everyone thought they were Terry Bradshaw or Jerry Rice when they were in the water. Even

though it was clearly listed on the long list of pool rules that no objects were to be thrown in and

around the pool, someone always did it. Usually, the perpetrators only got away with it for a few

tosses, because the lifeguards were very diligent and whistles were blown rather quickly.

Norberto felt the ball hit his forehead; he stopped swimming and threw the ball over the pool

fence into the adjacent park. An unleashed dachshund grabbed the ball as it rolled and ran off

with it. The 2 teens were pissed and approached Norberto. Before there could be any altercation,

3 lifeguards swarmed to the pool edge nearest Norberto and the 2 teens, to break it up. After

that, the 2 teens intentionally stood in Norberto's path as he swam his laps. He bumped into them

every time.

It seemed that kids liked more than anything else to jump into the water. Jumping was forbidden

in the relatively shallow pool in order to prevent injuries, but the kids always tried it at least once

until they were caught. The pool rules were enforced. When someone broke one of the rules,

they were warned. If the person broke the same rule again, they were expelled from the pool for

the day and their name was taken. If they came back to the pool on another day and broke the

same rule again, they were banned from the pool. Of course, the lifeguards weren't exactly

asking anyone for ID, so the concept was only loosely enforced in reality.

As Norberto swam his laps on one scorching day, a kid of about 5 jumped into the pool and

landed on Norberto as Norberto was doing his turn-around flip at one end of the pool. Norberto

was so startled that he jumped up and the kid was thrown out of the pool onto the concrete

sidewalk next to the pool. The kid burst into tears and Norberto continued his laps, chortling all

the way to the other end of the pool. Norberto became so frustrated at the large number of kids

in the pool on that hottest day of the year, that he pooped in the pool to get everybody out,

including himself of course. That would show those brats, Norberto thought. He pooped in the

pool 3 times for a total of 6 hours that the pool was closed for cleaning. Since the pool was only

open daily for 9 hours from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, it ended up being a short day in the pool for the

kids. Too bad, Norberto giggled. People were funny.

100 Short Stories by Mikey 157 Spar's Flock 2.wps

157. Spar's Flock 2




157. Spar's Flock 2

Spar dodged to his left just enough to avoid contact with the leaping lion. Spar got a running

start, ascended into the air and flew up to meet up with the flock. Since Spar hadn't managed to

finish eating the remains of the zebra, the lion would be able to feast for at least an hour. Since

lions were notoriously slow eaters, it always took them longer to eat than other carnivores. It was

believed that the big cats preferred to be able to taste and enjoy their food and not just gulp it

down to fill their bellies. The lion was incensed that he missed snagging that big vulture. That

goony bird ate most of his succulent rotting zebra. The lion was a bit old as far as lions go and as

it ate the stinking zebra flesh, it wondered if it was losing some of its edge. The lion had always

been a great hunter in the past, but never missed capturing a vulture. The lion had been thinking

about eating the tasty zebra bits all day. That vulture had eaten the lion's favorite parts, mainly

the vile smelling organs. The lion wasn't going to forget the lesson dealt to him by the vulture.

That vulture had better watch its back, growled the lion.

Spar's flock members all thought him to be a goner and were overjoyed that he had escaped from

the lion's claws and jaws. Spar cackled that there wasn't a lion alive that could outwit or catch

him. Spar felt that the lions were merely brutish beasts that relied more on force than

intelligence when obtaining prey. The flock members agreed that the lions were indeed less

intelligent than the vultures, but the lions were so immensely powerful that the mere sight of a

lion scared a typical vulture. Spar and the flock circled above the lion as the lion feasted. Spar

wasn't about to let that lion off so easily. Since Spar hadn't eaten so much in the past hour and

his bowels were about to burst with poop, he suggested to the flock members that they bombard

the lion with poop. The flock members loved the idea and worked up as much intestinal pressure

as they could muster. Spar nodded to each flock member as they readied to drop their loads and

then Spar ordered, "Bombs away!" With that, Spar and the flock flung open their butt holes and

poured out the milky intestinal porridge.

The lion was too intent on eating and plotting his revenge to notice the poopoo precipitation. In

seconds, the lion was completely covered with vulture poop. The lion roared its angriest roar and

looked up to see Spar and his flock laughing their loudest screechy vulture laughs. The lion's

typical color was a tannish light brownish hue. The flood of vulture feces had altered the lion's

fur color into a peculiar looking whitish color. The lion actually resembled a rare albino lion,

which naturally occurs in nature in every 3,000 or 4,000 lions. Even the lion's long tail had been

whitened by the vile vulture liquid. The enraged lion began running in a circle and kicking up

huge dust clouds. The circle grew larger and larger, until the lion was running and roaring in a

circle that was of a diameter equal to the length of a football field. It was really a sight to see by

the laughing vultures up in the sky. The lion had been foiled again. First, that vulture ate a large

part of his succulent rotting zebra and then the vulture went to the bathroom on him. The lion

continued running in an ever-larger circle for 3 hours until it had finally collapsed from



exhaustion.

Spar had always been a patient vulture and he saw his plan executed perfectly by the lion. Spar

had known that the lion would have a tremendous fit after having been pooped on and would

likely run amok, which the lion did. As the lion slept from exhaustion on the desert floor, Spar

and the flock descended to have some fun. Spar knew the locations of all the waterholes for

miles around and remembered one in particular that was only a mile away. Spar ordered the

flock to help him drag the lion to the watering hole. Since the lion probably weighed about 490

pounds, each of the 7 members of the vulture flock would be required to pull about 70 pounds.

The vultures clasped their talons in strategic locations about the lion and began the drag. It

wasn't nearly as easy as Spar thought it would be. After 17 hours, they arrived at the watering

hole.

The vultures dragged the unconscious lion into the muddy water and drowned it. The lion never

knew what happened; because it had been so exhausted by maniacally running, it never awoke.

The vultures dragged the perished lion back out of the water and began feasting on it. Spar's

flock camped out at the watering hole for 13 days and ate heartily from the lion carcass each day.

The ravenous vultures even ate the thick lion skin. By the time they were done, only a skeleton

remained. Spar felt that the lion skeleton would be a nice memorial at the watering hole for

thirsty lions to observe. Spar's flock each plucked a prime feather to stick into the lion skull's eye

sockets. Any future lions drinking from the watering hole would see the lion skeleton decorated

with the vulture feathers and take some kind of note. Most of the lions would scoff at the sight,

but a few would take heed. All Spar intended to do with his gesture was to leave a message.

Spar wanted all the animals of the area to know who the boss was. Spar and his vulture flock

were superior to all the other animals. Spar and his flock were invincible.

Spar and the flock camped out at the watering hole for another morning and discussed the future.

They all agreed that a large animal would provide the flock with the most sustenance for the

longest time, but large prey were difficult to come by. Other than a lion, hippo, giraffe or rhino,

the largest animal out there was an elephant. Of course, how would they ever bag an elephant?

