Short Stories About Retirement

8/13/2019 Short Stories About Retirement

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for you when you go home for the first time since you left for college

and you go in your bedroom and its not different you are


3/14

sand

bernard signed up to take a class on international relations at a local college because he was bored

and retired. honey, he said, i just signed up to take a class on international relations. after he said

this she walked out the door to their only car and drove away and never came back. he read the

newspaper for three hours assuming she would come back. four days later he called her on her cellphone but she didnt really know how to use it so she didnt answer and also she was never going to

come back. he sent an email to the professor of the class, stating that he would not be able to make

it because his wife left him and took the car with her and so he would like a refund. the professor

said that he was sorry but had no way to give him a refund. bernard took the professor to small

claims court but lost because he didnt really know what he was doing and it wasnt the professors

fault at all. bernard took the bus home from small claims court because he didnt have a car anymore

and took a shower when he got home and considered buying a dog and also the meaning of life.

then he went on the wikipedia page existential crisis. thirteen hours later bernard woke up at his

desk and the phrase professional organ donor was written on a notepad nine hundred times. then

he went out to his birdfeeder and filled it with sand. bernards neighbor saw this and said shit and

then went inside. two months later it was halloween. bernard dressed up as his estranged wife tohand out candy to the little trick-or-treaters. one of the parents of one of the kids said shit and then

took his group of children away to go to some other house. on thanksgiving bernard went to a deli

near his house and had a turkey sandwich. a few days before christmas he read the newspaper to

find that world peace had been achieved. bernard sent an email to the professor of class, stating that

he had invented world peace, and that he would no longer need a refund.


4/14

sundial

norm bought a boat on the internet during the fifth year of his retirement in june. the boat was mostly

blue and white and had a sticker that said this side up on it which was funny. he told his friends

about it while eating at a deli that they eat at weekly on tuesdays. john, rather impassionately, said,

norm, what were you thinking, you dont know how to sail because john is kind of an asshole andnorm did not know how to sail. when he got home norm bought a book on amazon.com on sailing.

then he called u-haul and rented a trailer to tow his boat to lake huron. after he brought the boat to

the haul in and the boat was all ready he got in and was ready to go. norm hit the boat on the side of

the dock a couple of times while he was trying to get his sails configured and then realized he didnt

have a keel so water was coming in and the boat was swamping and then the boat sank. norm went

home and cried for fourteen hours. then he went to sleep but never got to sleep so he got up and

watched informercials for twenty five minutes and then decided to go outside. norm then raked all

the leaves for the fall that he would have to do so he wouldnt have to do it later. for the next two

days he was seen taping all of the leaves back on to the trees by his neighbor who thought that was

weird. norm dug a hole about a foot in depth and six inches in diameter and put his watch in the hole

and buried it. then he found a flat rock and made a sundial and put it on his roof. later he was seenplacing his computer at the haul in on lake huron. later he was seen at the deli crying alone. john

was worried about his friend norm and so bought a book for him on birds called birds of america.

norm read the book two hundred and fifty six times. norm then declared that boats should have

wings and went to the patent office for a patent for a boat with wings. apparently it had already been

granted to fiat s.p.a. then norm dreamt of a sundial with wings and a keel. then norm went to the

notary to have his will done up and in it he requested this side up be written on his casket. the

notary thought this was funny.

(it doesnt matter which side is up if youre dead)


5/14

florida

neil, in his retirement, went to this one cafe every day. he bought a small coffee and occasionally a

piece of banana bread or something. neil was always writing stories based on the people around

him. one day, a small boy, maybe ten or twelve years old, noticed his writing. the boy asked, what

are you writing? to which neil responded stories. the boy asked, will you read me one? and soneil read a page out of his notebook. every day this same boy came to the cafe and asked for

another story. neil told his wife about it, and she said, thats nice and also a little bit weird. dont go

too far, and she was right because eventually it wasntjust one little boy but four boys and girls and

then ten and so on until there were troves of small children all listening to neils stories at the cafe.

one day, neil didnt go to the cafe because he was on vacation in florida. the first boy became the

storyteller, improvising a story on the spot. eventually, there were no listeners, for everyone wanted

to share a story and everyone thought they were important. when neil came back the next month he

found that all the children had left and were going about the streets trying to tell stories to anyone

who would listen but no one would listen and so they were getting discouraged because they

thought that people should listen and that thats how that works. neil continued writing his stories but

didnt tell them to anyone anymore because no one wanted to listen because everyone wantedeveryone else to listen because if everyone is important then no one is. neil found the whole thing

very interesting.


6/14

the ways of the slug

george picked up golf at age 65. he did his research on the internet and spent over three thousand

dollars on golf clubs, a bag, gloves, and so on, and went to the driving range every day for three

years, taking lessons intermittently. eventually, he became good enough that he decided to join a

country club. upon arrival george had to sign in and hand over an exorbitant membership fee. thenhe was taken to a back room where he was stripped of his clothing and then he realized that this

wasnt really a country club but actually kind of a cult. after adorning a large black robe and humming

the chant of the god tartarus, he was returned to the main room, where there was coffee and an

assortment of cookies for all the members. the members then educated george in the ways of the

slug, a guide to happy living. he was also taught the secret ways of dress of the believers of

tartarus, such as leaving every third eyelet on ones shoe empty, and folding the upper left corner of

ones collar slightly upward. he was forced to comply with these stringent regulations. eventually

george played a round of golf, where he utterly demolished his competitors. the members of the club

were so impressed that they decided to sacrifice him to tartarus because thats what youre

supposed to do to people that are really good at golf apparently. george ran out the front doors to his

twenty-year old pontiac and drove away and called the police but all the police members weretartarus-worshippers themselves so he tried to run away but it didnt work it was never going to work.

he left the county and then the state but he could only get so far on credit and how deep does this

conspiracy go and the police kept calling him on the phone and they were coming he couldnt get

away it was never going to work. poor george.


