Fun Tales

    Fun Tales are supposed to be just that : fun.  These stories usually don't have much else going on.  They are often short, go on stream of thought tangents, and make no sense to the "untrained eye."  See?  Much fun.

Not an Owl Anymore
written May 5, 1999

    Howard had been an owl as long as he could remember.  Every day he would wake up, be an owl, and fly around, eat, enjoy life.  Everything was pretty honky dury for Howard.
    One day came along, and Howard was an ostrich.  There it was, just like that.  His friend Leo came up to him, and announced it to him.  "Howard, you are an ostrich."
    Ostrich?  No, he had been an owl.  Nothing wrong with being an owl.
    "Being an owl is killing you, Howard.  That's why you had to be an ostrich."  That was Leo talking.  Leo was still an owl.  Being an owl
apparently did nothing to Leo, for Leo hadn't suddenly changed into an ostrich, without warning.
    The next day, Howard was still an ostrich.  He was one miserable ostrich.  He started to think about the days of being an owl, how happy he was.  But there was nothing he could do to be that owl.  All that time he was an owl, he loved it, and now it was over with and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
    Day after day, he was still an ostrich.  Howard was having troubles accepting this.  There I was, an owl, everything was going along pretty well, and now this?
    "What's wrong with you, Howard?" Leo kept on asking him.  Wasn't it obvious?  He wasn't an owl anymore.  Leo couldn't possibly understand because the change Leo had felt (seeing Howard be different) was fantastically different from Howard's change.
    One day, Howard would find peace as an ostrich.  One day.

Bobby, The Happy Hippo
written April 5, 1999

    Bobby was a very happy hippo. How happy? Let me tell you. The other day, he was walking down the street, and this big furry dog came up to him and said, "Hey Bobby! How happy are you?" Bobby was very happy to hear that the dog (whose name was not mentionable at the time - it's presently Harold) was inquiring as to his happiness. "How happy am I? Let me tell you. The other day, I was walking down the street, and this completely hairless cat came up to me, and it said to me, "Hey Bobby! How happy are you?" I was so happy that it was asking me how happy I was that I said, 'How happy am I? Let me tell you. The other day, I was walking down the street, when I decided... hey! I'm pretty damn happy.' That's when the cat looked at me and said, "Damn, that's a pretty silly story, Bobby." I certainly agreed with him at the time, but then in retrospect I realized... what the hell was he telling me about being silly, he was after all a hairless cat." The furry dog looked at Bobby with a face of glee. The face of glee was so great that he said "Hee hee."
    Later, Bobby was even happier. Why? He was just walking, and he realized how much he really cared about his small collection of oink making walruses. They were walruses, but they made sounds that would normally be associated with pig type animals. There they were, the pig type animals, and they were almost being upstaged by these walruses. The walruses were making the same sound as they were, and at the same time they were making their own sound.
    Then Bobby noticed that across the street his dear friend Sharmel was just standing there, minding her own business. Her own business was being minded by her. If someone were to inquire as to her business, and if it was being minded, she would naturally be able to tell them that she was minding her business. Nobody else could mind Sharmel's business like Sharmel.
    "Hey, how is it?" Bobby said to Sharmel. "I just wanted to tell you," Sharmel said, "That no matter what anybody else tells you, I love you more than anyone in the world.
    Bobby had a problem with this. Just the other night, somebody else had told him this. Bobby told Sharmel about this situation. Sharmel was slightly disappointed, but she came up with a solution. "How about this, she proposed? Let me just keep loving you."
    "Sounds good, Shar. Keep loving me."
    Sharmel then left. There was no hug involved. Bobby did not even laugh to himself. It was time to go to a diner and do something he had always wanted to do - celebrate his birthday. "That's it. I'm going to do it," he said to himself.
    Later, he was in the diner. He sat by himself, and they brought him a birthday cake anyhow. Actually, they just missed his table and brought it to another. Then they brought one to his because he had a look in his face that basically said, "Hey... it's my birthday too." Hard to make that face unless it's your birthday and a waitress walks by with a cake that is not meant for you

Un Cinq Zero
written March 29, 1999

    She was beautiful, even though she was furious.  That's what James had thought as he looked at her.  Beautiful, but thoroughly mad.  At him?
    Hopefully not.  He didn't think he did anything wrong, but most people don't think they do something wrong until it is pointed out to them.  No
matter what he did to try and make her happy, it wasn't working.  A fantastic flower, that is what she was like.  A fantastically beautiful flower.  Red?  No, so many flowers were red.  Slightly red, but not red enough to confuse people who might think she was one of the other red flowers.  There was no other flower like that flower, I tell you.  Lots of power in that flower.  You could say it was a flower with power.  That's what he often thought every hour.
    She was the best flower there was.  Indeed, for there were no better flowers.

