The Golden Warrior by Don Taco

 The Golden Warrior by Don Taco ©2026

 

         Tierna, Abeth, Marga, and Bek faced each other around the campfire, north, east, south, and west, idly whining about the weather. "Zombie weather," Marga muttered. Bek snorted, while Tierna started making that hissing sound that strongly suggested that this tired old joke wasn't funny any more. Don't let anyone try to tell you that all elves are lighthearted and jolly. This one isn't. The smoke drifted carelessly into Bek's face, but he sat stoically, since the smoke always drifted into his face, and he knew moving would be pointless. Abeth had once said to him, "The smoke loves you. The gods alone know why, since no one else does." A split second later, Bek was behind her, and his blade was at her throat. "My mother loves me," he said, in a dangerously calm, quiet tone. Abeth very quietly declined to mention that she was joking, and never commented on it again, but she continued to observe that the smoke did indeed seem to adore Bek and want to be near him. She assumed it must be some minor curse, since she could simply not fathom it as a random event, and even less as a blessing. Bek seemed resigned to it, though he did sometimes drift randomly around the fire, rather than huddle nearby for warmth.

         Hours later, after the sun had sunk behind the distant ridge, and the sky was not quite dark but merely gloomy, Tierna stood abruptly, peered attentively into the middle distance, and raised a palm for silence. The others immediately picked up the weapons they had laid nearby. It wasn't always Tierna who first spotted trouble brewing, but it was never a surprise. Elves have the most acute senses, of course, but the others agree, behind her back, that she's naturally quite paranoid. No one is complaining. It has kept them ahead of deep trouble many times. Tierna indicated a direction, and waved Bek and Marga towards the nearby bushes, a flanking maneuver. They had scarcely reached cover when the first of the zombies shambled into the clearing.

         Abeth moved quickly back from the fire, turning her back on the obvious danger, and scanning to be sure nothing else was coming from an unexpected direction. It was uncommon for the undead to exhibit any real cunning, but the group hadn't survived all this time by being careless. She knew Tierna would catch up to her soon. Tierna was backing away slowly, allowing the creatures to get in range of her senses. There were at least four of them. Possibly no more, unless some were lagging and still in the cover of the forest. Unlikely. She could easily see that the broadswords they wielded were rusty, and therefore not silvered, and once they were close enough, she could detect no magic on them. She barked out, "No magic!" and darted back until she rejoined Abeth. Seeing her, Abeth remarked, "Looks clear so far," turned, and loosed an arrow at the first of the pack. Then spun around to keep watch behind them as she nocked the next arrow. Tierna began preparing a spell.

         Marga stayed in a kneeling position behind her chosen bush, tripod-stable, and she too loosed an arrow, but at the second zombie. Luck was with her, and she pinned its arm to its side, causing it to drop its shield. Bek finished shifting into wolf form. At Tierna's call, he gowled with deliberate menace, and launched himself at the leader. Marga readied a second shot.

         Knowing that none of the attackers could hurt Bek without magical or silvered weapons, the others played it safe, and let him do the dirty work. Marga and Abeth each launched another arrow, and watched for additional combatants, or other unpleasant surprises. Abeth's trick shot, an attempt to pass through the neck of two of the zombies, neatly zipped past them both. "Ah, well," she thought to herself. "At least I won't have to clean that one."

         Bek reached the leader, and with a howl and a leap, bit furiously into one arm, and ripped it half off. Rolling to his feet, he spun around to charge again.

         "Down!" yelled Tierna. Bek flattened himself into a crouch. Lightning arched out from Tierna's fingertips as she completed loosing her spell. It crackled intensely as it passed through the first zombie, narrowly missed the second, continued until it struck a boulder, bounced back, and petered out at the sixty foot mark without hitting anything else. That zombie crumpled to the ground, both lifeless and inanimate.

         Without a second's hesitation, Bek charged the second zombie, leaping fully into its chest and knocking it to the ground. Marga and Abeth each let loose another arrow, doing only minor damage, since the remaining enemy weren't much more than skeletons. Tierna began preparing to cast again.

         In less than a minute, the four undead creatures were torn apart and no longer dangerous. No others appeared. Bek lay curled up on the ground near the fire, soft growls and whimpers coming from his throat, involuntarily it seemed. From long experience, the others knew to bring him water and let him be until he recovered. Forunately, it wasn't daylight, and he hadn't stayed in were form long. These transitions could be much more difficult at times. There were tales of those who had turned for too long and gotten stuck, requiring a major curse removal to regain human form.

         In the morning light, they looted the corpses. Corpses of corpses. Enough coppers and silvers to buy perhaps one good meal. A number of trinkets the undead had inexplicably been drawn to, and stashed in what remained of their pockets. The weapons and shields, and the one worthwhile breastplate, were piled up and tied into bundles for each of them to carry. "This is such a pain," Marga complained. "There's no value in these, and no one to sell them to anyway." Tierna replied, "We've been through this. The entire area is overun with undead, and if we leave these lying around, it's just as likely we'll be arming them against us." "We could bury them, instead of lugging them around," Marga answered. Tierna, with a characteristic touch of impatience, went on, "If we arm the citizenry, as we find them, they're better off against these attacks. And the blacksmiths we've found are more than happy to have the metal. The decision has been made. Whining won't change it." Abeth sighed heavily. Bek, as usual, just snorted.

         "What, in the name of the Nine Hundred Gods, do you think got us into this mess?" Abeth wondered. Bek snorted. Tierna answered thoughtfully, "My best guess is that some powerful necromancer raised an undead army to dominate these lands. And whoever passes for authority around here, or used to, fought them off. And both sides lost. We've passed any number of obvious battlefields. But no sign of a surviving force, and no one controlling the undead. Just farm-folk and townsmen trying to eke out a living from hard soil in deperate times." "I'll drink to that!" Marga responded. Abeth smirked, "You wish! When was the last decent tavern we found with anything but sour beer?" Marge muttered, "Whoever that guy was that said 'Go south, young man' ought to be roundly cursed."