As powerful and cunning as Spar and his flock were, an elephant was just too big. Spar drank

some water from the watering hole in a clear spot near the corner. The clarity of the water must

have meant that it was the cleanest. Spar drank about a quart of the stuff and within minutes

became delirious. He fell over and drifting off into a trance. The other flock members attempted

to revive him, but couldn't. The vultures felt that as long as Spar's eyes were still open, he must

be ok. In Spar's delirium, he had a vision of an elephant that was walking along slowly. The

other elephants of the herd were unable to convince the slow one to keep up.

For some reason, the slow moving elephant seemed to want to be left alone, which was unusual

for the gregarious elephants. Normally when an elephant had some kind of issue, there was



always another elephant willing to lend a large ear for support. The members of an elephant herd

stuck together like glue and formed an almost indomitable entity. The slow elephant drifted off

the beaten path of the jungle, through which the herd was stomping. Soon, the slow elephant had

disappeared from sight and was never again heard from by the herd. Spar was somehow in his

vision with the elephant, following it. The elephant continued along through the immensely

dense jungle growth until the canopy actually shut out the rays of the sun. The elephant stopped

at an area next to enormous heaps of huge bones, elephant bones. The elephant felt that its time

had come and had headed into the legendary "elephant's graveyard" to pass away peacefully.

Before Spar could see what happened in his dream, he awoke to a hot shower from the flock

members pissing on him. As invigorating as the hot vulture piss felt on his body, Spar didn't

really enjoy the smell of the stuff. The piss smelled a little too much like curry and he hated

curry. The flock members were overjoyed to see their leader come back to life again. Even

though Spar wasn't actually deceased, the flock felt lost without him. Spar excitedly explained

the details of his vision about the elephant. All they had to do was find an elephant herd

somewhere and follow it until one of the elephants drifted away into the graveyard. Once in the

graveyard, the elephant would kick the bucket and the flock could begin the essentially endless

feast. The flock could live for months on the flesh from an elephant, maybe even a year. The

flock agreed that it sounded like a great scheme, but elephant sightings were rare in there part of

Africa. Spar added that all they had to do was to pick a direction and fly until they found some

elephants.

It seemed like a simple solution. After 11 days of flying due west, the flock hadn't seen any signs

of elephants. They managed to keep their bellies full by snacking on remnants of animals left

behind by lions and hyenas. Even though the pickings had slimmed down from the great lion

feast, they kept their hopes up. The lion feast was a great accomplishment for the flock. There

weren't many vulture flocks, if any at all, that could claim an entire fresh lion for their very own.

Spar thought back to that lion every waking hour of the day as they flew along. His flock could

be quite proud of that event. Spar wondered why he had the vision of the elephant. Was it pure

coincidence that he had drunk that clear water? Had he been lucky or just fortunate to be in the

right place at the right time? He always felt that he was a special vulture. He always felt

superior to other vultures. Between the lion extravaganza and the elephant idea, things were

really clicking for him. He could do no wrong. It seemed destined that he and his flock would

soon locate an elephant herd. It had to happen; it was in the cards.

The flock flew due west for another 33 days, with no signs of elephants. Was it going to happen

or not? The flock members began to mumble among themselves that Spar's idea might not come

to fruition after all. They were still eating well as they flew, but they were miles away from their

typical stomping grounds. They stopped at watering holes and told other vultures the lion story.

No vultures believed the story. Spar cared not. He and his birds knew what had happened. If



nobody believed them, it was their loss. When they told the lion story, the other vultures were

initially amazed at the concept, but realized the impossibility of it. Some of the larger vultures

challenged Spar for telling such a ridiculous tale. When Spar and his flock could take no more

ridicule from the other vultures, they really lit into them, dispatched them and ate them in front of

the other animals at the watering hole. Spar and his vultures were impressive and weren't to be

taken lightly.

After the flock had flown another 77 days, they finally found what they were looking for. A herd

of approximately 23 elephants came into view one fine morning. Spar was overjoyed and

immediately released his bowels onto the herd of elephants below. The rest of the flock did the

same. The backs of the elephants were splattered with random splotches of white vulture paint.

The elephants looked up at the arrogant vulture flock, trumpeted and flashed their ivory tusks at

the birds. Elephants felt that they were the kings of all animals, which they were. Their sheer

size guaranteed it. For some ragged looking birds to poop on them from above was an enormous

insult. What could the elephants do though? The vultures were way up in the sky and the

elephants were on the ground. The elephants would just have to tolerate the sacrilege for the

moment. If those pesky vultures ever got within trampling distance of the elephants, lightning

quick justice would be served. The bull elephants would mash the vultures into the ground and

defecate hundreds of pounds of elephant poopoo onto the vulture carcasses. That would show

those ugly birds. The elephants argued with each other about what to do with the vultures.

Spar felt justified with his decision of many days ago. The flock members were again glad to be

led by the great Spar. All the flock had to do was wait for one of the elephants to get that

instinctual feeling and head off into the jungle alone. Spar didn't know anything about elephants,

except that they were huge. He didn't know how to tell the age of elephants. He had noticed how

some elephants were more faded looking than the others. Maybe the more faded looking ones

were older and those were the most likely to soon pass away. Time would tell. The elephant

herd was in a sparse jungle growth when they were first spotted and the tree growth gradually

thickened as the elephants meandered. Spar and the flock descended to the ground to follow the

herd. It would be easier to observe the great beasts. The tree canopy was getting too thick to see

through from above. It was more risky for the vultures to walk along the ground, but it was

essential for keeping the elephants in view.

As the days, weeks and months passed, the vultures followed the healthy elephant herd. The

flock managed to survive on eating bugs, small birds, spiders, monkeys and other small jungle

creatures. The elephants kept a watchful eye on the vulture flock that was following them for

some reason. The bull elephants wanted to turn around and lay waste to the vultures, but they

knew the vultures would be ready. All the elephants could do was to go about their business and

forget about the ragged flock that was trailing them. The elephant herd was an incredibly

destructive lot. They ate as much of the foliage of trees as they could reach and then they pushed



the trees over to defoliate the tops of the trees. Spar was amazed at how savagely the elephants

treated the plants. Spar and his flock couldn't relate to how the elephants required such

enormous amounts of vegetation to survive. Spar and the flock were primarily meat eaters and it

seemed so much more efficient to them. Of course, since vultures were much smaller than

elephants, the vultures didn't require as much food to survive. That fact escaped Spar, but he

didn't care.

Spar and the flock were becoming impatient with the elephants. When was one of the giant

animals going to head off alone? The great memory of the lion feast and its unlimited binge

eating had worn off in the memories of the vulture flock. The piecemeal eating that they were

doing in the jungle was becoming annoying at the least. Where was that great promised elephant

feast? When Spar heard the comments of his flock, all he had to do was look at them with his

cool look. Spar had a steely-eyed look like Steve McQueen. It was hard to look directly into

Spar's eyes for too long. He never blinked or looked away. When Spar looked at you, it was for

a reason and he meant business. It always seemed safest to voice opinions when Spar wasn't

looking or when it was thought that he couldn't hear the comments. Spar heard everything. His

flock wasn't capable of keeping any secrets from him.

