Short Happy Stories

Volume 2 is now available! The book contains 50 stories. Order here, or inquire at a bookstore.

Through Fog

The train advances—shakily, loudly—through dense white morning fog.

The uncomfortableness of this ride is very reassuring: your typical feeling of disconnection is gone: you feel extremely connected with the loud shaking train: you and everything you can perceive are simply one thing.

The shaking stops and the loud sounds are replaced with silence.

What you sense: the train is now falling through fog.

Through a blankness.

Into water!

Fortunately no water is rushing into the train—at least not into your carriage—but… the train definitely is sinking. You wonder if you should be doing something specific. Something that will allow you to survive. You’re somehow not concerned. Nobody here seems concerned. Some people are still reading their newspapers.

Which is stupid because the windows, which previously showed only fog, now show orange and light grey and yellow and light blue fishes. Each fish is the size of a hand. Each fish has a unique distribution of the four colors: individuality you admire.

The colorful fishes—maybe because the train has reached a certain depth—are now gone.

How deep are you?

A forest sways, caresses the sinking train. The leaves are so gentle against the windows. Like soft music.

A nose-against-window realization: the forest is not a forest, but masses of green seahorses. They’re amazing! They really look like leaves!

But… they’re no longer caressing the train…

No: they’re now ramming their green heads against the train. Or… are they using their heads? It’s hard to tell how the aggressive contact is made, since the seahorses are so close together and swimming around so speedily. Ever more speedily, it seems. Specific parts of the seahorses really can’t be seen. Individuals don’t seem to exist.

Yes: the swarm’s attack is scary. How savagely they batter the windows! They were so recently so gentle… Why did they change?

A snap fills the space for only one tiny moment—but doesn’t leave without leaving something behind: an elegant thin line. In the closest window.

Suddenly a fast colossal chestnut-colored thing forcefully brushes a mass of seahorses away from that side of the train; and every visible seahorse gallops into invisibility. All that can be seen out there is water—and not too much of it, because the light going out of the train doesn’t go too far.

Suddenly a gargantuan upside-down face is out there, staring straight at you, through the cracked glass. It’s the face of… a squirrel?

The carriage jolts. The giant sea squirrel is now fully visible and moving away from your sinking window. Moving by waving colossal fluffy tail from side to side. That colossal fluffy tail must be what brushed away the green seahorses. That colossal fluffy tail is very useful! But… that colossal fluffy tail is, obviously, submerged in water… so… how is that colossal fluffy tail so fluffy?

As the giant sea squirrel disappears a voice fills the space and you open your eyes and see your station. Almost before you know what you’re doing you’re on your feet. Will you make it off the train before the doors close?

The doors close right in front of your eyes and the train begins to take you where you don’t want to go.

Undeniable failure. What a way to start a week.

Your reflection floats in fog.

You realize you’re holding your breath. You decide to keep holding your breath until you step off the train. You do not know why this is appealing. It just is.

You are holding your breath. You are holding your breath.

By the time the doors open you are already breathing again. Another failure!

You go down some stairs, walk across a floor, go up some stairs. You are now on the other side of the tracks.

Before your mistake, you would have arrived a bit early. After your mistake, you will be late. Impressions of you will shift.

Individuals—each a mysterious world—are scattered across these opposing platforms. Beyond which fog obscures everything.

How did you end up in this exact spot? You fell asleep on the train. You obviously didn’t intend to fall asleep on the train—and that has never happened to you before… What’s especially strange: unlike almost always, you actually felt refreshed and alert the moment you opened your eyes this morning, moments before your alarm went off. So… isn’t the fact that you fell asleep on the train… weird?

Maybe you were meant to fall asleep because you were meant to miss your stop because you were meant to be standing in this exact spot.

Could there be, somehow, an actual plan for you?

Fog all around, you’re thrilled by the thought that you could be standing extremely close to something important. Something that could change your life. For the better.

You must now search for The Unknown Something.

Wondering if one of the people on this platform is from your past, and perhaps part of your future, you walk around and examine faces as discreetly as possible.

No face is recognized.

As far as you can tell from here, you’ve never known anyone on the other platform, either.

Wondering if the answer is elsewhere—but also starting to wonder if you’re insane—you turn your back on the tracks and look out, expecting nothing.

But actually… over there… some fog is thinning out… slowly revealing… a couple of windows among bricks.

Fog disappears the bricks and the windows.

But now… a ways to the right and much higher up… some fog is thinning out… slowly revealing… a church steeple!

You believe that if you could see the view unobscured, you would see a hillside. Dotted with town.

Fog disappears the church steeple.

Slowly, as if with actual intention, more fragments of reality appear and disappear in fog.

A light blue automobile below a yellow awning.

A light grey bird on an orange-leaved tree.

A child and a mother.

As you wait for The Unknown Something—and, of course, the train—each fragment of reality floats for only a few moments: fog always prevails.

The train doors close. You notice a woman who seems to be sleeping. Could she be dreaming about a giant sea squirrel?

A Real Success

Over the course of the party, certain familiar faces said things you never would have expected, so those familiar faces suddenly almost seemed to belong to new people; and you also met actual new people, who seemed like portals to not-quite-imaginable possibilities; and absolutely everyone at the party seemed open, eager to share whatever entered mind; and though, now and then, someone would say something primarily intended to convey superior intelligence, to impress, everyone was used to that sort of thing and, to at least some extent, indulged in it.

