Short Happy Stories

The first volume of Short Happy Stories is now available! The book contains 50 stories. Order here–or ask about it at your local bookstore.

Cow In City

The cow steps out of the shop, wearing a brand-new red scarf. Initially she was on the fence about the red, and even leaning toward the blue—but she has no doubt that she made the correct choice: the red is, quite simply, more fun. Wait till they see this back at the pasture!

It’s nice—or at least interesting—to be here, in the city, and just go wherever her hooves take her. She was supposed to take the train back right after completing her assignment—but when was she last here? And when will she be here again? Going back to the pasture before taking advantage of at least some of the pleasures of the city seems ludicrous. Ludicrous, and disrespectful to the city and the people who people it.

This is a cow who refuses to take things for granted—because she has no idea how soon she’ll be dinner. So she’ll enjoy this trip. Maybe her free-spiritedness will get her into trouble—it certainly has in the past—but life is too short to not disobey orders that seem stupid.

This is a cow who won’t be cowed.

As the clops of her hooves on the sidewalk float through the air and mix with music from car stereos and tires on asphalt and honks and agitated and excited and confused and transactional human voices, she admits to herself that, while the city certainly has its merits, it isn’t quite the right place for her. The disharmonious sounds and the hard lines have started to grate on her. When strolling around the pasture, or when allowed to wander along the green hillsides, the world seems soft, like it’s made of gentle simple connections. Back there, in the countryside, the point of everything she sees is immediately apparent. But here, in the city, too many things just don’t make sense.

On her way to the scarf shop an old man tripped and rolled along the sidewalk a little—it was a steep street—and another man laughed and laughed and laughed. And then, when she issued an admonishing moo, the laugher started laughing at her. What was wrong with that guy? How could he walk away, laughing, while the old man was still on the ground?

Too often it isn’t at all clear why humans decide to do what they decide to do. And that lack of clarity is… unsettling.

Fortunately this is a cow who knows when to, with a forceful snort, push unpleasant thoughts out of her mind. You don’t have to think about anything you don’t want to think about. It took her a very long time, and a lot of heartbreak, to learn that. She’s glad she finally did.

And that laughing jerk, she senses, almost certainly isn’t representative of the human species. Vince, the human with whom she spends the most time, isn’t bad—sometimes he gives her an apple!—and most of the people she has seen in the city today seem… fine. Some even seem quite good. When she was making her way out of the train station, and feeling a bit nervous about her assignment, a little child ran up to her and gently ran his little hand along her side—which, yes, was a bit presumptuous, but also very, very nice. A slow quiet friendly gesture in the middle of the rush.

That’s the strangest thing about these city people: how most of them seem to be in a terrible rush, as though they all have something terribly important to do. Something is driving them—and she has no idea what it is. Maybe she will never know. She is, after all, a cow.

The biggest problem with that laughing jerk is the—STOP, she tells herself, don’t think about that laughing jerk anymore.

She assures herself that she’s a cow in control of her mind.

And, today, this is her city. Aware that she hasn’t exhausted her per diem, she considers her options—and it’s quickly obvious that what she would most like to do is visit a jazz club. Sometimes, when doing various things in her vicinity, Vince has a little radio with him, which sometimes plays the jazz station, which sometimes plays jazz she finds… intriguing. On multiple occasions she has heard the radio people mention a particular jazz club, and that’s where she’ll go.

The first show won’t start for hours, but she can certainly find a way to entertain herself in the meantime. Maybe she’ll pop into a few more clothing shops; though she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to buy anything else—she’s so happy with her red scarf!—it could be fun to further explore the new fashions. Or maybe she’ll go to the art museum; apparently there’s a very good Franz Marc exhibit at the moment. Or maybe she’ll go to the park and eat some grass.

See For Yourself

She keeps finding interesting things.

Last week the corner of a canvas was sticking out of a dumpster; she climbed up and determined that it was a pretty good imitation of a famous Bruegel painting. Now it’s hanging, quite proudly, in her aunt’s parlour.

And, the week before, she found the body of a notorious scoundrel who had been missing—without really being missed—for eleven years. The corpse was in a peaceful pond, in the company of croaking frogs.

