The Devil was looking over my shoulder.  Had been for ten minutes.  Maybe an hour, I was pretty stoned.  I didn’t want to say anything to anyone.  They would just say, “you are so high!”  So, I sat there, hair on end.  I decided one more look, then I’d tell someone. I glanced around and his face shot toward me.  I was up, across the room with the lights on in one move.

My “friend” stood in the corner with a Devil mask, laughing hysterically.  I punched him in the chest as hard as I could, then we were cool.

© 2013–2025 Duane Stadden

“Tarnation, Cookie.  This is about the best stew I have ever tasted on any drive.  It’s like that ambrosia the old gods were a eatin’,  or some of that manna they talk about in the good book.  I had me a stew in a New York restaurant one time and this stew just plain runs circles aroun’ it.  Come on, Cookie, what’s your secret?”

“Well, alright.  Ya know how I collect up them buffalo chips all day as make we our way down the trail?”

“Yeah, for stokin’ the cook fire, right?”

“Sure. Right.  Who’s ready for seconds?  Eat up!”

© 2013–2025 Duane Stadden

Looking out the window I saw her hanging clothes on the line.  The wind blew her hair and it swirled over her face. She began to smile. Suddenly a cool rain started to fall.  The laundry was getting wet and still she smiled.  She began to dance. The pouring rain soaked her hair and her clothes and she still she danced. She began to laugh.  Dancing and laughing in the spring rain.  

When winter has passed and everything awakens with new life, I think of her.  Her dancing and laughing around the clothesline.  I see her in the spring rain.

© 2013–2025 Duane Stadden

You sit across from me on the train every day, but you don’t know anything about me.  You just think I’m weird.  For your information, I’m from another galaxy.  When I was young my mom said I was special.  Later I figured it out on my own.  I’m not from around here.

I never understood your silly social interactions.  I started thinking I was crazy.  Then I remembered what my mother said.  It all began to make sense.

So, the next time you look at someone and think they are weird, remember, they are probably from another galaxy.  Like me.

© 2013–2025 Duane Stadden

As the dentist left the room I moved the mask from my nose to mouth and took a couple deep breaths.  The hose fell off the mask.  My arms seemed twenty feet away as I fixed it and put it back on my nose.  The little outlet valve popped into my lap.  Feeling around with tingling fingers I got it on just as the dentist returned.

“Ready?”, he asked as he turned up the gas.  

Nothing happened.  He turned it up some more.  Nothing.  He reached over and flicked the mask with his finger.  I saw God.  Best dentist ever!

© 2013–2025 Duane Stadden

Comedy boot camp isn’t pretty.  It isn’t meant to be.  It exists to separate class clowns from comedians.  New recruits are barraged with questions requiring rapid-fire responses.  The first question is always, “what’s the deal with airline food?”

Routinely instructors yell “drop and give me twenty!”  A recruit goes to his knees and begins shouting “Well, excuuuse meee!”  Everyone thinks they can do twenty at first.  After ten they’re sweating and shaking.  They say it builds character.

At the end comes Hell Week.  It involves drill instructors screaming orders as they randomly change persona from Sam Kinison to Jerry Lewis.

© 2013–2025 Duane Stadden

I found a half dozen of those little bottles of whiskey pushed way back in the cupboard.  They’d been there about five years.

I finished them off in a few minutes. A warm sensation washed over my body.  I felt the tension leave my shoulders and my muscles began to relax.  My breathing soon calmed to a steady rhythm.  My mind was floating from one thought to the next without getting stuck.  For a while all the worries and troubles of the day disappeared.  I had a wonderful night’s sleep.

I had forgotten how much better booze is than yoga.

© 2013–2025 Duane Stadden

This time I am going to get it done.  I’ll finish it and submit it.  

But I need a clean desk so I can concentrate.  So, I’ll clean my desk and, then, I’ll get it done.  

How did this desk get so messy?  There sure a lot of icons on my desktop too.  Messy. I guess desks and desktops have that in common.  I’ll have to clean that up too.  Clean my desk and my desktop and then I will get it done.

Okay, right after lunch I’ll clean my desk and desktop.  Then I can finally get it done.

© 2013–2025 Duane Stadden