Mike Murphy
Jerry saw it for the first time in many years at his late mother’s house. The thieving thing! He clicked it on. It squeaked at first; then it briefly sounded like it was laughing at him.
He knelt before it and faintly heard his and the gang’s prepubescent voices from long-ago summers: “Go ahead,” “It won’t hurt you,” “Your voice sounds funny,” “Do it again,” “Jerry, you’re a riot.”
With one hand, he covered his stoma to speak… the only way he could since the cancer surgery that took his larynx. With the other, he grabbed a leg of the metal thing and angrily shook it. “Give it back!” he demanded as loudly as he could. After another chuckle, its control box briefly smoked, and the dusty blades stopped spinning.
The thing had chosen suicide over giving him back his stolen voice.
He sat in Mother’s favorite chair. Until that moment, he had believed a transfer was somehow possible—that he could retrieve the precious voice he wasted decades ago to speak into that rumbling fan with his pals because it sounded “funny.”
Any remaining hope left him as tears.
Lt. Bonner knew the starcraft needed repairs and that he – a mere cook – couldn’t fix it. Shortly, the vessel would crash onto the planet below.
He’d have to try the genetic accelerator again, though it hadn’t been reliable. He had emerged from its chamber as a janitor and a florist, among other things, even though he believed he’d set the dials to engineer.
He walked into the booth. After the orange glow ended, he emerged. . . a lobster. The crash was imminent now.
He chuckled a “lobstery” chuckle, thinking about confused future archeologists wondering how crustaceans got into space.
Mike has had over 150 audio plays dramatized, won many awards, and had two short film scripts produced.
Taking a deep, hopeful breath, Barnaby exited the humming time machine into the same garage he left not long ago. Damn it. This could be a good sign, but it was unlikely.
His hope vanished when he heard them: His shrewish wife calling for him to stop his tinkering, come outside now, and help her; their two foul-mouthed, bratty kids; and that yippy dog whose goal was to pee in the house at least once a day.
Still?
How could his carefully calculated, happy hours of gleefully messing with the timestream have not changed one iota of his miserable life?
Mike has had over 150 audio plays dramatized, won many awards, and had two short film scripts produced.
Boothby hoped Slyvak Prime would offer what he was longing for.
He landed his ancient starcraft and fired up its antiquated sensors. The scans reported an alphabet soup of harmful gases in the atmosphere. Boothby smiled. At last! Months of searching were finally over.
He opened the ship’s hatch and shuffled down its exit ramp to the planet’s boggy surface. He left the starcraft behind as a gift to whoever found it.
The atmosphere’s gases quickly entered his lungs. Boothby swooned and collapsed. In mere minutes, they had taken his life—and his agonizing cancer—away, just as he wanted.
Mike has had over 150 audio plays dramatized, won many awards, and had two short film scripts produced.
I was sitting at Nicole’s kitchen table when I heard the first of the voices. Male. Definitely not her. “Fuck you!” it said angrily. My old ears perked up. Before my good friend returned to the table with the kettle, two other guys uttered “Screw you” and “Up yours.” I glanced out the open window, expecting to see some foul-mouthed gents passing by.
No one.
Nicole must have noticed my surprise. She spoke as she poured the boiling water into my teacup. “Sorry, Helen,” she began, gesturing at the full sink behind her. “It’s the dishes,” she explained. “They’re dirty.”