Clark's Son
written March 27, 1999

    "Hello, Clark" said a man named Mark.
    "Hello, Mark" responded Clark.  Clark and Mark were good friends, and they had been since the war.  The war they had been friends in, that is. There it was, a war, and without realizing it, not even needing to save each others lives in the physical sense, they became best of friends.  Why is that?  There was a different kind of salvation going on.  It was highly special.  Clark would pass on the teachings to his son, when he was old enough.
    That conversation started off well enough.  "Hi son," Clark said. "Hello, father."  Clark's son replied.  Clark's son was the bright spot of his life.  Nothing was brighter or shinier than Clark's son.  You could say that Clark's son was Clark's sun.  His son was fun.  How much?  A kiloton.
    He passed on much knowledge that day - Clark, that is.  Clark remembered everything Mark had once told him about lying on ones back and breathing very deeply until you are only focusing on everything, except for the breathing, the surroundings, and just about anything else.  In short, one would have to focus on everything and nothing simultaneously.  This was a trick that Mark had learned from a young native, way back then.  Native to there, foreign to here.  Imported cheese is local where it came from.
    "I'm never going to forget to breathe," Clark's son said.
    Mark thought about Clark's words.  He had a son?  Already?  This seemed like such a big deal.  They were at their high school reunion, it had been thirty whoop whoop whooping fun years since they had been in Mrs. Glockenspiels class and learning the fundamentals of elementary physics and astronomy, two classes one had to take if they wanted to win the "honorary smart person award", awarded every year to the person determined to be smarter than the last person who won it.  It had been getting hard lately, especially after Theodore "No Sieves Here" Goosel won it the year before with his fantastic theory about mechanics in the funniest of places. Theodore had a way with words, and a way with birds - he also had a way with wordy birds, which made the birds that much more fun.
    Acting.  That's what Mark went into.  He was a damn fine actor.  He could steal twenty dollars from you, and then, by only reciting a few spontaneously written sonnets, followed by the chorus lines of several famous plays in pig latin, convince you that you had actually been the thief, and not he.
    What a guy.

Earthquake Down Below
written March 8th, 1999

    "Watch out," I said to myself while driving, "That car behind you is driving on only three of its four wheels, and is using a very old and large piece of bread as the fourth wheel."
    There was nobody there to hear me, of course.  It was one of those situations where I would find something about, but by then it would be too late and everybody would know about it already.  By the time you get to the funeral it is too late to warn Uncle Todd about the daily consumption of milk-cheese-egg-grease cow knuckles, not to mention how rare they were.
    He must have been getting pretty hungry, I said to myself.  I know that I can be quite a dork when I am hungry.  Why did I get so mad then? Didn't I know it was only a game?  And who cares if I win or lose, right? Improving, aren't I?
    The car on the left seemed to not think too much.  "I'm going to pass you, you Pontiac driving outrageous guy." he must have been thinking. Maybe he had a Pontiac once and was not happy with it.  Maybe he was so happy with his that he wanted to rub in how good his was compared to mine. What, should I get Pontiac envy?
    I didn't know what to think as I drove down the road that one very cold day.  The departure was not the best, I was left feeling somewhat apalled at myself.  Two-inch snails?  On my forehead?  Of course she was going to be offended.  And what a stupid suggestion.  She was so mad I don't think she even would have accepted a kiss.
    "I need violin lessons." I told a violin expert later.  She wasn't a violin expert in my mind - at least not when I mentioned a violin earlier on in life - five minutes earlier.  Suddenly, there she was, on top of the game, and offering free lessons - it was her passion to teach violin.  Was there more to it?  No, just violin - she was attached, so to speak.  As am I, hopefully forever.
    The relationship is weird, I thought to myself.  One second I will feel as if all is going well, and sometimes I do something wrong and suddenly I feel my heart pounding, I can hardly breathe, I am about to die because of the fear that has come over me, I know that I have screwed up and I am holding back tears, tears which scream and yell to be released and fall to the ground, as dropped as I am afraid I am going to be.
    But it is brief - a day or two, I try to show that I am not really the worst - who is the worst?  Is there a worst?  There must be some resolution.  Tonight, the teeth will be especially clean.  No head shots are being taken of me, but the masses will still view me.
    Sometimes it is hard to write fiction without writing fact

