One-Sentence Stories

by Timber Masterson

I
Happy Christmas

Darkening my day is the story already having leaked of Comet and Blitzen, selling their meaty, raw, tiny charges into slavery—their rotten and embarrassing behavior, now dubbed ‘Reindeer Syndrome’ by some Eastern Syndicate—the latest en vogue disease to get all flustered about.

II
Music to My Ears

I long for the parades of youth, the earsplitting “Charlie Brown Christmas” music, performed by an astonishingly talent-free and all-too-tinny, out-of-step and visibly nervous—and perspiring—ninth grade all-brass band.

III
The Passing Parade

The amount of papier-mâché involved in this weirdo frightful event is amazing and I’m feeling too much like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, pacing amongst the crowd, looking for an opening, too easily lost in film noir reverie … in pursuit of a victim, one that warrants it, like those gargantuan wavering snowmen with blistering swollen heads—perfect bludgeoning targets, easily pummelable, zooming in on carrot noses; baffling tall gents in sweaty-antlered-outfits that only bring harm to children’s defenseless minds, now all smashing to the ground, all left deranged, damaged, and tainted with everybody’s brains and bodies seem barricaded, bewildered Christmas wanderers deserving of what’s coming to them (at least that’s what would happen in the movies), this from my bruised and purpled perspective.

IV
The Other Planet

One day I will return to The Planet of the Large Underpanted People and reclaim my namesake, as I am half the man I used to be without my down fleece and flannel thingamies.

V
Being a Minotaur in Modern Times

I look in the dictionary and I see that I am supposed to be devouring a hell of a lot more youths than I can really take credit for, and I say aloud in this library, “GOSH!, the maze, that old labyrinth, ain’t what it used to be, things have gotten complicated.”

VI
Being a Minotaur in Modern Times
(Pt. II)

My frisky cousin, The Cyclops, (who by the way positively hates ‘The’ in front of his name) is trés sensitive and he weeps to me late at night into the phone about how it makes him sound so “monsterly” and I respond, “You’ve got to develop a tougher skin, kiddo, this ain’t the old world, ya know, I mean plain old North Star running shoes in my size (and width) are pretty much a no-go. And bathing caps, as well.”

VII
A Closet Too Close

I’m going to need a helium tank that never runs out of steam, sounds about right for the job, to compliment my eternal airbag full of self-righteous, disfigured dragons, them chasing me in a dirtied vacuum bag, far past the proper emptying stage; this, to say nothing of the skeletons and Shoe Tree People in my chaotic closet that scream at me night after night to do something with them.

VIII
Inhaling Substances at the Tennis Club

I’d sniff it all up using cut straws from the snack bar, as though I was drowning in their bubbly Jacuzzi, dreadfully past my allotted break time, sinking in the tar pit un-oasis, all that chemical compost flowing through my nostrils and suffocating any chance of advancement.

IX
Where’s Dad?

All could have served to build in me a glow, some monumental warmth, though the moment did nothing but fill me with a strange, tremulous and bitter sadness, only conjuring up Dad’s absence, my tragic similarity to characters in books I loved and saw myself living in, convinced I was like-minded, feeling entirely simpatico with the hero in a story, right there along with him, and I absolutely knew what would occur or be said next.

X
The Dreamy Tennis Club

Often, I was left unsupervised to saunter in and out of empty offices, amidst the backdrop of plastic pool chairs drenched in dew, making sure all was safe and locked, feeling much the mischievous mouse, while some feline boss-man was away, off playing, while I kept my own time—sometimes even forgetting my addictions in the infinite splendor during after-hours moments, by myself.