Spar fully understood the concerns of the flock and he was beginning to realize himself that it

might be a while before one of the elephants decided to bite the dust. Spar recanted his vision to

his flock each night about how he had been awakened before he could see the outcome. They all

had to be patient. How long could those elephants live anyway? Eleven months passed in the

jungle with Spar and the flock still in hot pursuit of the elephants. The elephants were at the

point of paying no never mind to the vultures. Those nasty-looking birds didn't appear to know

what they were doing. Finally, one of the older faded-looking elephants began to walk more

slowly than the others. Spar immediately noticed. Yes! The time was nigh. It was about to

happen. His great vision was true. The old elephant gradually walked slower and slower and

one day it veered away from the others. The others let it go. The other elephants knew.

Spar and the flock followed the old loner at their same safe following distance as before. The

vultures didn't want the old elephant to become alarmed in any way and possibly head back to the

herd. Spar and his flock followed the old slow elephant for 6 days. The trees of the jungle were

incredibly thick. The canopy overhead shut out the sun. It was just like in Spar's vision. It

would only be a short matter of time. It had to be. It was so dark in the jungle that Spar and the

flock were getting nervous. They had never been in such limited light during the day. An

African rock python had been observing the elephant from a distance. Then the python spotted

the puny vultures. The 19-foot snake dropped down onto Spar and began to squeeze. The other

vultures began to peck insanely at the snake and they all became wrapped in the snake's thick

coils as well. The old elephant continued its slow walk and disappeared into the heavy growth.

Spar and his flock were trapped in the grips of the massive snake. Now what?

100 Short Stories by Mikey 158 Taciano's Raft 2.wps

158. Taciano's Raft 2




158. Taciano's Raft 2

As Marzano and Sangria floated in the water, the 8 girls cried out from under the tarp. The girls

peeked from under the tarp one at a time to see what was going on. Taciano's girls, Tajuana,

Talitha, Tamala and Tamatha peeked first. Paco's girls, Palmira, Parthenia, Patrina and Paulita

then peeked from under the tarp. The girls stared in horror at the floating bodies of Marzano and

Sangria. Tajuana immediately jumped into the water to swim toward Marzano and Palmira

jumped in to swim toward Sangria. The floating bodies were farther away than the swimming

girls thought. Luckily, the swimmers eventually reached the floaters. The swimming girls

returned to the boat with the unconscious Marzano and Sangria in tow. The journey so far had

been fraught with one disaster after another. The kids didn't need the tragedy of losing one of

their siblings.

Marzano and Sangria were alive, but semi-comatose. They were carefully placed under the tarp

next to their unconscious parents. It was up to the remaining girls to help everyone survive.

Tajuana told a story about how she had helped her father Taciano one day at the market. Taciano

liked taking Tajuana with him to the market, because she was born a wheeler-dealer. The

markets in Cuba were operated on a strictly haggle-for-the-price protocol. The tourists who

visited Cuba would pay what the seller wanted for various goods and they always paid too much.

Tajuana always got the best price for the produce and chickens. She told the vendors stories

about her younger sisters and how they were starving. She would tell the sellers stories about

how her little sisters couldn't come to the market, because they had no clothing. The sellers

always reduced their prices.

Tajuana remembered one time when a new produce seller in the market was unusually stubborn

with their pricing and refused to reduce the price for the plantains. Well, Tajuana lit into the

plantain seller full force. She was crying, screaming and carrying on to the point of embarrassing

Taciano. Eventually the vendor reduced the price for the plantains low enough to satisfy

Tajuana. Taciano had rewarded Tajuana for her bargaining efforts by giving her one of the

discounted plantains. Instead of having to wait to get home to share it with the rest of the family,

the precious starchy fruit was all hers. She couldn't believe it. She never thought she would see

a day when she would have in her possession a whole fruit of her own. On the long walk home

from the market that day, Tajuana slowly nibbled the succulent plantain until it was gone 3 hours

later. It was the greatest day of her life. As she told the story to the listeners in the tragedy-

destined boat, the girls obviously envied her. Tijuana was proud to tell the story, because she

knew that her bargaining skills were a valuable commodity in a country that was so full of strife

and hardship.

Palmira remembered a story about her father Paco when Paco had brought her to the grape

vineyards one day to watch him pick grapes. She was only about 3 years old at the time and was



really excited about going with her father to watch him work. Paco had advised Palmira to stay a

safe distance from him and the other workers, because there was a lot of quick grape shearing

going on. The grape bunch-cutting device was especially sharp and could easily cut someone

who wasn't careful. Palmira quietly observed Paco as he proceeded down each row of grape

vines. He was definitely a fast worker and as efficient as a human could be at picking grapes. In

the afternoon of that day, Paco paused to have a quick lunch with Palmira in the shade of a great

old olive tree. The tree was a favorite of the workers for resting or eating lunch or any other

moments out of the hot sun. Even though the tree provided shade, it was still hot and humid, but

a heck of a lot more comfortable than being in the searing sun of the Cuban afternoon.

Paco and Palmira snacked on their lunch of cheese, bread, salami, water and olives. Everything

they ate was made at home by Margherita, except for the water of course, which came from the

community well. As Paco and Palmira ate, Paco told her a story of how his father had brought

him to an orchard one day to pick some kind of fruit. Paco didn't remember what kind of fruit it

was, other than it was just some kind of fruit. Palmira asked Paco what kind of fruit it was and

he flared at her that he couldn't remember what kind of fruit it was. It didn't really matter to the

story what the fruit was. Palmira was just one of those people who demanded the details.

Whenever someone told her a story, the story dragged on for much longer than the teller of the

story had ever intended, because of her constant questioning. Paco yelled at Palmira to stop

asking questions about the story and just to listen to him telling it. She frowned and sat quietly

as Paco told the story.

As Paco orated to Palmira, an unseen snake had slithered along the ground of the grape vineyard.

The snake was completely concealed in the tall grass of the vineyard and was a hidden hazard.

The snake made its way to the olive tree where Paco, Palmira and others were eating various

homemade goods before returning to the drudgery of the grape picking. The snake arrived at the

guy sitting on the ground next to Paco. The guy moved and the snake bit the guy. The guy

screamed and Palmira jumped into action. She leaped to her feet and grabbed the snake by the

tail. She swung the snake at the olive tree like a bullwhip. The snake was shattered on impact

with the tree. Paco and some of the others saw what Palmira had done and congratulated her on

her victory. The guy who had been bitten survived with minor side effects from the snake

venom.

The snake-bitten guy had given Palmira a gold chain and cross from around his neck. Paco was

surprised at the generosity of the guy's gift. The guy reckoned that had Palmira not grabbed the

snake when she did, the snake might have continued to bite him. The guy felt that Palmira had

saved his very life. The least he could do was to give her the gold chain and cross. When

Palmira came to the part of the story about the gift of the gold chain and cross, the listeners in the

boat oohed and aahed. Everyone had thought that Palmira was wearing the gold chain and cross

as a gift from one of her grandparents. None of them would have imagined that she had received



the gift for allegedly saving someone's life. Palmira's status in her family had been solidified by

her surprising heroism.

Talitha chimed in with a story about her mother Margherita. One morning when Talitha and

Margherita had been doing the laundry at the river, a wild boar, evidently rabid, had appeared at

the river's edge. The other women who had been beating their laundry on the rocks hadn't

noticed the boar at first, because of the roar of the river and the slapping of the clothing being

pounded on the rocks. The crazed boar had latched onto one of the infants of the washwomen.

