This story began with an idea I once had that went something like this: “Why not write a story where the main character is a slice of apple pie, and he lives among humans, but he is the only one who realizes that he is a slice of apple pie.”

Chapter 1
Jeff went to the grocery store to get some celery. The cashier said “4 dollars please.” She reached out her hand.
Jeff did not have hands, because he was a slice of apple pie. Embarrassed, he fled from the store and sat upon a park bench beside a pretty young girl who was crying.
A robin swooped down and began to peck at Jeff’s crust. Jeff shooed the robin away.
The sun was bright and Jeff’s apple filling began to slowly drip drip drip down through the cracks of the bench.
The crying pretty girl raised her pretty head, catching a whiff of Jeff’s fresh apple scent.

Chapter 2
Jeff noticed the pretty girl looking at him. “Why are you crying?” Jeff asked the pretty girl.
“I’m sad,” she said.
“Oh,” said Jeff. “I’m sad too.”
“Really?” said the pretty girl. “Why are you sad?”
Jeff was about to tell her that he was sad because he did not have arms, but before he could reply, the pretty girl slid down the bench to sit right next to him.
Bashfully, the pretty girl batted her sad pretty eyes. “You smell so sweet,” she said.
“That’s my apple filling,” said Jeff.

Chapter 3
“And you’re very soft,” said the pretty girl. Her leg was resting gently against Jeff’s pastry. “Can I ask what you do?
Jeff looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“You know… I mean… What do you do? Do you work? Or go to school? Do you have a family? A pet?”
Jeff had never thought about any of that stuff before. “I’m not really sure,” he said. “I kind of just walk around… And sometimes I sit down and rest, like I’m doing right now.”
“But surely you must have a job, or a wife, or a girlfriend, or a hobby… Surely you must have some sort of purpose in life,” said the pretty girl. She blinked imploringly at Jeff.
Jeff blinked back. This was all new to him. What did she mean by ‘a purpose in life’? “What do you mean by ‘a purpose in life’?” asked Jeff.

Chapter 4
The sky was wonderful and full of soft light leaking through branches to rest on leaf-brims. Jeff the Slice of Apple Pie was sitting on a park bench, deep in conversation with a pretty girl.
“By ‘a purpose in life’” the girl was saying, “I mean ‘what were you born for’? Why are you here? Why are you alive? Just what is it you’re meant to do with your life?”
“I’ve never really thought about that.” Jeff was genuinely stumped. “If you give me a few seconds,” he said, “perhaps I can figure it out.”
The pretty girl nodded and angled her head to watch a group of young boys playing with plastic shovels near the fountain.
After a few seconds Jeff said, “Nope. I can’t figure it out.”
“Well,” said the girl, “perhaps I can help you figure out your purpose in life.”
“Really! Would you?” Jeff beamed.
The afternoon sun was growing more intense and Jeff’s delicious apple filling was drip drip drip drip dripping more rapidly, forming an expanding pool of sugary sticky goo beneath the bench.
Jeff was too intent on finding his purpose in life to notice that he was slowly melting away.

Chapter 5
“I’ve got it!” said the pretty girl.
“What?” said Jeff.
“We need to find you a career.”
“What’s a career?” asked Jeff.
She told him.
Jeff laughed uncontrollably for five minutes.
“What’s so funny?” asked the pretty girl when Jeff had finally stopped laughing.
“Careers,” said Jeff. “What an absurd idea.”
“Well it can’t be that absurd.” The girl looked slightly hurt. “Plenty of humans have them.”

Chapter 6
It wasn’t long before Jeff realized that sooner or later he would have to tell the pretty girl that he was a slice of apple pie.
“Well,” said Jeff, “perhaps the reason I can’t find my purpose in life…” He paused, unsure of whether or not to tell her. He took a deep breath. “Perhaps the problem is that I’m not human.”
“What do you mean?" The pretty girl laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“Didn’t you notice that I don’t have any arms?” Jeff asked her.
“Well… No.” The pretty girl furrowed her brow and studied Jeff closely. “I didn’t notice until just now when you told me.”
“And didn’t you notice,” Jeff said, “that instead of having a normal human body, I’m made of pastry and delicious apple filling?”
“No… I…” the girl stumbled over her words. She looked lost and slightly perplexed. “But now that you mention it…” Just then the pretty girl’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh my gosh!” She pointed to the ground beneath the bench. “You’re leaking!”