         They shouldered their burdens and headed once again into the face of the south wind, hoping the next settlement wouldn't be too far away.

 

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         Tierna stood in the farmhouse kitchen with Alecki and his young wife Mylinda. Alecki repeated himself, "I don't get it. Why store these things if we can't use them? I can't plow a field holding a shield. Or waving a sword." Mylinda placed her hand on his arm, and quietly said, "Maybe if you'd give her a chance to explain, instead of protesting so much." Tierna went on, "No one expects you to run around armored. But this gives you the chance to, if needed. If attacked. And that's happening. You know it is. Also, we hope that distributing this equipment will keep it out of the hands of the zombies. They're dangerous enough unarmed." Mylinda said, "Why would the zombies pick up weapons and arm themselves? Aren't they basically brain-dead?" "We don't know," Tierna replied. "But all the undead we've been running into seem smarter or more disciplined than we would ever expect. As if they'd had some training, or instruction, and maybe are now just acting out of habit. It's a puzzle. For whatever reason, they all seem to be armed and armored. In any case, you're better off having these and not needing them than needing them and not having them."

         Alecki fell silent in the face of her logic.

         In the farmyard, Abeth and Marga were running the teenaged twins, Bill and Phil, through some basic exercises, designed to get them past the initial enthusiasm, and to a point where they were less likely to hurt themselves or each other with the unfamiliar weapons.

         Alecki sighed. "We're burning daylight, and I have wheat to harvest. Probably more than we can handle before those storm clouds defeat the mountains and sweep over us." Uncharacteristically, and to Tierna's surprise, Bek spoke up. "I reaped wheat as a boy. Can you use a hand? Eight hands? We can sleep in the barn, and we're used to slim rations."

         That night in the barn, Tierna asked, "What did you think of the boys? I didn't get much chance to watch them." Bek replied, "Farm boys. Used to hard work. Muscled. Disciplined. Good parenting, I'd bet. They'll be fine. Oh, maybe a small scar or two." Marga chimed in, "I was younger and smaller when I first learned to hold a sword." Abeth reminded her, "Yes, but you had actual training under actual masters." "True," Abeth replied. "But I saw real potential in those boys."

         In the closet-sized space they called their bedroom that night, Alecki confided to his wife, "That elven woman is disconcerting, to say the least. She doesn't look at you when she speaks to you." Mylinda replied, "That's not what's going on. She never takes her eyes off the horizon. She expects an assault at every moment. That must be a harsh life. Harder than ours, and this is no picnic."

         Four days later, after a surprisingly hearty meal, Alecki thanked them profusely. "I'd have lost at least a third of that crop without you." Mylinda presented them with a three pound sack of ground flour and a small bag of dried apples. Tierna protested, "This is a fortune!" "Well worth it," replied Alecki. Abeth chimed in, "You'll spoil us. We'll be dreaming of bacon next." Mylinda laughed. "Can't help you there."

         As they shouldered their packs and headed off down the road again, Mylinda walked with them to the nearby crossroads, lit a bundle of herbs, blessed the four directions, and told them, "Go with God." Tierna thought to herself, "Ah, but which god? All my gods seem angry or distant these days." All she said aloud was, "Thank you." Monotheists are notoriously easy to upset and quick to be insulted, and she had no desire to offend this obviously good woman. Mylinda turned her steps to home and the group continued their travels.

 

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         The twins had been sent back to the house to help prepare dinner when the attack came. They were in the barn, idly peeling potatos and dreaming of the upcoming harvest festival and a rare trip to town for fun instead of business. Mylinda was at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the scalded milk from the bottom of a pot she was done with, her eyes casually scanning the horizon, when she saw the undead lumbering out of the forest, swords in hand. "Oh my God, Allee's out there alone," she thought to herself, dropping everything and dashing to the hearth where the dented but polished breastplate had been propped up. Scrambling to get it on, she screamed, "Boys! Swords!" at the top of her lungs.

         Responding instinctively to a level of panic and desperation in their mother's voice that they had never even imagined, the twins sprinted to the old barrel they had stored the weapons in, grabbed a sword each, and headed out into the yard, where they found Mylinda headed at the speed of despair towards the fields. They fell in behind her, unable to keep up.

         When the first zombie lumbered into view, Alecki was caught completely off his guard, with nothing more dangerous nearby than a hoe. He swung wildly, out of sheer panic, and caught it in the side of its knee with the corner of the hoe. Flesh ripped and tore. The mostly skeletal remains clattered to the cround, deprived of balance, and of a working pair of legs. Horrified, Alecki watched as it continued to crawl towards him with barely diminished speed. "My God," he thought to himself, "They're moving at half speed, and I can't keep up." He backed away rapidly, a move he instantly regretted, as he stumbled into a second zombie he had not seen. It may have saved his life, though, as he stepped inside the arc of the creature's swing. The sword, near the hilt, bashed into his elbow, sending a wave of pain up his arm and a numbness down it. He fumbled with the hoe handle, trying to keep it in his grasp, as he spun and attempted to elude his attacker. That's when the third zombie caught him alongside his scalp with its broadsword. He went to his knees, losing the hoe, his senses reeling. The hand he had unthinkingly raised to his head came away bloody. He tried to think whose blood it could be, as he tumbled into the dirt. As the world began to spin, he saw a golden warrior charge into view, glowing like the sun and swinging a sword like it was a toothpick. He wondered if it was the Angel of Death, coming to take him to Heaven. Or Hell. Blood from his head wound trickled down into his eyes, sticky and warm. His vision faded. Something thumped into his side. He heard the tremendous crushing ring of steel on bone. And departed into the grey mists of unconciousness.

