Short Story Coupling: Border Patrol, A Fairy Tale

By Jeff Roby

Short Story Coupling: Border Patrol (and) A Fairy Tale, brings together two farcical tales involving characters desperately longing for a better life (or at least some amorous coupling). In Border Patrol, a senior military officer close to retirement is teamed with a wild new recruit (with ties to a couple of infamous southern families) and placed in a boring outpost by the homeland security chiefs. Bringing a little spice to their lives starts a chain of events involving a Chicago model and an Arab terrorist. Events continue to swing wildly out of control until they hit the wall in a weird conclusion that will have you screaming "WHAAAT?" and possibly dropping your ebook device (sorry). A Fairy Tale is best imagined being told by Edward Everett Horton (if you're old enough to remember Rocky & Bullwinkle) and shows what can happen when a hairy fairy godmother (picture Bruce Vilanch) waves the tinsel stick (and other assorted things from his...er, her magic bag) to teach a pudgy aging princess how to find a hot young prince in the age of internet technology. Nothing and no one is sacred in the twisted tales that emerge here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff Roby
• Release date: Aug 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465779397

Jeff Roby

Trained as a journalist, he has worked in newspaper, magazine and television news environments, interspersed with careers in advertising, promotions, retail, entertainment and project management. In community theatre he sits on the board of a not-for-profit stage, along with being a contracted set builder, and occasional designer, actor and promoter (along with having written a few scripts and thinking about some future ones). As a hoosier, was influenced by Vonnegut, Porter and Tarkington; thoroughly enjoys the "Toms" (Robbins, Wolfe & Tryon); and has consumed Barth, Irving, Rice, Capote, Crisp, Gallico and Fitzgerald; yet remains fascinated by the brief John Kennedy Toole. Goal: to retire from everything except writing and traveling.

Book preview

SHORT STORY COUPLING:

Border Patrol

A Fairy Tale

By Jeff Roby

Copyright 2011 Jeff Roby

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Author’s Note: Political crisis can often be the inspiration for parody storytelling. Policy debate among political heads and constant media attention to the U.S. border issue, along with the what-if scenario (related to the Bush family and its future characters), combined with ridiculing of authority figures; all came together to create the fantastical parody BORDER PATROL. (No disrespect intended for enlisted military personnel, only the government agencies that placed them in harms way, and the evil-doers who made it all necessary.)

BORDER PATROL:

A Homeland Security Tale

by Jeff Roby

There have been so many end-of-the-world scenarios gone unfulfilled that the general consensus of those between twenty and sixty is that mortal life on Earth is heartier than our namby-pamby ancestors believed. Jesus Christ doesn't seem overly eager to rejoin the human race (do you blame him?), and celestial spirits are smart enough to avoid a rough neighborhood when they see one. More astute minds have pointed out that those in spirit world are content with simply being entertained by the manifestations of our bullshit, and willingly keep their distance (don't touch the dancing bears–simply ENJOY the broadcast). And maybe the Mayan calendar scribes simply neglected to return from lunch one day. Their supervisor turned it in incomplete, left early for vacation, and we've been trying to read something into their shortcomings ever since.

Now that we've hit the quarter century mark after computers were all supposed to come crashing down, deleting 401k accounts and dropping airplanes out of the sky, it seems mankind just may endure. That turn-of-the-twenty-first century disaster scenario is just an old, faded nightmare that teeny boppers laugh about in the face of anyone over fifty. (Which, by the way, is the new twenty.)

The United States of America has managed to keep from going bankrupt. Democracy still lives, in between three-term Republican presidents–the GOP managing to pass the new three-term law unnoticed while the Democrats were busy chasing the Independents away for diluting the liberal vote.

Pollution hasn't killed us, though the vitamin industry is making bigger fortunes off the scare. A few more animals have gone extinct but there is enough of a working food chain to keep the cycle of life spinning. We've had to get more creative in the propagation of food–thankfully we have made great strides in the chemical engineering of edible plants along with cloning of tasty farm animals. And the genius of the Hostess company chemists has brought us countless new snack foods that rely on neither. Their promised shelf life will keep us munching well into the next couple of centuries.

Warring tensions in the Middle East have subsided, once their religious fervor was sufficiently overwhelmed by greed (it's amazing how friendly you can force yourself to be with deep pocket consumers addicted to your oil and drugs). So now