Chapter 7
Jeff looked down, and sure enough, the pavement beneath the bench was oozing with gooey globs of delicious apple filling.
The pretty girl screamed.
The group of boys playing near the fountain looked up. One of them pointed at Jeff and yelled, “Look! A slice of apple pie!” Snatching their plastic shovels, the boys leapt up and raced over to the bench. They began to savagely attack Jeff, digging and jabbing, shoving overflowing scoops of crumbly pastry and warm mounds of delicious apple filling into their yawning mouths.
The pretty girl screamed and tried to pull the boys away. “No! Stop it!” she screamed, slapping and punching and kicking the boys. But it was no use. The boys had worked up quite an appetite from playing in the park all day.
Just then, Jeff’s voice rang out through the still afternoon air. “It’s okay! Let them eat me!” His voice was strong and bold.
The girl caught a glimpse of Jeff’s face between the frantic flurry of shovels and mouths. His eyes were glistening, his cheeks flushed, his face beaming.
“I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” said Jeff. “Finally, I’ve found what I was made for. I’ve found the reason I was born. I’ve found my purpose in life!”
“Yum!” the little boys shouted gleefully.
Jeff laughed and laughed.
After a few minutes, Jeff’s laughter died out, and the boys ran off with their shovels, leaving nothing behind but a smiling pretty girl on a park bench.

There once was a town where in the autumn the leaves did not fall to the ground gradually, one by one, but where the leaves fell all at once, with a terrible, ground-shaking whoosh. Every year it happened on the same day at exactly the same time: October 17th at 5:53pm.

So every year on October 17th all the townspeople gathered together in the middle of the forest and they each brought one musical instrument to play: there were trumpets and trombones, pots and pans, flutes, harps, guitars, drums, and homemade instruments of all shapes and sizes.

When everyone had gathered, the town librarian stood up on a tree stump and conducted the townspeople as they played their instruments to the tune of the fall song.

The fall song was not like regular music.  It started out quietly and built upon itself slowly and patiently.  It pulsed with a primal rhythm that constantly pushed the music upwards and outwards.  Lying beneath the song was a building energy that was dying to break forth with every beat. As the music grew louder a sense of joyful anticipation spread throughout the townspeople.

As the end of the song neared, their instruments roared with sound and melody, and they sang and yelled and clapped their hands in a state of euphoric pandemonium.  Then at the very climax of the crescendo they collectively struck the final explosive note all at the same time.  Just as they struck that note, the leaves were released from their branches and whooshed to the ground, leaving the trees bare like skeletons and covering the forest floor in a thick blanket of color.

Then, with the music still ringing in their ears and with yellow and orange leaves resting on their shoulders, the townspeople stood together in reverent silence, their eyes wide-open and shining brightly.  In that moment they could all feel their hearts growing larger and larger.

When their hearts felt like they could no longer contain whatever it was that was expanding inside, they began to clap.  Slowly, one by one.  As they clapped, the older townspeople stood tall with their heads held high and the children ran and jumped and danced in circles around them.  Their claps grew louder and louder until they could hear the sound echoing off of the trees like thunder.  And still they clapped.

Sometimes they stayed there among the trees and clapped for hours.  And when the sky became dark, the glow from their faces lit up the forest.

Gerald was an inconspicuous man who enjoyed a glass of whiskey with his dog Theo every evening. This evening was no different. Gerald patted Theo on the head and said, "Good Theo." Theo looked up at him with faithful admiration.