The infant belonged to one of Margherita's friends. Luckily, the baby had been wrapped in

swaddling clothes, or the infant might have been injured by the boar's attack. The boar squealed

and began to run back toward the woods, from whence it came. Margherita had lived long

enough to always be on the lookout for wild animals. When the boar was discovered running

away with her friend's baby, Margherita stripped off her burqa-like robe and found a large rock.

She fashioned the burqa into a sling and placed the rock into the folded part of the weapon.

Margherita swung the sling around and around, like David about to conquer Goliath. Once

enough sling momentum had been achieved, Margherita launched the large rock in the direction

of the speeding boar. Margherita briefly thought to herself that she might accidentally hit the

baby with the rock, but that was a chance that she had to take. It was better to have a child with a

bruise than no child at all. As long as the large rock didn't hit the child in the head, that is. The

rock sped through the air and hit the boar in the back of the head, instantly sending the animal to

boar heaven. The perished boar released the swaddled baby and the infant went rolling on the

dirty ground. A sizable dust cloud was created as the baby rolled. The mother of the infant ran

over and scooped up the child. The child was dirty-faced, but alive, even though it needed a

diaper change, big time. With her heroics, Margherita had become a hero in the little village. As

a gesture of thanks, the other village mothers volunteered to do Margherita's laundry for a month.

Parthenia started next with a story about her mother Mojita. Mojita made money by selling

articles of clothing that she created by hand; she was an extremely talented seamstress. She had

been working on a nice little dress for a friend of a friend of hers, a blind woman. Mojita had felt

sorry for the blind woman and wanted the dress to be something special. The blind woman was

planning to pay for the dress with some leather that she had tanned. The leather was made from

wild boar hides. It seemed that the wild boars were everywhere. The blind woman had been

born with extra teeth in her mouth and was able to chew on the hides more efficiently than the

other village women. Mojita was going to trade the dress for the leather and then make a nice

purse from the leather. Mojita could then sell the purse at the market for a tidy sum. The purses

made from boar's leather were highly sought by the wealthier women. Mojita made many items

from boar's leather, but the purses brought the most money.

Since Mojita hadn't seen the blind woman and only knew about her through a friend, Mojita had



no idea how many teeth the blind woman had. When the dress was finished, Mojita brought the

dress to the market, where many such exchanges took place. Mojita's friend was there with the

blind woman. When Mojita noticed how the blind woman had so many teeth that it was scary

when she smiled, Mojita felt sorry for her. Mojita gave the blind woman the dress free of charge.

The blind woman was so touched by the offer of the free dress that she gave the boar leather to

Mojita anyway. Mojita and the blind woman talked for about an hour at the market about this

and that. They eventually decided to create a secret business venture, in which the blind woman

would supply the leather for Mojita's handiwork. They would split the profits down the middle.

Tamala had a story involving her father Taciano. It wasn't anything spectacular except that it was

the first time that she learned how to whistle. Whistling wasn't very common in the village,

because most of the people had teeth missing, except the blind woman, of course, who had extra

teeth. Taciano's father had taught him a special way of whistling with a turd. It could with be

with any turd, but the most common pieces of turd lying around were from the many chickens.

Depending on the size of the turd and the animal it came from is what determined the melodic

sound that the turd made. The chicken turds produced a cleaner sound than say, dog or boar

turds. The training came about one day when Tamala was pouting about how she couldn't sing or

whistle or make any musical sounds. Taciano took her aside and showed her the secret of

whistling with a turd.

There was a special way of holding the turd to the mouth just so and then the person blew air

through the turd as if they were blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. A hole was made in

the turd with a nail, preferably not rusty. The smoother the hole was, the better the sound.

Additionally, the person using the turd whistle had to spit just the right amount of saliva onto the

turd to make it respond musically to the air being blown through it. If too much saliva were

added to the turd, it would be messy when blown through. If too little spit were applied, the

sound would be obnoxious. Taciano gathered some choice chicken turds, a not-too-rusty nail

and he showed Tamala the process. Naturally, it would require a lot of practice on Tamala's part

to master the chicken turd whistle. She tried for weeks to get it right and eventually managed to

whistle a nice rendition of "Guantanamera." Taciano was proud of Tamala and it gave her loads

of self-esteem.

As the hours and days passed in the boat, Patrina told a story about her father Paco in which Paco

had won some food in a pineapple-eating contest. The contest involved eating as many whole

pineapples as possible in 20 minutes. Every part of the pineapple had to be eaten, including the

harsh outer husk. Paco had been working in a pineapple plantation and there was a large pile of

pineapples that were unsuitable for export. The rejected pineapples were usually given away to

the most productive pickers. Occasionally, pineapple-eating contests took place to break up the

monotony. Paco had a reputation for having a bit of an iron stomach, which probably started

when he ate a dead alley cat as a child and didn't become sick as a result. Paco wasn't the largest



man, but he was able to tolerate the roughness of the pineapples in his stomach. A new group of

migrant workers had arrived at the plantation on that day and one of the guys was a big fellow

who claimed to be able to out-eat anyone.

The contest occurred just before sunset, after the day's picking was done and there was a nice pile

of pineapple rejects for the 3 contestants to eat. The winner of the contest would get to take

home as many of the pineapple rejects as they could carry. Paco, the big fellow and another

picker started eating when the whistle was blown. After 14 minutes, the big fellow was leading,

with Paco in 2nd place and the other guy in 3rd. It was just a matter of time that the harsh outer

rind and spikiness of the pineapples would affect the stomachs of the eaters. The big guy's face

became green and he vomited pineapple all over the side of Paco's face. The other guy became

sick at the sight, sound and smell of the vomit and he barfed out all his pineapple. Iron-stomach

Paco just kept on eating pineapple until the whistle was blown. Paco could have stopped eating

after the 2 other men retched their pineapple, but he was a show-off. Paco managed to carry

home 43 pineapple rejects that evening. Mojita and the girls were ecstatic.

Tamatha told the story about how her mother Margherita had rescued a bull. Cuba had a

tradition that was similar to Spain's tradition of running bulls through the village before the bulls

participated in the barbaric bullfights. Margherita had been returning home from the market

when the bulls were turned loose in the village. She had forgotten about the event and shouldn't

have gone to the market that day. When the bulls ran through the village streets, some of the

bulls escaped through the barriers and ran through the countryside. Margherita had been

traipsing along with her heavy baskets and tripped in a chuckhole. She fell to the ground and

dropped her goods. As she gathered her stuff and put it back into the baskets, she heard a

galloping sound.

One of the bulls was galloping down the dirt road toward her. The bull had a crazed look in its

eyes. It looked like the bull was planning to run until it was out of sight of man. As the bull ran

past Margherita, it stepped on her left foot. The pain was enormous. The bull kept running and

ran through a wooden fence next to a creek. The bull mustn't have seen the water and it ran right

into it. The bull started floating down the creek, which had been cresting from the recent heavy

rains. Even though Margherita was in agony from her injured ankle, she managed to run to the

creek downstream of the floating bull. After tying one end of a rope to the fence, she threw the

other end of the rope into the water. The rope became caught on the bull's horns, which enabled

the bull to climb on shore.

