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    115 Jet Stories for Your Briefcase
    115 Jet Stories for Your Briefcase
    115 Jet Stories for Your Briefcase
    Ebook198 pages2 hours

    115 Jet Stories for Your Briefcase

    By Coleen Cain

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    About this ebook

    The storytelling gifts of Coleen W. Cain are her gifts to you. When she conceived of this book, Ms. Cain had the idea that these quick stories would help travelers pass away the time on the airplane, in airports, or during those passive waiting periods that occur in ordinary business dealings.

    There are 115 stories in this softcover volume, yet it fits in your breifcase or handbag. Here's a typical story about Georgia Hempel who was upset with glorious thoughts while she awaited her husband's arrival from work. It's called, "Shining With Secrets." At three o'clock that afternoon the doctor had assured her she was pregnant with triplets. But how had that happened? Someone in the Gynocology Clinic must have impregnated her with sperm of a donor instead of giving her a biopsy. Husband Don laughed outloud when she told him. The couple had a secret between them. He was impotent and they had agreed it was best to let it remain so.

    The stories average about 300 words each, are quick and to the point. They were written in ten or five minute flashes each and come to you unedited, just as the author wrote them.

    They contain humor, wisdom and irony from Ms. Cain's travels across the United States, China, and Fantasis Land. Good for revealing the American soul and stimulating your own imagination. Also, 115 JET STORIES FOR YOUR BRIEFCASE makes a unique gift for your friends.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTrafford Publishing
    Release dateJan 30, 2012
    ISBN9781466912052
    115 Jet Stories for Your Briefcase
    Author

    Coleen Cain

    Coleen W. Cain is a native of Iowa and she holds her B.A. degree in Journalism. She is listed as a Writer/Educator in the Marquis Who's Who in America. She is the author of BETH BAUER'S ENJOY CHINA MORE or How To Relate To The Chinese People, a travel handbook. She also voiced its 90-minute audio cassette tape, ENJOY CHINA MORE, which includes the putonghua pronunciation of the Glossary in pinyin. Two of her historical World War II novels in a series will come out in 2003, both in hardback, softcover and online. They are: WILD BLUE and GLORY AFTER THE WAR. Ms. Cain's journalistic assignments have taken her across the United States as newspaper editor for the metropolitan Huntsville Times, Huntsville, Alamama; reporter-photographer for the Sammamish Valley News, Redmond, Washington; and as a feature writer for other newspapers. On another assignment, she wrote copy and scripts for the Mutual Radio Station, KGKL, in San Angelo, Texas. More recently, over a period of two and one-half years, Ms. Cain became a foreign news correspondent from Beijing, PRC, when she wrote a weekly column for the Op-Ed Page of the Bellevue Journal-American, Bellevue, Washington. She is now in her seventh year as instructor for Writer's Tune Up, a critique class at the North Bellevue Community Center, Bellevue, Washington.

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      Book preview

      115 Jet Stories for Your Briefcase - Coleen Cain

      THAT’S THE REASON

      Everyone says if there’s an action, there’s a reaction.

      I wonder if Einstein really believed that. He must have, because he was always figuring with numbers that made solutions. The formulae came up with answers. Is that an action in action?

      On the other hand, he found that the universe’s energy and gravity and light and dark were all relative.

      Well, I have relatives!

      And they’re truly superior beings who, no matter what their level of education, became stars in their own galaxies.

      Take my sister, Gene Kingery, for instance. She was a classy jazz musician, but had only one year of piano lessons. Or take my niece, Judy Shanafelt. She was a dancer and learned as a child by attending the 1930s movies. And take my mother, Susan Walters Cain. She became a renowned artist in San Clemente, California and had only a drawing book and a few oils given to her on her sixty-fifth birthday. I could go on, but where does the action and reaction idea go?

      In my relatives’ lives there seemed to be little reaction but a great deal of action. Perhaps there is a lesson here. I became a writer of novels and was taught that for every scene there must follow another scene in which a decision or response is made.

      What about the free-for-all characters without any formula or structure? Isn’t this possible, like the gypsy music of the Hungarian violinists?

      I think Einstein was indeed that kind of violinist because he’s smiling at me.

      What’s the reason?

      That’s the reason.

      DARKNESS FELL ACROSS THE LAND

      The horror of darkness fell across the land.

      This caused a quandary, not only for all types of transportation: the trains, the buses, the mammoth trailer trucks, the Coast Guard cruisers, the freighters, the commercial airplanes, the private automobiles, the bikers, the skateboarders, but also the birds, the cats, the dogs, and even the intelligent cougars became confused, running wild in California and Western Washington, scaring the thick population so that howling, growling, gasping, yowling animal and human voices augmented by the screeching and cawing of song birds, crows, and quacking and honking of ducks and geese joined in the cacophony of honking cars and whoo-whoo blowing of electric train warnings.

      The darkness came unannounced and it was unprecedented. It was not a sun eclipse. Amid all this chaos and horror, as if on signal, everything and everyone stopped. They stared at one another, unseeing in the dark. Helpless, scared, they wanted to save their own lives.

      It was better to wait this thing out.

      Then in the terrified silence, there came heavenly music and the darkness lifted.

      There was a great jazz band in the sky from New Orleans, leading a multitude of African American singers and dancers who were strutting across the heavens, coming down to bring joy to the land.

      TOUCH AND TORCH

      He claims that touch and torch are one and the same.

      What was wrong with his big paper clip? It wouldn’t bend when he strove to open the vial of new energy pills that was encased in hard plastic. What the heck! Maybe his muscles were going, weakening, and he had some kind of terrible disease like Lou Gehrig …. maybe not. But he needed these pills.

