Smashed Cat Magazine

The Cat Is Smashed

2013-04-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Smashed Cat Magazine is a weekly experimental lit magazine and part of Thunderune Publishing's free fiction lineup.

Though this magazine is currently closed to submissions, you can still read some great stories in the archives by picking an author name from the drop down menu on the left or by picking a date from the menu at the bottom of the page.

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3/26/13

2013-03-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

Stargazing
By Ian Kappos

The Kid wasn’t really a kid. He was maybe sixteen; that was my guess. We still called him the Kid.

We all sat around the living room: Ludo, in his breakers and a dark mood, but always generous with a crooked smile; Leo, shaving the roughness from a pair of chopsticks (he’d finished his Chinese food hours before, but insisted on being prepared for his next take-out); Lonnie, who, for all intents and purposes, was trying not to keel over from the line of whatever it was that he’d just put up his nose (it had been one of many); and Lit, who catered to a customer. I sat next to Lit, fussing with my beard.

The Kid was in the Hole.

“Here,” said Lit to the customer, and handed over something. This was procedure.

“Thanks,” said the customer, receiving what Lit handed over and also handing something over to Lit. This, too, was consistent with procedure.

The customer left.

We sat in silence for a minute or two, save for Lonnie, who had evidently recovered from his battle with gravity and now hunched over a pile of white, dividing it into geometrically immaculate smaller portions of white. He breathed very loudly, did Lonnie.

Ludo, his voice baritone, said, “I’m bored. What’s up with the Kid.”

So we checked the Kid out.

The Kid was up to his chest in urine. The Hole was porcelain and there was no drain, so the urine had nowhere to go but up. A stain of urine around the circumference of the hole indicated that the Kid had drunk some of the urine. What a kick this Kid was.

Lonnie was reading the newspaper now. It was a few days old. He looked up from the newspaper, down at the Kid, an eye lazy: “Hey, Kid,” he said. “They’re lookin for you, Kid.”

Well, now, at least someone was staying up-to-date.

Ludo proffered his crooked smile. “You’re famous, Kid.”

We all got a kick out of that. Except for Lit. He was taking a call.

“No,” he said (Lit). “No--hey, listen, no. Not interested. Nope. Not interested. Listen, listen--the sooner, look… Look, he ain’t shit to me. He ain’t shit. Naw. Hey, that’s his problem. Look--I ain’t gunna talk about this no more. Shit, well, that’s what he gets. Glad someone did the right thing.”

Lit was a real moral champion. We all trusted Lit. Lit was good people.

Meanwhile, I fussed with my beard. I tended to fuss with my beard a lot.

Leo, who’d remained pretty quiet up until now, asked me, “What’s up, Lillard? You worried or something? You seem worried.”

Leo was definitely the sweetest of the group.

“Well,” I said, shuffling my feet. Everyone was looking at me now, the Kid included. He gripped the edge of the Hole with his fingertips, peering over. Nonchalantly, Ludo scuffed the Kid’s fingers with the edge of his running shoe and the Kid fell back into the Hole. “Well,” I said again. Lit was off the phone now, and looking at me with the rest of them.

“Yeah?” they all said. They all were very patient with me. I was grateful for such good friends.

“Well,” I said. “It’s just that there’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight, at eleven, I think. I was really planning on seeing it, but I don’t know the time. I lost my watch.”

Lonnie released an atonal whistle. Ludo kicked at the Kid’s fingertips again (this Kid was real persistent). Leo patted me on the back consolingly. Lit said, “I’ll check my phone,” and he did. He looked up at me. “It’s 10:58,” he said.

I smiled. Leo clapped. Lonnie and Ludo leapt over to the window, Ludo jogging, Lonnie swaying. Lit and Leo and I joined them at the window. We pulled back the blinds. The sky twinkled, not unusually. Then there emerged from some clouds a vanguard of meteors, but these meteors had wings. As they flew past, gradually descending, I was able to make out some of their finer details.

“Hey,” said Lonnie. “They’ve got tits.”

“Yeah,” I breathed. “They sure do.”

We all watched, mesmerized.

Then Ludo said, “Hey, we should let the Kid check this out.”

“Yeah,” we agreed, and Leo went to retrieve the handheld telescope to give to the Kid.

But when we turned around the Kid was not in the Hole. The urine rippled slightly, adjusting to the Kid’s absence. From the edge of the Hole began a trail of drops that led to a window at the other end of the room. The urine was bright orange.

“We gave him too much coffee,” said Leo, and we all agreed.

“Well,” said Lit, and for once he sounded like he was out of ideas.

“Well,” we all said.

“He’s famous now,” said Ludo, and we all nodded.

After a while we all retreated back to the window to catch the last trickling of the meteor shower, but when we did there was nothing left in its wake but a faint cloud of bright orange that read: You like what you see, don’t you?

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Ian Kappos's short fiction has appeared most recently in Crossed Out Magazine and Grim Corps Magazine. An art school dropout, he lives and attends community college in Sacramento, California.

3/19/13

2013-03-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

Warding Off All Predators
By Patrick Hueller

When it was all said and done, and it was determined that their little girl had taken her last unassisted steps, and Hoern Health Insurance had repeated the phrase “pre-existing condition” for the last time, and their agent had repeated Sorry for the last time, when their debt had become so heavy that it bowed their backs and prevented them from seeing more than a few feet or minutes ahead, Tom and Sarah didn’t—couldn’t—blame their health insurance, or their health insurance agent, or even the doctors (who, really, had done all they could).

Instead, they blamed the horned toad.

They blamed the horned toad for continuing to plug their so-called health insurance on TV. They blamed the horned toad for making promises he couldn’t keep. They blamed the horned toad for not being what he said he was (according to their research he wasn’t actually a toad but part of the lizard family). They blamed the horned toad for behaving like a human being who had human feelings, when clearly he wasn’t and didn’t. They blamed the horned toad for acting as though he was warm-blooded when in fact he was cold-blooded. They blamed the horned toad for being cuter than the rest of his horned toad brethren. They blamed the horned toad for taking some struggling human actor’s big break. They blamed the horned toad for spelling his name differently than the product he represented (horn was not the same thing as Hoern; were they the only ones who could see that?). They blamed the horned toad for eating restaurant food instead of ants. They blamed the horned toad for having a human-sized wallet with a big wad of discretionary spending money inside. They blamed the horned toad for having better vision than they did, for being able to pick up ultraviolet light, for being able to foresee technicalities and loopholes that they had previously overlooked. They blamed the horned toad for being able to stand on two legs.

