Random Acts Of Storytelling
11 Random Tales For Your Reading Pleasure
Earl T. Roske
Copyright 2013 Earl T. Roske
Interior art by fitzsean from flickr.com
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Contents
All that Glitters
Feed Your Television
The Matchmaker
Stepping Out
The Suicide Note
The Placement Agency
The Revolution If Postponed For Cocktails
Life's Greatest Pleasures
Love's Last Kiss
Sunny Side Up
Robbery Shmobbery (A play!)
Author's Note
This is a collection of very short stories. They do not fit a specific category but neither are they so rigid in their genre that anyone couldn't find pleasure in the reading. Some are literary, some are sci-fi. There's even a short play. All of it is entertaining and well worth the money you didn't spend. Please enjoy and consider buying my other works after enjoying yourself here.
All That Glitters
“You know, Max, one day your curiosity is going to get you in trouble.”
Max did not respond because at that moment his head and forelegs were under the oven while he batted at a wayward crumb, blackened from excessive exposure to the cooking heat. Max’s tail thumped wildly against the kitchen floor as he tried to hook the crumb with a claw only to finally snap it like a tiddlywinks, sending it flying to the inaccessible recesses at the back of the oven. With a last futile lunge at the crumb Max gave up and started to back out from under the oven only to find that he couldn’t move.
“I think I’m stuck,” Max mewed.
“Serves you right,” Mara replied. “How stuck are you?”
“Really stuck,” Max said a little louder. His back paws sliding against the linoleum as he pushed against it.
“Good,” Mara replied and jumped on Max’s butt, attacking his thrashing tail with teeth and front claws. Her rear claws dug into Max’s side.
“Ow!” Max yelped and suddenly popped out from under the oven. He twisted around to counter-attack his sister but Mara had already leapt to the side and was casually licking the pads of one front paw.
“Not that stuck after all?” she asked.
“I was inspired,” Max replied, slowly stalking towards Mara.
“If you weren’t so curious you wouldn’t need saving all the time.”
Max butted his black furred head against his sister’s gray furred head.
“How is attacking my tail helping?”
“You’re not stuck any more, are you,” Mara stated and strolled away from her brother, her tail held pompously straight in the air.
“I wouldn’t have gotten stuck if you’d helped me,” Max said.
“I did help,” Mara replied. She stopped strolling and sat under a dining room chair, her tail curving forward around her paws.
“Not that kind of help. You’re smaller; you could have gotten further than me. You could’ve gotten the crumb.”
Mara looked at her brother and yawned.
“What do I care about a crumb, there’s always plenty of food in the bowl and the human female always gives us treats.”
“I wanted to see what it was,” said Max.
“What are you two carrying on about?” said a voice over their heads. It was the human female.
“Run!” Max said and bolted out of the kitchen.
Mara watched her brother fly by her and around the wall into the living room. She looked up at the human female and meowed softly; the usual trick.
“I hope you two weren’t in any trouble,” said the woman as she reached down to give Mara a quick rub under the chin, sending pleasurable shivers down Mara’s spine.
Mara purred her appreciation.
“Such a cute kitty,” said the woman before patting Mara on the head and walking into the kitchen where she started looking into cupboards that Mara had never explored.
They were high cupboards that required walking on counters and that always got them in trouble. The down low cupboards had all been fitted with some sort of latch after the humans discovered that Mara had learned how to open them. There were other places she and Max could get into, but they made sure not to be noticed when they did.
“Mara,” wailed Max from elsewhere in the apartment.
Mara squinted her eyes in annoyance and slowly strolled in the direction of her brother’s noisy calling. She strolled through the living room, pausing long enough to bat at a purple toy she’d been abusing earlier and then to rub up against the human male who was watching the noisy motion box.
“Took you long enough,” Max said, cuffing his sister with his paw.
“If you wanted to play you could have come back to the other place. What if the human female puts out a treat?”
“Oh, I’ll know if she does,” Max said sniffing and licking his lips in anticipation.
“She put something in the ding box,” Mara said, looking back over her shoulder. “But it wasn’t for us.”
“That’s okay,” Max replied, turning to face a closed door. “There’s something in here I want.”
Max nudged at the crack between door jamb and door with his nose, then pushed even harder. When the door didn’t budge he tried slipping a paw under the door.
“You’re too fat to fit,” Mara told him as she assumed a sphinx position nearby.
“I don’t understand,” said Max. He sat back and pressed one fore paw against the closed door. “They only close this at night. It’s always open during the day.”
“They close it at night because you try to lie on their faces. If you’d show a little dignity they might not kick us both out.”
“They’re smooth,” said Max in his own defense. “And I like the way their breath smells.”
“Fine, whatever,” Mara said. “But they aren’t in there. Why are you so mouse-chasing anxious to get in the sleeping room?”
Max turned to Mara, squinting with pleasure.
“The female put something behind the sliding walls. It’s new and sparkly. I want to see what it is.”
He turned back to the closed door and tried pressing both fore paws against it. When it wouldn’t move he yowled in frustration.
“Keep that up,” Mara said, “and you’ll get more attention than you want.”