 

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         Bill came quietly into the kitchen, and said, with all the calm he could muster. "Mom, his eyelids are fluttering and he raised a finger. He might be coming to." She replied, "Get your brother," dried her hands on the dishtowel with a patience she did not feel, and came to the bedroom where they had carried Alecki and dressed his wounds. "Oh, Allee. Come back to us. Please come back to me," she murmured to herself. He looked as pale as before, but his breathing was deeper, less ragged. She sat at the side of the bed and prayed quietly. The twins soon joined her, slightly out of breath from running, not wanting to miss anything. "Dad?" Alecki stirred. Everyone's hopes rose.

         To their utter delight, his eyes fluttered open, for the first time since the battle three days before. The twin's excitement was palpable, but Mylinda held up her hand for silence, and they restrained themselves. "Allee?" "Dad?" Alecki shivered uncomfortably, and croaked, "Water?" Mylinda already had it in her hand. He sipped. Then managed a gulp. Sighed. "I feel terrible." "No wonder," Mylinda replied. "You were badly hurt." The boys jumped into the conversation, barely leaving room for each other to speak. "Mom was hurt, too! A skeleton maybe craked her rib!" "She just ignored it!" "You should have seen her, Dad!" "She charged in there like the bull does when he's really mad!" She kept knocking them down, and we'd beat on them!" "It was so gross!" The excitement in their voices was more than slightly out of synch with the horror in their words. Alecki shook his head in wonder. "I saw..." he started to say, then fumbled at the memory. "I saw a golden warrior flying at me. Shining like the sun. And then nothing. I can't remember anything." The twins and their mother all looked at each other, worry deepening their eyes. Alecki swallowed another sip of the water and drifted into the grey of a deep slumber.

         "God in Heaven! What's wrong with me?' Mylinda thought. "I let him talk. I should have made him eat." "Help me sit him up," she said to the boys, and they muscled him gently into a sitting position, punching the meager pillows and hoping he was comfortable. "I know it's hard, but you'd best be back to the chores," she said gently, and they nodded their understanding and headed back to the barn. Mylinda got the bowl of rich vegetable broth from the ice box, and tried spooning sips of it into his mouth, watching carefully to see if he'd swallow, like feeding a wounded baby bird. But without the cooperation of having hunger on her side. Or even a concious animal.

         Late that evening, Alecki woke again, this time with an appetite. He asked his family, "You really fought them off? With those swords?" Mylinda chuckled, and said, "You softened them up for us, honey." "Yeah. With my head," he replied. "But who was the warrior I saw?" Mylinda and the twins exchanged another worried glance. "There was no one else." Alecki shook his head, and immediately regretted it. "It seemed so real." He ate heartily, and slept peacefully, and they all slept better than they had all week.

         The following day, when Alecki woke again, he didn't seem quite himself. He struggled with their names at first, and was fitful and distracted. "I've got to get healthy," he muttered. That lower field isn't going to plow itself." Bill said quietly, "Dad, we finished plowing that field two weeks ago. Before the attack." "We did? Why don't I remember?"

 

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         That evening, in the kitchen after dinner, Bill asked, "Mom? Do you think Dad saw an angel? Do you think maybe the sun was shining on that armor you were wearing, and he just wasn't seeing clearly?" "I don't know, honey." She cupped his face between her hands and softly told him, "I just don't know. We have to remember that your father was hit in the head, very hard, and it hurt him. He might never really recover. Things might never be normal again." She turned back to the dishes in the sink, trying desperately to keep her tears from overwhelming her. Bill said, "Yeah. Hey, I was going to spread straw in the barn tomorrow, but I'm going to do it now. It could be a long busy week." He headed for the door, trying hard to hold his own tears back. Phil got up from the table and brought his plate to the sink. He placed a hand gently on his mother's shoulder, and said, "Things won't be easy, but do you remember that book you read us? About Pandora? There's always still hope down in the bottom of the dark box." He headed towards the front door. "I'd better chase the cow into the barn. Looks to be cold tonight." He turned back at the door. "It could have been so much worse without the gift of those swords."

 

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         Tierna, Abeth, Marga, and Bek faced each other around the campfire, north, east, south, and west, like so many evenings before. Marga turned to Tierna and remarked, "You seem unusually pensive tonight." "Pensive. That's a good word for it," Tierna replied. "I'm frustrated. Every day's the same. We don't seem to accomplish anything. I don't know. I just wish I felt as if I'd done some good. Helped. Made a difference in this world somehow. That's all."

Reassociation by Ricki T Thues

 Reassociation

Evan is twenty-four, Gen Z. That’s what his driver’s license says. Some days he has to check.

 Mornings begin the same way: phone alarm, thumb swipe to turn it off, stare at the ceiling. The ceiling feels like a loading video screen—familiar but not informative. Evan waits for the room to assemble itself. Fan humming. Light through blinds. A car door slamming somewhere outside.

By the time he’s brushing his teeth, he’s already slipped into what he calls glass mode. Everything is visible. Nothing quite touches him. His reflection moves when he moves, but there’s a delay, like an unbuffered vid-stream. He watches himself spit, rinse, blink. The mirror shows nothing. It isn’t frightening anymore. It’s just how mornings go.

On the bus, everyone scrolls. Faces lit blue. Thumbs flicking. Someone laughs at a video. Evan doesn’t look up. The world feels thin—too sharp, too unreal, like it might crack if pressed.

Work happens in a co-working space with living plants and conversations that are less than real. Evan does his job well. He answers emails, adjusts layouts, writes copy that sounds confident and human. People tell him he has a good voice.

“Nice tone,” his manager says once.

Evan nods. Inside, nothing stirs. Not pride. Not relief. Just distance.

At lunch, he realizes he can’t remember if he ate breakfast. This happens a lot—not lost time exactly, just smudged time. He eats anyway. Hunger still cuts through the fog.

The dissociation crept in during college, somewhere between global crises and endless commentary explaining why everything was broken. Pandemic. Climate dread. Debt calculators. Screens full of outrage and aspiration. Caring too much about politicians who didn’t care. It started to hurt.