7/14

"miss you too," i say, knowing we both know that the good times cant last forever; its over,

resistance is useless; that though we miss each other, we will not make the sacrifices necessary to

overcome it, that i will never overcome it; your ghosts will follow me everywhere; that we, as our

memories, will be lost to time, and subject to decay and disintegration; its over, and i miss you, and

though this happens less and less often, it will never stop entirely; i will never stop and stand up

straight and forget like a strong adult should, and have faith in how things will be; the good times

cant last forever


8/14

ship in a bottle

morris was taught the piano at a young age. it was a skill he maintained somewhat throughout his

life, but he had peaked in high school, often playing with his friends in jazz groups. that was really

how he remembered high school, the music - and it was something he never got back; he never met

anyone who he loved to play with as much as calvin, david, john, art, etc. at the age of 87, morrissaw in the paper that his best friend from high school calvin jacobs had passed away. morris stared

directly across the room for two and a half days. then he went to his piano and took off all the keys.

then he built a ship in a bottle and shook it. then he bathed until the hot water ran out and dressed

and went to the funeral. at the funeral he realized he was the last of his high school friends alive and

he didnt recognize anyone there and thats not okay where did everybody go why was he the only

one left. morris sent emails to all his deceased friends. morris sent text messages to all his

deceased friends. morris wrote letters to all his friends. it was like on facebook when it says calvin is

typing except the message never comes and you keep waiting and waiting but its useless

because the message is never going to come. morris then took an axe to his piano and broke it and

set it on fire in his yard. he bought a new piano but from then on he only listened to other people

playing it, like his 6 year old granddaughter elsie. he loved the unsophisticated confident naiveimmature bold childish inspired creativity of her music that she would someday lose because she

was going to lose everything about herself just like he did. he loved elsie more than anything and

mostly he felt sorry for her.


9/14

birdhouse

al had had undiagnosed depression ever since his mid-life crisis. really the crisis didnt end, his self-

identity had been destroyed forever. al had been a carpenter, mostly building coffee tables and other

furniture. he was never fabulously wealthy, and so when his wife contracted a strange disease in her

fifties, he could not afford the experimental treatment. because of this, al always felt responsible forher death. this is when his depression became full-fledged. his identity was inevitably tied to her. it

isnt your fault, al was often told at church, you couldnt have done anything to stop it it was out of

your control, but of course he could have done something couldnt he have done anything to keep

her there. he felt as if he could never do anything right why did things like that have to happen it was

all his fault if he could only have borrowed just a little bit more money. when he retired he branched

out into more and more abstract pieces, including a 3/4 scale model of a tree made out of wood right

that he placed right next to a tree, a human-sized birdhouse, and an oven made out of wood that

was designed to catch fire if anyone attempted to use it. as al grew older, his pieces became more

and more simplistic, elemental, basic, out of necessity. he built a life size crucifix and attempted to

hang himself on it in his back yard. however, he did not account for his own weight on the crucifix,

and so it fell forwards, crushing him to death in the process. ironically his last piece served exactlythe purpose he had in mind for it, and yet he still had failed. it isnt your fault you couldnt have done

anything to stop it it was out of your control.


10/14

a digression on the wood oven

an oven in which all non-electrical components are made from wood. being

an oven, it will inevitably light itself on fire, thereby producing heat, accomplishing the task it was

designed for in its self-destruction.

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isntit beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?

isnt it beautiful?


11/14

isnt it beautiful?


12/14

katie

joe made a pact with his best friend in high school, julia, that if they were both unmarried at age forty

they would marry each other. even though he knew he had a slim chance of that happening, joe

seemed to be waiting for her. well, by the time age forty had arrived, julia had been married. joe told

her he was happy for her but really he had been waiting and how could she do that to him and sheknew it. joe never married. during retirement he found some of his old short stories that he had

written, most of which were okay. the most interesting one was a story about how a man in

retirement wrote a story to his high school sweetheart after she had married someone else after

making a pact to marry each other if they were unmarried at age forty. wow, joe thought.joe began

compiling his best stories and contacting publishing agencies to see if anyone would publish his

compilation, which he entitled short stories about retirement. they all said no. realizing that he only

really cared if julia saw the collection, he made one copy of each of his best stories and sent them to

her. then he wasnt sure if he should have done that and became very anxious and had t rouble

sleeping and he was always moving because he shouldnt have done that he just needed to walk

around why did he do that stupid stupid what was he thinking. two weeks later he got a letter in the

mail.


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"dear joe,

my mother always told me about you. it appears most of what she said was right, based on your

beautiful stories. my father left us when i was three years old, and she always thought about trying to

reach you, to reach out to you; she always talked about it but she never did. i truly wish she had. she

would have been so much happier, i think. i regret to inform you that my mother, julia, died three

years ago. im sorry you had to find out this way. if you would like to meet with me for any reason,

please get in touch.

best wishes,

katie


14/14

for what cannot become

comfortable with time?

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Short Stories About Retirement