Fibs

By TJ Davis

Eight short stories about what happens at the intersection of Love and Lies when the traffic light is broken.

Speed Dating in Heaven: The most famous bachelors and bachelorettes of history are locked in a gymnasium until they can pick an afterlife partner.

Same Old, Same Old: Connor is haunted by the ghost of Harper for three years, but tonight she’s offering an arrangement.

Mermaid Tale: A blind date at the beach.

Letters: The IT director at a school decides to blackmail all the teachers.

Jumpers: A look inside the life of an officer who talks down people from ledges.

Memo to Human Resources: A short riddle about a salesman tormented by his coworker, Clay Bennett.

The Cook: In Minneapolis, the dishwasher at Mag and Vic’s food truck discovers what the secret ingredient does.

The Genie: A woman finds a magic lamp in a drainage ditch. Wish 1: talk to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TJ Davis
• Release date: Dec 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310426278

TJ Davis

TJ Davis is an international teacher from Minnesota. His published writing includes five collections of short stories, two novellas, and a travel memoir about his three years living in Myanmar. His short story “Itchy” finished in the top 16 of the Discovery Channel’s “How Stuff Works Halloween Fiction Contest.” His works have also been included in the Chicago Center of Literature and Photography and Moloko House. He currently lives in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Book preview

Fibs

by TJ Davis

Publication Information

Fibs

TJ Davis

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 TJ Davis

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Table of Contents

Speed Dating in Heaven

Same Old, Same Old

Mermaid Tale

Letters

Jumpers

Memo to Human Resources

The Cook

The Genie

Dedicated to Eric, the Blofeld to my Bond

Speed Dating in Heaven

The knight stomps through the front doors of the school. The rustling chain mail sounds like a sackful of pennies is being rolled along the hallway. There is no school today, and there probably won’t be any classes tomorrow either. The students and teachers of heaven’s only school have been on summer vacation for the past seven hundred years. The knight follows the signs and arrows to the gym.

At first, it looks like your standard middle school dance, only with adults instead of children. The men sit on stools at an improvised bar under a basketball hoop. They talk in low voices. The women stand in a circle underneath the opposite hoop. The knight trudges to a table to check-in for the event. An angel with purple eyes is waiting. The angel gives the knight a sharpie and an adhesive nametag. The purple-eyed angel asks if the knight speaks English. The knight opens the helmet visor to say her name, Jehanne la Pucelle.

Ah yes! Joan of Arc, says the angel. "It’s a pleasure to meet you. Sorry, no English, right? Bonjour! Très heureuse!" He instructs her to write her name, and he slaps it on her breastplate before pointing her to the bar. She leaves her helmet at the coat check.

On the half court line, another angel is playing some bebop on a piano. Why the Big Guy has chosen a school gymnasium for the upcoming event, no one can fathom.

Next to the piano are seven tables, fourteen chairs, and seven candles. All in white.

Besides a few angels and the emcee, there are fourteen singles sipping their drinks. Fourteen souls that never tied the knot while they lived on earth. St. Peter will be emceeing the event, which means that the line outside the pearlies will be extra long by the time the event is over. He doesn’t complain. It’s a nice break to the monotony of his day to day behind his enormous desk and that cumbersome book. The purple-eyed angel walks out of the gymnasium and locks the doors from the outside. St. Peter steps up to the microphone in a golden suit.

Good evening ladies of gentleman. Thank you for coming here to the first annual Speed Dating in Heaven. I’m sure you will recognize most of the people here, but please be sure your nametags are visible and that your names are legible. The rules here are simple. Our Lord has decided that it’s high time each of you gets married, so we’re going to stay here until you do. The rounds will consist of three-minute speed dates. Please use the paper and pens provided to take notes. After you’ve had a chance to meet everyone, you will rank them in order of most to least desirable for marriage. We will then post the initial matches. If it works out cleanly, then we will move on to the wedding ceremonies. If there are any issues with the rankings, there will be time for individuals to hash things out, but nobody will be able to leave here until everyone is married. I repeat, we will stay in here as long as it takes. Best of luck to all of you! Ladies, please find the seat with your name on it.

The seven women shuffle to the tables and search for their names on the white placards engraved with gold lettering. They set their drinks down next to their pens and paper.

Gentlemen, please make your way to your seats so we can get started.
St. Peter rings a bell, and it begins.

Hi! My name’s Jane Austen. It’s so good to meet you.

Heh? says Ludwig Van Beethoven.

I said, it’s so nice to meet you! she screams.

Heh? Beethoven repeats. He leans his good ear over to the British woman with dark curly hair and vulpine eyes, but he can’t understand a word she is saying. He wishes that man from Prague were next to him so he could translate, but that handsome young man is at the opposite end of the row.

That man is Franz Kafka, and he is also having trouble trying to overcome the language barrier with the youngest woman of the group, Joan of Arc. She sits in full armor, trying to ask the surrealist writer if he is a dog or a cat person.

Next to them, Orville Wright tries to ignore Queen Elizabeth’s ridiculous frilled gown and her body odor while she name-drops her connections to Shakespeare, Henry VIII, and Prince Phillip of Spain. She strikes Orville as pretentious, but he’s always had a thing for gingers.

What do you say one of these days I take you out on my aeroplane?

What is an aeroplane? she asks.

