Fast Fiction II
While catching up on some old correspondence last night at home, I came across some stories that Dan Buck sent me back in 1998. They didn't make it into the book I edited, but they're good. So I'm publishing them here.

Clear
After being shot four times in the feet, Lori wept that her toenails would grow back crooked.

"What'll I do," Lori cried, "when they do?"

When they did, she shot herself in the hands.

"This way everything will be straight," Lori said, "when it isn't."

But the next problem was how she could see clear to straightening her eyelashes.

So Much
Gerold got drunk and smashed his foot in the car door. Three days later, he got drunk while he was recuperating.

"What? You want to go and get drunk again?" Gerold's third wife, Jeanie, said. "Wasn't once enough?"

"I have to," Gerold stammered. "This way it won't bother me so much about feeling better about feeling worse about feeling better."

Well
Burt felt mad and a little sorry that he met Lora. She was always putting him down.

"If you don't stop," Burt said, "I'm going to smash your nose."

When she didn't stop, he hit her on the chin.

"I thought you were going to smash my nose!" Lora said.

"I would have if you hadn't," he said, "raised yourself above my fist."

"That's what you get for the friends you don't keep," she said.

"You're my only friend," he said.

"And with the bruise you gave me," she said, "I'm not that well kept."

That's what I'm talking about.