Half-melted ice cubes clinked against glass as Gerald took a sip of whiskey and placed it down on the discoloured wooden table. He continued patting Theo lightly on the head as he looked down at the book in his lap. He was reading a Russian play, translated to English, titled "The Man in the Bathtub."

After a moment, Gerald stopped reading and stared quizzically at the page. "This can't be right," he muttered. The sentence he had just read had not made any sense at all. He read the sentence again, but still couldn't understand it. He scratched his head and looked at Theo. "Translator must have made a mistake," he told Theo. He took another sip of whiskey, this time a more tentative, thoughtful sip, and delicately placed the glass back on the table.

A moment later, Gerald shot up out of his chair. "Now what's going on here?" he bellowed. Theo jumped up and started barking. He barked at Gerald, ran around the room and barked at the walls, and then returned to barking at Gerald. Gerald gripped the book in his hands and flipped madly through the pages. As his eyes darted over the words and paragraphs, the letters began to disappear before his very eyes.

First only certain letters disappeared- the letters that allowed words to still remain words. On page 74 of the book, "The dog ate my homework" became "he do at my home."

Gradually more and more letters disappeared until the remaining words were unintelligible and formerly sensible sentences were complete nonsense. On page 143, "This Chinese tea is fantastic" became "s Cnee ta fic."

Gerald threw down the book and ran frantically over to his book shelf. He let out a scream. Half of his collection was gone and the other half appeared to be in the process of rapid decomposition. Shriveling, half-formed words lay lifelessly on the shelves. Lonely letters were strewn sadly across the floor. Theo growled and barked at the bookcase. "Why are the words disappearing?" Gerald screamed. "Where are they all going?"

But what really came out of his mouth was, "h ae te os spagg?" and "W re hy ll gog?"

Gerald ran to the kitchen, grabbed the phone off the wall and called the police. Nobody answered. He called the fire department, the hospital, the gym, the doctor, the florist, the plumber, but nobody answered.

"hr s vby?" he yelled. What he was trying to say, of course, was, "Where is everybody?"

If Gerald would have walked outside and peered through the windows of the houses, the police station, the firehall, the doctor's office, he would have found out why all the words were disappearing. The answer is obvious. Didn't you know? The words were disappearing because people were ignoring them, because people had stopped reading books and writing stories and talking to each other using meaningful, fully-formed sentences... The words were disappearing because everybody was watching television.

I wrote the following short story in a dream. Then I woke up and wrote it again:

Hello, my name is Pee and I'm from China.

Wait, no, I’m not from China. But my name is Pee. That part of the sentence was true.
Sometimes when I hear a dog barking, I pretend that that’s the sound a computer makes. Then it doesn't sound as annoying.
Other times I pretend that the barking is coming from a spider on my ceiling. I say to the spider, “Shut up, spider,” but it keeps on barking.
Sometimes the neighbors get mad at me because of my loud computer and spider.

My upper lip is always cold but I refuse to grow a mustache. I despise them. Mustaches, that is.
My neighbor Wendell has a mustache. I don’t like Wendell.
I bought an upper-lip-warmer, but it looks like a mustache so I don’t wear it anymore. I think it was made from the mustache of a man who no longer wanted his mustache.

I wonder if God has a mustache.
I hope not.
If God had a mustache would he go easier on people with mustaches?
Is God’s mustache eternal?
Does God have an eternal mustache?

The Bible could have told us anything.
The 5th commandment could have been, “Thou shalt have a mustache.”
What a different world we would live in.

I found out for the first time, only ten minutes ago, that I am not Chinese.
A Chinese man on the phone told me so.
I don’t know whether to be relieved or sad.
The conversation went like this:

Me: “Hello?”
Him: “Hello sir, my name is Kevin and I am calling you from Air Duct Services. How are you today?”
“Not good. I’m feeling sick.”
Pause.
“Sir, can you tell me if you have an air duct system in your house?”
“Yes, we do.”
“And can you tell me what company you are currently with?
“Aqua Duct 2000.”
“Um, I’m sorry sir, can you repeat that?”
“I don’t own this house. My father does and he’s sleeping right now.”
“And can you tell me what time would be better to call him?”
“Yes, between 3 and 4AM.”
“You mean 3 and 4PM?”
“Now that I think of it, 3:30AM is probably best.”
“You mean 3:30PM?”
“No, 3:30 in the morning. My father is only awake at that time.”
“Um… ahh… okay sir… I’ll… I’ll call… I’ll call him back.”
“Okay, bye.”
"You are not Chinese."