They simply couldn’t forgive him for being able to stand on two legs.

Until, that is, they realized that that’s how they’d find him.

Sure.

They would wait for him in the parking lot in front of his studio. At some point, they knew, he would have to emerge. At some point, he would have to be alone. He’d feel comfortable on the hot asphalt parking lot. They were counting on that. He’d feel at home, and let his guard down, and in that moment his life would be snatched away. One second he’d be strolling around on two feet as though it was the most natural thing in the world; the next he’d be lying flat in an emptied out Kleenex box, bouncing around in the backseat and then up the still-unfinished ramp leading to their front door, into the living room where the video camera was set up and ready to go.

They could just see it.

The camera would be on, the tape running. What do you want from me? he’d ask, blindfolded, scared.

Whatever you have to give, they’d say.

Money? he’d say. I have money. I have lots of money.

More, they’d say. Because while this was definitely a ransom video, money wasn’t all that they were owed.

Stock options?

More.

A house? Property? A company position?

More. More. More.

Nothing would be enough, of course. They knew that. Everything, after all, was limited to the present and the future. It didn’t, it couldn’t, include the past.

Or could it?

After the video, they would return the horned toad to the desert where he originally came from. They would strip him of his human clothes.

Better yet, they’d let him strip himself. Sooner or later he’d have to.

In order to fit in with his fellow reptiles, in order to avoid detection by predators patrolling from above, he’d have to cut the whole human act. He’d have to chirp instead of talk. He’d have to spurt blood from his eyes. He’d have to walk on all fours.

The horned toad, for once and forever more, would have to do all the things his given life required of him, and hope against reason that it was enough.

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Patrick Hueller has an MFA from the University of Minnesota. He's against instant replay in sports.

3/12/13

2013-03-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Last Concert
By David Edward Nell

“Aliens Exposed”, flashed a neon billboard hanging above a circus tent standing desolate next to a Nevada highway, the lights glowing ever sharper with the sun's decline. At the entrance, a pale man in Indian garb sent the last guest down a long, descending stairway. Inside, the chatter was loud, the company cramped, a standing-room-only assembly of awkward observers in wait. Finally, the curtain opened. There stood, in front of a microphone, a man in a suit, Greg, who hadn't finished combing his hair. Quickly, he withdrew his self-nurturing and tweaked the receiver. It let out a shriek, deafening enough to be followed up with boos and spits.

“Ladies and gentleman, thank you for coming and being patient. My apologies for the delay,” he said, having to shield his eyes from the bathing spotlight.

“Refund,” someone in the audience was already jesting. The spotlight appropriately dulled, soon rendering them quiet. Testing his breath one last time, Greg began the show introduction.

With a deep-voiced fervour, he breathed into the mic, “Ladies and gentlemen, a new discovery has been made. For the first time ever, we have direct access to a tube shuttle connected to a great source of corruption. We built this stage on top without anyone's consent, so we hope that you appreciate the great risk we have taken, and it is only fitting that the door behind me be opened in front of an audience. Never before has any man dared to venture in the lair of the great unknown. One week ago, we found what is purported to be a tunnel into the infamous Dulce Base. The existence of this underground facility is one of myth. It's believed that therein, visitors from another planet are working in cooperation with a secret government in the name of science, a science so evil, it is unfathomable to think an alliance of such impossible proportions could exist behind closed doors. The only evidence brought to the surface thus far has been the word of brave whistleblowers who have strangely vanished, passed. But the age of darkness ends tonight. All will be revealed. Witness history.”

Greg drew open a curtain behind him, revealing a metallic door indented on a wall. A sound effect played on the speakers to exacerbate the sense of wonderment. Curious stares were passed in the crowd. Greg flaunted a shimmering key.

“What could possibly thrive beyond? Could it be a being from another galaxy? Will I, Gregory Siebert the Third, perish brutally by some devil's wand?”

The key went in, and then he cradled the knob and twisted to loose an ancient creak. Then they were looking into another room, its smoky, closed-off confines containing a poker table in the middle, a ladder reaching to a rooftop hatch. Seated on one end was a glamorous-looking man with sunglasses and a sizeable mop of dark hair, his jumpsuit shiny-white, riddled with glitter. Greg stammered out some indecipherable nonsense, drawing an equally stunned reaction from the visitor. The man in the room climbed up from his gambling comforts and hunkered over onto the stage with an oddly rhythmic swagger. At first, he merely gawked around, and was as silent as the audience matching his confused expression.

“Aw, shucks, Ma'am. Looks like you caught me,” he said after a minute.

“I happen to be a fully-grown male,” Greg replied. “Who are you, then, humanoid?”

“What you on about? I'm a musician, part karate master. Or used to be. Some call me Elvis.”

Greg pondered for a bit. “I'm afraid I don't know of this name. Is it of any significance?”

“Not anymore,” said Elvis, sadly. “How did you even find the King, baby? Ain't got money, if that's what you're seeking.”

“No. We're after extraterrestrial beings, and you were...you were not what we expected.”

“I get that a lot these days,” Elvis replied. “So y'all want a song or what? One more time, huh?”

“A tune, a melody? This is a ufologist exhibition, sir, and you have questions to answer.”

“Song, song, song,” cried the audience, giggling like little girls.

“That's what I like to hear. Thank you very much,” Elvis said, eagerly assuming the microphone, pushing Greg off the stage.

“This is something sweet I came up with a long time ago, back in the golden age. I call it I Want To Be Free. There's no joy in my heart...” But before he could get the first verse out, Greg returned and grabbed the microphone away, raising his fist toward the raging audience, who chucked bottles left and right.

“What the hell, man?” Elvis said. “Relax. Crowd wants a show.”

“Arrogant twat. This is my show, not yours. Now you will answer my questions, or leave.”

“Don't be cruel, baby.”

One bottle hit Greg in the head, so he cracked it open and pointed it at the throat of Elvis in retaliation. “You want to see cruel? That's cruel. How do like me now?”

“Whoa, whoa, you're too close--” And saying that, the glass had already nicked his jugular. Elvis immediately fell to the ground. Horrified gasps erupted from the crowd.

“Oh, dear,” Greg said, guiltily eyeing the restless painting. “Well, folks, thanks for coming.”

