Bedtime Stories for Weird Kids: A Quiet Evening At Home

A whir Johnson hadn’t noticed slowed and halted.

“Heh. The droids are shutting down for the night,” Marie said.

Johnson nodded.

Maria’s eyes flickered and she slumped over.

A red dot under the forehead covering blinked amber while Maria’s files consolidated and she received memories of a quiet evening at home with a non-existent partner and children.

Johnson laughed. The laugh sounded hollow to him in the suddenly still office.

Walking through the robots unnerved him. Sometimes he wondered if he was really human. Simple paran—

---

Johnson arrived at his desk at 8:01 and wondered where the time had gone.

#85

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Bedtime Stories for Weird Kids: Miracle Cures

When folks tell you dragon turds have magical properties, they’re not lying.

You’ve heard it cures noses and constipation. Who’s ever heard of a dragon with a stuffed up nose or a dragon that couldn’t smell? And I assure you, no dragon suffers from slow bowels.

Now, a nose cured with dragon turd will smell, but I should warn you … it will only smell dragon turds.

Those who take dragon turds for constipation will be relieved. Also, their intestines will fall out in five painful days.

Dragon turds have magical properties, sure. They’re just not what you’d call good ones.

#82

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: Meat

A bit of space dust hit the ship.

I sounded an alarm and set micromechanicals to patch the hole.

It feels weird not breathing. I wasn’t told that. It’d been twenty-two years and I still felt like the moment right after I go under the water.

My non-existent lungs told me I was fine.

My heart should have raced when we were hit. It didn’t. Not a heart. Just synapses.

All I ever wanted was to be a hero. The feel of justified adrenaline running through me. But so much of emotion is meat. I just don’t feel it anymore.

#71

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: Animus

“Don’t ask me about the empties. I’m never awake long enough to bother looking up the information.”

“You? Surely no one could get bored of you that easily?”

She runs her hands along my right thigh. I don’t argue. It’s good to have breath in me again. Good to be.

It lasts a few weeks. A few blessed weeks. Long enough to go shopping and watch some TV.

Then, one day while she’s out, I feel it again. She’s gotten bored with me. I can feel the animus fade until I hit the ground.

And I wait for another master.

#66

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: The Digital Revolution

I never imagined myself a NeoLuddite, but when a patch had my microwave follow me because the timer had gone off, something snapped.

I was not then a violent man. I didn’t own guns. I hadn’t let Gerald bring his home either.

The toilet was the best weapon I had. The microwave never saw it coming. Because I had the bathroom door shut while I pried the toilet off the floor.

Now, holed up and awaiting my demise, I wondered if it was worth it.

Until a mobile phone came in and reminded me about a sale ending next week.

#61

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: Criminals

“Let’s do this forever,” Jane said. She tore bits of stale bread into the manicured grass.

“What? Feed birds on fancy lawns?” I laughed.

“You know what I mean, Hannah.”

I turned the stereo up. The decibel meter read way above county ordinance.

An old man in a robe opened his door. He screamed to his cell about the noise.

“Whoops. Spotted. Time to jam,” I said.

She drove. Squealed tires, drove exactly 8 mph above the limit. Our lives had changed so much since we read the book.

Have You Considered a Life of Petty Crime?

Well, have you?

#60

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: The Spirit Guide

What I saw made sense. I’m an evolutionary biologist. A Coelacanth was a great spirit animal.

They’re huge and a bit scary, but beautiful. I was so entranced I didn’t catch what my guide said.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“No worries.” It swam lower. The water must have warmed up.

“So…”

“Oh yeah,” the fish said indolently. “Remember to be chill and taste bad. You’ll live forever that way.”

That seemed like a reasonable strategy. The vision faded.

“Wait! How do I learn to taste bad?”

I’d liked hippies before they drugged me for a spirit quest.

#52

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: Diagnostics

It had to be a malfunction. Every time the QR-33 reviewed any data on the man, its processor use suddenly spiked. QR wasn’t sure what was being processed, but something big surely.

QR thought there might be a secret lock on the man’s file, but several spider processes had been deployed to discern the state of the rogue processes.

The answers were … pointless. Calculations about his symmetry or the way the light reflected in his eyes.

QR consulted a psycholobot once the other diagnostics had completed.

The diagnosis was absurd. QR simply couldn’t be in love with him. Could it?