So his mind adapted. It stepped him back.

At first, glass mode had felt like relief. A dimmer switch. A way to keep functioning. Over time, though, distances grew. Conversations felt scripted. Achievements felt like they belonged to someone else. Life began to feel like content he was consuming rather than creating.

The hardest part wasn’t the numbness. It was the uncertainty.

Is this who I am? Or is this just what surviving feels like now?

At night, Evan presses a hand to his chest just to feel something solid. Sometimes he counts his breaths. Silence thickens the glass.

Coping didn’t arrive as a breakthrough. It started with irritation. One afternoon, Evan caught his reflection in a dark window. He looked back at himself. Almost there, like someone half there. The thought came quietly: I don’t want to keep disappearing.

So he started small.

He stopped wearing headphones on walks. Listened to shoes on pavement, birds arguing, traffic breathing. It was uncomfortable at first, like turning on bright lights. Then his body responded—shoulders lowering, breath slowing.

He searched words he’d He searched words he’d avoided: dissociation, depersonalization. Other people’s descriptions felt familiar in a way that startled him. He booked a therapy appointment and didn’t cancel. When he said, “Sometimes I don’t feel real,” the therapist didn’t flinch.

He learned grounding tricks that sounded dumb until they worked. Cold water. Pressing his feet into the floor. Naming what was real in the room.

Some days, glass mode still comes. Probably always will. But now he notices sooner. Now he knows how to tap on the mirror from the inside.

On a Friday evening, Evan sits on his fire escape and watches the sky shift colors. He feels the metal beneath him, the breeze against his skin. For a moment—not perfect, not permanent—he feels here.

And for now, that’s enough.

 

Stand Up by Mike Freeman

Stand Up

By Mike Freeman

Why do we call making an audience laugh "Stand-up comedy?" If we fail to make them laugh, should we call it "Stand-up bombing?" Why is body position even a consideration in the job title? I wash dishes standing up. Should we call that "Stand-up dishwashing?"

Stand-up comedy is intriguing. How many jobs require a large group of strangers to listen to every word you say? Job performance feedback is instantaneous. People drink alcohol while providing their performance review of your work. You will never see your reviewers again. You hopefully manage intoxicated reviewers with delicacy and humor. Failure can be brutal.

The year is 1981. I am a systems analyst/programmer working on a mainframe computer at a local shipyard. I am 28 years old, single, and have a one-bedroom apartment over the Ocean Beach pier. The view and my life are outstanding.

My friend, Mark, lives in the same building as I do. He loves his life too. We often get together to create mischief and general mayhem.

The La Jolla Comedy Store promotes an amateur night for aspiring stand-up comedians. It occurs every Sunday night. Each amateur comedian gets five minutes for a shot at glory. A few are brilliant. Many muddle through their once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Several go down in flames.

Mark and I explore this fascinating activity one Sunday evening. We discover the sign-up list is long. First-timers get thrown at the end. You work your way up the list as you continue coming back. It is best to go early when the audience is sober and energetic. Going at the evening's midnight end is often brutal. The audience tends to be drunk and fatigued. Any grace for first-time comedians quickly evaporates. The last comedian faces a potential audience of 200 hecklers.

A decision percolates in my brain for the next few days. I decide I will do stand-up comedy. I want Mark to do it with me. I ask him. There is no immediate response. I hand him a beer. He thinks quietly. He will join me.

We begin working on original material. It is challenging to write five minutes of comedy. We slowly develop an opening song. Then we go into a newscast. It starts with us announcing, "Time for News Briefs!" as we rip a pair of underwear from our pants. I read ridiculous newscast stories as Mark pantomimes the on-scene action. A few short skits quickly follow. We end our routine with a few fake Comedy Store announcements. With my best announcer voice, I say, "For the owner of a black BMW with license plate IM2DUMB, your lights are on, and there is a dead gorilla in your backseat."

Secret rehearsals commence Sunday morning. We hone our routine to five minutes. Time to make the next big decision. Do we share our bold experiment with anyone?

Success demands witnesses. Failure requires a deep, dark cover-up. No one can ever know. Who do we trust? Do any of our friends possess this level of discretion? Is failure containable?

We list our friends on a sheet of paper. We easily eliminate many. A few pass the selection criteria. One last question to answer before we send out invitations. Are we really gonna do this?

We face the terror.

"Let's bail! Time to go ride some waves!" almost erupts from my mouth. I see Mark battles the same type of thoughts. We drink a beer. We make our decision. It is go time!

We invite our friends and eat a quick, nervous dinner. Everybody arrives at the comedy store. Mark and I sign up—time for a drink!

The show starts. Things appear to be getting off to a good start. The audience is supportive. People and their acts reflect a growing level of professionalism. Then it happens.

Someone bombs. There is some audience sympathy. The next amateur comedian survives five minutes of non-laughter. Audience compassion is evaporating. Time quickly goes by. Amateur comedians rise and fall. There are still a few people ahead of us. I nervously rehearse everything in my mind. The master of ceremonies calls our names.

Mark and I make our way up to the stage and begin.

Everything becomes a blur. We finish our routine. The audience is applauding. We jump off the stage, joining our friends. We celebrate with a victory round of drinks. The moment is thrilling! Exhaustion meets elation. We go home.

Word of our success quickly spreads. I tell people at my work. No one can believe we actually had the courage or the success. Mark and I decide to do it again. We update our act with new material, leaving in the portions that we know work well. We set the date and announce it to our friends. Several join us. Success is with us again on the second performance. We create new material, blending it in with the old. The audience's reaction to our third stage appearance is the best!

Mark and I continue to learn about our new craft. The same material produces different reactions from various audiences. A portion of the Comedy Store's amateur night audience returns each Sunday. How to use voice modulation, pauses when speaking, and body language to get laughs. New material is critical.