It’s a machine that takes you up into the sky, like a bird.

"But we art already in the sky. I thought we w’ren't allow’d to bringeth our transp’rtation. I had to leaveth mine royal carriage backeth on earth.

The Big Guy made an exception for me since I invented the aeroplane. I am the sole owner of the only aeroplane in heaven, Orville says.

One table over, Wilbur Wright is making the exact same claim to Florence Nightingale.

Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson are bonding over their mutual connection to Massachusetts at the middle table.

I wish I was still at my pond, he says.

I prefer to be inside. A room with a nice view. By the way, I love your writing, Emily says, blushing. She pauses to admire his thick mutton chop sideburns. It’s one of the few books I kept in my personal library.

Why thank you, Miss Dickinson. It’s good to meet somebody that appreciates good literature. What is it that you do?

Oh, I write a bit of poetry, but I’m mostly a homebody.

Ah! Another unemployed English major. But it’s better than working for a country that is only interested in debasing its citizens.

Let’s not talk about politics, David. It’s so boring. And please, call me Emily.

Jesus finds himself in front of Mother Teresa. Both are wearing comfortable clothes, in stark contrast to the extravagance of Elizabeth’s gown and Joan of Arc’s metallic armor.

I know you must hear this all the time, she says. But I’m your biggest fan.

Thank you, that’s very sweet. Listen, Teresa, Jesus begins. I’m grateful for all you’ve done in my name, but we all know we’re only here because my dad thinks it’s time I got married. I really don’t want to be here.

Why not? Don’t you ever get lonely?

Maybe sometimes, but unlike the rest of you, I’m not retired yet. My job is the most important thing in my life. I just wouldn’t have time to be a good husband to you.

Don’t you ever get a vacation? she asks, tears beginning to brim in her wrinkled eyes.

I once took a break in August of 1945, and we both know how that turned out. I can’t leave them alone down there for a second or they’ll find some new way to harm each other.

Then maybe you need a wife that has patience and can be understanding of the stress you’re under.

Jesus looks into her kind eyes and knows that she is willing to do anything for him. But the last thing he wants is somebody else telling him how great he is. The truth is, he wants somebody that can challenge him, and Teresa just isn’t that woman.

Next to Beethoven and Jane Austen, Nikola Tesla lists off his quirks to a taciturn Clara Barton.

I’m hypochondriac, I won’t allow any woman in my sight to wear pearls, I had to walk around this school three times before entering it, I have to wash my hands three times every time I use the restroom, and I abhor obese people.

That’s fascinating, says Clara. She folds her paper up a bit so he can’t see what she writes down.

The bell rings, signaling all the men to stand up and move one place to the right. Beethoven, being on the far right, gets up and walks all the way down to Joan of Arc, but after a few moments of trying to exchange pleasantries and finding she can only speak French, he flips over the table in a rage. He storms over to the piano, pushes the angel off the bench, and starts hammering on the keys. Joan slowly chink-chinks herself and her chair next to the piano and sits in amazement as his hands dance across the black and white.

So, Jane, begins Tesla. What are you drinking?

Just a nice glass of red wine, says Jane Austen. One would think a scientist like yourself could have deduced such a thing.

Oh, yes, well, sorry, I haven’t been on a date in quite a long time.

Well, I’d love to pick that brain of yours. She begins rubbing his knee under the table, and his mouth unhinges.

Miss Austen!

What, Nikola? You’re a very handsome man. Tell me, is there anything a would-be wife of yours should know?

Well, the newly crimson-faced inventor says, I’m a vegetarian—

Pass, Jane says, immediately marking an X over his name.

Wilbur Wright sits with an elbow on the table and his palm on his cheek, listening to Mother Theresa cry about messing up her one chance to live forever by the side her savior.

He doesn’t want anything to do with me! I gave him everything, and all he ever gave me was eternal life in paradise and a cold shoulder. What did I do wrong?

She bows her head. Wilbur moves his hand as if to pat her on the shoulder, but instead he picks up his beer and takes a long, slow drink.

The bell rings again.

Tesla walks over to the piano to trade spots with Beethoven, but when he puts his arm on Beethoven’s shoulder Joan unsheathes her sword and starts yelling French obscenities at him. Tesla backs away with his white-gloved hands up, and he makes his way down to Queen Elizabeth. Joan puts her head on Beethoven’s shoulder. He begins playing a soft sonata.

Kafka once again finds himself talking to a woman that can’t understand a word he’s saying, so he begins pantomiming pounding on a typewriter and pointing to himself.

You’re a…a…writer! Florence Nightingale says. Seeing that he doesn’t understand her, she mimes writing on a piece of paper and pointing at him. He smiles for the first time all evening. Then he points to her, cocks his caterpillar eyebrow, and tilts his head.

What? Me? Oh, I was a nurse, among other things.

Kafka looks at Florence and puts up his hands, bewildered.

She flips over her paper and draws a crude caduceus, the staff entwined with two serpents. Kafka grins, flips over his own paper, and draws a stick figure with a nurse’s cap on it.

Yes! Very good! Florence says.

He smiles meekly, flips over his paper, and writes a heart next to her name.

St. Peter rings the bell again, signaling the beginning of the fourth round.

Beethoven abruptly shifts the tune to an upbeat waltz, and Joan of Arc claps and gives him a