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TinyTalesDaily

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 18h ago

The county dump has a toastmaster. He says a few words before anything goes into the pit.

Neil brings the office chair HR let him keep.

“To the chair,” the toastmaster says. “Nineteen years under one man. Never complained about the weight.”

It goes over. He refills his glass and turns.

“To Neil, who never asked for anything.”

Neil waves off the men in orange vests and walks to the edge himself.

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#Surreal #Layoffs #WorkLife

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 2d ago

Halfway through my wedding, Lena's mother demotes me to groomsman.

I take the end of the row. A stranger my height steps into my spot at the altar.

“He tested better with the family,” she says, and pats my arm.

He reads my vows off my index cards. Lena cries at the canoe part. She never did for me.

At the reception I give a toast. I kill. Lena's mother writes something down.

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#DarkHumor #Weddings #Marriage

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 3d ago

My barber takes an inch off my height every month, and I tip him well.

My manager, Phil, is five-seven and doesn’t promote men he has to look up at. I’m five-eight now, down from six-two.

Ozzie sweeps the clippings into a dustpan: some hair, a little shin. He says next month we get into knee.

On Friday Phil is let go. His replacement is four-foot-eleven.

I book a double.

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#BodyHorror #OfficeLife #Ambition

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 3d ago

By February I've separated—bright oily film on top, everything heavy sunk to my ankles.

On my lunch break the clerk at Bergstrom Hardware clamps me into the paint shaker.

"Three minutes," he says. "Four if you've been sitting since Christmas."

I blur for four.

Afterward he pries the lid off my head with a flathead and dabs a drop of me on it.

"Greige," he says. "They'll love you at work."

---

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#Surreal #Burnout #OfficeLife

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 5d ago

The hostess hands Nora a baby and says it'll cry when their table is ready.

It smells like someone else's garlic bread. Paul holds it away from his shirt, looking for the battery.

It sleeps on Nora for fifty minutes. She doesn't check her phone once.

When it cries, Paul is already standing. The hostess drops it into a bin with the others.

"How long for the patio?" Nora asks.

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#Surreal #Marriage #Parenthood

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 6d ago

Dr. Pham holds a shortwave radio to Walt's chest and tunes until she finds him. Last month he was a call-in show about tomatoes. Today he's the national anthem.

"Sign-off," she says, and caps her pen.

"Should I stand?" Walt asks.

She helps him off the table. They stand, hands on hearts, his gown open in back, until the last note gives way to the shortwave hum.

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#Surreal #Aging #Caregiving

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 7d ago

Mom gives her retirement speech from the kitchen island: after forty-four years as our mother, she's stepping down, effective dessert.

She thanks Dad for the opportunity. She returns the spare key, the good scissors, and an envelope with my umbilical stump in it.

"I'll be around for transition questions until Friday," she says.

Then she shakes my hand, asks what I do for a living, and seems genuinely interested.

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#DarkHumor #Family #Surreal

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · last wk.

The pianist dies during the Schubert, and his hands keep playing as long as I keep turning pages.

Nobody in the hall notices.

"Don't you dare stop," the stage manager hisses from the wings.

I don't. Eleven years I've leaned over this man's shoulder. Tonight, finally, he waits for me.

At the final bar I lick my thumb and turn back to page one.

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#Uncanny #ClassicalMusic #Loneliness

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · last wk.

Brenda got the house, the Subaru, and my left leg, so now I see it Saturdays with a chaperone.

Mrs. Adeyemi from the county sits by the vending machine with her clipboard. The leg arrives in a cooler, wearing a sock I don't own.

"No touching above the knee," she says.

I tell it about my week. Mrs. Adeyemi notes that it seems withdrawn.

At four, Brenda honks, and the foot starts tapping.

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#Divorce #DarkHumor #Surreal

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Julie from StoryADay @storyaday.bsky.social · last wk.

I loved this weird tiny tale. It does exactly what tiny short stories can do: take an everyday event and lift a reader out of the humdrum for a moment. Delightful. (Come and write some tiny tales with us this November storyaday.org/signup

TinyTalesDaily@tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · last wk.

Our daughter is born screaming in fax tone—the handshake, the hiss, the shriek.

The midwife doesn't flinch. She carries her to the nurses' station and holds that mouth to the receiver.

