One day I was walking down the hall at work and a woman I knew from another department was walking down the hall the other way toward the public hallway that crossed the entire hospital. Just as I was about to enter my department, I turned and saw, a two-foot long piece of toilet paper hanging […]
MadMania
Faith, Books, and Stuff
Category: stories
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Velma drove Norville back to his car parked at the cemetery. The rain had largely abated and was nothing more than a heavy mist. Norville prepared to retrieve his spare key from beneath the car. “Can you hold this a minute,” Velma asked, practically shoving the pizza box […]
Years ago I when I was at my first full time graphic design I was at a company called Ace that made and sold radio control cars, boats, planes, and other accessories. Our meager design and marketing team of four was swamped making catalogs, logos, stickers, ads, and packaging, so we hired a new marketing […]
“sooner or later, we need to be someone, because if we are not inside a character, then we are not inside the story.” via St. Eutychus
My dad once told me the story of his uncle Delmar’s car: “Your uncle Delmar never had kids, so of course he had lots of money. Back in the 60s this racecar driver told Mercury that he wanted them to make him a car, and Mercury figured that if they had to make one, the […]
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Norville tore into his pizza not quite savagely. People always told him growing up that eventually his metabolism would slow, that his freakish ability to consume and process copious amounts of food without weight gain would ebb, that his days of eating whatever he wanted without consequence […]
The other day I was doing some tech support for some longtime customers, a couple in their mid-80s (he uses a Mac, she uses a PC). While I was there the topic of the next bloodmobile date came up. “They don’t like my blood,” he said. “Why not?” I asked. “I lived in Africa for […]
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Warm air gushed from the vents with the power of one of those annoying hand dryers they put in truckstop bathrooms. Norville had ridden in several Jeeps before; rattly angular things full of crevices for wind to blow through, designed by men who either did not know or did […]
My friend The Dread Pirate Rob has a passel of small children. One day the three year old fell down and hurt himself. Rob comforted him and also used the opportunity as a teaching moment, encouraging him to pick himself back up instead of just crying and waiting for help. “What do we do when […]
Thunk! The sound woke me immediately from the weird dream I was having. It was a distinct ‘thunk’–the sound of something hitting the back porch. Check the clock–245am. Someone must be trying to get into the house. I got up, pulled on some clothes, and stepped out of the bedroom and checked the back door–still […]