Very Slight Stories | Like short stories, only shorter.





'Darcy and O'Mara' is a novel by Arthur Cronin.
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Tuesday, August 29, 2006

 

He has a Table

   Chadwick has a dog. Sometimes he's red and sometimes he's blue. The dog, that is. Chadwick is mostly green when he wears his green rain coat. He has a table. Sometimes his dog is grey. Sometimes the only words he can say are 'blue' and 'red'. Chadwick, that is. Sometimes the only word the dog can say is 'grey'.
   He, Chadwick, also has a drain pipe and a watch. He threw something once. He forgot what it was, and he regretted not remembering what he was holding before he threw it away, because there was nothing there to remember afterwards. It could have been something to put on his table, or it could have provided another word to say. The dog fetched something once, but Chadwick didn't want to put it on his table. He used the word that came with it a few times, but he threw that away too, and he can't remember what it was.
   He's happy. He has a rain coat and a table. He has a suitcase, which he uses once a year. Sometimes he puts his dinner on the table, because he'd like to find something to put on his table, but his dinner isn't that thing he's looking for. He nearly had a wedding once. He lost it in the morning when he found a narrow, winding road, on which he got lost.
   He puts the rain coat into the suitcase. The dog hides in a box. Chadwick often wonders what it would be like to have another table. He'd be less likely to forget he has a table, although he might forget he has two. He once had a moon that orbited his head, but that was just a bird. In the summer he has satellite bees and flies. They enhance his head. Ants enhance his pants if he stands in the garden for long enough. If he hadn't lost his wedding on his wedding day he probably would have said 'grey' instead of 'I do' and she'd have said, "You've been standing in the garden for too long."
   He found the word 'bitter' one winter day, and since then he's often used it before the word 'cold'. He hopes to find another word to use after 'cold'. So far he's tried 'red' and 'blue'. 'Blue' works better than 'red'. 'Table' doesn't work at all. He could have tied up all the loose ends in his life if table had worked. Some would say his wedding is a loose end, but he's forgotten about that.










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very slight stories

They Met a Bear
  They stopped in a small seaside town and they went for a walk. They met a bear.
  This is one version of the story. In another version, they met a sailor, and in this one they ended up being held at gunpoint on a speedboat and becoming unwilling participants in a diamond robbery while disguised as a cow, and sharing in the proceeds of that crime.
  So when they tell the story they just say, "We met a bear. He waved at us."

The Story of the Fortune Teller and the Alarm Clock
  A fortune teller threw an alarm clock at me. This story is deliberately lacking in details to mock the predictions of the fortune teller. Although she was right when she said she'd throw an alarm clock at me.

Counting
  One. Two. Three, the study. Four, a candle stick. Five. Six...
  Seven is missing, presumed dead. One has taken up the case, and two is helping him in his investigations. They both suspect six. Seven was last seen next to six in the garden.
  But seven isn't really dead. He's consumed half a bottle of whiskey and he's currently in the orchard, talking to a rabbit. "One of us is as boring as a gate post," he says, "and it's not..." He stops to count on his fingers. "No, actually it is me."
  Eight nine ten.

Debbie and his dog
  Debbie was sick of people mistaking her for a man.
  "Is your dog my parole officer?"
  "No."
  She was sick of people asking her that too.







Very Slight Stories: like short stories, only shorter

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