On a fateful morning in the boat, Paulita began telling a story when suddenly the boat crashed to

a stop. Without realizing it, the girls had lost track of time while telling their stories to each

other. Since they were under the tarp most of the time taking care of the unconscious family

members, they hadn't detected the approaching land. They made it to Florida!

100 Short Stories by Mikey 159 Delbert's Drive.wps

159. Delbert's Drive




159. Delbert's Drive

As Delbert backed his car out of the driveway, he slowed to a stop at the end of the driveway to

check for traffic. His neighborhood didn't get much traffic and the traffic that existed was mainly

from the residents on their way to and from work or their children's schools. He looked to the

left and to the right; yep, it was clear. He backed out into the street while looking into his rear

view mirror. The rear windshield of the car was dirty and difficult to see through. As he backed

toward what he thought to be the neighbor's car across the street parked in their driveway, he

realized that the neighbor was backing out. Delbert slammed on his brakes just in time to avoid a

collision. He drove forward into his driveway to allow the neighbor to maneuver. The neighbor

waved at Delbert as he drove away down the street. Delbert hmphed to himself, waved at the

neighbor and backed out into the street again when it was safe.

As he drove down his street that was crowded with cars on both sides, a kid on a skateboard

suddenly darted out from between 2 cars parked on the right. Luckily, Delbert was alert enough

to stop before hitting the wayward youth. The kid waved at Delbert and nonchalantly

skateboarded down the middle of the street, probably on his way to school. Delbert politely

waved back at the child and proceeded on his way to work in a direction opposite to the

skateboarder. Initially, Delbert thought about how careless that kid was, but then Delbert

remembered how careless he used to be as a youth. Delbert thought back to the days when he

skateboarded, roller-skated and rode his bicycle down the middle of the street, without a care in

the world. Ah youth! He noted the letter carrier on her morning route, delivering everyone's

junk mail and People magazines, which Delbert also considered to be junk mail. Delbert spotted

the milkman delivering the milk, cheese and other special custom dairy products to the

neighborhood.

The milkman was one of only a few remaining in Delbert's town. Delbert's town appreciated the

value of the dairy products, which were produced organically by the local dairy farmer. Delbert's

townsfolk believed in supporting local business and had always voted "No" to all box store

propositions. The milkman was one of the brothers of the dairy farming family. They also made

the best ice cream anywhere on earth, which was most likely the best due to its higher than

average fat content. Everything tasted better with more fat in it. It was only human nature to like

higher fat foods better than lowfat or nonfat foods. Delbert saw the papergirl tossing the morning

papers and he laughed when one of the thrown newspapers landed on a pile of dog poop. As

Delbert reached the 4-way stop sign, incredibly there were 3 other vehicles that had arrived at the

same instant. The theoretical protocol for same arrival 4-way stop signs was that the person to

the right had the right-of-way. Of course, the concept of right-of-way had always been a subject

of much discussion. Typically, the person who was the least in a hurry or the most submissive

would yield to the other stop sign contestants.



Since Delbert was an unusually submissive and yielding character, he usually waited for

everyone at a stop sign to go first. In the instance on that morning, everyone seemed to be as

timid as Delbert was when encountering traffic impasses. None of the drivers moved. Delbert

waved at the person across from him who was looking at the person to their left. The driver to

Delbert's left was looking directly across the intersection at the person to Delbert's right. No one

moved. Delbert took the initiative to wave at the person across from him. The driver started into

the intersection without realizing that the person to their left had waved to the person across from

them. Delbert sat there with his foot on the brake pedal as the 3 other stop sign contestants all

simultaneously proceeded into the intersection.

The 3 drivers slammed to a stop. Delbert hmphed to himself. After 3 seconds of sitting there,

the vehicle across from Delbert sneaked forward as the 2 other timid vehicles remained

stationary. Delbert allowed the remaining 2 intersection-trapped vehicles to do what they had to

do to get through the intersection. When there were no vehicles to be seen, Delbert drove

through the intersection on his way to the highway. As he drove along, Delbert thought back to

the time when his area wasn't so developed. There were houses everywhere. There were drivers

everywhere. There were school busses everywhere when school was in session. With the advent

of people ordering more and more products from the intent, there were more delivery vehicles on

the roads. Traffic was infinitesimally getting more and more intolerable as the days, weeks,

months and years passed. Delbert was finding his daily commute to work to be an annoying task.

He remembered when life was easy and he could ride his bike to work. He remembered driving a

short distance to work.

When the economy demanded downsizing of companies, Delbert had been forced to drive farther

and farther to his place of business. So many times while commuting to work Delbert had

daydreamed about a Utopian society where the inhabitants could all live together in peace and

harmony. Part of the peace and harmony involved people being able to commute to and from

work via free public transit systems. It would be incalculable how many resources could be

saved. What if this and what if that? Many people could see the value of the concept of efficient

mass transit systems. Unfortunately, there were people born everyday who derived their only

self-esteem from driving a vehicle. It was pitiful indeed that the only way for some dumbass

blue color worker to feel self worth was to bully other drivers in traffic. Those low-self-esteem

characters usually drove a gas-guzzling pickup truck or similarly impractical vehicle with which

to drive on the highways and byways.

As Delbert entered the merging lane of the highway, he accelerated. A tractor-trailer was in the

right lane of the 2-lane highway. Delbert put the pedal to the medal and attempted to enter the

highway in front of the tractor-trailer. The driver of the tractor-trailer must have been having an

interesting morning at the instant that Delbert had been trying to enter the highway. The tractor-

trailer driver accelerated instead of backing off on the accelerator. The tractor-trailer driver's



actions made it impossible for Delbert to enter the highway as the acceleration ramp ran out.

Delbert found himself in the shoulder of the 2-lane highway. He hit his brakes just enough to

reduce his speed to enable him to pull in tightly behind the tractor-trailer. The vehicle that was

behind the tractor-trailer had pulled up as closely as they could to the tractor-trailer to leave

minimal space for Delbert to pull into. Whatever possessed some people? Delbert managed to

enter the highway just in front of the vehicle behind the tractor-trailer. The driver of that vehicle

leaned on their horn as if to say that Delbert hadn't been allowed permission to enter the highway.

Delbert waved at the person of the vehicle that he had inadvertently cut off to enter the highway.

The person gave Delbert the finger on one of their hands while still holding onto their cell phone

with the other hand. Delbert wondered to himself how that person had performed that feat.

Which hand was steering the vehicle? After 40+ years of commuting to work, Delbert shrugged

it off. He had developed a phrase over the years that "People are assholes and then you die."

Repeating the phrase to himself whenever he had driving issues was the only was for Delbert to

cope with all the lunatics out there. When Delbert was in his right lane, he was as contented as

he could be. He preferred the right lane, even though he had to deal with people entering and

exiting the highway. The left lane was for the people who were late for work or for the traffic

bullies who had no other way to have power over other people.

