Twelve Stories

Todd McKie

Would you like to hear a pretty story, a nice story? Aren’t you sick to death of all the things you read and hear that are so tawdry and cheap? So violent? So depressing? What would be wrong with a story about a nice family? A story in which the family members treat each other with kindness and respect. A family that occasionally hops in the car and goes out for ice cream. A story in which good things, not bad ones, happen. Sis studies hard and wins that scholarship. Dad gets his promotion. Mom’s pie wins first prize at the State Fair. Buddy hits a homer in the big game and takes Linda Sue to the prom.

How about a story that takes shape under clear blue skies? Or, if there are clouds, they’re those big, fluffy ones, rolling on above homes where folks lead happy lives. And, if there is a tragedy – a tornado, say – and the sky is black and dangerous, and homes get blown away, then neighbors pitch in to rebuild each other’s houses and farms and businesses and, in the process, learn important lessons about life. Nobody gets killed, or maimed, or permanently disfigured. And a character can say, “Madge, it was only bricks and mortar. What we’ve got, you and me, can’t be blown apart.”

How about a story in which a puppy doesn’t get hit by a truck? Instead, what if the puppy, who is adorable and belongs to a hard-working young sculptor, seems to have wandered off in a snowstorm and frozen to death, but what really has happened is that the plucky little fellow has traveled miles and miles in the blowing snow to reach a run-down shack at the edge of town that has snow piled up above its ill-fitting windows, and inside there is a poor woman and her two babies and the woman has done the best she can, but ever since her young husband, a policeman, died while subduing a serial killer, this woman, who has tuberculosis, hasn’t had enough money to properly feed her babies, and can’t afford heating oil, and so the wonderful little dog tunnels through the snow to the back door, and when no one responds to his barking or to the sound of his paws scraping at the door, he chews his way into the mean shack and finds the mother lying on the floor, unconscious, and the two babies, in rags, huddled against her, crying, and the dog, seeing all this, goes over to the telephone and dials 911 and is able to tell the dispatcher the exact location of the shack and, while he waits for the ambulance to come, the pup finds a single can of Campbell’s soup in a cupboard, opens it, warms it on the stove and spoons some of the soup, Beef ’n Barley, into the eager mouths of the two children and when the emergency medical technicians appear they find the little pooch lying atop the young mother, with both babies, color returning to their tiny faces, clinging to the puppy, and then the emergency personnel carry the mom and the children out of the house on stretchers, one big stretcher and two small ones, and put them into the ambulance and start intravenous glucose drips going into all three of them, and the dog rides in the ambulance with them as it races to the hospital in town, where the doctors announce that the mother and her kids were rescued just in time and they’re going to be fine, and while they are still hospitalized, but getting stronger every day, word comes that a long-forgotten great uncle of this woman, a ne’er-do-well who’d left town fifty years ago and was never heard from again, has died in Tulsa, where he made a fortune digging oil wells, and he’s left his entire estate to this poor young woman and her babies who are, of course, poor no more and, in fact, are stinking rich, and when they’re released from the hospital, the woman buys a big new house and they have everything they could possibly need and more and there will be plenty of money to pay for the finest automobiles, the best colleges, extravagant vacations, and televisions with enormous screens, and in the midst of all this the mother, cured of tuberculosis, falls deeply in love with her doctor and he with her and, although he knows that he can never replace the heroic young father who has died, he becomes a wonderful and loving parent to the two babies, and then the City Council votes to erect a statue to the slain hero and the commission is given to the young artist who owns the puppy that everyone thought had disappeared in the storm but, of course, hadn’t, and was instead off on a mission of mercy and compassion, and everyone in town is falling all over themselves praising the little pup and marveling at what a splendid, heart-warming story the whole thing is, and the dog has become a genuine hero, not just in the town itself, but throughout the county, the state, and the entire nation, and stories about the amazing dog and the miraculous rescue and the subsequent events appear in newspapers and on television all over the world and everyone who hears the story gets a happy glow just from hearing it and, because they feel so much better about humanity, even though, of course, the main character in the story isn’t a human being at all, they themselves seek out opportunities to do good works, works of simple kindness that, although they may not be as dramatic as what the brave little dog has done, shine like beacons in a stormy world and make it a better, brighter place?

What would be wrong with a story like that? You’d like to hear a story like that, wouldn’t you?

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Todd McKie is an artist and writer. His stories have appeared in PANK, Dark Sky, BULL, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Emprise Review, and elsewhere. Todd lives in Boston.