Brian Cochran
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"Life is uncertain...eat dessert first!"
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Dessert…subscribe…then maybe more dessert. I’m pretty flexible on this.
Stories (7)
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Words To Die By
Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Jennings grunted sourly, staring at the poster beside the airlock door, and reread the words yet again. The poster was the only thing decorating the bare 20’ X 20’ airlock used to execute prisoners. “The warden was truly a twisted bitch,” he thought. She had even pasted one of those ‘have a nice day’ yellow smiley faces beside the word scream. Jennings waited for death. It was close now. Any moment the airlock door would open, and he would be ejected into space. Three years he had spent on Kranock 9, this death row prison, convicted for the murder of his wife. Thirty-six agonizing months waiting for all his legal appeals to fail, and lead him to this moment. His wife was dead, murdered, and he had been blamed for it. It didn’t matter that he was innocent, that the frame job was perfect, the judge and system corrupt. All that mattered was his joy, his life and his future, had been snuffed out in an instant.
By Brian Cochran3 years ago in Fiction
The Christmas Miracle
“Is this Heaven?”, she wondered, gazing up from her back at the multicolored stars, moving and twinkling in the night sky. She closed her eyes for a long moment but when she opened them the stars were still there. Were there stars in heaven? She didn’t know if heaven had stars, but if it did, they would HAVE to look like these. But alas, these stars refused to indulge in her idle wonderings so she sat up and looked around. She was seated on the roof of some metal boxlike moving car. She looked behind her and saw that her car was attached to another car and another and…oh it was a train. She was sitting on the roof of a caboose at the end of a train. How did she get here? Where was here? She looked to her right and saw colorful but strangely shaped hills and mountains. Glancing to her left showed her that the train was passing by a small winter town. She could see little homes and stores and a town hall with people ice skating in front of it on a frozen pond. The stores and houses were covered in snow and a blanket of snow lay on the ground. It all seemed very nostalgic and homey. She wasn’t cold, which was weird with all the snow around the train and her wearing just jeans and a sleeveless shirt. She needed to get off this roof and figure out where she was and what was going on. Especially if this wasn’t heaven she reasoned. There was a short ladder at the end of the caboose that led from the roof to a railed landing where someone could stand and watch the train tracks until they faded away. She was able to negotiate this without too much trouble, although her hands and feet felt weird. Maybe it was from laying on the roof in the cold for so long. Maybe. She stood before an old painted wooden door that led into the caboose. Steeling her nerve, she opened the door and stepped inside. The caboose wasn’t very large and was pretty sparsely decorated. There was nothing on the walls and only a bright lantern shining on a wooden table near a couple old wooden chairs. She was startled to realize that one chair was occupied by someone. He turned towards her at the sound of the door opening and gave her a smile as she entered. “Hi”, he said. He was dressed in military gear, and she gasped as she realized he was missing the bottom of his right leg. He was a soldier, she reasoned. “Umm, hi”, she said aloud. She winced at her voice. Is that the way she really sounded? It wasn’t at all how she sounded in her head. He grinned, seeming to read her thoughts. “Welcome to the Christmas Miracle”, he stated. Tilting her head, she asked, “What? “What do you mean Christmas Miracle?”
By Brian Cochran3 years ago in Fiction
One Night in the Fridge
It was a few hours after dinner on a Thursday night and the family was mostly settled in watching a little television before bed. Tammy had just finished cleaning up the kitchen and was sealing the leftover meatloaf in plastic wrap to put in the refrigerator. She opened the door and stuffed it on the middle shelf of the overfilled fridge, making a mental note to make sure she cleaned the old food out for trash day. She hated cleaning out the refrigerator and usually put it off until there was no room for anything more and it had to be done. “Sighing”, she closed the fridge door and hurried to the TV room before she missed her shows.
By Brian Cochran4 years ago in Fiction
Really, that happened?
I have been a Heating, Venting and Air Conditioning (HVAC) service technician for over twenty years, and am called out to five - ten homes a day. I have come across a variety of situations over the years, ranging from humorous to just plain weird. The following are those that stand out to me. Some of them may be hard to believe, but they all happened, and I have tried to record them here to the best of my memory. Hope you enjoy them!
By Brian Cochran4 years ago in Confessions
Penny Candy Courage. Top Story - June 2022.
“Courage is just fear plus necessity and love.” I still remember the day my father said those words to me. It was the fall of 1952, a year of firsts for many things. The microwave had just become available for people to buy. It was half the size of a refrigerator, and cost a small fortune but hey, progress right? Mr. Potato head was the new toy for kids, and the Chevrolet Corvette prototype was the new toy for grown men. Even though the Korean conflict was still ongoing, and America had just tested its first hydrogen bomb, all seemed right in the world to a nine year old boy sitting in his father’s five and dime store.
By Brian Cochran4 years ago in Confessions
Jory and the Magic Seed
Jory and the Magic Seed “There weren’t always dragons in the Valley…,” the minstrel sang from the small stage. He was performing at the Red Rooster Tavern, one of five taverns in the town of Flunderhill. The Rooster was crowded! It was a weekend night, so the Rooster was featuring live music, and the drinks were flowing freely. The song, titled Jory and the Magic Seed, was a crowd favorite, and the minstrel was really getting into it. The song explained how Jory Tannerson had found the magic seed and planted the dragon tree that lured dozens of dragons to the valley right outside of Flunderhill. This of course made Jory the most disliked person in the whole town, even though everyone loved the song.
By Brian Cochran4 years ago in Fiction