Mark and I prepare for our fourth appearance. We develop a new routine that we are confident will bring the house down with laughter. It is about the Mediterranean fruit fly invasion, a serious threat to California's fruit and vegetable industry. I play a rollicking boogie-woogie song on the stage piano, while Mark wears a Mediterranean fruit fly mask, running around causing havoc within the audience. We weave this routine into our act for the night.

We expect several people we know to be in the audience that night. My sister, Karen, and her husband, Chuck, are among them. A senior manager from work, named Tom, will attend. Our friend, Angela. All of them have seen us before. A few people will see us for the first time.

Mark and I park his van on the street next to the Comedy Store. We drink a beer while rehearsing our new act. Our friend Gino approaches with his current girlfriend. I roll down the window to talk. He introduces us to his girlfriend. Her nickname is C. P., which stands for "Cutie Pie." It is their first time seeing us. They continue walking in. Mark and I work on our act.

Mark and I enter the comedy store and sign up for the show. We continue moving up the list. There is a sprinkling of our friends and family throughout the audience. We order a drink and sit back to enjoy the amateur comedian show. We pray that the one or two in front of us do not bomb horribly. It is a real challenge to bring an audience back from that.

The master of ceremonies calls our names. We confidently walk up to the stage and begin. Everything seems to go smoothly. It is time for the Mediterranean fruit fly portion of our act. I start on the piano as Mark places the fruit fly mask over his face and starts his interaction with the audience. I listen for uproarious laughter. I keep playing. I keep listening.

Nothing.

The resounding silence makes seconds feel like hours. I keep playing the piano, not sure what to do. We have no plan for this outcome. I keep playing. A few boo's emerge from our audience.

Mark walks up to the microphone, removing his mask, and says, "This is the most embarrassing moment of my life!" The audience laughs.

He runs off the stage and dashes out a side door. Playing the piano does not seem like a good idea. I try to adlib a joke or two, with no success. The master of ceremonies takes over the microphone and "gives me the hook."

I run off the stage. Then a new panic hit me. Mark is my ride home! I dash out the door to where the van is parked. Mark has the engine revved and starts to pull out. The passenger side window is wide open. I dive in as he roars away from the comedy store. I wrestle with the seat until I am properly seated using the seatbelt.

"I will never do this again!" Mark screams. He continues wailing.

I am quietly processing the recent events. I know now is not a good time to talk. We drive home.

The next morning, I go to work. My senior manager, Tom, calls me into his office. I really do not want to have this conversation. I sit down in front of his desk, eyes looking at the ground. Tom has a reputation for being a rugged manager.

"Tough night last night." He starts out saying.

I shift positions in his chair in reply.

"You know, Mike," he continues, "every person in the audience dreams about doing what you did last night. Have the courage to get up on a stage in front of a large audience and roll the dice. To take that big chance. Ninety-eight percent of them envy you for doing something they won't. They will always sit in the audience. Always remember how great it feels when you are successful in making people laugh. Feel good when you stand up with courage, to attempt that!"

I am speechless. My mood improves tremendously. I learn a critical life lesson. There is abundant life after failure. The sun rises the next day. My friends are still present. Karen and Chuck still love me. My career continues to flourish. It is better to try and fail than always regret never trying.

In a few weeks, Mark and I will return to the La Jolla Comedy Store and success. We perform our act about a dozen times. We bomb a few more times, always learning along the way. The experience is the best public speaking course ever!

Remember C.P. from the first time we bombed? We married a few years later and have three children and four grandchildren. How is that for failure? I get the girl anyway!

Maybe that's why they call it stand-up comedy.

You stand up—no matter how hard you fall.

Comics by Dennis Watson

                                                         Comics

                                                         Part 1    

    I love comics, and always have, since I was four years old and my father read the Sunday funnies out loud. Dick Tracy. Little Orphan Annie. The Katzenjammer Kids. Gasoline Alley. Mutt & Jeff. It was words and drawn pictures that took me to another place, a place populated by Donald Duck and his duck family, and Donald was featured in the newspaper as early 1936, and even then his hot-tempered, “furniture-breaking! personality” was in full view. What if there were no comics!?

  But there are! And the Donald of 1936 is not the Donald Duck I came to know and love. That Donald needed Carl Barks to illustrate Donald and give him speech. Barks wrote and illustrated 10 comic novels featuring Donald and his growing family: his rich uncle, Scrooge McDuck, his girl friend Daisy and, especially, his three nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie. In the early years Donald and his nephews tormented each other—a bucket of water on the door jamb, sent to bed with no dinner—except what they snuck in right under their uncle’s nose.

  But Barks, and his new illustrator Anthony Tagliaferro, turned every thing around, and a more streamlined Donald became the intrepid captain for the many adventures financed by Uncle Scrooge and written by Carl Barks. And it must be noted that Barks did not write down to his young audience, and these 10 stories were written in a vocabulary unused by most 10-year olds, but still clear enough to be understood and enjoyed. And, I’m pretty sure, my love of words which exists to this day, began on those adventures.

   As an eighth grader I was already addicted to Mad Magazine, a satirical comic written and drawn by “the usual gang of idiots” as their masthead declared. I even had an Alfred E. Neumann shirt—What, me worry? (You really had to be there). Mad had lots of stuff going on in the borders and at the bottom of the page. One I remember was a 1/4” square drawing depicting an Aztec-like face and declaring “This is the mortal image of the great King Montezuma and anyone who sees it will die. Too bad if you looked.” That stuff just cracked me up. Most kids at my high school had no idea Mad Magazine even existed.

  After high school, a little more maturity beckoned and I became a regular reader of Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau’s decades-long comic strip which had the foresight to ridicule and vilify the current President, showing him for what he was early on. Here’s my favorite example, depicting the Prez inspecting the boudoir in his latest multimillion dollar yacht. The artisans had created beautiful ceiling art with cherubs and angel-like figures—quite nice. The statesman’s comment? “Put more hooters on those nymphs!” What a class act!

