The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: based on a true story

  • To Your Garden

    There’s a little bit of wine left, but I’m supposed to be sobering up now. I worry my tongue between my teeth as I roll the joint. (Grandma says I get that from my dad – the tongue thing, not rolling joints, though it wouldn’t shock me.) I’m trying to be precise, but I’m still not good at this part. Especially when I’m drunk. I lick the gum on the edge of the paper. Its a suitable distraction from more pressing thoughts, except that it isn’t at all.

    When I’m done, pleased with my rudimentary attempts, I slide out onto the porch to light up.

    (more…)

  • Conned

    I suppose there's SOME resemblance but not enough for me to actually be mistaken for Kevin. Right?
    I suppose there’s SOME resemblance but not enough for me to actually be mistaken for Kevin. Right?

    “Is Kevin signing today?”

    The fan was earnest. I thought he was joking. Surely he could see the difference between me and Kevin Smith.

    The artist looked at me, expectant.

    I didn’t know what to do. This was the first time I’d been mistaken for anyone famous. I was sitting down so he couldn’t tell I’m five or six inches taller than Kevin but even so. The fan held his issue of Kevin’s current work which the artist had just scrawled on. The artist smiled.

    “Not today,” I said and smiled.

    (more…)

  • Going for Broke

    In the beginning, the poker game had been my idea. I invited a few guys from the army for a friendly game. No stakes, just a fun way for a few of us from our old unit to kill a Friday night.

    At first it was just Pete, Daniel, Johnny, and me. We pretended we were playing in a big game like those guys in Atlantic City. But we spent most of the night eating and drinking as much as playing cards. Soon I invited a couple of the younger guys from the steel mill, Wyatt and James, to join in. The monthly game became more of a party.

    Then James got sick and we were looking for a last-minute replacement to keep the numbers even.

    “What about Nathan?” Johnny asked.

    Nathan had been one of our crew, but he was also a bit of a blowhard. He’d been married to MaryAnn for about six months. Word was that he was looking for a reason to get out of the house. So we invited him to fill in.

    (more…)

  • Mom’s Last Ride

    The house I grew up in backed up to a funeral home. As a kid, I had no idea what that meant, really. It was just normal for their parking lot to be filled up on weekends with people in church clothes, and periodically their chimneys would spew smelly smoke.

    I still remember that smell. The smell of burning bodies.

    Looking back, I realize it’s a little morbid, growing up being accustomed to the smell of weekly cremation. We just saw the parking lot as a great place to ride our bikes, and the snow plow made for great heaps of snow to play on. I only went inside the place once, when I was covering for a friend’s paper route. I set the paper on the table inside and ran home as fast as I could.

    That was when I was older. (more…)

  • Parade Violation

    Shaun wasn’t normally a guy who carried around a lot of hate in his heart, but after the day he was having, he found he had plenty of room for a little want-to-kick-his-ass.

    When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Shaun saw his brother’s suitcase by the door. He took it as a good sign. Maybe Neil understood how serious this was.

    Shaun found the little prick sitting at the kitchen table. His kid brother, a twenty-four year old fuck up whose life ambition was to own a car wash, was fidgeting in his seat, but Shaun suspected it was an act. Neil had a general idea of what contrition should look like, but he lacked depth and sincerity, so he never quite pulled off seeming sorry about anything.

    (more…)

  • Based on Actual Events (Week of February 24)

    Adversity is the universe's way of saying your life was too boring to be a good book.Life is filled with stories. Some lives are interesting because of their historical context, like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. Others lives are only interesting for a brief period of time because of some tragic event that happened — such as Alive, the story of the 1972 Andes flight disaster that led to the survivors resorting to cannibalism.

    The point here — and I do have one — is that our stories are often rooted in the real world. We may build fantastical worlds with flying airships and robot servants, monsters and mad scientists, but even these stories to some extent are built on our lives. Maybe the heroine in the story is patterned after an old girlfriend. Or perhaps the undead creatures coming for the hero are the sticky-fingered, snot-nosed children you babysat last year.

    This week, the contributors at the Cafe have been asked to submit a flash fiction story based on real-life event. We’ve left it to them to decide how much of their real lives are being reflected in these pages. Maybe only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Or maybe the story has been stretched and mangled beyond recognition (the way Hollywood tends to treat screenplays that are “based on actual events”).

    We hope you enjoy this month’s confabulations. Be sure to give some feedback on your favorite stories.

    Until Next Week,

    The Cafe Management