Anarchy was loosed. Greg tried to duck his way out under the flying barrage, until a hand grabbed his ankle. Elvis' hand.

“Not so fast,” Elvis said, standing up, having his name chanted.

“I just wanted to put on a show about aliens!” Greg remarked, getting a punch to the nose. And another, and several times more, and then Elvis was stabbing him. Right in the heart. Until Greg had no more blood to give. Elvis threw his crimson fists in the air in victory, receiving an uproarious ovation. At last, he was able to sing.

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Having spent years trying to evade the Equestrian mafia, David Edward Nell now writes from a nameless hideout in Cape Town, South Africa. By night, disguised as numerous pop culture figures, he can usually be found scouring the African plains for loving. Stalk him at http://davidedwardnell.blogspot.com, but keep this a secret.

3/5/13

2013-03-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Home
By Melanie Boeckmann

He is wrestling with tiredness while the wife packs her blue overnight bag. Will she take the pretty pencil skirts? See-through underwear? Anything to transform her into a non-mother, a non-wife. Just Julie again. He blinks twice and what she packs now is a non-fiction book on urban gardening and her running shoes. His interest wanes. As he finishes his dinner on the couch, she calls her friend and tinkers with the keys on their piano for a second. She closes her eyes while playing. “Ready to be a single dad for the weekend?” she asks and laughs. He nods solemnly, they kiss, and then she leaves. He turns on the TV and dozes off for a minute. Right on cue his daughter starts crying, tucking at his fatherly heart. They have grown accustomed to each other, his deep voice and her piercing screams complementing each other. Most nights are spent like this: His large hand encompassing her entire arm, almost. He picks her up and hums a song. His girl calms down and he wishes for a film crew to be here here and witness this moment while it lasts. His exercise in humility before their power relations will shift again. And they will. They always do: not once since she was born has he outlasted her incessant crying. “We’re getting there, right sweetheart?” he whispers into her ear.

But when he tucks his child in again, just as he makes sure the red fleece blanket is securely fastened around his baby’s body, suddenly all he can think of is using an ice pick to drill a hole into her skull. Or a hammer, a regular one will do, to smash in her tiny brain. He smells blood, touches his nostrils but his hand comes back dry and pale. His hands are shaking. This is not my story, he thinks, I have only read about this. It is a stolen version, plagiarism of intrusive thoughts. Probably read too many violent novels. An illusion is all. I should make tea, he tells himself. He pours bourbon into his glass. Tea can wait. “What is happening?” He slams the glams on the kitchen table and closes his eyes. Hands over his ears. He hears whispered instructions drowning out the screaming from the nursery: “Strangle her, rip out her extremities, just throw her out the window. It will be nice and quiet, always. Julie will be just Julie and let you in her pants again.” He starts slapping himself in the face, just slightly first, then with more focus and more determination. He must be sick. He must have eaten something rotten, the chemicals messing up his brain. Shut up, shut up! He must be crying, or why is his shirt so wet? And the throbbing pain on his forehead? His head is bloody, now, he vaguely remembers banging his head against the door frame. Why is he holding the knife in his hand? “Please, shut up” he begs as he stabs himself in the arm and slowly cuts into his face.

The neighbors call the police after the baby has not stopped screaming for over an hour and nobody answered the door.

When the wife returns from her trip without her bag but with a harrowed look of fear on her face, called in by a police officer who gently hinted at the option “to speak to somebody”, she rushes towards the hospital and picks up her unharmed child. The precious little girl stops sobbing as soon as she hears the familiar humming of her favorite song.

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I am working as a PhD researcher in Public Health in Germany. I write both flash fiction and long-form short stories and go running in between the two.

2/26/13

2013-02-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

I, Koala Whisperer
By David Edward Nell

The Koala Whisperer tiptoed his way through the darkness. “Right now, I'm in the heart of her habitat,” he started. “She's asleep as a bed bug, which is typical of her kind; this happens to be one of the laziest animals in the world. When this nocturnal creature isn't asleep, it goes on a mating rampage. Unfortunately, I've been told that this one can't have babies. Still, that doesn't stop her. By the way, do you know what they call Koala babies? Joeys. How cool, huh? Bit larger and more wrinkly than she was the last time I came here. But what gorgeous fur. Oh, wait. It's waking up. Guys, I better step off. Too late. She's reaching toward me, getting a well-good hold of my face. Don't you dare scratch me, mate. Crikey!”

She dug in with her long nails, screaming, “Burglar, get away!”

“It's your hubby,” the Koala Whisperer shouted several times over her tirade.

“Brandon?” she said, stunned, and closed her night gown. “Scared me.”

“Well, at least you got out of bed.”

“That an insult?”

“Casey, babe, never.”

“What in the bloody hell are you doing here, anyway?”

“Early release.”

“I thought you're in for life?” Casey asked.

“Made a deal with the judge. Sorry I didn't tell you sooner.”

“What's that you're holding?” She smacked a light switch nearby, saw that his hand was up a dead Koala's hind, using it as a makeshift puppet. “What the f--”

“Kiss me.” Brandon playfully moved its mouth.

Quickly, Casey took the corpse from his hand and threw it out the window. “Sick, rural bastard. I'm so angry, I just want to...” The smack she next delivered set his ears to ring.

“Christ almighty.” Brandon tested his jaw. “I didn't think you'd get this upset. I really, really need that Koala, too.”

“What world do you live in?”

“Relax a bit,” he gently urged. “I know you're angry and all, but calm down. Please. You're the only person I can trust at the moment. Do you trust me?”

“Why should I?”

“I know you love me, Casey.”
“There's nothing between us. You're the one who killed for me, idiot.”

“I never killed anyone, certainly not those boyfriends of yours. I moved on years ago. Seriously.”

“Right. Someone made you do it?”

“I was set up. Can't you see how the world around us is an illusion? Everything we do is surveyed. We're all puppets. I'm a chimney's...uncle and, and...”

“Stop acting like a maniac. What are you trying to say?” she said, shaking him.

“There's these giants controlling us, Casey. Giant Koalas.”

She paused. “What?”

“Can't view them in our visible spectrum, but they've got us, Casey. Up the arse. Like I did with one of their own--and I was doing that because it makes sure they don't track me down.”

“Snap to your senses, man.”

“Pay attention. Remember what happened on that live Christmas special?”