All were young and happy.

By the end of the party, you just knew you were all deeply connected; knew you would all—individually and together—accomplish titanic things.

Now, years and years later, you only regularly communicate with two of those people.

You’re pretty sure nobody who was at that party has accomplished anything titanic.

You suspect that your younger self would consider your current self a failure.

But those two friends… They’ve sure made a difference in your life. If you’ve meant as much to them as they’ve meant to you… Well, that would be a real success.

Suburban Bossa Nova

The wind blows water and music and a smell and leaves and an idea.

The water—faint on your skin—comes from a sprinkler that keeps the grass green while making a rainbow with the sun.

The music—bossa nova—comes from the parked car in which someone waits as pleasantly as possible.

The smell—hamburgers on a grill—comes from the backyard where a family in a hard year is about to eat.

The leaves—big and orange—come from a tree far older than the street.

The idea—something that will keep you going—comes from… where?

The Responsibilities

Each responsibility is a pillow-sized stone. The young man has placed each stone on the ground, around his body. It isn’t bad: there aren’t very many stones, and his view of the big world is unobstructed.

Every once in a while a new responsibility materializes, in his hands, and must be placed somewhere. He wants to preserve his view of the big world—city skylines and mountains and so much more—by continuing to place responsibilities directly on the ground, but that approach would consistently make his responsibilities cover a larger and larger area, which would not be practical: if a responsibility is too far away from his body, he could fail to respond to a corresponding crisis with sufficient speed—and he doesn’t even want to think about some of the possible consequences.

So, no: the responsibilities really can’t be scattered all over the place. They really must be kept close. So, yes: he starts to stack them.

With stones stacked around his body, he now exists within a very defined circle; but it isn’t too bad because, turning, he can still see the big world the way he always has; the highest stone only goes a bit higher than his waist.

In the mornings he drinks coffee out of a heavy ceramic mug. Between sips he places the heavy ceramic mug on a stone and looks out, all around, sometimes pondering something he sees. Then he shifts his focus to the stones, the responsibilities, for however many hours are necessary. And then, often in a kind of daze, he raises his gaze, looks out, all around; and, when instinct advises, he raises a restorative—usually a beer—and takes a sip.

So, so nice. He persevered, for however many hours—and now he has a simple yet almost unbelievably satisfying reward. Gulp. Ah. Yes.

One day—a day just like his other recent days—he realizes something: My life is organized pretty perfectly.

But then another responsibility materializes.

And then another.

And now another.

And yet another!

There is always, before long enough, another stone to be stacked.

The current reality: to see over the circle wall, he has to get on his tiptoes.

When he started stacking stones, however long ago that was, it hadn’t occurred to him that he could ever have this many responsibilities. How exactly, he thinks, did all of this happen?

What he thinks next: No! No! No! I’m trapped!

Breathing faster than usual, intensely aware that he is actually encased in responsibilities, he believes he must figure out a way out. Because there’s a lot of interesting stuff out there, in the big world, just waiting to be appreciated.

Palms are placed on a top stone. As he inhales, preparing to push the stone off—I am, he thinks, on the verge of freedom—he notices, on the stretch of stone between his palms, a purple zigzag. The purple almost seems to leap out of the surrounding pale green.

A brilliant bolt of purple lightning, he thinks. How have I never been struck by that before?

Palms still on stone, he looks at the next stone down. This one is like a dying winter fire, in need of a log.

The next stone down is like a crashing wave.

His body turns, turns; eyes examine stone, stone… Each stone, each responsibility, is completely unique, and somehow worthwhile. How had he never looked at this circle wall in this way before? Had he been, all these years, rushing through his responsibilities?

With his new understanding… Well, he still has to get out of here. Because, if he were to stay, he too soon wouldn’t be able to see over the circle wall even on his tiptoes. To see the big world at all, he would need a ladder or some kind of tricky pulley system—neither of which seems appealing.

However… if he does get out now… leaving his job and wife and kids and other responsibilities behind…

This is crazy! Why would he run out into the big world? He’s already in the center of a very special world that he himself actually built.

A Summer Sunday Scene

Two ferries and more sailboats move in the sun, on blues and sparkling golds, tiny trees rejoice on the other side of the water while, over here, signs announce businesses and streets, banners wave, horns are blown and women sing and drums are drummed, a child spins, bicycle wheels spin, the Ferris wheel spins, a kiss is blown and helped along by the wind, which in its excitement disarrays numerous heads of hair and removes a hat—picked up and returned, with a smile, by a stranger—afternoon shadows continue to gain confidence, ice cubes continue to melt, a perfect strawberry rolls off a table, dice are rolled on a different table, Death upstages everything with excruciating volume: an ambulance is trying to save a particular life—how much time, a second or a century, will pass before the end?—but now that wailing memento mori is gone, space seems to expand, breathe, uncountable pleasant sounds are merging in the air into something always new, birds call and swoop, humans chatter and laugh while, way over there, the lone big mountain watches the approach of a lone little cloud and wonders, with hope, Are you a new friend?

Feel free to contact me at evanpellervo@gmail.com.