Horses Named Fred
written February 26, 1999
 

    "Where is he?  Where is that horse named Fred?" a man whose name was by chance also Fred asked one day.  Fred (the man) was looking for Fred (the horse) due to the fact that Fred (the horse) had run away with the wife of Fred (the man).  Well, the wife of Fred (the man) had run off with Fred (the horse).
    By great luck, Fred's horse Fred had a friend named Ian who was wandering around a stable at the same time that human Fred wandered into the aforementioned stable.  "I'm feeling unstable" said Ian while in the stable.  "Perhaps you should stop hiding under the table," human Fred said while entering the stable.  He was trying to pull off a funny fable, but as you can see, he was unable.
    "Enough of this!  I must know where my wife is!"
    "Right here!" a booming voice sounded out.  It was also coming from underneath the table.  The table was rather big, you see.  Once there was a large convention there, and for entertainment purposes the convention goers tried to measure the table using lumpia.  There were about eighty pieces of lumpia lengthwise, and thirty two or so for the width.  Well, nobody said this was a kosher convention - but nobody said that the lumpia necessarily had any pork in them.  The truth of the matter was that this was a "true to your lumpia" festival, and so they felt that the spirit of lumpia meant that they would have to use pork and only pork when making it.  There was a large container of some orange coloured sauce, but only selected mothers knew how to make that.  A few daughters as well.
    "Could you please come out from under the table?"
    "I refuse.  You're a very bad husband."
    "Perhaps, but you can't stay under there forever!"
    "There's at least three months of lumpia down here from accidental lumpia dropping at that convention."  As was mentioned before, this table was huge.  Do you know how much lumpia it would take to feed a person for three whole months?  This is a big table.
    "That's all right...I'm going to hold a Monopoly tournament here... tomorrow!  Yes, and then all the people who will come will of course want snacks, and I will tell them that there is hidden lumpia under the table!  They will eat the aforementioned lumpia, and you will have to come out!"
    This was the sort of dispute that you would expect to see on the television talk shows, but never under the table of a stable stable like this one.  Fred (the horse) came back one day, but when he did, he was sorry that he had ever run away with the wife of Fred (the human.)
    Anything in excess is not necessarily a good idea, human Fred thought to himself at the funeral.  It was too bad he couldn't bring himself to be a better husband.

The Tall Giraffe
written February 23, 1999

    A giraffe is standing by the tree with another.  The one is tall, the other is shorter.  Shorter in height, but not in heart.  There was always a difference for Ronald.  He was the taller one.  His friend Donald was shorter, but he always managed to eat enough food that he was satisfied with his fill of leaves.  There were enough branches hanging low enough that he could eat the leaves down there and not have to worry.
    "I feel inadequate," Donald said to Ronald one day.  "I mean here I am, a giraffe, and I'm not your garden variety giraffe - that's not even a good thing, in my case.  I wonder if you could tell me how the leaves are up there?"
    "Maybe instead you can tell me how the leaves are down there."
    "Surely you could reach the ones down here if you could get all the way up there," Donald said, with a hint of envy.
    "Not really," Ronald replied cooly.  "I have some neck soreness due to a lack of massage therapy, and that lack of massage therapy is due to a lack of massage therapist.  He's been out for a few weeks since he fell down dust dancing.
    Dust dancing was one of those things that you could either do very well, or do not very well at all.  People who tried to be what they weren't often failed, but those who accepted what they were (be it a very well dust dancer or not) did a much better job of not getting hurt than those who were trying to fake it.  When you don't know how to dust dance, faking it can only get you hurt.  Ronald's massage therapist was one of those folks who knew that he couldn't do it, but tried it anyhow on someone's so-called good advice.
    "The foliage up here is quite fascinating.  It is dry, and somewhat crunchy." Ronald finally said after realizing he did not want to get into a "But you started it" contest.  There was nothing more cruel and unusual than that childhood game.  Nobody ever wins, really, except for those of us who happen to be better at it than others.  The others get away thinking that they should have won, but perhaps might have not been thinking about strategies for chess
    "Dry and crunchy?  How strange.  My leaves are rather moist, and chewy."
    "Moist and chewy?  You lucky giraffe!"
    Donald was a luckier giraffe than he thought.
 

Rotten Rhyming
written February 19, 1999

    "I feel like an old man," said a man who had no plan to eat flan.
    "Why would you do a thing like that?" said an ugly bug wearing no hat.
    "It's not really a thing that I would do, but a feeling I feel is true"
    "When did you start feeling this?  When was the last time you got a random kiss?"
    "Sometime last week, that time or so.  That second one?  Right after I stubbed my toe."
    The man with no plan was not happy to be.  The bug with the hat had just climbed down from tree.  The cheese neither noticed was sitting on the street.  It just said "I am unkosher when eaten with meat."