Casey frowned in disapproval.

“Didn't mean to crush that Joey.”

“Of course. Murderer.”

“Ever since then, it's all gone sideways. They make me do things.”

“Maybe you should've been locked up in Derby Mental instead.”

“Sounds nuts, I know. I've got proof, though. Stand in front of the telly with me,” he said, taking her in front of the wall, where the television was indented.

“What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“When it reaches a certain frequency, they appear.” Brandon fiddled with buttons, making the screen change to blackness. As shadows appeared to be materializing, the power went out.

“Smart buggers,” Brandon gasped.

“It's likely these rolling power cuts we've been having in the area lately.”

“Impossible. Must be them.”

There was a knock at the door. “Police,” announced a stifled, stern voice. “Open up.”

“Can you see?” he whispered in horror, looking at his ex like it was the end of the world. “They've got me. They've bloody got me.”
“Don't cause a scene, Brandon,” she told him.

“For you. Just promise you'll love me when I'm gone.”

“Always, Koala Whisperer.”

Then he touched her cheek and left for his fate. “You will never take my freedom, pigs,” were his last words before the officers gunned him down where he stood and dragged his body off without any questions. The blood remaining trailed a path from the passage past her open door, pooled by her feet. Casey looked down, and was unfazed by the sight. She stared blankly at the television, which was beginning to communicate something through fuzz.

“Until next time, Koala Whisperer,” the screen flashed and giggled. “A job well done, my dear. I thought you'd make for an appropriate partner.”

“As long as the sod's done for, I'm happy. I never trusted the bastard,” she said. “Now where's the money?”

“Coming right up.”

So the screen flickered off, having her wait. A faint rattling noise sounded. Looking around, she noticed her ornaments were vibrating, rumbling, and the ground as well, to the point that she was forced to hold the bed for leverage. Something was burrowing its way to the surface. Abruptly, it stopped. Casey breathed a sigh of relief, gained her bearings. Then she yowled. Pain. In her bottom. She gulped, observed what had invaded: a giant, black, furry finger. She could hear a pair of voices from what she then understood was the somewhere and everywhere. She was connected now.

“They always fall for that trick. Fools. Do you think it knows our betrayal, Sister?” said a mopey one.

“Obviously. Look at how frightened it is,” replied the other, more shrill in tone.

“What should we do with it?”

“Non-state.”

- - -
Having spent years trying to evade the Equestrian mafia, David Edward Nell now writes from a nameless hideout in Cape Town, South Africa. By night, disguised as numerous pop culture figures, he can usually be found scouring the African plains for loving. Stalk him at http://davidedwardnell.blogspot.com, but keep this a secret.

2/19/13

2013-02-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Tilt
By Catfish McDaris

On the lam from a marijuana beef, the state north seemed more favorable to my predicament and behavior. Radical. Outrageous. Entirely without redemption or qualm.

The old Argonaut Hotel in Denver sat empty, semi-condemned across from Argonaut Liquor on Colfax Avenue. Every wino, bum, hippie, hobo, hooker, and hustler scored booze there.

Promising the landlord to fix up his building, we started the first in-town commune. As one of the founding members and most lucrative pussy getting smokable drug dealer, it’s appropriate that I relate the following events surrounding my inhabitation of the above mentioned den of inequity and the catastrophic calamity.

I would ask you to let me remain in the shadows, as the statutes of limitations have expired on most of my supposedly criminal acts. Especially since many of our past politicians have smoked dope. So I’m not considered such an outlaw anymore.

There were many drugs used there. Orange sunshine, blue cheer, purple microdot, blotter, chocolate mescaline, magic mushrooms, and peyote: all doorways to madness gladness sadness. Skeletons dancing from closets, Timothy Leary’s ghost, Jerry Garcia grateful and dead. Save the ladybug. Talk to plants. Pet rocks. Free love. Jail hate. Blow jobs. Tuna fish. Smoke morning glory. Climb trees. Fuck pigs. Save green stamps.

Life/Death. Papa’s little squirt. Yo mama’s titty. Uncle Sam’s penis. Worm food. In that order.

California falls into the Pacific. Hollywood is Atlantis. Calling Aquaman. Saguaros surfing with Joshua trees. Arizona beaches. The world is a small turd circling a ball of fire. Lucifer is drinking Mad Dog and playing God’s pinball machine.

- - -
Catfish McDaris has been active in the small press world for 20 years. He lived in a cave at a nudist colony and in a Chevy in Denver an entire winter. His biggest seller is Prying: with Jack Micheline & Charles Bukowski. His newest chapbook will be Eating Raw Jackrabbit & Snorting Black Cocaine.

2/12/13

2013-02-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

Brown Leaves
By Victoria Slotover

You sleepwalked through the flaky brown leaves, flimsy as moth wings, as they put me to bed and covered me with a dirty blanket which made me think of that quote from Hamlet. Remember how grey the sky was, colour drained like you, we both worried it would start to rain before they’d tucked me in.

You’d left your umbrella behind, not that you cared about getting wet, in some ways it seemed right to you that the heavens should open, as indeed they had. The others had huddled under unruly black brollies which made us think of flapping crows. You were the only one who wanted to feel the downpour wash you clean, or was it that you wanted it to wash you away, I wasn’t sure? They tried to move you along but you wouldn’t be hurried, you wanted to become part of that earth as you had become part of me and the truth is, right then I wanted that too.

I watched you, shoulders hunched and shaking, and reached out to touch you. You shivered and a ripple of cold worked its way to the fingertips I longed to hold. Funny then that your thoughts rose like steam above your head. I floated towards it and shared your memories with you even though you weren’t there to share them with me.

I lived again our first kiss; the feel of your lips moist with Merlot and tasting of black fruit, pressed firmly against mine, and in that kiss every kiss since- as we walked in the bluebell woods with your spaniel at our heels; on our wedding day, private yet public; after Mary was born and lay swaddled in my arms and of course our last kiss when you took my breath away, as in fact you had every time.

And in those memories, other memories of a life together; the coffee cup you put by my bed every morning before you left for work, the dregs of cornflakes that never made it down the drain, the ticket stubs buried in your suit pocket, the dress you gave me last Christmas that hangs empty in my closet as though stood up for a date, my trainers abandoned and useless by the treadmill you complained I didn’t use enough and the dog-eared novel on my nightstand whose ending will be one of the many things I will never know.

