Michael Beres

Around the World in 44 Years

2011-09-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

After all these years the bug has finally made it home. It wasn't easy. Odysseys are never easy. Why should they be? During the Cold War, and later, in Ukraine, driving near the exclusion zone, the bug was exposed to radiation. Japan is another story. The earthquake there was long after the bug had completed a cargo ship journey. I owned a similar 1967 bug a half-life ago. This one is in better condition and took decades to reach me. One of its owners put it in storage for some years. Another passed away after disassembling the engine, guts strewn on a garage floor five years after the owner's passing. I have chosen to adorn the bug with original bumper and hubcap jewelry, celebrating its junket to me.

25 Years

2011-04-26T05:23:00.000-07:00

Will we have one of these things every 25 years? If we sign on to wind and solar now, at least we will have done something to spare future generations from these terrible mistakes.

Styrofoam

2011-03-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

Although from opposite sides of the aisle, newly elected representatives Mary and Tom often had lunch together in the House Cafeteria. Nothing political, but they both drank tea.
"Ahha," said Tom recently at the lunch counter, "Our new house leaders have seen fit to bring back the Styrofoam cups your party tossed in favor of the so-called green paper cups."
"In that case I'm switching to coffee," said Mary.
Tom laughed. "To protest our Tea Party, I assume?"
"No, I take lemon in my tea, and as any tea drinker knows, the acid eats away at the Styrofoam."
"Well then, I guess I won't have lemon in my tea," said Tom.
Yeah," said Mary. "Not having lemon is a little thing. Maybe you could one-up Obama's We Do Big Things slogan."
"How's that?"
"We Do Little Things?"

Snowplow

2011-02-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

In rural Michigan where I live, truck plows are sometimes replaced by more serious plows. Oftentimes we humans find it necessary to use a larger stick or, as indicated by the color on this one, carrot. The driver of this carrot waved and smiled like mad as I ran out of the way with my camera. The dog is smarter than me, she stayed back up the driveway.

Why We Fight

2011-01-20T07:59:00.000-08:00

Here is a short short story (exactly 100 words) I wrote for a contest:

We Fight For Air

The armored vehicle is superheated, making breathing difficult, especially with diesel fumes seeping inside. When the radioman riding shotgun yells, "IED!" the lieutenant glances up toward the gunner's ivory tower.
"Anything?"
"Sky and sand! Wait! There it is!"
"Smoke?"
"Yeah!"
The lieutenant reaches between driver and shotgun, tracing a frantic circle with his hand, a fan made of flesh. When the vehicle lurches ahead, it seems a shockwave at first. But soon the lieutenant feels a fresh breeze from the ivory tower as they make speed. Breathing the breeze is a moment to be savored before their arrival in hell.

Orange Pekoe Revolution

2010-04-01T03:06:00.000-07:00

KIEV, UKRAINE — Despite the best efforts of humankind, revolutions are brewing throughout the world. A recent one in Ukraine has been dubbed the Orange Pekoe Revolution (OPR). OPR organizers credit right-leaning Teabaggers of the US for inspiration. An OPR spokesperson stated, "We want something, but we are not yet certain what this something is. However, if they know what is good for them, politicians must listen. Listening is what they must do. It is written in all constitutions and even on the walls of toilet stalls wherever the masses cry out. Please listen, for there is a distinct odor of discontent in the air!"

Sadly, today, while we in the US slept, except for those with restless leg syndrome, and despite the "common man and woman" appeal of the OPR message in Ukraine, tragedy has struck. Today, April 1, 2010, which comes earlier in Ukraine because of it being +GMT while we in the US are –GMT, OPR activists found themselves pelted with coffee beans thrown by irate left-leaning latte and mocha drinkers in upscale westernized Kiev.

The so-called "coffeeists" attacking the OPRs had dressed themselves as teabags, complete with dipping string and that paper "thingy" stapled to the end for a handle. The overlarge teabag thingies dangling from protesters contained signage with slogans such as: "Would you like that ground?" "No, I have my own grinder." When the hurling of dark roasted beans by "coffeeists" became violent, threatening to put out an eye, or worse, Kiev Militia herded the "coffeeists" off to makeshift jails set up in various city squares.

Unfortunately, in our globally warmed world, fountains in Kiev's squares are these days warmer than usual. Because of this warming, the protesters immediately jumped in and began steeping themselves, many of them longer than the recommended five minutes. Eventually the Kiev Militia was forced to wade in and make arrests. And this is when the fountain waters ran red with blood. It turns out the scrap metal used by the "coffeeists" to fashion the staples for their thingies had very sharp edges. The result? Several militia, leftist protestors and, tragically, even some of the right-leaning OPRs who had waded into the fray were injured.