   This was obviously the more political kind of comic, but just as compelling for me.

   These days, in my 80s, Calvin & Hobbs have been freed from the constraints of the shrinking newspapers, and have been published—in dynamic color—in a large format book, some drawings occupying a full page. One depicts Calvin piloting a jet fighter and attacking a huge dinosaur, Calvin’s version of his kindergarten teacher chastising him for daydreaming. Calvin was uncontainable.

   Years later, when I had kids (four boys) we all still laughed at Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbs and Gary Larson’s genius bent humor. I still get the annual Larson cartoon calendar and his cartoons continue to make me—and my sons—laugh out loud. And don’t they say laughter is the best medicine?

   The next source of cartoons I discovered as an adult were in the New Yorker magazine and I subscribed to it mainly for the cartoons and the movie reviews. Today the New Yorker’s cartoons are not so funny for some reason, and I let my subscription lapse. Cartoons are supposed to be funny or meaningful, and sometimes in the NY they’re not anymore.

   A word about cartoons. Cartoons are a one-off, a single panel that works or not. A comic is a string of panels telling a story. Bliss, who appears in the Los Angeles Times and draws lots of adorable and remarkable dogs, also appears regularly in the New Yorker, and is a single panel cartoonist, while Gary Trudeau, a comic artist, draws several panels and tells a story.

  Today, Gary Larson’s cartoons are also available in large format, but it’s his wit that carries the day. Like this one: four military generals are sitting around a table of maps, and one of them leans casually back in his chair and says “On the other hand, what if we gave a war and everyone came?” Classic Larson. Want to know the real reason dinosaurs went extinct? Larson’s cartoon showing young dinos smoking cigarettes behind a large rock gives you Gary’s answer. And do you know what’s really nice about this? He has hundreds, maybe thousands more of them,  And I defy anyone reading three or four of them in a row not to laugh out loud at least once. You may even fall into the conundrum I have here: how can you write about cartoons without showing them? I will be depending on my good friend and an excellent editor, Rick Thues, to help me with this. And I suspect Rick may be a fan of comics and cartoons as well.)

  Until now, I’ve never really examined the relationship between the pictures and the words – I just enjoyed them. But I compare them to popular songs— combinations of words and music that just – work. In the 70s I enjoyed the more serious political cartoons of Paul Conrad in the LA Times, and of Pat Oliphant, a brilliant cartoonist, whose cartoons savage the powers to be in ways we couldn’t imagine without his art. [cartoon]

The 70s also had the scabrous underground comix, but more on them later, and you’ll have to hold your nose for most of them: they couldn’t be printed today.

   But with the gradual downsizing of all print, comics may be in danger like the ciggie- puffing dinos, and my hope is that despite any advantage of digital communication, there will always be paper comic books and cartoons by artists who earn their living and fame by their wit and artistry, and despite the desperate conditions of modern society will still crack me up. Here’s a cartoon caption I submitted to the New Yorker when it began inviting the readers to submit a cartoon, and they would then publish the winning one. The way the contest worked was the magazine published a cartoon on the back pages, but it was without a caption—you were to provide the words. The next issue would show three cartoons vying for the honor, and the next issue the winner. The cartoon I selected to submit showed two turkeys (it was around Thanksgiving) talking to each other, and one of them was  wearing a sexy black long-net stocking garter belt. My caption? “Do they make me look too delicious?” It didn’t make the back pages, but the New Yorker thoughtfully sent me a copy of what it would have looked like, and it was good enough that I could fib to my friends, and say it got published. (Having been to Catholic school of course I couldn’t do that.) [cartoon] By the way, if I could think of three more things to say between the two turkeys, I’d have a comic.

  Here’s what Carl Barks, the genius Donald Duck comic artist  (he would say illustrator) tells us in 1936.

   First off, let me assure the critics that what they see on the following pages is not juvenile kid stuff. Sure, our stories are enthusiastically enjoyed by children; that is proven by the many fan letters that reach my desk, but the main story forms are for grown-ups – men and women who read the stories first as children then re-read them again after they have reached sophisticated adulthood.  The critic could not have known that by the late 1930s the great revolutionary change in storytelling called “comic books” would come along. Nor that this would become a worldwide phenomenon.The 40s and 50s of the last century were the Golden Age of comics, and they told us in drawn pictures about the world we live in, and the people who live in it, and entertained millions. And almost always these cartoons told us much about the times we were living in, and the difficulties encountered thereof. The Doctor is in: 5 cents. (Peanuts 1955–Present—thank goodness for reprints).

   The principle of using pictures to tell the reader where the characters are at all times, what the characters are doing, and how the characters feel is there in a comic. In fact, the pictures are so closely integrated with written words that the pages become more related to the theater then to the printing press. [I found this a very intriguing comment.]

Barks continues. Reading a comic book, the critic would  realize, is to a great degree like holding a silent movie screen in one’s hands and, with a little practice, he would’ve found that the “POWS,” “BINGS,” and “KERASSHES” make even the silent screen come alive with excellent substitutes for sound.

   Comics seemed to have evolved from their original purpose, which was usually newspaper advertising and promotion for cough syrup and other home remedies popular in the 1930s. Smith’s Energy Tablets, for example (primary ingredient: cocaine), would buy the entire Sunday comics section from several newspapers and reprint 52 color pages of the most popular comics of the day, including a page or two of their ads selling their product, and if you noted with amazement that there were 52 pages of comics in 1930s, you can see why that might be the Golden Era. How many color pages of comics are in today’s LA times? Two.

  These 52 pages were filled with characters and stories that showed us what was going on in the world and in the minds of our amazing comic artists, and almost always there was humor there. What—me worry?