Then the other thing you think I’ll never know but that in fact of course I do- how much you love me, how much you’ll miss me, now, later and always but what you don’t know and I do is that you will love and be loved again. Your freckled hands that I know as well as my own, will hold another’s, your arms will coil around her in the dark as you kiss her just, yet not quite just, as you kissed me.

You look cold even though the fire’s on. You’ve tucked your hands between your thighs and the tip of your nose is pink. There’s a mug of tea on the floor beside you, drink it before it goes cold too. I kiss your forehead and your shiver shudders through me. I must stop touching you; it’s not helping either of us. I wish you’d eat something, darling Mary’s loaded the fridge with soup and casseroles, there’s no excuse not to look after yourself. You turn away to face the wall as if trying to block me out. Maybe you are. Maybe you should.

The leaves littering the lawn are still brown and the sky is still covered with dust but soon the sun will shine through and you will drink your tea.

- - -
Victoria Slotover writes fiction for Mumsense Magazine and her short stories have been published on The Writer’s Hub, Short Fiction Collective and in the Ham & High as well as being accepted for publication by Bartleby Snopes and Families Magazine.

2/5/13

2013-02-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Mute
By C. Wait

When I was in the sixth grade, I stitched my mouth shut. I took my grandmother’s sewing kit, heated one of the needles until it burned my fingers, and slipped a piece of thread through the tiny eye. I felt the heat of the needle puncturing the flesh on my lips. The contact created wisps of black fog. They flittered, almost like candle smoke, from my mouth and into the still air of the bathroom.

Can you picture it? Picture the blood that spilled in neat lines from my mouth? Picture the skinny white thread that slowly turned red?

The EMTs came and I wanted to tell them just how much it hurt. Not the stitches but my self. My body. My being. I wanted to tell them, but Grandmother kept screaming at me to stop complaining and I’ve been mute ever since.

I really like you. You have soft hair like I remember my parents having. You remind me of them a little. Do you like me, too? I wish you would. I wish I could talk to you but I’m still so mute.

The doctors said stitching my mouth shut was a call for help, that I wanted attention.

I used to stare at the white dotted scars around my lips and wonder what the hell kind of doctors they were. If this was a call for help, how was I to cry out? How to scream? Was I to throw myself from a bridge or hang myself in a closet before I could make them understand?

I still have the scars from the stitches, even ten years later. My body has matured, my hair has grown long but the dots remain. Can you see them? Can you see how they connect and overlap? Can you imagine the pattern they once made? Look closer.

The only way to truly see is to close your eyes.

There. Do you see me now? I am just like you. A pattern of white dotted scars, stitched together by cheap, broken thread, threatening to unravel as soon as the wind changes direction. And how quickly it does. I have stitched my mouth shut one hundred times more but the thread always falls out and only the scars remain.

The thick white dots. The raised lumps and hardened tissue.

I really like you. You wear the same clothes that my parents used to wear. I don’t remember but I have a picture of them. I used to have lots but I burned them all because they kept staring at me even though I knew they were gone.

Because what good are eyes if not for arms to embrace? What good are mouths if not for the words that escape them?

- - -
C. Wait is a born and bred Vermonter who now spends most of her time wandering around in the New York metropolitan area.

1/29/13

2013-01-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Evils of Beef
By Rouillie Wilkerson

“They walk among us!” she bellowed, the tininess of her body accentuated by the step-up stool she stood on. She was wearing a thin, light blue cotton dress smothered with flower buds painted in blue with pips of yellow at their centers.

“Preach it Lindy girl,” hummed the resident minister along with the congregation. “They are an abomination unto the lord,” she said pointing to the mass of animals tromping past her. “Show them the light then show them the door to salvation so that their eyes will see the futility of their olden ways and surrender to the new ones set forth by god most high!” The minister then focused her intensity to the sky, her steepled hands pressing against an old wound concealed behind her blouse; heart surgery from a battle with heart disease, eighteen years prior.

“True!” bellowed a fat man with yellow coveralls holding tight to a pitch fork that he kept poking the cattle with as their flesh crackled and bubbled in the flames. The cattle had been anesthetized, to some degree, before being led into the fiery furnace. The Ones of the Way didn’t want to be cruel and mutually agreed that evil incarnate that tempted the great wooly flocks anointed by heaven most high must be held accountable for their dirty deeds and sent to judgment wide-eyed and awake.

The cows stumbled sleepily to the roaring furnace, which was a rental generally used for recycling all large manners of trash, like old busted-up wooden pallets and heavy duty cardboard via incineration. It had been set up with a cattle ramp, for just this occasion.

If there was any anxiety present in the doomed herd as they approached the flames, they didn’t let on, but seemed more aware, despite their anesthetized stupor, of the pitch fork piercing through singed hides that they couldn’t feel.

“Into the fire with sin!” chanted the motley of congregants.

“Let this be for everyone that has fallen before us in god’s country from cancer,” added the frail little girl with a swish of stringy blonde hair.

“Call the demon by name child!” bounced a young woman with an elaborate crown of corn-rows; she sported a tee-shirt that read, ‘SAVED’ in big red and white letters in a wave formation beneath a picture of a life vest.

A foreign transplant from Germany with a sickly disposition mumbled tearfully, “tank you lawd…send za evil avay.” He too wore a tee-shirt, it read ‘Cancer Survivor.’ His transparent skin was pulled tightly across his frame beneath long, white hair that hung straight along the curve of his head, missing the patterned baldness on top.

And the gathering continued this way late into the night until the entire pasture of stumbling, drooling, somewhat anesthetized cattle had met a flame-broiled end, saving the population in this small, sanctified, town from the temptations there in. No more fat, swollen figures, heart disease, and colon cancer to contend with, now that the evils of beef had been expunged from their midst.

Today, a harbinger of hell had been hung high from a tree, before being the first to be tossed into the furnace joined by his abominable cattle. Today a small town in a deep southern state has taken a stand against the evils that turned some of the residents own bodies against them. Taking the lives of their loved ones; forcing them to endure surgeries that sliced away and hacked off diseased breasts and scrotums; mortifying those stricken to suffer helplessly, as chemo treatments led to total hair loss and feeble bodies. Not to mention a fortune to contend with as bills mounted up that could never be paid off in a single lifetime; why the evils of beef just went on and on.

