Adi Dynar, Short Fiction

His smile had an attractive quality, the smile of a man of the world who used it, not to cover his words, but to stress the audacity of expressing a sincere emotion. “Congratulations, you’re hired. You can start on the 17th, yes?” That would show the bosses how it’s done, the foreman thought. Another no-good bum I hired to fill the department with my kind of people. The city sanitation department is not where one comes to work if one likes to work. And it is not a sought-after job either. So what if someone wants to work there? You don’t need to like it. You only need to follow instructions. What’s in the job anyway? Why should someone revere it? Doing the job well is not in the job description. The job needs only bodies and muscles, not brains or loyalty. What if some people are lazy and slack at their workplace? Chalk it up to on-the-job injuries and get worker’s compensation? People working in sewers are only so many feet away from themselves living in the sewers. It’s only human. Y

The first time Adam rode a bicycle without training wheels, a scar, a nasty one, appeared on his left knee. He squeezed his eyes shut instead of the breaks. The bike careened out of control, and he ended up in a ditch after inertia dragged him a few feet to get there. For a few seconds, he stared at the gash. He could almost see the bone of his kneecap. His Uncle Rich, teaching him to ride the bike, came to Adam before pain did. Seeing the brief worried look on Uncle Rich’s face, the five-year-old Adam did the only thing he could do in that situation — bawl his eyes out. “Let’s patch you up. Scarred but never scared, eh?” Uncle Rich said, collecting Adam in his arms after Adam’s tears were satisfied by their soliloquy. Uncle Rich was treating Adam like a big boy now. Not someone to be coddled. But an equal — equality that comes from the realization that real pain, that dividing line between child and boy, has now been successfully crossed by a five-year-old. It did the trick. Adam’s fa

“I can’t believe this is your fifth. It’s my twenty-sixth.” Jose said to his coworker. Was it a brag or an indictment? Tom couldn’t tell. The way Jose said “fifth” sounded as if he thought it was Tom’s first ceremony. A part of Tom felt proud that he subconsciously retained that sense of life he felt at his first oath-taking ceremony. “Lot of natural light. But it’s a greenhouse.” Jose muttered. When Jose spoke through the corner of his mouth, it meant he wasn’t pleased. The unpleasantness this time seemed to be the courthouse. It was supposed to be environmentally friendly. But the air conditioning bill being what one would expect, the giant eight-story atrium was seldom air-conditioned. “And we must wear the full shirt, jacket, and tie shebang.” Jose was not happy he had to stand in this atrium. Tom had a distinct feeling that the unhappiness ran deeper. “They should open the courtroom already. People are getting dehydrated here.” Jose shouted to nobody in particular. Those around hi

Dear fellow ripper, Thank you for perusing this how-to manual on the complexity (and the necessity) of destroying toilet paper. This manual covers the following topics: What is toilet paper, and why it must be destroyed. A step-by-step guide to destroying toilet paper. Some of the discussion in this manual assumes your familiarity with certain concepts and techniques. If at any point in reading the manual, you do not understand something, you can always spend some time worshipping your assigned cat supervisor — taking care to precisely follow your particular supervisor’s instructions on how they like to be worshipped. With much ado (and after a four-hour nap), let’s get started. In this manual, you will learn to unspool, rip, chew, desiccate, shred, and otherwise destroy this evil, nefarious device you humans call toilet paper. What is toilet paper? It is no ordinary paper. Ordinary paper is flat. And one can comfortably sit on it for hours. No, toilet paper is all rolled up, designed

“Breathe. Just breathe. There.” Sensei said while I had my eyes closed. “Let the spit collect in your mouth.” “Ew, that’s gross!” Whack. Sensei whacked his barbed tail on my neck. “You must learn to breathe fire. And you must learn it now,” Sensei bellowed. The other pupils cowered in the corner of the cave while I was exposed to Sensei’s wrath. “Breathe. Let the rage flow through you. Breathe in. Feel the heat building in your neck. Hold it. Hold it. Let it swell. And then breathe out.” Whack, the tail made my neck scales bristle once again. “Concentrate! Meditate! Pay attention!” “Don’t hit me!” “I will hit you, pupil,” Sensei said. “I will hit you when I please! I will hit you as many times as I need to! Take that hate, that anger, that rage, and channel it through your throat, boy!” My eyes swelled with tears. Except, they were dragon tears. Dragon tears tend to catch fire. I sighed as a tear made its way down my snout. Thick black smoke. Lots of it. The tear was burning. All it ne

After all this time living among humans, I have yet to grasp the meaning of simple actions: float, swim, walk. What are such things? I do not know. “She will gravitate when she is ready,” my mom used to say every night before bed. What’s so special about gravitating anyway? It’s one of those things to be obsessed over. Like love or justice. I see other clouds floating, rising, falling, or so they tell me. I see them play tag-and-run with lightning. I see them darken when they drink too much or when they are tired after a long game of tag. There are all sorts of games my buddies taught me. When I was a little cloud, my parents would engulf me like an amoeba eats whatever it eats. I would fold into their wisps and doze off. After a few hours, they would let me see the scenery. It always changed after those naps. There was always something new to see. Giraffes and mountains and skyscrapers. This one time, the other clouds and I came dangerously close to a rocket launch. It was exhilaratin

Norm was not dreaming. He was in complete control of his hands, his fingers. They flexed when he wanted them to. He closed and opened his eyes. They followed his commands. He was in the driver’s seat. It was his car. The familiar Honda he had driven for thousands of miles. 93,677, to be exact. He saw that on the odometer. Yet just past the steering wheel, tucked into the wiper, was a note. It was hard to miss. It’s bright magenta screaming something urgent, something terrible. Norm exited the car like an expletive exits people’s mouths on such occasions. The note said, “Drive west for 100 miles.” In snatching it, the note had ripped through the word “mile.” Black letters on bright magenta paper. The letters were the unmistakable monospaced Courier that a typewriter would make. There was that quality to the paper — the depressions caused by a typewriter’s keys striking the paper. The note felt personal, alive, ominous. “Drive west.” What was west of him? The ocean? Huntington Beach coul