Fiction by Michael A. Kechula

My Pizza, My Love
by Michael A. Kechula

When a state inspector visited the orphanage, all the children were lined up for inspection. As he passed each child, he asked, “What do you want to be someday?”

“A nurse,” said a girl.

“Very commendable,” said the inspector. “We never have enough of them.”

The next kid said, “A policeman.”

“Wonderful. Crime is increasing every year. We always need brave police officers to protect us.”

The inspector approached Billy. “And what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A pizza.”

“Why a pizza?”

“Nobody loves me. But everybody loves pizza.”

“He’s a lunatic! There’s no sense squandering taxpayer money on the likes of him. Abandon him in the forest.”

The director of the orphanage tore off Billy’s T-shirt that said, ORPHAN. He gave Billy a new one with much larger letters that read, LUNATIC.

Billy was immediately placed on a helicopter and taken to a dense forest.

When the helicopter descended and was a few feet from the ground, the director threw Billy out. Landing on his head, the boy was unconscious for three days.

Billy awoke when a fluffy tail tickled his face.

“What’s a lunatic?” asked a chipmunk, pointing to Billy’s T-shirt.

“I think it’s somebody who wastes taxpayer money.”

“What else are you, besides a lunatic?”

“A boy. But I wanna be a pizza.”

“Why?”

“I wanna be loved.”

“What kinda pizza do you wanna be?”

“Pepperoni.”

“Well, you came to the right place,” the chipmunk said. “Stand over there under that magic tree.”

The moment Billy was under the tree, the chipmunk mumbled strange words. Within seconds, Billy transformed into a pepperoni pizza.

"Look what I got," the chipmunk yelled to fifty relatives.

“Wow! Pepperoni Pizza! Our favorite!”

Between burps, each chipmunk loudly affirmed its undying love for pizza.

"I’m finally loved," Billy mused, as a cute girl-chipmunk sank her razor-sharp teeth into the last morsel.


Author bio:

Michael A. Kechula is a retired technical writer. His flash fiction works have won first prize in six contests and honorable mention in three others. His flash tales have appeared in seventy online and print magazines and anthologies in Australia, Canada, England, and the US. He’s authored two books of flash and micro-fiction: “A Deck Full of Zombies--61 Speculative Fiction Tales” and “Crazy Stories for Crazy People.”