Yes, today a small town had triumphed, but tomorrow they will march to neighboring fast-food joints, slaughterhouses, ranches and factories armed with the will of god, a few weapons and tools to carry out their purpose, and a numbing injectable for evil incarnate and those that would perpetuate it. The Ones of the Way, though intolerant of malevolence, would deliver justice with mercy. “Purge them all!” chanted the congregation in unison with linked arms and clasped hands, as the deliciously evil scent of Barbecued name-your-favorite-cut wafted through the air, “Purge them all!”

- - -
I’m a writer of fiction, poetry, and I’m working on a couple of novels (scifi and fantasy). I currently make my home in Anchorage, Alaska.

1/22/13

2013-01-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Philly Nights
By Jack Colton and Amos Damroth

Philly nights, Philly lights, it all seems the same to those of us who have braved the depths, and come back to the surface to put our musical talents on display for the separately persuaded denizens of one of America’s greatest cities.

My name is Hagog. I, talon by talon, crawled my way up the cracks of this plate tectonic global lobular nothingness. Sharpie marks tally the scrapes and scars that mark my body’s ascent to civilization. Upon reaching open air the blades from my back bloomed to immense bat wings and I flew, for first time. Lights, in colors I had not perceived for eons, peered out to me from their nesting places. Before me Americana expanded. I landed first in Philadelphia.

This place reminded me closely of homeland depths. I could recall the scent of sulfuric acid pools and the nightly smog hovering with scent of alcoholic bile water spilled from digestive tubes, gargle, splash, homeland memories. Stalking the back streets of this illuminated man-home, I found brethren. Their stench called to me from miles across the urban sprawl, the stench of fried-fat, blood gullies, and both parts-transfused. Both A-and-B sexuality hum.

Father danced in their eyes. Reflection of body hip sway in cigar smoke atmosphere, dropped slugs on dance floor tap tap boom bass shake. Our instruments are flesh, unbound. Torn from the mold of latter-age serum-tasters, we ass-shook and hand-clapped ad infinitum.

From afar a man with cinder black singed skin puffed through tail end of brass serpent, flowing from esophagus gulch trough. We shook ideas, we spoke violently, sermonized silence when man-folk wandered through. He said the name of his tongue was “saxophone”. My feet cried with desirous movement, urination.

Who was this kindred death warden? Friar Phallus, and yet not. So appeared the language that he bespoke. Sudden memories of black plague village crumbling under falling ash and shook by the dirt of a thousand dead peasantry. Screams of yellow skinned boil bellied women and pus washed former artisans. I began to laugh.

Cinder man responds in similar manner. Who is this brother fellow?

I speak, “allow me to sing as you”

He speaks, “Hey man, show me how you groove”

I reserve that the cat’s got moves. Moves of ancient rituals calling back the tattered frames of Tartarus, I remember them. Impressed yet? Hell yes.

“But can you fill the building?”

“Both types right?”

“One type, swings both ways”

I shimmy over to the song receptacle and exempt myself from haggard silence. Devil’s plume winglets shake in step with polyrhythmic symphonic sexual bluegrass quiver out the end of my extension.

Breathe deep. Stick tail to tongue and blow. Sounds of bipedal hellhound disco corrupted with former decades delirious dead, so does it seem. But here, here I see many, what do you call, men. Shaking in black leather slick reflecting jackets with hats covering (what would be there?) horns? They let members hang, dismembering the tension that floated pre-performance. Pre-existence. We shout, we slap, we beat, we pluck. We exist.

All beings dance around artificial dance-fire, saliva flies, hands are dry, and these not-men wring each other out.

“Ya Johnny!”

- - -
Jack Colton and Amos Damroth reach into the depths of their depraved minds and pull out an incredible amount of screwed-up word wisdom. Help them get better.

1/15/13

2013-01-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

Δ
By Yves Kobina

Living in New York, there is rarely anything that surprises me anymore. Reading the New York Times or even the Post is an exercise in despair- to paraphrase Bret Easton Ellis by way of Timothy Price, “In one issue, strangled people, babies thrown from rooftops, Mafia boss wiped out, Nazis, various maniacs, surrogate mothers, the Yankees losing again…” When I moved here from Greece, where the most we have issues with is an immigrant doing some crazy thing late at night, it was definitely a surprise. But those times had passed, and I’d go so far as to say that I’m almost an honorary New Yorker now. Nothing could shock me.

Page MM32 did it. May 13, 2012. This has just happened, yeah, but it feels less like days ago and more like minutes ago. When you’re reading the Times, bored because your roommate left to the Rangers game, what can you really expect?

So I see the headline Trouble, Age 9 and really can’t even muster up the courage… To care. Seems like some article about crappy kids, the screaming brats you see more and more often in the markets; the horrible youth that seems to be a staple of the newest generation. “For years, Anne and Miguel have struggled to understand their eldest son, an elegant boy with high-planed cheeks, wide eyes and curly light brown hair, whose periodic rages alternate with moments of chilly detachment.”

I shrugged. It seemed to be something about a bipolar child or something? I recall saying out loud, “slow news day”, and reaching for the remote control to turn on the television when I looked down at another page of the article- and an excerpt stopped me cold.

Shrieking, Michael ran to the bathroom and began slamming the toilet seat down repeatedly. Dragged out and ordered to bed, he sobbed pitifully. “Daddy! Daddy! Why are you doing this to me?” he begged, as Miguel carried him to his room. “No, Daddy! I have a greater bond with you than I do with Mommy!” For the next hour, Michael sobbed and screamed, while Miguel tried to calm him. In the hall outside his room, Miguel apologized, adding that it was “an unusually bad night.”

From the bedroom, Michael called out: “He knows the consequences, so I don’t know why he does it. I will hurt him.”

Miguel: “No you won’t.”

Michael: “I’m coming for you, Allan.”

To explain just what “stopped” me about that exchange, I’m going to have to go back to a part of my life that I’ve spent many years trying to forget.

There is a significant part of my childhood that I am not proud of. When I was around six or seven, still in Greece, I used to have a nameless imaginary friend. Actually, that would be an incorrect start to this little bit of exposition- she did have a name, but one forgotten to me thanks to the sands of time. She was taller than I, but appeared to be the same age, very pale, long black hair.

Her sclera was black, and her eyes, gold. I don’t know what I called her, but I do remember a picture I proudly hung on the refrigerator- a portrait of us, done in crayon with all the artistic ability of a grade school student. Above me, my name- Antonis. Above her, ∆.

