Gabe's Ficlets

There were 17 possible ways to fold a paper swan, and Bob knew fourteen of them. He knew that at least two were purely theoretical- not possible in true 3D space. But that last fold, the 17th, was the one that drove him to madness. The last fold. The Omega swan. The Cob’s Lucky One Seven. One day it would be his.
Bob had scoured the world. He’d climbed mountains and crossed deserts. He’d sat for three weeks outside a swan folding sage’s yurt in arid Mongolia, feeding on passing beetles and drinking only rainwater. On the twenty-second day, the sage came out of the Yurt and sent Bob away, confessing that he actually didn’t know the Pen’s Gambit, and that the local boys who’d suggested he did were having a little fun.
Bob thanked the sage and fished a small knife from the front pocket of his serappe, which he used to cut off his left pinky finger. He buried it in the sand where he’d sat those weeks.
He’d come home then, rejected, lonely, and sure he’d die soon, his life a waste, his struggle for naught.

It is our responsibility, although we don’t talk about it, to protect the older ones from the evils they’ve forgotten.
We hang bangles and stars, rattles and ribbons on the broom to protect the old ones. It is a compulsion in our genetic code. It is a reaction—a biological need to decorate the broom—you will not understand why, and by the time you’re old enough to explain it, you will have long since lost the impulse.
Without knowing why, we keep the darkest, most dangerous of man’s dark secrets at bay.
The old ones no longer understand. They sweep to make clean. We understand. We sweep to_cleanse_.
And we cleanse the sweeper.
It’s rattles, glitter, sparkles and bangles keep the dark filth from consuming us. We don’t just sweep away the dirt. We drive away the darkness.
It is our greatest responsibility.
We don’t know why. But we are compelled.

“But if we’re all princesses, so why wouldn’t we all be Christan?” Ariel sniffed, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t understand.”
Jasmine crossed her arms and let out a harrumph. “I’m done.” she said. “You try, Cindy.”
Cinderella looked up from her needlepoint. “Don’t get me involved in this,” she said.
“Just tell her,” Jasmine demanded.
Cinderella shook her head. “Ask Mulan.”
“I think it would sink in if It came from one of you Anglos.”
Belle, who’d been sitting quietly reading while sitting in one of the overstuffed bean bags in the corner of the main lounge, cleared her throat with a warning tone.
Jasmine shot her a glare and snarled: “What about you, ‘Beauty’?”
Without looking up from her novel, Belle held up her middle finger at Jasmine.
“You don’t have to turn everyone against me,” Ariel broke down and wailed. “I’m new to this. I just want to be friends.”
“I give up!” Jasmine said, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s like you just got your legs yesterday, stupid machah sag.

“It doesn’t need new batteries; it’s just broken,” Pam Frye told the two-year-old pulling on the knee of her jeans. The two-year-old, a cherubic blondie with thin fingers and a large vocabulary pressed the tiny robot into Pam’s hands.
“It’s broken?” the girl asked.
“Yeah, honey, it’s broken,” she said.
“No more Muticore?” the girl asked, looking up at Pam with tears welling in here eyes.
“No honey. Muticore is broken.”
“Fix it,” the girl said, shaking the little robot in her fists.
“I can’t honey. I’m sorry.”
The girl scrunched up her face and glared up at Pam, and then, carefully announcing each syllable: “Fix. Muticore.” The girl pursed her lips. “Fix. Him.”
Pam snatched the tiny robot and held it up to her face to get a look at the six legged, bullet-shaped robot.
“Fix him!” the girl yelled. “Fix him!”
Pam tried to shut out the girl and rolled the Muticore over in her hands. She pressed the little emerald button on the back of the robot’s chest. Nothing. She pressed it again. And again. And again.

“Your son has terrified my dog for the last time!” Amanda Reeves trembled as she shouted across the fence line.
Being shouted at was not Paul Muller’s favorite way to be welcomed home, even on days when the weather cold and snowy.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Reeves,” Paul knee-jerked as he walked up the sidewalk patch that lead from his garage to the back door. “I’ll talk to Sydney right away.”
Reeves harrumphed at him. “Who is going to get King out?”
The question stopped Paul in his tracks. “Out?” he asked turning and looking across the fence at Reeves’ yard.
King, a tiny black Pomeranian trembled with cold from where he had been placed in the center of a ring of icicles, each placed point-inward at the dog; the spikes effectively prevented him from leaving the circle, much like the spikes atop utility poles kept birds from perching.
Paul stammered, and became angry as he saw a spark of smug satisfaction rise in Reeves’ face.
“Your boy is a degenerate,” she spit.
“He’s a girl,” Paul snapped back; “My boy is a girl.”

Kevin Adderly was not going to give up on his punchline.
He’d invested too much to get to this point. He was so near the pay-off. He wanted this joke. He wanted to so much he could taste it. He could also taste the cabbage that Rock Samasa had just sprayed into his face with an ill-timed sneeze.

Here’s what happened:

He, Rock, and their wives were out to dinner at one of those fancy Japanese places. One of the dishes had come in a nest of crunchy cabbage shreds. The shreds were intended to be a garnish, but Rock had tasted them and found them delicious.
Kevin was telling a story and was just coming to the punchline when something ticked Rock’s nose and before anyone knew it, Rock had sneezed, spraying Kevin with a mist of sneeze, sprite and chewed cabbage.
Kevin had only paused for a moment, taking his glasses off and rubbing them clean with the restaurant’s linen while he finished the joke.
“I said sprocket, not socket,” he said with a flourish.

He would never know what they were laughing at.

Take the sticker off the sheet. Press it down. Repeat. Fill the sheet. Get another. Make a choice. Pick another. Start again. Fill the sheet. Make a choice. Pick a sticker. Move the sheet. Take a step. Decide on a sticker. Press the sheet. Move another. Fill the sticker. Press it down. Press it down. Press it down.

This is the factory. This is learning. This is creativity. This is comedy. This is drama. This is fatherhood.

A new sheet of stickers. A blank sheet of paper. Peel it apart. Stick it down. Make a choice. Take a nap. Get a bottle. Pick another. Start again. Fill the sheet. Make a choice. Use the sticker. Press it down. Repeat.

Never before had Paul seen a lady laugh that way. She had a jolly shake and her skin rolled and jiggled with each staccato burst.
“I can’t believe he would even think to say such a thing,” she laughed.
Paul smiled. “Of course he would say such a thing,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s a pirate. Pirates talk like that.”
“But he’s not really a pirate,” the great lady said, finally containing her giggles. “He thinks he’s a pirate, sure; but he’s not really a pirate.”
Paul exhaled and looked longingly at his lemonade. A long rivulet of condensation rolled off the glass and pooled in the ring around the base.
Pink.
Delicious.
He should just reach for it. Take a drink, bash the lady in the head with the empty glass. That’s what he should do.
Instead, he spoke. “He’s really a pirate. He lives in a ship. He has a talking parrot. His left leg is made of wood.”
The lady furrowed her brow, and stared directly into Paul’s face, speaking in a slow, deliberate way:
“But he doesn’t have an eye patch, does he?”