Since interesting things keep intersecting with her in interesting ways, when she tells Gene, at lunch, she has discovered yet another interesting thing, he is immediately intrigued. But she refuses to tell him what it is. “This is something you have to see for yourself,” she says. “I’m not even going to try to describe it.”

They agree to meet in a particular meadow in the early evening, when the professional responsibilities they’ve accepted have been completed.

The grasses are tall: this is a bit like wading through water. The trees define the meadow as a vague oval. If the sun is moving, it is doing so imperceptibly. The few clouds also look still. The many grasses also look still. Nobody is around.

She ought to be here by now—because he’s at least eight minutes late. Maybe she was delayed by something beyond her control. Or maybe she arrived at the agreed-upon time—or maybe even early—and, after some length of wait, left. Though that really doesn’t seem like a way she would react, she can be pretty unpredictable.

But, no matter what’s going on with her, nothing can stop him from being productive. Why should he wait in idleness? For no reason at all. And since she wanted to meet in this particular meadow, it seems reasonable to think that her discovery is located in this particular meadow. Yes, it’s probably here. Somewhere.

Where is it?

What is it?

Nothing about this place seems unusual. Grasses and trees and clouds and sun. Her discovery must be something small. Something small and, maybe, somehow hidden.

If he wants to solve the mystery—and he certainly does—a system must be established.

He begins at the perimeter of the vague oval. He is walking, examining the trees, looking for something interesting between the trees; all sorts of spaces, shapes, enter and exit his view as he moves. Existing within those spaces, shapes, are some birds—in the air and on branches—some squirrels—on branches and on the ground—and a rabbit. Fine, but nothing special. How could a hopping rabbit or scampering squirrels or chirping birds be worthy of note?

Frustrating and riveting suspense: knowing there’s something interesting to discover, but having no idea what it is or where it is or when it will be found. And sometimes he goes through shadows that challenge his eyes.

When he reaches the tree where he began he moves a little closer to the center of the meadow and begins to draw—with his slow movement, as he keeps his eyes fixed on the tall grasses in front of his feet—a smaller vague oval. And his focus, his determination to find something interesting in the tall grasses, turns his world into vibrant green life. And he wonders if he has appreciated, sufficiently, the many changes of this year, from seemingly dead winter to this moment—and the answer arrives almost as soon as the question is formed. For is it even possible to sufficiently appreciate this vibrant green life, this moment?

Is this moment the purpose of everything?

As time continues to pass his slow movement around the meadow draws a sort of spiral. A spiral that is connected, he now realizes, with chirps of birds and ambiguous rustles and the trace of water on stones. He has been hearing such sounds all along, but only now is he really listening. The distinct sounds sound unified, and he strangely feels like there is no meaningful separation, distinction, between them and his own existence.

What seems to be the center of the meadow has been reached. Turning all around, in this particular spot, looking all around, at everything that’s there, annoyance arrives: her discovery is still a mystery. And she still isn’t here.

Does she think his time is worthless? It’s not impossible that he could have something important to do later. Sure, today he doesn’t have anything else to do… But where is she?

Sitting and crossing his legs, he decides to wait here for ten more minutes.

The clouds are still still—but the sun touches a few trees.

Of course the sun isn’t actually touching any trees—but it sure looks like it is. And all of the distinct and unified sounds are still happening. How unusual: the fact that all of these sounds and sights just happen to be here. The fact that he’s here! This is very, very unusual… Miraculous even, maybe. Is this—all of it—a miracle?

He still has no idea what she wanted to show him; but the colors in the sky are changing, and something about the way it’s happening makes him think it’s happening that way for a reason. A very specific reason. Which remains—at least for now—a mystery.

He stretches out his legs and places his palms on grasses, on dirt. Maybe he’ll wait here for fifteen more minutes.

Or half an hour.

Why should he rush?

Lucy On The Bus

Aside from one fleeting good thing, her day at the office was frustration. There’s a way things are supposed to go, and pretty much everything had gone the other way.

At least there are still a few open seats on the bus. She sits and places her briefcase on her lap and wonders how closely tomorrow will resemble today.

Is it reasonable or idiotic to expect improvement?