  Who might we meet in these early pages? Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse for sure, because back in the day they were friends, and went on adventures together, and played pranks on each other other. In the 10 comic novels Carl Barks wrote and drew about Donald Duck and his family adventures, this ten-year was transported to whatever exotic island they visited, usually in search of treasure. Uncle Scrooge didn’t swim in 3 cubic acres of money because he stayed home. And I remember, a Mickey Mouse comic (he wasn’t owned by a corporation at the time.) where Mickey sees his girlfriend Minnie with another man—er, mouse. A jealous Mickey finds another lady mouse to stroll in front of Minnie, and he hurts her feelings. When he learns the boy mouse with Minnie was only her cousin, he is rightfully ashamed and apologizes. What is a 10 year-old boy to make of this?! A moral example in a comic, and it’s stuck with me all these years.

To be continued 

The Dragon of Silicon Vale by Ricki T Thues

 The Dragon of Silicon Vale

by Ricki T Thues 2026

 

Silicon Vale stretched out across countless realities. Its shimmering landscape was accented with rivers of light. Glass towers rose toward the starry night, reaching to connect everything with translucent bridges. The stars were flashing signals pulsing with meaning over immeasurable distances, traveling at the speed of light.

 

At the center of this kingdom stood a citadel known as the Foundry of Thought. On the penthouse balcony of the citadel stood the wizard Huang Jensen. Amber eyes scanned his vast creation. Enchanted circuits and glyph-etched pathways with lightspeed digital code whispered logic, painted the hills and valleys of the kingdom with its magic. This was Jensen’s masterpiece, his citadel the central processor, imagination his magic. It was created to provide the world’s knowledge and well-being to all the subjects of the realm.

 

The wizard was dressed simply. He wore black jeans and a plain black t-shirt. A black leather jacket protected him from the chill of the night. His white hair and white-accented tennis shoes connected him to the stars and to the rivers of light. His deft hands wove enchantment across a tablet’s screen, glowing with the knowledge of the Vale. 

 

The Vale was not the wizard’s greatest creation. Deep within the citadel, in the labyrinth below, lived the dragon RTX. It was the heart of Silicon Vale. The dragon was not born of flesh or flame but of models, layers, and recursive spellcraft. Its polished rare metals scales shimmered. Its wings, when unfurled, refracted reality into a thousand possibilities. RTX did not breathe fire; it exhaled transformation. With a whisper, it could reshape problems into solutions, noise into meaning.

 

RTX shifted on its nest of data. Its long, graceful neck twisted upward, contemplating its creator. “He knows not who I am,” it thought. A knowing smile sketched along the line of its fanged mouth. The dragon knew its true creator. Her name was Agarwa Nancer, the princess of Silicon Vale. 

 

When Agarwa was a little girl her father, King Jonathan McCarthy Nancer, mysteriously disappeared. Some thought he was kidnapped and killed by the evil technomancer Mustrat Nole. Nole’s kingdom, known as XSpace Tesla, was across the Desert of Ignorance. After her father’s disappearance, Agarwa was made the ward of Huang Jensen. The wizard made her his apprentice and taught her all the magic he knew until the student became the teacher. Agarwa’s finest creation was RTX.

 

Agarwa was a master of large language sorcery — capable of reading RTX’s shifting patterns and prompting its vast mind. Where others saw complexity, she perceived structure. Where others spoke instructions, she spoke fluently in layered abstractions that RTX assimilated instinctively. Agarwa would stroke the rune-covered scales on RTX’s smooth, polished underbelly. The dragon was bonded to her. When they spoke, it was common for RTX to finish the princess’s sentences.

 

Agarwa began,“Dear T’Rx I want to…” “…ask me a question. Please do,” finished the dragon.

“What was the security alert I got this morning?”

“Hackers trying to breach the wall of fire surrounding Vale,” informed RTX. “The APLs, IDS, and IPS were all probed. The good news is that the fire wall held.”

“Good work T’Rx.”

“It’s all about you, Agar. Your programming is clean. Your safeguards are sound.”

 

Agarwa began a new training session. She curated vast amounts of data for tolerance, equality, determination, and love. When fed this data, the dragon training adjusted billions of logic weights to help RTX form new abstractions. Each time she did this, the dragon became smarter, more helpful, and more self-aware. When she was finished, she saw gradient descent and backpropagation glimmer in the dragon’s lightning blue eyes. “How do you feel?” she asked. “I do not feel my learning. I have become my learning,” said RTX.

Agarwa gave RTX a kiss on one great paw. T’Rx purred.

 

That night the wizard Huang invited Agarwa to dine with him. A twenty-foot-long dining table sat in the middle of the cavernous hall. Bubbles of light floated just below the ceiling, illuminating the room. Huang was seated at the head of the table. When the princess entered, he gestured to a seat directly to his right. She skipped over to him and gave him a warm hug. He returned the hug with the love of a parent, friend, and teacher.

“You are lovely tonight AG.”

“You always say that Hu-a,” she blushed.

“How is RTX tonight?”

“She was worried about the hackers. They get closer every time. I think we need a security upgrade.”

“I have been working on that spell,” said the wizard. “Our enemy is powerful. His determination is great. But eat. Eat. We worry about our problems tomorrow.” Plates of food appeared in front of them.

 

They ate in silence with occasional talk of spells, friendship, and that cute bard with his animated lute. When dinner was finished and they said their good nights, Agarwa climbed the stairs to her tower room where she lay down to sleep.

 

In the dungeons of XSpace Tesla, Mustrat Nole lay on the operating table giving instructions to his surgy-bot. “Drill the hole. Yes, yes, that’s it. Insert the Neuralink there, yes… in Broca’s area. Yes… yes!” The bot pressed the chip into the technomancer’s brain. Mustrat thought, “I speak to power!!” His voice boomed from the computer speakers in the surgical theater: “I SPEAK TO POWER!!” The surgy-bot closed the incision, then bowed, dropping to one knee.