I guess that was her “name.” Whatever she went by, she told me to do a lot of things. We were inseparable- I never stopped to question her suggestions for a new adventure. Eventually I was labeled as the problem child, the bad kid, the kid who stirred the pot. Did I really care? No, because ∆ was there for me. I don’t know half of the terrible things I did and the grief I caused my parents, but I do remember one evening, clear as day. I had been made fun of in school the previous week- some kid had called me a headcase, and it was probably true. But I was inconsolable for a couple of days- then she was there. Spoke to me. She never talked any louder than a whisper, but to me, it was like a train whistle, all I could focus on.

“Why are you crying?” ∆ asked me.

I told her about what had happened, and she wrapped her arms around me and told me just exactly what had to be done.

During that conversation, she stopped, and looked me in the eye. “Do you know about the devil?”

Of course I did. Even as bad as a child I was, I was inherently frightened by him, just like any other kid.

She said, “You have to be careful around him. He did a trick and fooled a whole lot of people.”

And I asked ∆, what?

“Making you believe there was only one of him.”

After what happened the next day in school, we moved to America and I was immediately sent to a psychologist.

Long story short, I took medication for a while, and ∆ eventually disappeared. By the time I was 12, I was essentially “fine” again. But I’m not completely fine. You can see that clearly. I wrote this down to explain how a news article almost caused me a nervous breakdown, and I’m going back into childhood memories I forgot I had.

What scared me so much is that kid in the article, Michael, reminded me of myself. I knew exactly how he worked, what made him tick. Initially, I had thought it was ∆ herself, whatever name she was under now, but I remembered what she said.

There are a lot of devils out there.

- - -
I am sixteen years old. Yves Kobina is a pseudonym- I have been writing "creepypasta", or horror stories for some time but never sought to get them published. Getting them featured anywhere would be a gigantic honor to me.

1/8/13

2013-01-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

On the Run
By Crystal Stuvland

As a child you ran everywhere you went. Running was your only speed, your only means of communication. Fighting meant a footrace, so did friending. Hi-my-name-is _____. Wanna race?
You raced outside of church in the gravel parking lot; you raced at the county fair, through the sheep pens; you raced on trails in the woods and from the fence to the barn, the barn to the house. You met untrustworthy boys in jean jackets; you raced them and sometimes you won, but never because they let you win.
Now that you are grown, you shuffle places—you amble. You have your earphones. No one challenges you to a race. You make friends somehow, by being polite and interested in roughly the same things, but you don’t want to compete with these people. You don’t play or fight—you exist somewhere separately.
The only way you use your body to communicate now is by fucking, which you do quietly and infrequently because it’s often not worth the trouble of being real. You are afraid of someone knowing your body better than you, afraid that it will make you competitive, that sex will become a race.
So you run.

- - -
Crystal recently graduated with a B.A. in English and is now making her way to Latin America to teach English. She lives in a storage closet and is scared of getting stuck in any one place. Writing is how she thinks.

1/1/13

2013-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
By: Chantal Beaulne

- -
There was a stranger leaning over the cradle. I should have been frightened. I should have cried out for John to phone the police, or flown at him myself with the first blunt object at hand. If I’d had a baby in the cradle, I would have. But there was no baby. There was just my deflating belly, a blankly staring array of unloved toys and a stranger. He spun the crib’s mobile. The wooden fish swam in clockwork motion on his puff of breath.

“It would have kept me out.” His lips twinned about the words as a snake twines through fingers. “Not forever, but even the inference of running water has its powers.”

Gingerly, he plucked the mobile from the ceiling and threw it out the open window. The stranger wandered about the dark room, picking up the toys and arranging them in mock battle, tearing out buttons and stuffing for realism. He turned the Mickey Mouse clock back by three and a half days and had a whispered conversation with an elephant on the wallpaper before rearranging the bookshelf chronologically by the authors’ death. As he worked, he sang, the only break in the silence apart from John’s erratic snores. The tune was familiar, but the lyrics jarred against those known to me.

“Good morning to you,

Good morning to you

Good morning, dear children,

Good morning to all.”

Horrible long fingers snatched a photo of a sunset down from the wall. When he replaced it, the colour had leeched out, leaving a giant blind eye glaring above a burnt world.

He faced me. I recognized him at once as my husband, as my estranged uncle, as the sister I hadn’t known I’d had until I found the grave in the garden, as the old man in the park who talked about Death like she was an old lover. But there was also something of an ugly painting I’d hated, a crookedness to nose that recalled a boorish chemistry professor. The ears were those of a monster made up to keep my secrets, and his teeth were the knives my best friend and I had used to make us siblings. But it was still a stranger’s face, made up of familiar things I’d never seen before, or hadn’t wanted to see. He had dark pits where his eyes should have been, deep as the graves of stars; lightless, cold and so very very old.

He clambered into the cradle, flexing his too-long fingers about the bars and scraping the backboard with his horns. I looked at him one last time, an ugly thing with writhing lips and too much of my father about his cheekbones.

“Sing me a lullaby,” he commanded in a voice I kept for my thoughts. As I sung, his teeth softened and and his eyelids drooped, concealing the black pits beneath.

“ Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.
Good morning the sun
Good morning the light
Good morning to you-oo
Good bye to the night.”

Sunshine glinted in the spirals of mist spilling from the window. A ray of light struck the cradle. A wail went up and small pink hands swatted the air, as if hoping to knock the blaze away. Standing, I let my shadow fall over the crib.

The creature had vanished. The stranger remained, but would not speak again for several years. Shielded from the brightness, eyes of a blue I’d only seen in mirrors blinked up at me.

The light in the sky grew stronger, and as I watched dawn become day I realized I had my sun back.

- - -
Chantal Beaulne was exposed to high levels of fiction in her youth, causing severe abnormalities in her reality preceptors. She can pass as normal until she sees a blinking cursor or an unattended pen. Vancouver, Canada grudgingly lets her live there while she attends Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

12/25/12

2012-12-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Night Before Zombiemas
By E.S. Wynn

I’ll never forget that light, that pulsing strobe of red and green as it lit up the snowy night sky like some tainted swarm of impossibly flying patrol cars. It was terrifying, eerie as it played among the blistering, pockmarked shadows clinging to the faces of the zombie mob, the shambling horde of eager corpses that yawned on into the night, moaning as they sought every sleeping body nestled snug in its bed, checked every house for survivors twice. My house was no different; they came in through the doors, the windows, the chimney. My only hope of escape was the second story, to climb out the window and onto the snow covered roof, to find up there some way to get down or get across to the next house before their prancing feet and pawing hands could find me.