Meanwhile, back in the US, as the dateline of April 1, 2010 crossed our shores, an association dedicated to defending the Second Amendment of our own constitution put out a press release stating: "Staples on teabag thingies do not injure people; leftist liberal criminals dressed as teabags injure people." A liberal media website quoting the press release showed an elderly man, somewhat reminiscent of the organization's past president, holding an assault rifle aloft and stating in dramatic balloonage dialogue, "Coffee, Tea . . . or Me!" Standing behind the elderly man was a sneering "coffeeist" complete with Cold War hammer and sickle on his teabag chest. The unabashed "coffeeist" pinched his nose with finger and thumb as he stared at the backside of the iconic leader of one of our nation's most nontrivial organizations.

Is it any wonder there are revolutions when world heroes such as this are caricatured? As one of the OPR activists with bandaged arm back in Kiev said so eloquently, "If we are not heedful, soon we will be getting Chernobyl soil in teabags, and this will turn us all into monkeys."

Author’s Note: Ukrainians celebrate April Fool’s Day with parades, pranks, and other festivities. The city of Odessa, not Kiev, is considered the Humor Capital.

Little Debbie

2010-03-01T07:29:00.000-08:00

Here in Michigan, snack cakes called Little Debbies are quite popular. Debbie’s cute freckled face and engaging smile on each wrapper make even a cynic like me smile until the day I see her delivery truck being towed backwards with its rear axle completely gone. A tow truck dragging Little Debbie down the pot-holed highway says a lot about the earth. We've eaten too much, there are too many of us, and we lack resources to maintain our infrastructure.
When I pull to the right of the rig at a stoplight, Little Debbie's driver, hitching a ride in the tow truck passenger seat, stares down at me with sadness on his face as thick as cream filling. As the light turns green and the tow truck surges ahead, I imagine Little Debbie, emblazoned on the side of the truck, winking seductively. In a mile or so we pass a cemetery where a crew is at work digging a hole in the still frozen Michigan soil. I’ve let the tow truck move ahead, and now Debbie’s image on the rear end of the truck maintains the smile despite road grime pasted to her face, hiding the innocence of her freckles.

SATELLITE NIGHT

2010-02-01T08:26:00.000-08:00

This summer, Jeremy, my next-door neighbor, stands outside on hot nights near his satellite dish mounted to a pole in the yard and speaks to the sky. I see him from my bedroom window. He is silhouetted against ground lighting in the distance. Sometimes Jeremy’s fists gesture skyward as if in anger; other times his hands plead like a black swan flapping its wings to begin flight. We live near an O’Hare Airport flight path, but it’s late and quiet.
During the day Jeremy is an ordinary guy who commutes to his day job in Chicago, cuts the lawn on weekends, tinkers with an old Harley Davidson motorcycle he rarely rides in the early evening before dark, and does some gardening with his wife—a buxom woman who wears sweat-stained halter tops of various colors and complains vehemently about climate change. A woman who must wonder to whom her husband is speaking in the yard while she lies, I can only assume, naked beneath a thin top sheet. Unlike our house, theirs does not have air conditioning and it must be stifling inside.
I’m worried about Jeremy; tonight I have decided to confront him. I grab two cold bottles of water from the fridge, step out into the world of humidity, insects, and a hazy overcast sky with not a star in sight. I elbow spider webs away from my face while walking between trees bordering our yards, and say, “Hey, man.”
Jeremy answers, “Hey,” turns toward me, takes the water bottle, clicks open its security cap, and looks back to the sky.
“What’s up?” I ask, giving him a nudge. His arm is moist and hot.
“Nothing,” says Jeremy. “That’s why I’m out here . . . to ask God what became of the promises.”
“Promises?” I ask.
“Yeah. When small satellite dishes were announced years ago, promoters said there would be channels for every interest. If you were a sculptor, you’d have a channel. If you were interested in rebuilding motorcycles, you’d have a channel . . . and I don’t mean these repeats of guys with tattoos and facial hair building six-figure choppers. It’s supposedly reality TV. But the reality is, they feed repeats of cheaply-made, camera-zooming, voice-over junk to us and we wear out our remotes. They buy the rights to a few cheap movies and . . . Oh what’s the use?”
I wait for a second, then ask, “So, you’re talking to God about this?”
Jeremy takes another swig of water and wipes his mouth before responding. “Did you know my name is short for the Hebrew, Jeremiah, which means ‘Jehovah is up high?’”
“Uh . . . no.”
Jeremy has turned toward me, and I swear I smell wine on his breath. He looks back to the overcast sky. “Everyone in the world watches the same junk,” he says, raising his water bottle to the sky. “I command television be changed! I want my thousand channels!”
As if in answer, a FedEx flight, probably carrying hundreds of dishes and receivers for the two satellite monopolies, cruises over for a landing, its lights piercing the haze.

