The Ten-Minute Storyteller

This week we meet Mac. Mac’s on vacation. With his wife and teenage kids. They drove down to Duck on the Outer Banks. For a week of sun and fun.  Mac’s not happy. Mac dislikes vacations. Hates sitting around on his duff. But he has to tow the line. Can’t irritate the wife. Ruin it for the others.  The days grind on. Mac starts to ruminate. Recalls his spring break to Key West back when he was a senior in high school.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we meet Noah. Noah’s known loneliness. Been well acquainted. Knew it as a kid when his older sibs left the nest. Knew it in college freshman year without a bud in sight.  But he definitely didn’t expect to experience the emotion now. Not now as a middle-aged guy with a wife and three daughters. A crazy, chaotic life. Busy busy all the time.   But here she blows, that old foe loneliness, roiling through his head at three o'clock in the morning. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we meet Sam. The suits at corporate tell Sam to go home. Relax. Enjoy life. He no longer needs to report to the office.  Sam, baffled but delighted, heads home. Tells Shelley. She’s dubious. Wants the details.  “Chill, Shel,” Sam tells her. “It’s the new economy.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we meet Bull. Tim Bull. Bull was a heck of a high school athlete. Big. Strong. Fast.  Bull had a dream. He dreamed of a world without rancor. A world where cooperation, not competition, ruled the roost.  Bull’s middle age now, where Dreams go to die.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we meet PFC Andy Walker. When the IED exploded and ripped through the Humvee, PFC Walker, on his very first patrol, survived, but with his brain scrambled.   So now he walks. Walks and walks. Seven days a week. PFC Walker—another victim of The War.  Any War.  Every War.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we meet Carl. Carl’s made his dough. Occupies the corner office. He’s traveled the world. Bought the beach house and the fishing boat and the snazzy fleet of cars.  Too bad he hasn’t been able to escape the past. The war. The damn war. He’s tried everything but he can’t silence the explosions. The relentless explosions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A quirky minister who deliberately runs out of gas becomes a ritual to recruit parishioners. Vintage cars, staged breakdowns and roadside encounters fuel the storytelling. A faith crisis, marital betrayal and a biblical rationalization complicate his unusual habit.

This week we meet Bev. Not so very long ago Bev was single, happy and wild. Then 30 hit, maternal hormones raged, and, well, here we are. With hubby in the suburbs and four kids under three.   4 under 3! Yikes!   Will she make it? Survive the gauntlet? Hard to say. She’s already at wit’s end. And the day has only just begun. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we meet the Smites. The Smites have dough. A large portfolio. And an almost desperate need to travel, even during the height of the Covid scare in the late summer of 2020 when they decide to take a little trip to the Bahamas.  While up at MIT their only child, David, works eighteen hours a day on his messenger RNA research in the hope of finding a vaccine for the dreaded virusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we meet Gordon. Or Gordo as he prefers to be called. Gordo has a cushy job with the old man’s construction company. Record keeper for a big Port Authority job at the passenger ship terminals. Plenty of time to do his two favorite things: Read & Write. Gordo wants to be a novelist. Of import. A Twain. A Melville. A Marquez. But can he withstand the pressures? The family pressures. Peer pressures. Financial pressures. The Twins Pressures of Desire & Consumption. It’s a tall order. A tough task. He likes to think he’d rather be dead than give in to these pressures. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.