Cherry Tomatoes
written February 16, 1999

    "Why are you cutting your sandwich like that?" Robert asked Ryan one day.  Robert and Ryan were both eating sandwiches, and Ryan was eating as he always ate.  Robert was also eating as he always ate, but this apparently did not dance too well with Ryan's eating technique - hence the comment from Robert.
    Robert was the kind of person who cut his sandwiches into little triangles.  Ryan, on the other hand, liked to cut squares into his sandwiches.  The sandwiches, that is, were cut into either square shapes, or triangle shapes.
    "I like cutting my sandwich like that - what's wrong with square sandwich pieces?"
    "Square pieces... how strange... what's wrong with the triangle pieces?"
    "Nothing's wrong with triangle pieces, I just happen to be a square person.  Here, try this square piece."
    Robert hesitated at first, but then took a piece.  "Not bad," he said.  "Cream cheese?"
    "Yes, and lox as well."
    Both sandwiches were being eaten, they decided.  How very silly to argue over the cutting method.
 

Hungry Giraffe?
written February 13, 1999

    "I saw a giraffe eat an elephant once," Roger found himself saying on one particularly lonely afternoon, "although he didn't seem to have too much trouble."
    "A giraffe eat an elephant?  How ridiculous!" his best friend Nelly Phan replied. Her father was Korean, hence her last name, and her mother was from Alabama, hence her first name.  It was all a matter of compromise when it came to Nelly Phan.  Sometimes she ate grits with chopsticks, and sometimes she had some sticky rice cakes washed down with apple cider, or perhaps some deep fried pork loin, depending on her mood.
    "What I failed to mention was that the elephant was really a cookie," Roger recalled regally to Ramone Rickshaw, Roger's rowdy ranch rhino.  Ramone was also a certified psychotherapist, as he had somehow managed to fill in the "be a certified psychotherapist in 30 days by mail" forms holding a rhino pen in his hand.  Paw?  Not even Ramone, that wacky rhino knew how to refer to that which held onto genuine rhino pens. Ramone had invented the rhino pen one day when he realized that stomping his thoughts out, a sort of dot and dash system that they used to use with telegraphs, would not get him too far in bars, where even female rhinos do not have the patience to decipher stomping.
    "Did she ever believe you?" Ramone wondered.
    "Only after I baked her some tollhouse cookies and asked very nicely.
    Roger knew it not, but the cookies weren't even necessary.  Nelly was open to nice askings.

Thurgood Teddybearhands
written February 1, 1999

    Thurgood Teddybearhands was having a rotten day.  It was quite similar to the other days in his life - being ridiculed for having teddy bears for hands.  He almost envied his distant relative, with scissors, because at least he frightened people with his big scary sharp objects.  Thurgood, on the other hand, only made people chuckle, often succeeding in getting a chortle or two.
    "Nice teddy bears," one person said, "Maybe you could let me cuddle sometime."  They were mocking him, of course, but that is almost expected when you have teddy bears for hands.  There was the occasional sympathizer, of course.
    "I love teddy bears," a girl of five was once heard to say. Fortunately, they were teddy bears, and not sharp objects like his distant relative, because the girl then proceeded to rub noses with one of the teddy bears.
    Thurgood Teddybearhands.

Key Lime Living
written January 29, 1999

    Once upon a lime, a lemon was walking down Strawberry street, possibly going to Strawberry Fields Forever.  Anyhowser (md), this aforementioned lemon was feeling a little squeezed, so he wasn't quite as bitter as he normally would be, what with all that juice in him.  He went to an Appleaday clinic, where they had a lot of key lime pie, which ironically enough did not have any keys in it.  It had plenty of lime, however.  Was the key lime pie the key to a pie lime?  A lime of course being life, and the pie being just a precursor to living that life, like being born is to normal people.  Pie is to lime as being born is to living.
    "I'm feeling empty, Doctor." he said to a man who also happened to be a doctor.  He was a man, but he also happened to be a doctor.  Which was he first?  The doctor was a doctor because he had studied to be a doctor, but he was a man first and foremost because he absolutely had no teddy bears or teddy bear paraphenalia in his household.  There was a mouse in his house, but that was a mouse that wore a blouse, so he wasn't too mean to the little bean, the bean representing the size, though many time he tries.  He wanted the mouse out of the house, but the mouse was rather civil, obediant that is, and so he always fetched the morning paper.  Even though this inevitably meant that the funnies were somewhat less funny for lack of a Garlfied comic, it was not that important.  Also, all cheese advertisements magically vanished.
    Why cheese?  Why were the adverts for liquor stores also occasionally missing, which was always a sign that the mouse in the house with the aforementioned blouse was going to be rather tipsy that evening, sometimes even downright drunk and incoherent.  He would try to compose a thought or three, perhaps even to dictate an argument contradicting very clear and concise Jungian thinking, but he would end up sounding more like his deadly opponent than against him.  It was like Sean Connery trying to kill Roger Moore.
    "I'm afraid you are going to have to have a kiwi implant", the doctor finally said after reflecting on lack of bear but surplus of mouse.
    That was to come later on in life, however.  Exactly how much later, one could never really tell.