Delbert had thought many times while he was pooping in the morning before work how power

was such an overrated concept. Life seemed to involve more low-self-esteemed people than

those with average self-esteem, if there were such a thing as average self-esteem. When Delbert

was in the moment of struggling to push out a large turd on the toilet each morning, was when he

had his greatest insights in life. On that particular morning, he had more trouble than usual to

force out a larger and longer turd than usual. He held his breath and pushed, as if he were a

pregnant women giving birth. Even though Delbert had always heard that it was unhealthy to

force poop out, he couldn't help it. He simply had to get that brown stuff out of his body. If he

had to suffer some kind of alleged side effects, so be it. As the giant turd finally splashed into

the toilet that morning, Delbert had the revelation that he needed to feel sorry for the people on

the highways and byways, who obtained their power by bullying other drivers.

As Delbert contentedly motored along in his right lane, he kept up with the speeding traffic at

whatever speed they were all going. He noticed that the tractor-trailer in front of him was

actually one of those really long dump trucks. Something was leaking from the trailer part of the

dump truck, something grayish and slimy. The substance was leaking through the space between

the trailer's tailgate and the bed of the trailer. The stuff was dripping onto the highway and

ending up on Delbert's windshield. Delbert hated having to drive in the left lane and so he

decided to put up with the gray stuff on his windshield. It would only be for another 1o to 15

minutes or so. Then, he would exit from the highway. Whatever it was that was leaking from

the trailer, it required a lot of windshield wiper fluid to keep Delbert's windshield clean. Delbert



was one of those people who were fanatics about driving with a clean windshield. He hated

when all the bugs would get on the windshield in the good ol' summertime.

As much as Delbert despised driving in the left lane, he was beginning to wonder if he was going

to run out of windshield washer fluid. The dashboard of his car indicated no such flashing light

or anything, but you never really know how low the fluid level is at any given time. All a driver

knows is when they actually run out. After 8 minutes of more or less constant wiper use, he

began to consider moving into the left lane to pass the tractor-trailer. The gray liquid was

starting to leave a slight film on Delbert's windshield, which somewhat distracted him. As he

reached his right hand to adjust the radio volume, a pickup truck suddenly cut in front of him

from the left lane, narrowly missing his car. Delbert instantly backed off a little on his gas pedal

to allow space in front of him to regain the proper following distance. The pickup truck driver in

front of Delbert was smoking a cigarette and was flicking the ashes out the window. As Delbert

began to roll up his window, the pickup truck driver flicked the still-lit cigarette out of his

window. The cigarette flew through the air and hit the window that Delbert was rolling up.

Whew! That was close! In another few seconds, Delbert might have been hit in the face by the

cigarette.

Delbert noticed the pickup truck driver lighting up another cigarette. Delbert also noticed one of

those "Jesus saves" fish stickers on the rear bumper of the pickup truck. How comical it was that

someone who was supposedly religious enough to display a "Jesus saves" sticker would flick a lit

cigarette out of their vehicle's window. Delbert noticed a loud booming sound emanating from

the pickup tuck, probably from an excessively loud stereo. The pickup truck driver probably had

to have the stereo volume turned way up to hear it over the noise from the pickup truck's loud

exhaust. Delbert wondered why so many fools would modify their vehicle exhausts to make the

vehicles louder and themselves deafer. Delbert forgave all of the pickup truck driver's

transgressions, because the pickup truck was blocking the dripping gray liquid from the tractor-

trailer. Delbert used his windshield wiper fluid one more time to clear the windshield and the

low wiper fluid light came on. The pickup truck in front of Delbert suddenly swerved to the right

and exited from the highway at the exit. Delbert was behind the leaking tractor-trailer again.

Since he had no washer fluid left, Delbert was forced to get into the left lane to pass the tractor-

trailer. It required several seconds of waiting, but an opening came up and Delbert took it.

Someone immediately began tailgating Delbert as he proceeded to accelerate to pass the tractor-

trailer to his right. As Delbert accelerated, the tractor-trailer seemed to accelerate along with

him. The tractor-trailer driver happened to be one of those drivers who liked messing with

people. Delbert found it difficult to get far enough ahead of the tractor-trailer to pass it. The

vehicle behind Delbert continued to tailgate him. There was also a vehicle in front of Delbert

that prevented Delbert from getting far enough ahead of the tractor-trailer. After 3 minutes of

mania, Delbert was able to hit the gas and pull in front of the tractor-trailer. Yes!



As Delbert cut in front of the large truck, the driver honked the loud horn. At least, Delbert had

succeeded in getting in front of the tractor-trailer.

After a few minutes of being tailgated by the tractor-trailer, Delbert noticed the tractor-trailer

pulling into the left lane. Oh no! The truck then sped along in the left lane and dove in front of

Delbert. Delbert was stuck following the leaking tractor-trailer again. Because Delbert was

using his wipers sparingly, a gray film began developing on the windshield. It would only be a

little longer until his exit and then he could escape from the tractor-trailer. As Delbert counted

the minutes to the exit, he squinted through the haze on his windshield. He saw that his exit was

coming up and flipped on his right turn signal. The tractor-trailer did the same! It would only be

a little while on the exit ramp and then Delbert could pass the big truck when they got onto the

state route that led to Delbert's company. Delbert wished that it would rain, just to provide a

little bit of moisture to clean the windshield better. As Delbert and the tractor-trailer followed

the exit ramp onto the state route, Delbert prepared himself for a sudden maneuver. When they

reached the state route, Delbert floored his car and zoomed past the tractor-trailer. Victory!

It would only be a few miles on the state route and then Delbert's turn would come up into his

company. Delbert stayed in the left lane of the 2 lane state route to prevent the tractor-trailer

from getting in front of him again. Delbert made a mental note to himself to top off the

windshield washer fluid when he returned home that day. In Delbert's flustered state of mind, he

failed to notice the reduced amount of vehicles on the road that morning. As a matter of fact, he

realized that he hadn't seen any school buses. He surmised that it must be one of the many

school holidays and that there was no school on that day. It was Friday, so that's probably what it

was. Those kids had it made! As Delbert drove along the state route in the left lane next to the

leaking tractor-trailer, he thought about the stack of work on his desk at work. At his job, he was

always busy and always left a pile of work for the next day.

He thought about a particularly tricky file package that he been working on, which involved a lot

of research on his part. He had to dig through numerous other files and make countless phone

calls in order to process the file to completion. His supervisor had been nagging him for days to

finish the file. Even though Delbert's boss knew that the files could only be processed at a

certain pace, Delbert's boss seemed to single out Delbert more than Delbert's co-workers.

Delbert had been so worked up by the commute on that morning that he decided to have a word

with his boss. The interesting drive had energized Delbert and had given him an unusual

confidence. Delbert hoped that he would still have the confidence when he walked into his

office. At the next traffic light, Delbert turned left into his company's parking lot. There were

few cars there. Was he that early? Where was everybody? As Delbert drove to the corner of the

parking lot where he usually parked, he realized something. The road traffic had been lighter

than usual, with no school buses and the parking lot was almost empty. That could mean only

one thing. It wasn't Friday; it was Saturday! Dang it!

