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Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

A young man spilling coffee on a young woman's shoe.

"whoops."

Flash

Fate

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

She missed the bus and cursed the sky. A man at the bus stop spilled coffee on her shoe. Hestammered an apology, offered a napkin… Read More

Santa Claus reading a letter from a child.

"Are you kidding me?"

Flash

Santa Bans AI-generated Letters

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories, Brevity is the Soul, Dark Humor, flash fiction, Micro Satire 9 months

After receiving millions of letters that were obviously not written by youngsters–who generally don’t use terms like “plausible deniability”–Santa Claus has declared that he will… Read More

"The gold standard."

Flash

Sundown

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

Sundown colors the sky in soft crimson. The world exhales slowly. Shadows stretch and lengthen. Birds hush. A golden light kisses rooftops. It’s a daily… Read More

"WTF?"

Flash

Stop ‘n’ Go

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

The old traffic light at the corner of 5th and Main blinked erratically. Drivers hesitated, unsure. A child waiting to cross looked up, puzzled by… Read More

"I'm not a damn hockey puck."

Flash

Promotion Denied

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

The email began, “Promotion Denied.” Are you kidding me? I’ve been working like a caffeinated Roomba in cleaning season! Overtime, missed weekends, even smiled at… Read More

"Nobody will know they aren't Ray-Bans."

Flash

“Somebody Call Guinness”

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

The sandwich had its own ZIP code. It included bacon, brisket, pickles, peanut butter, and a fried egg wearing sunglasses. Marvin took one bite and… Read More

"Drill and driver, sounds like a match made in heaven."

Flash

Spit for Brains

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

He installed the shelf upside down. Again. “Spit for brains,” muttered Karen, watching Matt wield a drill like it was a medieval weapon. The instructions… Read More

“Who needs roads when you have waves?

Flash

The Repo Man

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

Todd, the repo man, had one rule: never feel bad. Then he saw “Wet Regret,” a neon-pink jet ski with a bumper sticker reading, “My… Read More

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.