Tag: short fiction

Rise and Shine

Published on by Raud KennedyLeave a comment

On Saturday morning, Marvin was shopping online for some new clothes. Those socks look nice, he thought, and that shirt will look cool with my new jacket. Then a wave of fatigue hit him and he leaned back in his chair. He felt like the website was leading him around like a cow by its nose ring. Buy these socks. “Buy this shirt. It’ll look good with the jacket you bought yesterday.” It was all so performative, like a costume for a play. But he wasn’t an actor going on stage, just a dude going to his 9 to 5. None of it was him. He felt empty, like a poser feigning being ‘Marvin’.

He emptied the shopping cart and turned off his computer, then went into the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. When it was ready, he poured himself a cup and added some cream. As he watched the cream swirl around the spoon he stirred, an epiphany hit him. Everything in his life, from this morning coffee in front of him, to the toothpaste he used at night before bed, was driven by seeking dopamine. Bright smile, happy face, meant hot girlfriend. Dopamine. Was there anything that he did that didn’t involve it? He wondered about his friendships. Were those driven by it too? How could they not be? He thought. He called the ones who made him happy, dopamine, and dodged the ones who didn’t, which led to relief, a sort of backhanded dopamine.

He took a big sip of his coffee, steam rising around his face. No wonder coffee was so addictive. Like mainlining dopamine. Just like sex, another powerful source. Was he really that superficial? Led around by a chemical in his brain? He thought he was deeper than that. But what if my thoughts aren’t even my own? He wondered and put his coffee down. But that couldn’t be. At least some of his thoughts were his own or else he wouldn’t be thinking what he was. Marvin somehow found relief in that.

The wave of fatigue was pushed back by the caffeine, but he still felt like an empty shell on a beach wishing the tide would come in and take him out to sea. He sensed a creeping hollowness inside his mind and it made his skin crawl, like nails on a chalkboard. He was saved by his dog, Hagler, who came over and leaned against his thigh, saying he wanted to be petted. Marvin decided to do him one better and reached for his leash to go for a walk.

The following morning, Marvin was lying in bed, listening to the gentle patter of the rain against the window. He was in no rush to get out of bed. It was raining outside and he was warm under his covers. But then he found himself sliding out of bed and heading toward the bathroom before he’d actually decided to do so, and it happened so quickly that his mind lay claim to the decision. As he stood at the sink brushing his teeth, he stared back at his eyes in the mirror and knew otherwise.

He tried to dismiss the thought by assuming he was just on morning autopilot, but it felt different than that, more like someone else was in the driver’s seat. No, not someone, but something undefinable. And then that empty feeling started creeping up on him again. He shook his head and spat out the toothpaste.

When it happened again the next morning, he started to question his free will. If it wasn’t him who decided when he got out of bed, then who or what did? When he got to work, it was still on his mind, bugging him. Whenever he took some small action like scratching his ear, he’d ask himself, was that me? So he looked up his experience online and found it had a name. It was called the ‘Libet Experiment’ and it was a documented thing. It said we were playing catch up with our body’s decisions by a half second or more. So much for free will, he thought. Why wasn’t everyone talking about this? Probably because it wasn’t in the best interest of whatever was making the decisions.

He only experienced it in the mornings when his mind was still quiet from sleep. The rest of the day it was business as usual. He was in the driver’s seat, but he sensed that might just be an illusion because the pace of the day was faster and hid the lag.

When he drove home that evening, he was thinking about how the dopamine seeking acted as a cover for a lack of free will. He was seriously spooked out by the thought when Hagler met him at the front door with his leash in his mouth. Marvin stared at the dog, wondering who made Hagler’s decisions for him. Was it the same entity that got him out of bed in the mornings? he wondered. Maybe they were both just two different costumes of the same entity.

Hagler sat and dropped the leash on the floor. He stared back at Marvin and Marvin knew they were going for a walk. Not later, but right now. Marvin shook his head. Maybe Hagler was running the show. Well, if that was the case, Marvin knew at least he’d get his exercise and eat plenty of biscuits.

The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt – Chapter Three

Published on by Raud KennedyLeave a comment

Bath Time

Rowdy pushes open the patio door to the kitchen and calls out, “Mom, he’s back. The circus dog is here! And he brought my lucky stick.” He holds the door open for Mr. Mutt who pokes his head through the doorway and looks about. It pays to be cautious in the woods.