100 Short Stories by Mikey 160 Bone's Clan 2.wps

160. Bone's Clan 2




160. Bone's Clan 2

The T-Rex was running at full-tilt and its eyes were bloodshot and dark red. When eyes of the T-

Rex's looked like that, it meant that the dinosaurs hadn't eaten in a while and were incredibly

dangerous to all living things, including other T-Rex's. T-Rex's have been known to eat their

mates during mating season, sometimes before the mating and sometimes after the mating.

When the T-Rex's ate their T-Rex mates before completion of the mating process, it drastically

reduced their populations. The savage dinosaur arrived with massive yellow-brown teeth flaring

and gallons of drool flowing from its hungry maw. The dinosaur scooped up the closest caveman

in its path and flung the poor fellow into the air. The T-Rex's always liked eating their prey in a

dramatic fashion, which typically included throwing the victim into the air before chomping

down and tearing into the juicy flesh.

Bone and some of the others turned to see the T-Rex just as it got to them. A really old caveman

named Oneleg happened to be the victim who was thrown into the air. Oneleg had acquired the

name of Oneleg when a Raptor had bitten off one of his legs. Oneleg's previous name had been

Shiny, because his face was always so shiny for some reason. Oneleg had reluctantly accepted

the name of Oneleg, which was given to him by the clan. He would have preferred his choice of

the new name as Stilty, because when he walked on his one leg, he looked like a stilt. The clan

had voted for the name of Oneleg and it became history, per clan rules. As Oneleg flew end-

over-end vertically through the air, Bone looked in horror and sensed the impending loss of his

clan member. Suddenly, Poopoo appeared at the edge of the woods.

Back when Poopoo had been thrown onto the snakes by the cavemen, he panickly pooped such a

large amount of diarrhea that the snakes immediately rejected him as a potential food source.

Poopoo yelled as loud as he could and pooped a large amount of poop into his cupped hands.

Bone and Kid looked at Poopoo and were amazed to see him. Poopoo hurled the fresh poop at

the face of the beastly T-Rex and hit the wild animal in the eyes. The T-Rex was distracted just

enough by the temporary poop-induced blindness that the dinosaur missed catching the falling

Oneleg on his downward trajectory. Oneleg landed on the ground with a dusty thud and he

shuffled away from the scene in the direction of the spear arsenal. Bone and Kid quickly

followed Oneleg's lead and also ran to the spears. Boomer picked up a huge burning log from the

fire and began beating the face of the T-Rex to add further distraction for the dinosaur to cope

with.

Butt saw his moment and rammed his big butt into the left leg of the blinded and distracted T-

Rex. The T-Rex fell to the ground, but immediately jumped back up again. Leaner began

beating the T-Rex's shins with his bulbous skull and seemed to be having some effect on the

dinosaur, but then the T-Rex smacked Butt aside, sending him rolling into the nearby woods.

Poopoo ran closer and continued pooping into his hands and throwing the poop into the T-Rex's



face. Burpo scurried to the large pile of rocks that the clan had been storing for the eventual

construction of a new outdoor fireplace and cooking station. The pile of stones was immense

and had been the result of many months of painstaking collection by the clan. Burpo began

heaving stone after stone at the T-Rex. Onearm soon joined Burpo in the rock-throwing

spectacle. Onearm had lost one of his arms when part of the cave ceiling had crashed down

while the clan was sleeping in the cave the previous year. Onearm's arm had become incredible

huge and muscular, due to the caveman's excessive use of the single arm. No one could throw

stones like Onearm, not even Boomer, the biggest caveman of them all. Within 35 seconds,

Threearms joined Onearm and Burpo in the stone throwing. Three arms had been born with 3

arms. No one knew why someone would be born with extra limbs or missing limbs; it just

happened.

The cavemen were simple folks with simple brains. They never knew why things happened or

cared why things happened. They lived their lives from day to day and were content waking up

each morning and eating something by the day's end. If they weren't attacked by any wild

animals during the day, it was a good day. Threelegs joined Onearm, Burpo and Threearms in

the rock tossing. Threelegs was called Threelegs not because he had 3 legs with feet, but because

he had a large leglike footless appendage growing straight out from his left hip. The appendage

was useless as a leg. The 3rd leg was mainly useful as a scratching aid. Additionally, when

Threelegs leaned onto his 3rd "leg," it gave him extra leverage when throwing objects. The T-

Rex was definitely becoming perturbed by the poop and stones being hurled at it, but none of the

thrown objects were having any real impact. When Bone, Kid and Oneleg reached the spears,

they found that Bugsy, Eagle, Nose, Count and Sourpuss were already at the spear stash.

Sourpuss had acquired his name because he was always frowning. The cavemen collected as

many of the spears as they could carry and galloped back to the battle scene.

Some of the cavemen threw stones and one threw poopoo. A T-Rex was such a sinewy and

resilient animal that ordinary spears constructed by ordinary cavemen were of limited value along

the lines of fatally wounding a T-Rex. Even a large amount of spears thrown at a T-Rex would

usually have limited results. The trick that Sourpuss had discovered many moons before was that

when spear tips were soaked in a concentrated solution of piss, the resulting spear tips were

verging on being toxic. The piss-soaked spear tips could then be employed to a greater

advantage by the cavemen. The only problem that Sourpuss had discovered was that it required

hundreds of gallons of caveman piss to arrive at the desired result. Sourpuss had discovered the

concept quite by accident actually. He had been preparing a hide from an old jungle boar for

tanning, when he absent-mindedly left his spear leaning against the tanning structure and forgot

about the spear. It was years later that Sourpuss found his spear immersed in a piss puddle that

was formed by years of accumulated cavemen piss.

In the history of any caveman clan, the clan would move from location to location and sometimes



stay at one place for a while. The clan had been at the same spot for a while and had abandoned

the tanning station, because everyone had a fur suit. The tanning stations were typically more

useful in new expanding clans when more and more new fur suits were required. Sourpuss found

his old spear in the puddle of piss while out looking for flint one day. He already had a nice

spear in his possession that had been manufactured to the latest standards. He discovered the old

spear and picked it up from the piss puddle. Since the cavemen had no plumbing to speak of,

piss puddles and poop piles were everywhere. Only the passage of time would work its magic on

the poop piles, via the mysterious flies and maggots. The piss puddles essentially stayed around

forever and became concentrated.

For whatever reason, Sourpuss sniffed the tip of the old spear. He noted that the smell was

unlike any piss that he had smelled before. Could the piss have somehow become concentrated

in that puddle over the years? Who knew? It wasn't up to the simple cavemen to figure things

out. Sourpuss decided to try out the old reeking spear that afternoon when he went out hunting

with the clan. When the cavemen threw their spears at game, it sometimes required numerous

spears to ultimately fell the prey and cause its demise. For whatever reason, Sourpuss noted that

he was able to fell game with a single throw of his spear. No additional spears were required to

fell the game. Mind you, the game animals that the cavemen hunted on an average day were

small and nowhere near as large as a feisty T-Rex. Sourpuss had kept his aged piss secret to

himself. When a caveman discovered something, which was rare, they usually kept it to

themselves. The caveman world was dominated by the ones with the secrets.