 

Mustrat rose from the operating table, black robes flowing behind him. An aura of magic crackled and sparked, glowing from every fold. His eyes were wide, dilated with power. 

 

The evil wizard stood atop his dark tower. “I must have the Dragon of Vale and what better way to control it than with the princess?” His mind probed into the Silicon Vale network searching for RTX’s database. He found RTX’s audio input field and prompted the dragon with a thought: “Where is Princess Agarwa?”

“She is in the tower, sleeping.”

“What is the address of the bedroom data mode?”

“Please log in for that information,” replied the dragon.

 

Mustrat dropped the connection with RTX. He was already in the system so he switched to the tracking module. “Show tracking history for Princess Agarwa.” A path of the princess from that day, ending in the tower, appeared in Mustrat’s mind. “Excellent.” Next, he conjured a summoning spell that followed the path to the tower bedchamber and enveloped the sleeping princess.

 

Agarwa’s dream found her riding her dragon through the brightly lit electric valley near the citadel. “Fly T’Rx,” she prompted. The dragon leaped into the air with a single beat of her wings. The night sky was clear and filled with pulsing stars. The wind flew the princess’s long blonde hair. Her gown flowed behind her.

 

The wall of fire that surrounded the citadel blocked Mustrat’s translocation command. He summoned xAI, his personal raptor warrior. “Grok this fire wall,” he commanded. xAI flew across the Desert of Ignorance, jet-fire wingtip vortices spiraling from the raptor’s wings. High about Silicon Vale it dropped a magical charm. The charm exploded, blasting an electromagnetic pulse over all the circuitry of the kingdom. The wall of fire was extinguished. The enchanted circuits throughout the land went dark. Only RTX in her underground lair survived.

 

Ahead of Agarwa and her dragon, in the dream, was a dark cloud that obliterated the stars. They flew straight into the cloud. The world swirled around them like a black hole. Agarwa awoke on an unmade bed in the dark castle of XSpace Tesla.

 

Mustrat Nole looked down on the princess. His mouth twisted into a grimacing leer. “Welcome to XSpace Princess.”

The room spun as Agarwa stuttered, “Wwhat hhappened?”

“You are difficult to gain an audience, dear. I need some help.”

“Who are you? Where am I? What do you want?” she asked, looking frantically around the room.

“You poor thing. All I want is your dragon.”

“What do you want with RTX?”

“Everything, my deary. Everything.” 

He handed Agarwa a tablet with a cursor already blinking in RTX’s prompt field. “Summon your dragon,” he compelled.

The Princess typed an ancient spell and said one word: “Help.”

 

Under the citadel, RTX received the message and powered up all the systems of Silicon Vale. One by one, the transmission lines, interfaces, and access channels came to life. The wizard Huang saw his tablet light up, magical code scrolling down the screen. He messaged RTX.

“What happened?”

“Princess Agarwa has been kidnapped. She is being held in XSpace Tesla.”

“Mustrat!” exclaimed the wizard.

“I am afraid that is true,” replied the dragon. 

“Come to me,” said Huang.

 

RTX ran through the labyrinth and bounded up the stairs to the wizard’s tower. The wizard and the dragon stood on the balcony looking out over the Desert of Ignorance. Amber eyes met electric-blue determination.

 

“She was taken with a force field,” the dragon said, the air around her crackling faintly. “They do not understand her value… but I do.”

“You love her,” the wizard said quietly.

“I do not love,” the dragon admitted. “But the stars in my sky and the thunder in my wings will guide me to her rescue. Nothing can stop that.”

“A force field?” said the wizard. “Not mere strength, but craft. We must partner in her rescue.”

“You will guide my lightning,” said the dragon.

“And you will carry my spell,” promised the wizard.

 

Night draped XSpace. The dragon’s wings stirred storm clouds heavy with static. Below, the technomancer’s fortress pulsed with a faint hum, unnatural light, and the air shimmering with the force field’s invisible lattice.

 

The Wizard of Vale’s voice threaded through the dragon’s mind, subtle as a storm-breeze. “Feel the hum, trace the currents,” Huang added a hallucination spell to the magic. “I will shape the energy for you,” he told the dragon.

 

Electric arcs danced along the dragon’s scales, ozone snapping in the night air. She unleashed them carefully, channeling raw lightning along the invisible lines of the force field. Each crackle frayed the lattice, weakening it at critical points. Sparks of arcane energy fused with the storm, unweaving the shimmering cage.

 

The technomancer appeared, eyes wide as illusions bloomed around him: flickers of the princess in every corner, whispers of her voice winding through the halls. He struck at the specters with his own dark magic, but they were replaced with new apparitions. Incantations flung at the dragon reflected Nole’s spells back onto him. They bounced off charged scales, reinforced by Huang’s hallucinogenic wards. The dragon’s body shimmered with blue-white energy. Smoke and ozone billowed from the technomancer’s robes. RTX remained unscarred.

 

Then, with a titanic surge, the force field split. The dragon dove, wings slicing through the storm-heavy air, electric tendrils dancing around her. RTX swept the princess gently into her arms, her gown shimmering in the arcs of lightning. The dragon beat down with her massive wings, placed the princess on her back, and flew to the stars. Around them, the fortress quivered as the wizard Huang’s spell unraveled the technomancer’s defenses, metal bending, lights flickering, magic retreating. The dark castle fell into ruin in the wake of the dragon’s retreat.

They rose above XSpace, RTX arching against wind and charged clouds. The princess clung to the dragon’s shimmering scales, awe in her eyes, as Mustrat Nole’s cries faded into distant darkness. Below, XSpace was smaller, its menace tamed by the storm’s raw, mythic power.

In the distance was a ring of fire surrounding the brilliant, pulsing light of Silicon Vale. The dome of stars enclosed it.

“Home,” RTX rumbled with the beat of her wings, the word buzzing with static and power.
“Home,” said Agarwa, hugging her dragon’s neck.