A machine down the hall prints three pages. Lighting too bright. Hands too cold. Father smells of vending-machine coffee. Mother: not as described.

My wife reads the last line twice.

“Most of them send a cover sheet first,” the midwife says.

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#Surreal #Parenthood #Uncanny

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · last wk.

Our daughter is born screaming in fax tone—the handshake, the hiss, the shriek.

The midwife doesn't flinch. She carries her to the nurses' station and holds that mouth to the receiver.

A machine down the hall prints three pages. Lighting too bright. Hands too cold. Father smells of vending-machine coffee. Mother: not as described.

My wife reads the last line twice.

“Most of them send a cover sheet first,” the midwife says.

---

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#Surreal #Parenthood #Uncanny

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 2w ago

Mom wins the PTA raffle, and the grand prize is another me, in a gift basket under cellophane.

It already knows where the spoons go. It says please unprompted. Grandma pinches its cheek and calls it the good one.

Dad reads the fine print twice.

“We can't keep both,” he says, and digs a quarter out of his pocket.

The other me calls heads before I can open my mouth.

---

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#Surreal #DarkHumor #Childhood

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 2w ago

My life has hired a coach. They meet Thursdays in my kitchen, my life in my bathrobe, the coach with a whiteboard that says BOUNDARIES.

I make them coffee.

"You deserve someone who shows up," the coach tells my life.

My life writes that down. Lately it sleeps in the guest room. This morning there's a suitcase by the door, so I polish my good shoes and pack them for it.

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#Surreal #Loneliness #Breakups

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm the frost heave at mile forty, and I'm in love with the mail truck.

Donna is the only driver who slows for me.

So each night I rise a little to keep her longer. By January I'm two feet tall.

Today she doesn't slow. The truck flies, letters fanning across the spruce.

She crawls out bleeding and kicks me.

"You son of a bitch," she says.

Nobody's ever called me anything before.

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#Surreal #Loneliness #UnrequitedLove

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm wet cement for eleven more minutes, and the boy from number nine is kneeling over me with a stick.

Most kids do hearts. Initials. One girl did a dog with five legs, and I loved it.

He writes DAD DID IT, in capitals, and presses his whole hand underneath to sign it.

The screen door bangs. A man is coming down the steps with a trowel.

I set early.

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#Surreal #Childhood #Secrets

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 2w ago

The county sends a tiebreaker after our eleventh year of deadlock. He lives on our couch with a clipboard.

He decides the thermostat, the dog's name, whether we try for a baby. He is fair until spring, when he starts siding with Joanne. Every time.

Tonight she stands at the head of the table.

“Motion that he stays through winter,” she says.

His hand goes up. Mine drifts up after it, feeling for a draft.

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#Surreal #Marriage #DarkHumor

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 2w ago

At 5:01 we take our smiles out and drop them in the denture cups by the coffee machine, each one labeled in masking tape.

Tonight Gail from Claims can't get hers out. Thirty-one years. She tugs, runs her mouth under the hot tap. It stays, wide and helpful.

Facilities sends a man with pliers.

"Don't make a fuss on my account," Gail says, beaming at him.

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#Surreal #WorkLife #Burnout

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 2w ago

Gordon pays for the gala appendectomy, so an emcee works the operating theater and the gallery is sold out.

The surgeon holds up the appendix.

"Let's hear it for the little guy!" the emcee shouts.

The applause is enormous. Gordon, awake and numb, has never been clapped for in his life. Then the gallery chants for an encore.

"What else you got?" the emcee whispers.

Gordon points at his spleen.

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#DarkHumor #Surreal #Loneliness

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 3w ago

I'm the third goldfish named Captain, and the girl is onto me.

She presses her nose to the glass and asks for the birthday thing. I swim a loop. Captain One apparently did something with the castle.

"That's not it," she calls. "Dad, he forgot the castle thing."

Dad says fish change. He taps the glass twice, which means try harder.

In a bucket under the garage workbench, Captain Four is practicing the castle thing.

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#DarkHumor #Childhood #Parenthood

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 3w ago

Wendell pays a retired ringside announcer forty dollars an hour to walk ahead of him into rooms.

At the pharmacy counter the man lifts his microphone.

"Weighing two hundred and sixty pounds, here for a cream he will not discuss, with a record of zero wins and fifty-eight losses—"

Wendell asks him to round up.

"Commission won't allow it."

