This year's birthday gift.
For my birthday this year Mary gave me a new game called Story Cubes. (See the photo above.) So I thought I start posting weekly stories based on the cube. Here’s today’s cubes:
Today's Cubes
“So let me tell you about this one night,” began Old Man Cooter. “I was here at my house, feeding Gary, my goldfish and about to read War and Peace again. Not much to do way out here in the middle of Nowhereville, Florida when night starts to fall.” I nodded and wonder if Old Man Cooter was going to explain how to get I-95 anytime soon. I knew I should have put my phone’s charger in the car.
“Anyway, there I was digging into the bit about that war, when Gary started to splash around like an epileptic and my pet sheep dolly started bleating out back. You probably didn’t realize I had a sheep out back, but I find they’re so much more loyal than a dog, plus I get to make yarn and knit covers for the strawberry plants for when the temperature dips down into the freezing.”
“Right, so would you say I-95 is just up the road? I mean I don’t feel like I’ve been driving that long on these dirt roads,” I interrupted. Seriously, what happened to keeping a map in my car? Just dumb to forget the old ways.
Old Man Cooter stared into the middle distance and scratched his scraggly beard. “I poked my head out the back window to tell Dolly to keep it down, when I saw it – a giant shooting star. I ran outside to get a better view.”
“That’s great. I’m sure it was really cool, but…”
“But it wasn’t an actual star. It was an airplane, shooting across the sky probably headed to Paris, France or maybe Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I’ve always wanted to see the Historic Third Ward.” Old Man Cooter coughed up a little phlegm. “Shouldn’t have smoked all those years, but I thought I was the Marlborough man, when I was 12. So where was I?”
“Telling me how to get to the highway from here,” I answered.
He smiled a toothy grin. “Oh right, turns out it wasn’t an airplane either. It was aliens. Never thought I’d see those in my lifetime. But the bright light stopped right in my backward and suddenly there Dolly was surrounded by little green men with big buggy eyes. They were wrangling my Dolly into their ship. Well, I shouted ‘Hey stop that. Leave my sheep alone.’ They turned around and the tallest little alien (He was like all of 3′ 5″) came up to me, stood up on his tippy toes, and flicked me in the forehead with his long tentacle-y fingers.” Old Man Cooter stopped as if remembering the moment he realized he didn’t want to be the Marlborough man, he wanted to be with the Marlborough man in a meaningful way.
“What happened next?” I asked incredulously.
“Well, the little guy used the finger thwacking to chat. Basically, he explained how his was the superior species and responsible for must of the great things in the world – the pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, the Miller Brewery. And now they needed Dolly for the next great thing.”
“But you said Dolly was out back,” I interrupted.
“And she is. I told those aliens that there was no way they could have my sheep. They could just take Ted’s down the road, but they insisted it had to be Dolly. So I said, ‘Well I’ll roll you for her.’ And pulled out my lucky dice. Needless to say I won,” he said with a shrug. “Well, nice talking to you. Hope you have a good evening.” And Old Man Cooter shut his door and went back to his knitting or War and Peace again.
I got back into my car and drove down the road to find Ted, maybe he’d be better at giving me directions.