Later that night, there was a beautiful sunset. I watched it as my friend Larry and I played ping pong in the street.
Before I went to bed I wrote a thank-you letter. It went like this:

“To whom it may concern,
Thank you for the sunset today. Pink and blue. Very nice colour selection.
- Pee”

I addressed the envelope to “Whoever is responsible for the sunset” and slid it into the mailbox.

Later that night, at precisely 3:30am, I was jarred awake by the ringing telephone.
I heard my father pick it up and talk to someone for a few minutes.
He walked into my room, dressed in his tennis shoes and black leather jacket.
“Who was on the phone?” I asked him.
“Oh, that was Kevin, wondering if we needed new air ducts.”
“Did you tell him that we’re already with Aqua Duct 2000?”
“Yes, I did.” My father smiled and pulled his scuba mask down over his eyes.

The next morning, I received a letter in the mail.
It went like this:

“Dear Pee,
That sunset was not for you.
It was for Sally Jenkins in Ohio.

Sincerely,

Kevin”

The other day my brother and I were arguing over the artistic merit of a plate of vegetables. I had placed a layer of thinly sliced cucumber on top of the vegetables which acted like a bridge from one vegetable group to the next. My brother refused to eat the vegetables, stating that I should have built the bridge so that it spanned over top of the vegetable dip. You see, I had built the bridge so that it dove down into the dip, becoming completely submerged, before surfacing on the other side.

I tried to explain to my brother that at the point where the cucumber bridge submerged into the dip it actually became a tunnel, allowing people to safely travel through the dip and not overtop it, which would have been significantly less thrilling. He yelled at me, saying that I wasn't educated enough to understand the art of vegetable arrangement and then reminded me that I had dropped out of culinary architectural school after only three weeks and therefore should not be building vegetable bridges without a license.

He picked up the phone to call the police and I started crying and yelled for my mother. My father then rushed into the room and destroyed the plate of vegetables with his mouth.

The elevator door opened three quarters of the way and then stopped
I stepped inside
I pressed the button for the third floor
I saw other someone approaching and held the door open
A young man entered
He glanced at me and then turned away
I cannot recall if he pressed a button
He was wearing a long gray sweater
His hands were shoved deep into his pockets
I knew immediately that he was going to pull out a gun
He turned his head towards me
Our eyes locked
His body swiveled
He stared at me with the most earnest
Deep
Scary
Wide
Alive
Sad
Eyes
He pulled something from his pocket
I panicked and tried to swat it away
It was not a gun
It was a crumpled piece of paper
He tried to open it but I would not let him
I knew that whatever was written on that paper was bad news
He kept staring directly into my eyes
I thought I recognized him for a moment
I stammered, “Do I… Do I know you?”
It was at this moment that I realized we had gone far beyond the third floor
Then the elevator shifted and began moving downwards and picking up speed
The man looked at me and his eyes plunged deeper into sorrow
“I’m sorry,” he said
The elevator began to tremble as it picked up more speed
I felt sick to my stomach
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his
“I’m sorry,” he said again.  “This elevator is broken beyond repair”
Those eyes
They haunt me
The elevator was in a state of freefall
“No!” I yelled
“Please!  Please!  No!”
He kept staring at me
So sad
He truly was sorry
The elevator shook violently
I cried out to God
Then came the impact
It all happened so fast
Two jarring jolts
A blackout
A grey blurry image
Hope
Confusion
And then
Nothing

You can read my short story "Hazel" HERE