A fly is flying around, from one place to another place to another place and back to where Lucy first saw it. Where, in the span of its life, is this fly?

The bespectacled man next to her is writing in a graph paper notebook. Though he tries to place words with precision—most letters have a crisp clarity suggestive of a very logical thought process—sometimes he is thwarted by unsmooth movements of the bus. Lucy reads: “The frequency of the abnormalities began to increase on the fourth. No external element examined thus far adequately accounts for the abnormalities or for the change in their frequency. Perhaps too many of our field’s foundational hypotheses have been allowed to solidify beyond validity. Despite fear of upheaval, one question must now be thoroughly explored: Are the abnormalities actually abnormalities? My wild hunch: As our observational techniques improve, we will discover that what have heretofore been viewed as abnormalities are in fact the defining characteristic of the thing itself.”

Though somewhat intrigued, Lucy knows she probably shouldn’t be reading the notebook, and forces herself to look away. Where did that fly go? It was all over the place before… And now she can’t see it anywhere.

As she resumes reading the notebook the man closes the notebook, stands, and moves to the rear door. At the next stop he disembarks.

“Hello Honey. Are you having a nice time?”

Turning, Lucy sees a ragged woman standing just inside the front door, addressing the bus driver. Lucy sees the bus driver’s head turn, sees the smile on his face, hears the words “Why not?” and a chuckle.

“Good for you. Good good good. That’s wonderful. Wonderful!” She walks down the aisle, carrying a big dirty overstuffed bag with her right hand and a big dirty overstuffed bag with her left hand. Her mouth is open—kind of smiling and kind of doing something else. Lucy is essentially praying that the ragged woman won’t occupy the seat just vacated by the notebook man. She really doesn’t like the look of those big dirty overstuffed bags. And she would bet that the ragged woman has not bathed in quite some time. In fact, she can smell her now. Awful!

This day has been so long and so frustrating… Lucy feels like she really deserves a break.

The ragged woman takes the notebook man’s seat, placing one of the big dirty overstuffed bags on the floor and the other one on her lap—and part of that one is now touching part of Lucy’s right arm. How, Lucy wonders, could I think it was even possible for my luck to change?

“You see that building?” The ragged woman, pointing, is talking to—thank God!—the person on her other side. “That building with all the copper?” Lucy sees, peripherally, the other person nod. “Right, so copper oxidizes, and as it does it turns greener and greener—you can clearly see that that building has already turned a little green—and as that happens the core particles slowly separate, which means that the whole composition—the density—of the copper is changing, and at a certain point the copper will no longer be bound by gravity in the same way. If that oxidization process continues uninterrupted for four hundred and fifty or so years—it could take up to six hundred years—the building will start to float.”

The ragged woman pauses, and the way she moves her body, slightly, makes Lucy think she expects the other person to submit a response.

The other person does not submit a response.

“The whole thing is rather hard to explain,” says the ragged woman. “If you don’t already understand certain things—certain somewhat obscure scientific things—you probably can’t even grasp what I’m saying. Maybe, to your untrained ears, this sounds like fantastical gibberish. Which is unfortunate, because this is a very valuable chemical and physical revelation—and it all began with a small question asked by a Moldovan. That is, a man from a place called Moldova. Which is a little country that’s out there… somewhere.”

As she says “somewhere” she moves her hand through the air and turns her head, slightly, in Lucy’s direction—then lets her hand fall onto a big dirty overstuffed bag, then exhales audibly.

She turns her head more, and looks at Lucy. “Oh dear,” she says, “you’re bleeding.”

Lucy, who is pretty sure she would know if she were bleeding, looks at the ragged woman without saying anything.

“Hello? Can you hear me? You’re bleeding.”

The ragged woman touches Lucy’s forehead—then suspends her finger in front of Lucy’s eyes. “See?”

Lucy sees: blood is on the finger. “Oh.”

The ragged woman rubs her finger on her dirty tattered grey coat. To get the blood off.

What, Lucy wonders, made me bleed?

No answer arrives.