Free Refills

2010-01-26T08:13:00.000-08:00

Knowing they could get free coffee refills, the homeless young couple was as careful with their cups as they were with their clothing. They did not drink their morning coffee from the paper cups provided by the chain lest the edges became worn and roughened so a plastic lid would not stay put. Instead, whenever they did come up with enough change to afford coffee with breakfast, the couple took turns leaving the restaurant as if going to the washroom, but instead went to the old van in which they lived and poured the coffee into a thermos they stored on the center console that was usually warm in the morning sun depending on the weather and the way they parked.
This particular morning, as the young woman reentered a McDonald’s in a small central Michigan town where the rumor that day jobs were available turned out to be false, one of the regulars, a coffee klatch senior, approached from behind with his empty cup. He was tall but slow and didn’t catch up with her until she was already in line for her free refill. His voice was like a whisper catching its breath beneath the brim of his baseball cap.
“Lady?”
She turned. “Yes?”
The old man, at least eighty, held out a shaky fist closed tight like the game in which one guesses which hand will contain the prize. But in this case there was only one choice. “Me and the guys and ladies over there are retired. We got pensions—”
“So?”
“So, we wanted you and your friend—”
When he hesitated, she said, “I call him my sidekick.”
The old man smiled. “Yeah, your sidekick. I like that. Anyway, we want you to have something because we’ve been discussing the situation and—Well, we got newer cars at discount before Detroit lost its way. We saw your van and we figured you can’t get free refills of gas—Anyway, here.”
The young woman held out her free hand. The old man opened his fist and a wad of warm bills weighing as much as one of the sparrows feeding out at the dumpsters fell into her palm. The old man smiled and turned to walk back to the far side of the restaurant where at least a dozen old men and several old women also smiled, but tried not to make a show of it. When the young woman returned to the table where her sidekick sat, he stood and gave her a gentle kiss, careful not to rub his day-old beard against her soft cheeks.
Out in the parking lot another van pulled in, but it was a newer van that had not come from the direction of the day labor lot behind the closed public library, and the seniors resumed whatever coffee klatch conversations they had interrupted.

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

2010-01-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

January 11 is human trafficking awareness day. To those held captive--may you escape to a peaceful world.

TRAFFYCK, GPS, AND THEOREMS – Part IV, The End

2009-12-23T09:32:00.000-08:00

This is the nightmare—watching the professor prove a theorem, not understanding the proof, copying every character into our spiral notebooks, and acting like we understand, even though everyone in class agrees, before finals, the only way to pass is to memorize the proofs and write down exactly what the professor scratched out on his green board before sauntering back to the left side of the room, erasing as he goes, saying, “I hope . . . you’ve all . . . gotten it . . . down,” with the same grin he wears on his face this sunny Saturday morning as the wake of privet clippings stretches and his sunburned skull invites melanoma. Finally, he disappears around the corner of his front hedge, the orange snake following him like an eel, and I ask the GPS lady to take me home. As she directs me, I imagine her stating a case for gun control and wagging her wiry finger my way. I tell the GPS lady the hedge trimmers looked quite sharp and could have taken off at least a finger or two. But the GPS lady is adamant as she says to me sternly that she is recalculating my route because I have missed my turn.
Moral: One should only murder old professors in fiction.
THE END

TRAFFYCK, GPS, AND THEOREMS – Part III

2009-12-13T08:07:00.000-08:00

Even though twenty years have passed, the professor looks much the same as when he wore sport coat and chalk-smudged tie. He is a short, bald man, having gone to tiptoes to fill the upper recesses of the green board, his white socks flashing with the speed of his dance. Now, as the professor reaches to trim the hedge’s raised ends, white heels flash from his flip-flops like the insides of oysters in the sun. It is a difficult reach, holding the trimmer level to sculpt the hedge ends just so. As I sit in my car with the window up listening to the muted sound of the hedge trimmer, the GPS lady, apparently having thought long and hard about my earlier question about others having nightmares, or perhaps hearing the whir of the hedge trimmer, asks me to repeat my destination.
... To be continued