Rowdy’s mom is checking on tonight’s dinner roasting in the oven. The house smells like a restaurant on a busy day. Mr. Mutt takes one deep breath and is instantly in nose heaven. He doesn’t recognize everything he’s smelling, but mystery has never smelled so good. In a daze of curiosity, he ambles inside and Rowdy slides the patio door closed.

Rowdy’s mom turns from the oven as her son walks in, followed by a very big dog. She looks the dog over and sees a lot of mastiff in him. She’d had a mastiff as a little girl and she’d loved that dog more than anything. And that dog loved her back even more. “So this is the dog from the circus that beat you at tic-tac-toe?”

Rowdy makes a face. “No need to bring that up.”

She smiles. “What’s his name?”

Rowdy pats the dog on his back. “Mr. Mutt.”

She winks at Rowdy. “Mr. Mutt, the Drooler.” Continue reading “The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt – Chapter Three” →

The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

Chapter Two – Popcorn Catch

The following afternoon, Rowdy plays a game of popcorn catch out on the backyard patio. He tosses a piece of popcorn as high as he can and tries to catch it in his mouth, but it bounces off his nose onto the ground. The blue patio tiles around him are covered in popcorn like white sprinkles on a blue frosted cake.

His mom comes out, leans a broom and dustpan against a nearby lounger for him to use to clean up later, and grabs a handful of popcorn for herself from the bag. “Your aim is improving.”

The boy looks at all the popcorn around him on the patio. “It sure smells good when it hits my nose.”

“Well, you keep at it, Rowdy.” She wipes some butter off his cheek. “You mastered tic-tac-toe, you can master this.” She winks at him and returns inside the house.

Rowdy tosses another piece of popcorn into the air. When he goes to catch it, someone behind him says, “Straighten your neck, then leap at it and snatch it out of the sky.” This was followed by the sound of snapping teeth. Continue reading “The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt” →

The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

Chapter One – Tic-Tac-Toe

On a blustery fall day, golden yellow leaves drift across a pale blue sky. Rowdy sits underneath a large chestnut tree on the edge of a sandbox, playing tic-tac-toe against himself. He’d been inside the house winning against one of his older sisters, but she got mad at losing and the other three got mad at the noise of them arguing and eventually all four sisters shouted, “Go play outside!”

He knows sisters are weird, but he’s beginning to wonder if his have developed a hivemind.

When he draws another X in the sand with his lucky stick, he sees that the game is going to be another dud where no one wins. He puts another handful of popcorn in his mouth from the bag of popcorn leftover from his earlier game of popcorn catch, and thinks, I’m just too good to beat, even when I’m playing against myself, even with my lucky stick. But you always want to keep trying, at least that’s what his inventor dad said about robot battles over pancakes this morning. He erases the game with his foot and draws the lines for the next one with the now butter stained stick.

In the woods behind the house, a big brown mutt of a dog chases after a white butterfly as it weaves its way through the Douglas fir trees. He looks to be a mix of a giant Labrador Retriever, mastiff, and a basset hound with big floppy ears. As he chases after the butterfly, he wonders what the flitter-flyers smell like, but he’s only gotten close enough to smell hints of vanilla in the puffs of air below its wings.

As the dog’s pursuit takes him closer to the edge of the woods, he hears the boy’s voice and slows to listen.

The boy’s voice sounds through the trees. “See? I just can’t be beat. I’m the king of tic-tac-toe!”“What?” Continue reading “The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt” →

The Hydrant

Published on by Raud Kennedy2 Comments

When Arthur arrived at the cafe, the hostess seated him outside on the sidewalk patio at his favorite table right in the midst of the diners where the people watching was best. He ordered a glass of wine, not because he liked it but because he didn’t. It would last a long time and he didn’t want to get drunk, not tonight, not with what he’d learned this morning.

The middle-aged couple on his right were discussing current events. He eavesdropped for a bit but they were just boringly parroting talking points they’d picked up from television news like something they’d tracked in on their shoes. Besides, Arthur knew all that was just lies fed to the public to keep them engaged enough to be complacent but not so engaged that they started digging for the truth and got mad. You see, Arthur had found the perfect source for news, one that never lied and was honest to a fault.