The ragged woman is digging around in the big dirty overstuffed bag on her lap, and even taking out some things and placing them on her lap, between the bag and her coat. “Here,” she says, holding up a grimy cracked mirror. Lucy looks at the mirror and sees the place on her head where blood is coming out. Fortunately there isn’t too much blood—though some now touches her right eye, eliciting a few blinks. This must have happened only moments ago. But how?

“You should put on a bandage,” says the ragged woman.

“I don’t have a bandage.”

“You carry around that bag… And you don’t keep any bandages in it?”

Instead of waiting for a response, the ragged woman places the grimy cracked mirror on her lap and, with some difficulty because of the various things on her lap, begins digging around in the big dirty overstuffed bag on the floor—saying, as she digs, “I don’t understand why you’re so unprepared. You shouldn’t be out here like this. You’re letting fate have its way with you. Don’t let it do that. You have to take control of your life. But you’re not even listening to what I’m saying.”

“I’m listening,” says Lucy, suddenly feeling the strangeness of broken expectations, suddenly feeling almost desperate to not further disappoint the ragged woman—who now takes out a grimy ziplock bag and unzips it and takes out a clean ziplock bag and unzips it and takes out two pristine items: a bandage and an antiseptic wipe.

“Use these,” says the well-prepared woman, handing the items to Lucy, “and I’ll hold up the mirror. So you can see what you’re doing.”

Blink

Clouds are tumbling through the sky, coming together and separating, creating numberless variations—not one of which will ever be repeated. This is the only time this will be this exact way. In all of eternity.

Time—how much?—passes. Density increases: the sky is getting darker, darker, darker.

A raindrop falls.

Falls through the air, its path made crooked and wild by the powerful and inconsistent wind. The inconsistency and power of this wind make prediction ridiculous: nobody can know where this raindrop will land, where it will stop moving. And, actually… Will it ever stop moving? No… Nothing ever stops moving. Everything is always on its way, in one way or another, to somewhere else. Even a mountain is going somewhere.

The raindrop lands on a large dry branch and becomes, at least for now, part of the large and now slightly less dry branch—which is part of a tree next to a river. The raindrop was only a few feet away from becoming, with such clean simplicity, part of the river. But the raindrop is probably incapable of caring about where it landed or why it landed where it did or what it becomes or anything at all.

The warm weather is over for the year. Nothing dries the branch: the raindrop is still part of the branch one week later, when snow begins to fall. Snow and more snow and even more snow; one day and another day and a third day. And then it stops. The sun comes out. Snow on the branches is turning into ice, and the branches are getting heavier and heavier and heavier…

Crack!

An ice-encased branch—the same branch that received last week’s first raindrop—is falling, shaking the whole tree, creating a new snowfall in the sun of a blue day; and the ice-encased branch hits the bank of the river, and slides into the river, and floats, and drifts.

But not for long: soon after getting underway the ice-encased branch hits and gets lodged in the opposite bank, in a place where the river bends. As time passes the water around the branch freezes, and ice spreads away from both banks, toward the middle of the river, but some water never stops moving, and as more time passes more water begins to move, and then all of the ice is gone.

A new arrival would not be able to find any evidence that any part of the river has ever been frozen.

In the sun of a blue day a child steps from bank to branch, steps along the branch, jumps into the river—and the force he uses to jump off the branch causes the branch to dislodge from its months-long home. Since the branch has, in the recent weeks of heat, dried out quite a bit, it floats, and drifts.

How exciting! A branch on the move! There is nothing like motion, even if you’re not in charge, even if you’re being carried by water and by the gravity that’s carrying the water and by whatever’s carrying the gravity… Because, when you’re in motion, you get to experience so many different things.

Between the drifting branch and the sun comes a crow—who now lands, clumsily, on the branch. The crow walks to one end of the branch, stops, looks confused, and walks to the other end of the branch while being watched by a woman sitting on a boulder that rolled down to its current position about four hundred thousand years ago. After spending eleven million years near the summit. The woman has been sitting on the boulder for about half an hour, but it feels like it has been at least an hour. When she got here she was troubled about something; now it’s like that something doesn’t exist. Now she is feeling the warm breeze and watching the crow, almost without thought. It’s nice. These fine things—the warm breeze, the boulder, the crow, the drifting branch, the sun—are accepted as they are, their origins unconsidered.