#31

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: Dreamsicle

The dreamsicle was marketing fluff. "Tastes like real dreams!" couldn't be true. Then, I had a lick. At first it tasted like nothing. Not cold, hard, or sweet. Slowly, there was a sensation on my tongue. I realized that I had not felt my tongue at all when I first licked. The feeling then was like having thirty tongues, but none of them solid. I had a sudden desire to wash my hands, but my tongue kept telling my brain it tasted soap. Every thought produced its own taste. I'm not sure which whimsy produced the coppery taste of blood.

#29 - Apparently there is actually such a thing as a Dreamsicle. Pretend this happened in a universe where there isn't. Thanks.

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The Adventures of Capt. McClain (parts 1-3)

“They can chew on my wrist if my fist is down their throats.”
-Capt. McClain

I invented Capt. McClain for the express purpose of putting quotes in his mouth like the above. And then he took on a life of his own. Here are three drabbles I wrote on his life. Given the popularity of Capt. McClain’s adventures amongst my friends, it’s safe to expect more to be written eventually.

It's also safe to expect at least some of these will have swearing.

1

Capt. McClain was the envy of every sensible man and of several less sensible women.

Who could help but admire a man with the untamed sagacity to sharpen his bayonet on his teeth? Not to mention having the teeth to accomplish the task.

Very few envied his regimen. Getting up at three every morning to walk a dozen miles in lead-weighted trousers before milking the cows by just looking at them?

And that was the least substantial of his extraordinary chores.

What McClain did with the milk is a serious mystery. Mrs. McClain said he took his cereal with vinegar.

Update: This story has been featured on The Dribblecast, a community-run podcast made by fans of The Drabblecast, a podcast I mention here frequently. Forum member Phenopath did a brilliant read of it, which you can listen to here.

2

We should mention the great depths from which the tremendous man, Capt. McClain, climbed to reach such heights.

He was born the regular way. Imagine! Though he was bearded and five months early.

I won’t say he shot the doctor for slapping him. That would be absurd. He just enjoyed a cigar and scotch with his father.

He didn’t begin reading until the usual age. He finished learning in just three hours.

The lowest point in the Captain’s life was courtship. Though pretty women abounded, three turned his proposals down.

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked three women at one time.

3

When Capt. McClain turned sixteen, he was turned out of the house on the general principle that he wasn’t living there anyway.

If he’d been there for the event, we might know whether Capt. McClain would have understood his father’s actions.

Historians believe Mr. McClain was drunk at the time.

Shortly after the Captain was kicked out, the war began. It would be overly simplistic to say the Captain fought on this side or that. Capt. McClain’s primary interest was in kicking ass.

And what a fine amount of ass he kicked.

The records were amended to avoid military embarrassment.

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: DDR-DOS

Concepts that Didn't Make It: DDR-DOS

DDR-DOS was a command line OS you controlled with a DDR foot pad. Eight random letters were displayed at a time. If one you wanted came up, you hit the appropriate foot pad. Music played in blazing early-80s era PC-Speaker glory.

The cocky kid at the local arcade mastered it and formatted your hard drive in 13.3 seconds. You loved that hard drive. It had your novel and your favorite family recipes and now it was gone in a puff of caffeine-fueled glory. Oh well.

You could always try MacAroni, the early Apple clone you ate when it became obsolete.

#20

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Bedtime Stories for the ADD: Snow-Colored Fabrications

Your mother and I hear you want to open your presents a mere five hours into the day on which we have allowed you to believe the savior was born.

No presents will be opened before our family’s traditional hour, noon, for appropriate consciousness on that most sacred day.

We are not cruel parents. Our yearly hangover is essential to the holiday and not a symptom of regret at our having so many children.

The truth is … this year, Santa used UPS for some present delivery. The wretched UPS tracking shows that your presents are still in the south pole.

#25

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Cream Cheese

Here's some variety of ultra-short story I wrote using Write or Die to spur me on toward greatness. Or, you know, bagel obsession.

It's probably not finished. I reserve the right to re-write it later.

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They gave me the last bagel. At least they said it was the last bagel. "We've done a world wide search," they said.

They held a lottery with every region on Earth and my region won. Then they wrote down all of our names on scraps of paper and pulled a name out.

It was my name. They handed me the bagel and told me that I should enjoy it.

Because there wouldn't be any more bagels.

I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed. They asked me what was so funny.

I told them, "I don't even like bagels."

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