      His computer was down and he’d have to use his old IBM typewriter to get his New York Times article written and mailed off by tomorrow morning.

      Worried, striving to straighten out the paper clip, Harold didn’t realize that not only his muscles in his fingers were weak, but his brain muscle had atrophied as well.

      His brain was the seat of his miraculous mind. Like the wind, thoughts wandered from Egyptian times in 250 B.C. when Ptolemy II authorized explorers to find the new world and they were the first ones to land on the west coast of what became Mexico. But the trouble was, they never returned with the gold. The gold! The gold!

      All he needed to do was get into this bottle. These pills were pure gold, the alchemy that would cure his debilitating, waning power.

      He jabbed his thumb and the blood flowed. Yelling, he sucked his thumb. The red, hot blood revived him.

      Full of energy and spark, he turned on the IBM and wrote his article. It was an instant success, all about how no one should depend upon pills.

      Power is within the individual, he wrote.

      Ptolemy must have known that all along. He had torches but he never touched bottles of pills.

      HE WAS HER BOND

      Bonds were kept in black steel boxes with locks, and these were placed in the bottom of a one-drawer filing box in the closet of her child’s room.

      Amy Childress had accumulated pearls, amethyst and jade jewelry from the Orient, and much more, such as diamonds, zircons, turquoise and garnets.

      Her Japanese husband was an executive in banking and Amy met him when she was Vice President of the West-Orient Bank in Portland, Oregon. They were well suited, since both worked long hours and both believed in accumulation.

      They accumulated gemstones, gold coins, paintings, Chinese scrolls, first editions, and even a sharp little baby boy who took up the collecting habit with glee.

      First, it was Toyotas, from toys to the big automobiles. Then it was trains, from toys to gliding cars on air and it was in this way that he met an inventor. Kachiko was impressed with Aaron Phizz.

      This man was certain the world would become overpopulated and soon cars and trains would be obsolete. He proposed to provide airways for airplanes, leaving areas of schematics for persons with their own private jets, which would propel them quickly from place to place. All safe, or would they be?

      Kachiko’s place was to see these individuals had good, reliable insurance. He formed a company with the help of his father.

      And Amy Childress, his mother, was the first to fly like Buck Rogers from Portland to Anchorage, Alaska. She bought City of Anchorage bonds and returned with them.

      When she returned, flying down at the Portland Airport, she was hailed by the Mayor and a cheering crowd.

      Kachiko and his friend, Aaron Phizz, greeted her. She handed her son the bonds and he said, I am your bond, Mother. From now on you are free to fly wherever you wish. I’ve designed the flyways and if your jet should fail, you can always hitch a ride on a Canadian goose. They have marvelous flyways, you know. Guaranteed!

      WE HAD TO MOVE

      We had to move. My mother said something about bad blood and the cold.

      Here it was March and 20 degrees below zero with a wind that when it snowed became a vicious blizzard. No one should be out in it.

      Yet the cattle had to be tended; water, hay, cleaning out the barn.

      Chester asked his teenage boy, Wendell, to help him. When they got out to the barn, they counted the Jersey milch cattle and found only five. Where were the other ten?

      Chester swore and said he’d have to go after them or lose his fortune.

      No, Dad, Wendell said. "I know where they’ll be down in the holler. I’ve got my sheepskin hat and coat on. You stay here.

      I’ll go."

      Oh, all right. But don’t stay out too long. Give me a holler and I’ll get this barn door open for you when you drive them in.

      Wendell wrapped a woolen scarf around his face, covering his nose and mouth, ducked his head, and slammed through the side door.

      He waded through the drifts and thought he saw a movement off to the right. He turned that way. It was Buster, his loyal shepherd dog, running ahead. That made him feel good. Buster would find the cattle for him.

      They fought through the hollering wind and snow, sometimes hollering back just to keep up their spirits.

      Then suddenly, Buster went down.

      Wendell caught up to where he had disappeared. He couldn’t find him. He searched, desperate, hollering and hollering. Tears trickled down his cheeks into icicles.

      He waded back to the barn and told his father, Buster’s gone!

      Where’re the cattle?

      From that day when the cattle and the faithful dog, Buster, froze to death, there was bad blood in the family. My mother said we had to move.

      LOVE COMES WITH LITTLE HANDS

      It wasn’t that no one really loved him. Tristan just felt isolated when his folks were gone from the house and he was left alone to attend to the telephone.

      It was a good thing he’d learned how to take messages. At seven, Tristan was a model of efficiency. His parents expected this much.

      The telephone waffled its musical tone.

      Hello! a gruff voice answered, then rattled off a sentence about a truck.

      I’ll take a message, Tristan said. My father’s working out in the yard.

      It’s not necessary. I happen to know he isn’t home. And you’re there alone.

      Tristan’s heart fluttered, then it beat rapidly and he breathed hard. He hung up.

      What should I do? I’ll lock all the doors and windows. No!

      I’ll go next door to the old lady’s house and see if she’ll let me in.

      He dashed about. No! That won’t do! She’s sick. I’ll just run away. That’s what! No one can find me!

      He put on his bluejacket and fled, running to the corner. A police car rolled slowly by, the cops looking around. Tristan tried to hide behind a lamppost.

      He waited for the patrol car to pass. Then he walked down the street. He put his hand in his pocket and drew out some change. Forty cents. Could he take a bus? Or should he stop by a drug store for a snack?

      I’d better take the bus, he told himself. He looked up. There it is now! He ran to the bus stop and caught the bus.

      To be inconspicuous, he went all the way back and sat down beside a young girl and her mother.

      The little girl smiled at him. Then she opened her coat, and with a secret giggle, she showed him the quivering face of

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