“Certainly in the topsy turvy world of rock and roll, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is quite often useful.”

― Ian Faith, Spinal Tap

Terror From the Sky

Without any warning the night sky opens up. A huge black rectangle, taking up fully a third of the heavens, swings upwards. The world shivers in terror. Quickly a giant human hand and arm plunges down out of the black sky. You and your friends scatter.

The hand gropes with hideous speed. No hiding place is free from its flashing, powerful probes. First one of your compatriots is grabbed from behind a rock and lifted into the air. Then your other friend is caught behind a tree and he too disappears skyward. You crouch shivering in the pond but the giant hand returns and inexorably traps you in a corner. You try to leap to safety but are trapped against the cold, smooth walls. The hand closes in on one ankle and you are pulled into space through the hole in the sky itself, jiggling, dangling, upside down, held by one thin leg with irresistible force.

What has caused this horror? Where are you going? What awful fate lies beyond the top of the very world. You seem to remember it happening before, but everything is so hazy now.

This morning Craig was rushing around the house looking for his keys and he noticed that the water in the toad’s terrarium was almost dried up. There was only a thin damp layer left in the little double blue plastic dish that they kept for them to swim in. He should have at least stopped to pour a little distilled into their pond, but he was late for work… as always.

“Sorry, guys, I’ve got to run. Get through the day and I’ll take care of you when I get home.”

All day Craig felt guilty for not giving up the few seconds it would have taken to give them some water. He knew there was enough dampness left for them to survive, but still, they depended on him taking care of them. So he resolved to clean out their world when he came home from work. They were always happy with a clean cage.

So that evening, Craig went through the drill. The hardest part was catching the three toads and putting them in the portable cage so he could wash the aquarium. They didn’t like getting caught so he had to chase them around and grab them, they were pretty fast, they could jump, and once he had them, they were very squirmy and hard to hold.

Eventually (well, actually pretty quickly, Craig was getting better at catching them faster than they were getting better at getting away) K’nex, Mortimer (pronounced More-Timer), and Runaway had been grabbed and hauled over to the little portable cage with the white gravel and the lid firmly locked down.

Craig’s son helped clean the thing out. While Craig scrubbed the water dish, the three rocks, the flowerpot, and the two plastic plants, his son filled the aquarium with water from the hose. He skimmed a couple of live crickets off the water and put them in the little cage so the three toads could have a quick snack while they waited. Then Craig poured the water out and rinsed the gravel to get rid of all the toad shit and cricket carcasses.

Out went the chlorinated hose-water; in went the little bowl with distilled water along with the furniture (rocks, flowerpot, etc.). Craig made completely sure the lid was locked down tight (it has suction cups) before he put the three guys back in (Craig never could figure out how that one got out that one time, let alone how he survived unseen in the kitchen for a week).

And now the three toads were happy as larks. They hopped around, looking for crickets, or floated lazily in their little dish-pond as relaxed as can be.

It all worked out in the end. The terror is over.

Until next week.

“Certainly in the topsy turvy world of rock and roll, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is quite often useful.”

― Ian Faith, Spinal Tap

Solid Piece of Wood

“This plan of yours, Shelly, is getting too damn complicated,” Mabel said as she gazed with her two friends at the maze of scribbled papers now almost covering the kitchen table.

“Uh, Shel, not only that, but where did you get this Cab? It’s delicious,” said Alice as she sipped her third glass, stared at the liquid, then took a full gulp.

“Alice, you won’t believe it, but it’s from Aldi. It’s dirt cheap but mostly drinkable. And Mabel, I know it’s complicated, but that bastard Craig is not going to get away with this and it will take a careful plan to pull it off.”

“We won’t be able to do this ourselves,” Mabel said.

“We have to keep it secret,” said Shelly. “We will put the plan in motion and people will help us without even knowing they are.”

“Hey, pour me another glass,” said Alice.”I can’t believe this is from Aldi.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” said Mabel.

“It’ll work. That rat bastard Craig is into so much stuff, stealing money, dealing drugs, lying, cheating and everything else. We know that better than anyone because he did all that and more to all three of us.”

“Hey, the bottle’s empty,” was Alice’s only answer. “How late is Aldi open?”

The rack held nine Cricket bats at one time, all held vertically. Craig had one, so there were eight left. He could feel the blood running down his leg as he stared into the dim glow from the store’s emergency lighting system. Water dripped from the suspended ceiling in a dozen spots and something electrical was buzzing. The wet floor must be shorting out some sort of extension cords because Craig felt an occasional shock from his one bare foot soaking in the damp. He tried to stand on the foot that still had an insulating shoe, but that was the leg he was cut on and he’d wince at the pain from the extra weight.

Craig had no idea who had jumped him after luring him down to this third rate sporting goods store. He ran his list of enemies through his head – drug deals gone bad, real estate scams left in tatters, plenty of women left with broken hearts and negative bank accounts – and realized it was too long to recall. He had borrowed the money to buy the failing shop, specializing in European sports equipment (no wonder it was going broke), spent a quarter of the loan, then declared bankruptcy and was ready to turn the now-worthless real estate back to the bank – pocketing the balance. Someone had called him down to the store, and he would never have come, but she sounded sexy and desperate – and Craig had always been able to deal sexy and desperate to his advantage. Instead, this.

There was a crash from the darkness off to his right and Craig held the solid chunk of British wood as firmly as he could. He couldn’t imagine what kind of game was played with this damn thing, but it was all he had. Whimpering in pain and fear, he limped off in the quietest direction he could find.

Paul walked down the sidewalk on his way home from working a double shift when he came across the shattered windows of the sporting goods store. The glass across the sidewalk looked fresh and smashed out from the inside. He knew he should have kept going, gone home to get a good night’s sleep, but he had always been curious so he stepped through the broken threshold. He immediately stumbled into the rack of Cricket bats, knocked over. Looking down, he saw there were five in a jumble on the floor. He picked one up, feeling its firm strength. He swung it a bit and liked it’s balance and heft.

He had played baseball for decades and still had the shoulder muscles and fast-twitch nerves to move a heavy piece of wood through the air at high speed and pin-point accuracy. The feeling made him smile. Paul heard a noise off to his left and, swinging the Cricket bat back and forth with both hands, strode off to find out what it was.