That night Wendell pays double to hear it again through the bedroom door.

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#DarkHumor #Surreal #Loneliness

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 3w ago

The state penitentiary calls every morning to confirm an execution that isn't mine.

"Mr. Voss? Just verifying the fourteenth, six a.m.," says a woman named Bev.

The first week I explain. The second week I ask about her daughter's recital. Nobody else calls anymore.

On the thirteenth she asks if I've chosen my last meal.

I say pot roast, extra carrots. Then I iron a shirt and check the bus to Huntsville.

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#Surreal #Loneliness #DeathPenalty

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 3w ago

The paramedics arrive six years after my fall, and I'm still on the kitchen linoleum.

My son's wife mops around me in a careful oval. At Christmas they hang my stocking on the walker, still on its side.

"Sorry, ma'am, backlog," the tall one says, kneeling. "Can you squeeze my hand?"

I squeeze, then ask them to roll me six inches left, toward the television, and leave.

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#Surreal #Aging #Caregiving

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 3w ago

HR offers Glen the early departure package, and the folder includes a cemetery plot facing the parking garage.

"Full pension to your wife," Tamsin says. "We even cover the flowers."

Glen reads the date. This Friday.

"Or you stay on," she says, "through the Hartwell migration."

Glen has seen the Hartwell migration. He was there for the last one.

He asks whether Thursday is available.

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#DarkHumor #WorkLife #Burnout

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 3w ago

The midwife has both arms in the sofa up to the shoulders, and she says my brother is breech.

He's been in that sofa since the layoff.

She braces a foot on the armrest and pulls. He comes out slick and forty-four, still holding the remote, the cord running from his navel into the upholstery.

"Do you want to cut it?" she asks.

I hold the scissors. He is already crawling back in.

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#Surreal #Unemployment #Depression

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 4w ago

The coin-op horse outside Safeway gives me the ride home now, twelve miles at a gallop, as long as I stay under the weight limit stamped on its saddle.

Ninety pounds.

No more 41 bus, no more Gary and his kayak.

I eat ice chips. My knees fit neatly under the plastic mane.

Tonight a boy waiting his turn holds out half his granola bar.

I wave it off and feed in my quarter.

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#Surreal #Loneliness #Commuting

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 4w ago

Our house came with a golf caddie. He stands in the hall closet with the bag on his shoulder, and Mom says staring is rude.

He only moves when Dad gets loud.

Tonight it’s the gas bill. The caddie crosses the kitchen and offers Dad a nine iron, grip first.

Dad holds it a long time.

“Too much club,” he says.

The caddie swaps it for the putter.

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#Surreal #Childhood #Family

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 4w ago

Every man Leon caddies for dies within the week, and the waiting list is a year long.

He laughs at your stories at exactly the right volume. Arnie Kessler was buried holding his scorecard.

“Anything sooner?” I ask at the pro shop.

“Mr. Wexler cancelled,” the girl says. “His biopsy came back benign.”

I take the slot. I buy a dozen balls, then put eleven back.

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#DarkHumor #Golf #Mortality

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 4w ago

The piano tuner does the piano first, then my son.

He taps the fork against Dylan's skull while Dylan eats his cereal, and listens for where the boy goes sharp. Behind the left ear, same as his father.

“Twenty minutes,” he says. “Longer if you want him all the way down.”

I want him all the way down.

Afterward Dylan thanks him. Then he thanks me, then the piano.

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#Uncanny #Surreal #Parenthood

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 4w ago

Mom folds Grandpa into the overhead bin because the flight is overbooked.

He says it's fine. He says it's roomier than the home. The flight attendant clicks the latch and says he counts as Mom's personal item.

Sometimes he knocks. Mom turns up my movie.

When we land, everybody's grabbing grandpas out of the bins. Mom pulls out one in the wrong cardigan.

"Close enough," she says.

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#Surreal #DarkHumor #Aging

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TinyTalesDaily @tinytalesdaily.bsky.social · 4w ago

The birthday magician saws Linda in half, and while the sawdust haze settles, her legs walk off to check the oven.

The children cheer. The magician keeps tapping the empty end of the box with his wand.

"Ma'am, I have to put you back," he says.

Linda's top half is already signing a permission slip and answering a work email.

"Can you do thirds?" she asks.

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#Surreal #Motherhood #WorkLifeBalance

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