A month or so ago at the beginning of spring, he had been weeding around the fire hydrant in his front yard by the curb when he was struck by an odd smell. As he sniffed the air trying to identify it, he started to hear voices in his head and see images in his mind’s eye, as if he was watching other people’s memories, but then he started hearing even stranger voices commenting on what he was hearing and seeing. There he was on all fours, sniffing the air next to the fire hydrant, and he felt like he was watching a show next to someone who was giving a running commentary on what they were watching.

Continue reading “The Hydrant” →

The Dog That Talked – Episode One – Mayonnaise & Tuna

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

It’s Monday. I sit on a park bench across from the restaurant where the guy I’m following has gone inside for lunch. I sink my teeth into my sandwich, a foot-long Italian I got at the corner deli, when a mellow, slightly slurred voice says from behind me, “That sure is a big sandwich, one of the biggest I’ve seen yet.”

Portland has a transient problem. Following my guy through the Southwest Park Blocks was a begathon of the homeless asking for spare change, but not my dimes and quarters. One got snarky when I offered him that. He wanted nothing less than a fiver.

I don’t normally spend my afternoons following people, but I got a call last night from an old girlfriend I hadn’t spoken to since I shot the photos for her wedding. As Eva and I small-talked on the phone, I did the math. It had been seven years since their wedding and the title of that old Billy Wilder movie, The Seven Year Itch, popped into my head.

I’ve never been very good at the long-term relationship thing. I must have ADD when it comes to relationships. How do people do it? How do they keep it interesting? After years together don’t they wonder what it would be like to be with someone else? Or considering how much we base our identity on who we are with, do they ever daydream of being someone else? Seven years seems to be as good a time for that as any. But for me and my attention span, seven years would be poison ivy from hell.

Eva was calling about her husband, Stan. She was worried about him. “Call it what you will, women’s intuition, but I know something is up with him. He’s acting odd. He’s not himself. I think he’s up to something.” She still had that soft voice I remembered from our time together that sounded kind even when she was voicing her suspicions, a trait I don’t remember her having. I guess people change.

“And you think he’s stepping out on you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I appreciate the chance to catch up, Eva, but why call me with this? Isn’t this what you talk about with a girlfriend?”

“Actually, I’ve hashed it out a lot.” She cleared her throat, paused for a moment, then rushed on. “It’s like this. I could ask Stan to his face and he’d deny anything and everything. You never got to know him but that’s how he is, at least that’s how he is now, not so much back when we married. I need proof that he’s stepping out. Hard proof. That or to know what’s making him act weird. And then I thought of you. You’re handy with a camera, you can get me that proof. I can put it in his face and say, hey, what’s up with this?”

I had learned to keep my nose out of other people’s business. “It sounds cheesy but wouldn’t a private investigator be better suited for this? Someone with experience?”

“A stranger? Ugh.” She pauses and I picture her scrunching up her face in distaste. “Look, Dixon, you and I haven’t kept in touch but we remained friends after we dated and I always respected your honesty.”

I laughed. “Not everyone feels that way.”

“That’s their loss. I’m not asking you for a freebie. I can pay you. Come on, what else do you have going during the week? It’s not like a lot of people get married on a Monday or Tuesday and need a photographer.”

She had a point; business had been slow. Not a lot of Millennials were getting married so they could start a family in their parents’ basement. Besides, being asked to look into someone’s personal business was different than just sticking my nose in it. “What do you want me to do exactly?”

“Just follow him around and take some photos if gets up to anything, especially during and after lunch. If he’s up to anything it’s then.”

“Why do you say that?”

“His phone habits. He’s hard to reach during that time, he never picks up, and it’s a while before he calls back. Plus, he’s around someone with a cat. I’ve seen the hair on his clothes. I know lots of women with cats but very few men.”

My imagination ran with the intimate details of their failing marriage. We settled on a daily rate, she gave me the pertinent info on where they lived and where Stan worked, and I told her I’d get back to her.

*   *   *

I can see Stan through the restaurant window as I chew my sandwich.

“That mayonnaise sure does smell good,” the guy behind me slurs.

I don’t turn around to look. Acknowledging him will just encourage him to hang around. His slurred speech paints enough of a mental picture of who is behind me and where this is going. I don’t want to see him and endanger my appetite. Though it’s curious the drunk has asked about my sandwich because they usually just want cash to buy more fortified wine. Who eats when they can get juiced?

The drunk slurps as he smacks his lips. “Are you going to eat all of it? That’s a lot of sandwich, even for a big guy like you.” Continue reading “The Dog That Talked – Episode One – Mayonnaise & Tuna” →