GERALD
ALM No.94, October 2026
SHORT STORIES
Andre had been driving since six that evening, chasing an app that kept teasing him with fares that fell through before he could reach them. He needed fourteen dollars by morning or rent wasn’t happening, and after five hours behind the wheel in the rain, his eyes ached, his coffee had gone cold twice, and his gas light had been on for longer than he wanted to think about. When the app finally pinged, he nearly dropped the phone into his lap.
New trip. Accept ride to pick up Vivian.
“Fourteen dollars and fifty cents,” Andre read aloud, and let out a breath he’d been holding for an hour. “Finally. One more trip and I’m done.”
He pulled up outside an apartment complex lit by nothing but a flickering porch bulb. A loud tap hit the hood, then the back door, and before he could get out to open it for her, an older woman in dark sunglasses was already climbing into the back seat, a large duffel bag in her lap and a walking stick propped against her knee.
“You good back there?” Andre asked.
“Take the tolls, please, and thank you. I need to get to my sister’s as soon as possible.”
“Nice to meet you too,” he muttered.
Vivian settled back, and Andre pulled away into the rain. The car went quiet except for the wipers and the rain drumming the roof, and underneath it, faint but unmistakable, the smell of wet dog.
“Sit, Gerald,” Vivian said to the bag.
Something inside it shifted, a low grunt, like a large dog resigning itself to a long, wet night, same as Andre.
“Big dog,” he said, mostly to fill the silence.
“He’s not fat, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I wasn’t—”
“That’s what everyone thinks.”
Six blocks of hostile silence followed, broken only by Vivian correcting lane changes she couldn’t possibly see and Gerald offering an escalating series of snorts from the back seat, narrating what sounded like a strong opinion of Andre’s driving. Somewhere around block four, Vivian unzipped the bag partway and slipped something inside — Andre caught a flash of orange, a carrot maybe — and the bag let out a soft, wet snuffling squeal before going still again. Odd food for a dog, he thought, then let it go. He had bigger math to do. Fourteen dollars didn’t cover much. He’d need a tip like a small miracle just to breathe easy tonight.
“Don’t mind him,” Vivian said. “He does that when he’s anxious.”
The ride continued in uncomfortable silence until Andre hit a pothole hard enough to send the car toward the other lane. The bag let out a sharp squeal, higher and stranger than anything before it, and his hands went white on the wheel.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Vivian snapped. “Did you not see the hole in the road?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, it’s coming down pretty hard out here.” Vivian let out a frustrated huff.
“Is your doggo okay?” Andre asked, glancing at the mirror.
“If he hasn’t flown out the windshield, I suppose he’s fine.”
A few minutes later they reached her sister’s building, pulling up right at eleven fifty-seven as the rain finally started to thin. Vivian pressed a folded bill into his hand, a twenty, no change requested.
“That was tolerable,” she said, without a trace of warmth.
Andre jumped out to open her door. She stepped out, swung the duffel bag over one shoulder, and reached for her walking stick.
“Come on, Gerald,” she said.
Andre wiped the rain from his forehead and looked down — and there, trotting behind her on a leash he somehow hadn’t noticed before, was a small brown-and-white piglet.
“Have a good night, ma’am,” he called after her, too stunned to manage anything else.
He drove off confused but relieved. Rent was finally covered. He just hadn’t expected to owe it to a pig.
His phone buzzed with the trip alert. Three stars.
Chi Byrd is a Navy veteran currently studying Media & Communications at Full Sail University. He has a background in graphic design and filmmaking and enjoys creating stories through writing, film, and visual art.
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