One nice thing about my iTouch is that I can carry it outside and play in the garden while catching up on listening to fun stories like “Sleepy Joe,” by Marc Laidlaw. This amusing story got a fabulous reading on Escape Pod.
Rog and Megan work for the overbearing Szilliken Sharpenwright in a law office. Sharpenwright gets an unusual sentry for the office, a disabled veteran who sits unblinking in his omnichair, watching for something to happen.
Rog loves the old soldier and showers attention on him. Megan mostly tries to speak as the Voice of Reason in her vain attempts to put the brakes on Rog’s hair-brained schemes. This leads to plenty of laughs. Under the laughs there’s some thoughtful commentary about the difficulties that arise when we forget that soldiers and veterans are people, too.
Writing Every Day 