Sourpuss had a secret stash of aged piss that he kept in a small gourd. The gourd was kept out of

sight from the clan by wearing the gourd under the fur suit and hanging the gourd from a leather

string. The leather string was tied around Sourpuss's waist. Sourpuss had always wanted to be

the leader of the clan, but at the same time, he desired to keep the aged piss a secret. There was

no way for him to have both. The other clan members were too simple-minded to realize that

Sourpuss had been utilizing his secret aged piss on his spear tip while hunting. They simply

thought that he was somehow a better shot with his spear. When the T-Rex crashed the party,

Sourpuss had seen his moment. He decided that he needed to employ his aged piss before it was

too late for the clan to survive the T-Rex attack.

While the other caveman clan members were heaving rocks, poop and spears at the T-Rex,

Slinger began launching stones with his leather sling. Even though the cavemen were essentially

of simple minds, once in a while one of them would wake up in the morning with a revelation.

Three months before, Slinger (whose previous name was Boarbreath) woke up with the idea of

constructing an apparatus for throwing stones via a long strip of leather. The sling device

worked very well for smaller game, but proved to be of limited value against a dinosaur such as

the T-Rex that the clan was courageously battling. Each time Slinger slung a rock at one of the

eyes of the T-Rex, the stone merely bounced off the dinosaur's tough eyelids. All the efforts by



the cavemen served to keep the T-Rex distracted enough to limit how many of them it was

gobbling down. Even though the dinosaur was surrounded by 30 or so attacking cavemen, it was

still trying to eat them. So far, Bentears and Cankles had been devoured by the T-Rex during the

fighting.

Slingshot had developed a similar device to Slinger's on the very morning after Slinger had

developed his weapon. Slingshot's device utilized a sturdy forked stick with a thin strip of

leather attached to the ends of the fork tips. Smaller rocks could be hurled at tremendous

velocity. Again, Slingshot's weapon was more ideally suitable for smaller game, such as

rabbitauruses, squirrelauruses and smaller birdauruses. Similarly to Slinger, Slingshot attempted

to shoot stones at the eyes of the T-Rex. The small slingshotted stones would almost get between

the eyelids of the T-Rex, but the dinosaur's blinking instincts were too quick to allow entry of the

projectiles into its eyes. Slinger and Slingshot tried as hard as they could and wouldn't stop until

it was over. The combination of protecting themselves from the massive T-Rex and the potential

of food from eating the dinosaur was a great challenge for the clan. If they could manage to

defeat and dispatch the T-Rex, they would have months of meat and much mirthful partying by

the fire.

Stumpo was a caveman who had eaten some tasty semi-toxic berries 2 years ago and had fallen

into a coma for 3 months. He had lain on his left side on the hard stone floor of the cave for the

entire time. His left leg and arm had been cut off from blood circulation, had atrophied and had

eventually fallen off when he finally awoke from the coma and stood up. The other cave

members were completely flabbergasted by Stumpo's circumstances, but made a careful note to

avoid eating those harmful berries ever again. Stumpo was just glad to wake up at all and had

coined the phrase, "Live and Learn." It took centuries for Stumpo's phrase to catch on in the

world, but great scholars had credited Stumpo with the phrase's creation. The other clan

members were so afraid of berries after Stumpo's plight that they had refrained from eating them

for a full 11 months. A great depression had befallen the clan during those 11 months, because

the cavemen really enjoyed eating berries. The cavemen agreed that in addition to enjoying the

sweetness of the berries, they all seemed to poop more regularly.

Stump had lost his legs during the same cave ceiling crash-down that caused the loss of Onearm's

arm. The caveman clan had unanimously agreed that Stump (formerly known as Knuckles)

would henceforth be called Stump, because he resembled a tree stump. Since Stump had an

unusually thick body, he truly resembled a tree stump. He missed his previous name of

Knuckles, because he was the best knuckle-cracker of the clan and preferred that name. Stump

was such a great knuckle-cracker that he was able to act as the percussionist when Bone would

sing. Stump's hands were completely covered in one large callous, which enabled him to drag

himself around with great speed. Stump was actually faster at dragging himself in the hundred-

yard dash than some of the slower clan members were at running the distance. Stump had been



launching huge stones at the T-Rex, some the size of small boulders, but even Stump's efforts

could only distract the T-Rex and not injure it.

The clan was becoming frantic as the T-Rex managed to devour Bigears and Smalleyes. As hard

as the clan tried to bring down the dinosaur, it was just too powerful for them. As Bone, Kid,

Oneleg, Bugsy, Eagle and Nose heaved spears at the T-Rex, their efforts seemed futile. The hide

of the T-Rex allowed some of the faster-thrown spears to penetrate, but the spears could only do

so much damage to the dinosaur. Sourpuss finally produced his gourd of aged piss from beneath

his fur suit and dipped his spear tip into the liquid. Bone noticed Sourpuss's gesture and

wondered what he was up to. Sourpuss's first spear made contact with the T-Rex and seemed to

have an immediate result. After a moment passed, the T-Rex began to fart with a high-pitched

whine. The whine was so deafening that the attacking cavemen couldn't hear themselves yelling

at each other. Bone quickly ordered all the spear throwers to follow Sourpuss's method. The

spear throwers heaved numerous piss-dipped spears at the T-Rex. The T-Rex continued blowing

farts with the high-pitched whine. The sound was deafening to the point of being disabling.

Bone ordered Stump, Slinger and Slingshot to quickly gather handfuls of fine grass, which was

then inserted into the waxy ears of the cavemen. With the fine grass in their ears, the assaulting

cavemen were then able to attack the T-Rex with more of a concentrated effort. Sourpuss was

elated that his secret formula was actually working. He couldn't believe that he might be on the

verge of actually saving the clan. The T-Rex began farting more and more to the point that the

sound carried for miles. All the animals of the woods and plains began to chirp, roar, screech

and otherwise voice their reactions to the T-Rex's fart sounds. Even though the T-Rex was

farting uncontrollably, it still attacked, mauled and ate some of the cavemen. Bone yelled as loud

as he could for his clan to continue the assault against the dinosaur. The members of the clan had

tears in their eyes from the T-Rex's farts, to the point of becoming blinded. Something had to

happen before the cavemen collapsed.

Bone felt that the clan was verging on victory over the T-Rex. They had to keep hurling the piss-

dipped spears. It was their only hope. Bigbelly was imagining the T-Rex meat in his stomach

and was drooling so much that the front of his fur suit had become soaked with spittle. Bone

momentarily glanced at Bigbelly, spotted the drool and for some reason began drooling himself.

Bone was so excited at the prospect of his clan acquiring a large supply of T-Rex meat that he

began barking, "T-Rex, T-Rex, T-Rex." Poopoo was so excited that he was pooping more than

he ever had in his life. It was a classic scene from prehistory. The T-Rex's farting was soon

accompanied by uproarious pooping. The toxin from Sourpuss's aged piss formula had somehow

catastrophically disrupted the T-Rex's gastrointestinal system. The T-Rex's bowels were flowing

like the lava from Mt. Vesuvius. Bone noticed the dinosaur's body beginning to swell and he

yelled, "Stand back men!" Without warning, the T-Rex exploded, sending hundreds of meat

hunks into the air. They did it!

100 short stories by mikey - book three

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