TRAFFYCK, GPS, AND THEOREMS – Part II

2009-11-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

As you may recall, I had embarked on a Saturday morning journey, following directions given by the GPS lady hidden within the electronics of my new car. When I reached my destination, a mere nine miles from my house, I parked on the far side of a street of stately homes and watched the man I knew to be my former numerical analysis professor trimming his front privet hedge with an orange electric hedge trimmer powered through an orange wire snaking out onto the front sidewalk where privet clippings had begun piling up. I asked the GPS lady how many other math majors from my alma mater had begun awakening on Saturday morning only to be ambushed by the nightmare of our math professor scratching his chalk at the green board, filling the board from left to right with a theorem proof they think will mean nothing to their lives, yet has created a terrible moment of panic on a particular morning when rest from a week’s work is sorely needed. I'm sure many of you can relate to this festering nightmare and my hatred of a particular pedagogue from the deep recesses of my past.
... To be continued

2009-11-12T13:53:00.000-08:00

Traffyck, GPS, Hedge Trimming, and Theorems -- a short story in parts

On a sunny Saturday morning, after drinking an entire pot of coffee in the cool breeze of my north-facing back porch, I wash up, dress, and go into my garage where the GPS unit awakens to the sound of my voice. My old car had a portable GPS suctioned to its windshield like a tongue, but did not have voice recognition and fell off whenever I parked in the sun. I enunciate the address I have found on an alumni people-finder site to the GPS lady and she starts me off on my journey through time in my new car. I ask if there are any traffic problems and she says there are not. Little does she know that when I vocalized the word "traffic," inside my head I visualized the all caps form of the title of my new novel, TRAFFYCK.
...to be continued

TRAFFYCK just Released

2009-11-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

I am posting once more today because I just linked this blog to my new Author Page on Amazon.

2009-11-04T07:40:00.000-08:00

Here is the cover for the new novel just released. Medallion put the quote I received from Jeffery Deaver on the cover. Jeffery was very kind to me at a Mystery Writers of America convention earlier this year and agreed to read a pre-release. He read some chapters overnight at the convention and approached me the next day when we were on a panel together saying he really liked the novel and my style. I was very flattered. I'm sure you can't read the fine print on the cover to the left, so here it is:

"As chilling as Kiev in winter, TRAFFYCK is a thrilling tale of crime and geopolitics, leaping from Ukraine to the U.S. and back again. Populated with complex and appealing--or terrifying--characters, the story offers up a glimpse of life in a ruthless but little-known underworld, in which specters from the past--among them Chernobyl--arise at every turn."

~Jeffery Deaver, Worldwide Best-Selling Author of THE BONE COLLECTOR

TRAFFYCK (Lazlo Horvath Thriller)

2009-11-03T05:44:00.000-08:00

TRAFFYCK—sequel to CHERNOBYL MURDERS (Lazlo Horvath Thriller) "While researching this serious topic, the terror of victims and families became real. If one compassionate and vigilant reader meeting brave rescuers helps to save one victim, this will be enough." ~ Michael Beres

"As chilling as Kiev in winter, TRAFFYCK is a thrilling tale of crime and geopolitics, leaping from Ukraine to the U.S. and back again. Populated with complex and appealing—or terrifying—characters, the story offers up a glimpse of life in a ruthless but little-known underworld, in which specters from the past—among them Chernobyl—arise at every turn."~ Jeffery Deaver, Worldwide Best-Selling Author of The Bone Collector

Fat Man

2009-03-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

One day, a large man appeared in the town square down the street from the local McDonald's where he had just eaten a breakfast special. Free coffee refill in hand, he mounted the soapbox put in the square for anyone wanting to use it. Some said the man was large because he wore many layers of clothing for our devastating winter. Others said this was not the case because of the thickness of his neck and head. He claimed his name was Clark Kentinger, or something like that. Everyone knew it was a phony name, but they gave him a listen. While he spoke with his echo-chamber-like voice, the man bounced from side to side, as if confined against his will inside an isolation booth saved from a 50s television game show where one contestant is asked questions and the other is not supposed to hear until it is his or her turn. The bouncing, some guessed, was a code, sending messages to others in isolation booths throughout the land. In this way, the large man is able to communicate messages unspoken concerning topics agreed to be off limits in the town and in surrounding towns. At the end of the day, the large man bounded out of town, leaving coffee stains on the soapbox surface, and has not been heard from for at least a day, an eternity on these media-savvy times. The effects of his bouncing about in our town are still felt, especially among fans who snigger within their own individual isolation booths. These isolation booths are hard to carry around and I feel sorry for those who force themselves into them. Sometimes, when voicing opinions at morning coffee klatches, they have to speak up in order to be heard and it's hard on their vocal cords.

Dial Up

2009-03-03T07:15:00.000-08:00

I have dialup internet out in the woods. The squirrels in the trees outside are faster. So, I will start up Word and work on my next novel.