Max lunged at his sister but stopped before actually touching her. Mara remained motionless.
“I wouldn’t get in trouble if you’d help me,” Max said.
“You and your curiosity,” Mara said.
Standing, she shouldered Max aside and walked up to the door. At the door, Mara stood up on her hind legs, stretching out to the knob. With a little jump she was able to get both fore paws around the knob. Hanging with her back paws a bare inch off the ground she shifted her weight as she hung, moving her fore paws at the same time, and the door clicked open.
“Wonderful,” Max said and pushed the door further open with his nose.
Mara dropped on top of Max and they broke into a spontaneous wrestling match, their back paws pushing against each other’s belly. Max finally put a fore paw into his sister’s neck and pushed her away.
“We don’t have time for this,” Max said. “They could come at any moment.”
Sprinting to the closet door, he turned to look at Mara.
“It’s in here,” he said.
Hooking a paw between the wall and sliding door he was able to open a small gap. He continued to pull but the door wouldn’t open any further.
“It’s not moving,” Max said.
“Sometimes their paw covers fall and get in the way,” Mara suggested. “I’ve seen the human fe
male yell at one for getting in the way.”
“There should be enough room,” Max said and tried to push his head through the gap. “Oh, no! There’s not enough space.”
“You have a big head,” said Mara.
Max stepped back and looked at his sister, tilting his head sideways.
“You don’t,” Max said. “You can get the glittery thing.”
“Fine, fine, if it’ll shut you up. Where is it?”
“It’s up,” Max said. “Up, up.”
Mara slipped easily through the opening and looked up, her eyes quickly adjusting to the gloom of the closet.
“Where?” she asked.
“Back more, towards the middle,” said Max, shoving his nose into the gap. “Up, up.”
Mara moved further along the closet, stepping over the shoes that had fallen onto the closet door track. She stopped and looked up; the end of her tail began to tap with excitement. Up on the shelf she could see the dangly end of a scarf knitted from glitter infused yarn. Even in the gloom of the closet it sparkled.
“Pretty,” purred Mara.
“Can you get it?” Max said through the belligerent opening.
Mara looked around the closet. On the human male’s end of the closet were several stacks of boxes and suitcases. They stopped at a lower shelf.
“I think I can,” Mara said and slid past more shoes to the stacks.
Mara slowly climbed up the boxes, testing each step as she went. Some things were not as solid as they appeared. She’d once set off an avalanche while trying to nap at the top of a stack the papers on the table where the human male sat with his clicking board and the box that purred and was warm. She’d gotten a spray of the smelly water for that, along with a lot of yelling. But everything here was stable and provided good footing. Mara was quickly at the lower shelf.
“What’s going on?” Max cried from down below.
“Quiet, Max,” Mara hissed. “I’m almost there.”
Mara stepped gently onto the shoulders of the hanging clothes and all though they swayed under her weight they did hold her. Moving slowly and frequently adjusting her position, she moved along the shirts and sweaters until she reached bare hangers. These were not as steady as those covered with clothing and Mara doubted they would hold her. The glittering scarf was tantalizingly close.
“I’ve almost got it,” Mara mewed quietly and stretched out a fore paw to try and hook the scarf with a claw. “Got it!”
Mara began to pull back on the scarf, drawing the glittery material closer when suddenly it stopped moving. She pulled harder and the scarf stretched a little more, but it wasn’t budging. It was caught on something.
Meowing her frustration, Mara pulled harder and suddenly found herself slipping and the clothed hangers tilting. She tried to leap up to the higher shelf where the scarf was but only managed to land on the bar that held the hangers. With one paw stuck in the scarf she found it impossible to keep her balance. With a desperate cry, Mara slipped, falling onto and through the empty hangers.
Howling in fright, Mara twisted and turned, trying to right herself and find anything to grab hold of. The glittery scarf finally slipped off the top shelf and fell, tugging at Mara’s paw, shifting her weight, and causing a dozen of the hangers to slip off the rod. Suddenly Mara, the scarf, and the hangers were falling to the ground, landing on the shoes below.
Still twisted up in the hangers, Mara was struggling to free herself when the closet door slid all the way open, lighting the disaster within. Mara stopped struggling, turning her head to see the human female looking down at her.
“You silly cat, Mara. What have you done?”
Mara mewed her distress, trying to explain how it was all Max’s idea.
“Tom!” the woman called. “Bring the camera! Quick!”
Mara could hear the human male moving in the other room. She didn’t understand why the female couldn’t help her get free. And where was the glittery thing?
“What did she do now, Nicole?” said the man as he came through the doorway before he’d seen Mara’s catastrophe. “Oh, no! That cat!”
Mara saw them hand off the silver box and her vocal defense became more plaintive. Then when she saw Max pulling the glittery thing beneath the bed her wail was too much for even the humans to bear.
The two humans quickly untangled Mara from the hangars, laughing to themselves. The female scritched Mara’s head as the male worked on the tangle of cat and hangars.
“It’s your own fault, Mara,” the human female said. “If only you weren’t so curious.