The crow—who, unlike the woman, seems agitated—walks to the other end of the drifting branch with an I’m-going-to-figure-this-out-once-and-for-all expression. What the crow is trying to figure out is unknown. Maybe his investigation is meaningless; but imagine how happy he’ll be if he actually manages to figure out what he wants to figure out. What joyous caws will spring from his beak!

If the branch could talk would it say that this—suddenly having a sort of companion—is the best part of the journey so far? Or would it say that this—suddenly having a sort of burden—is the worst part of the journey so far? It all depends on attitude. And this branch’s attitude is, quite likely, nonexistent; for this branch is, indeed, a branch.

All of a sudden the crow is gone, and all of a sudden—after a few days that almost don’t seem to happen—the river is gone, and all of a sudden—after a week that almost doesn’t seem to happen—the branch sinks below the surface of the sea, and all of a sudden—after decades that almost don’t seem to happen—there is no branch. The seas have broken down, broken down, broken down the branch. Yes. Time has dismantled yet another thing with brutal indifference.

Time and its agents have not, however, won everything. Because, about nine thousand years after the branch’s disintegration, a whale rises to the surface of the sea and exhales, creating a mighty spout—water which then falls onto the surface of the sea; and some of that water, over the course of the hot afternoon, evaporates. And a vestige of the raindrop that fell at the beginning of this story, millenniums ago, now becomes part of a fresh cloud.

Clouds are tumbling one hundred miles later—distance traveled is maybe more important than time—through the darkening, darkening, darkening sky; and a fresh raindrop—containing the vestige of that raindrop from the other side of the world—falls.

The raindrop falls through the air, its path crooked and wild, and lands, despite almost nonexistent chances, on a wide-open human eye.

And then the eye blinks.

A Boat In The Fog In The Night

From the rocky shore you watch the boat in the fog in the night move, just a little, up and down. And up again, and down again, and up again, and down again. A white light illuminates the boat and makes the fog close to the boat white—while everything that is not close to the boat is dark, indecipherable. But, despite the boat’s white light, whoever is on the boat can’t be seen from your current position; but there must be someone on it. Someone is responsible for turning on that white light, for moving that boat to that exact spot. And it does not look like a boat that was designed for leisure… It must have an important reason for being—for staying—in that exact spot. Like a fishing reason. Fishing stuff can’t be seen from your current position; but maybe, on the other side of the boat, fishing stuff is going into the water. Trying to catch a big fish. Or maybe pretty much anything would be fine. Everyone must eat something. Or starve to death. Or maybe the boat is out there to conduct some oceanographic research. Or maybe some part of the boat malfunctioned, forcing the boat to stop in that exact spot. Or maybe the boat is out there, in that exact spot, for another reason. Another reason that could, in fact, be no reason. No reason other than just being out there. A boat in the fog in the night. This is life on Earth. Are there other boats, in other parts of this fog, in other parts of this night, that are surprisingly close and, from your current position, unseeable? At least this boat—the only boat that can be seen—looks quite nice out there, moving just a little, up and down, just off the rocky shore, suspended in this foggy night. If the fog were to get just a little thicker, the boat would disappear, and you would only be able to see a faint white glow. If the fog were to get even thicker than that, the faint white glow would disappear. The boat and the white light would still exist, but they would not obviously exist, because you would only be able to see darkness. This is indecipherable, you would maybe think. And in that kind of fog the boat could easily crash into this rocky shore. And maybe, despite your closeness, you wouldn’t be able to see the crash. But you would hear the crash. That kind of thing can be so frustrating: sensing something with one of your senses without being able to sense that same something with any of your other senses. Especially if, instead of a crashing boat, it’s something that could, in fact, be very good. You know it’s there—or you at least convince yourself that the one sense that senses its presence is correct—but you really wish you could experience it more fully. Smelling a freshly baked cookie is one thing; tasting that same freshly baked cookie is a substantially different thing. But at least the boat has not actually crashed into the rocky shore. The boat is still moving, just a little, up and down—and up again, and down again—in the same exact spot as when you first noticed it. So: maybe exactly nothing has happened here. Which is fine, because you like the boat in the fog in the night the way it is. Nice and ghostly.

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