But I was not so lucky.

No sooner did I reach the slope of the roof than what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a brilliant light that stabbed down at me from the heavens, blinding and hot against my skin even as I threw my arms in front of my face. There was a whistle, a shout, a crack of a whip, and then in the haze I heard his voice, knew the terrible laugh of the one who had spurred on the zombie horde, the one whose whip drove them forward and into the sleeping streets, kept them hungry, eager for human flesh. I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick, vicious overlord of the northern skies.

There was no time, no choice– I ran, but quickly realized that running barefoot on a frosty, angled roof is no vision of sugar-plums. I lost my balance almost immediately, slid sideways and then spun on the curve of one foot right off the edge and into snowy infinity. The ground came up at me like a flash, tore open my leg and slashed up my hands. In an instant, I knew I was done for, could hear the horde as it closed in on me, hungry to taste the bruised and broken flesh that my fall had opened for them. Cruel, talon-like fingers reached toward me, and for a moment I saw my death, whole body stiffening, chilling with the harsh realization that I was about to die.

And then Mrs. Rosenschwartz appeared.

She came hurtling out of nowhere like a flash in the night, her blood-stained walker and gnashing dentures a vision of salvation, the swinging, reusable shopping bag at her side crammed with goodies meant for the zombie horde. In one swift movement, she plunged one gnarled hand into the sack and tore loose a brown bottle whose white, plastic lid was no match for her porcelain chompers. I caught the twinkle in her eye as she bit free the cap and hurled the bottle into the mob, spraying countless numbers of the undead with a clear liquid that bit into their rotting flesh with foamy violence, dropping them in agonized heaps of writhing, screaming putridity.

“Here, take one, sonny.” She said suddenly, pressing one of the brown bottles into my hand with a grin. “Closest thing left on God’s green earth to holy water when it comes to these rotting punks!”

She didn’t wait for me to respond, just smiled that iridescent, be-dentured smile covered in the stains acquired in countless years of hard reps with a mug of coffee and a dedicated patience to the tutelage of a cigarette. In another instant, she was pushing her way back into the fray again, tossing bottles of the stuff right and left, draining each plastic carcass out upon the convulsing flesh of the risen dead. Awestruck and amazed, I looked at the label of the bottle, eyes wondering after the name of the magical liquid I clutched in my shivering hands. I found the name almost immediately. Hydrogen Peroxide.

I looked up in shock, saw the foaming carnage all around me. With a few well aimed tosses, old Mrs. Rosenschwartz had leveled the endless march of undead under a hail of writhing, bubbly torture whose burn fed upon the rot and disease inherent in every inch of corrupted flesh. Those zombies still under St. Nick’s control quivered in fear as Mrs. Rosenschwartz pulled another bottle of the magic liquid from her still bulging sack, but they soon lost even that speck of nerve and retreated like a host of holiday shoppers going home after Black Friday. St. Nick grumbled and hissed and gathered them all, then he hitched up his ship as his fiery engines gave a whistle and the whole horde flew away like the burning, rocket-powered down of a cyberpunk thistle.

But I swear that I heard him say as he roared out of sight;

I’ll get you next Christmas, kid; you just got lucky tonight.

- - -
Santa Claus believed in E.S. Wynn when he was a child, but later found out that the man in the khaki shorts and loud hawaiian shirts that wrote novels on the wall on Christmas Eve for an offering of cheese danish and Doctor Pepper was actually just his father in disguise.

12/18/12

2012-12-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

Collision Error
By Kayla Al-Shamma-Jones

Nobody—save for the overly flirtatious mailman—seemed to notice when Jenna started falling. I don’t mean that the ground opened up and began swallowing her whole, as if a pool of burping-swirling quicksand had opened up under her hand-me-down Skechers . No, that’s not it at all—what happened to Jenna Barker is much more treacherous than that. In the video game world they call it a “collision error” because objects start to pass right through you, almost as if everything (except you) has turned into some kind of hologram; everything looks and seems real, but as soon as you touch something, the jig is up! and you pass right through it. Most of the time you (the player) won’t notice it for a while, but then it happens: you’re running around in the game, trying to kill zombies or rescue a damsel or something like that, when bam! you trip and you fall, but instead of landing flat on your face you go right through the (holographic) ground and you fall

and you fall

straight through the crust of the earth and all the way through the planet’s red-hot center until there you are—

floating, completely and forever alone,

in space.

Usually the only way to fix this sort of thing is to restart your game, but poor Jenna didn’t have that option so she just had to live with it.

Thankfully for Jenna the whole process happened slowly, at the rate of just a few inches a day, so she had time to try and figure out what the fuck to do. But even though Jenna was one of those (annoying) straight-A girls, the best thing she could come up with was to ask her friends or (gulp) maybe even her teachers—but that was a bit of a problem because (like I said) nobody seemed to notice Jenna’s plight—or Jenna herself—at all, save for the mailman. When she went to school that Wednesday, half of her shins had fallen through and she was significantly shorter than she’d been on Monday, but even then, her best friend Elly didn't notice; she just passed right by poor Jenna in the hallway before the morning bell. The day went by and Jenna went from desk to lousy desk and nobody said a word to her. Jenna knew she should say something, or cry out for help, but she didn’t want people to think she was crazy

(“Women and children should only speak when spoken to”, Father had told her when she was three and making too much noise at the supermarket),

so she went along with it and tried to be as normal as possible, which worked because nobody addressed her or even looked at her her at all that day, not even once, even though by lunchtime half her legs were gone. Then there was cheer practice, which was depressing because of course Jenna couldn’t do most of the exercises during warm-ups or really participate at all; all she could do was stand there and flail her arms around which made her feel like an idiot. The only person who spoke to her all day was the mailman, who was standing on the porch when the school bus dropped her off that afternoon.

“What the heck’s happening to you, Jenna?” he asked as she wobbled up to the front door.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s like you’re slipping through the cracks.”

Jenna looked down and noticed all the hairline cracks in the sidewalk and imagined all those tiny skittering bugs deep down in there and tried not to think about what it would be like if she continued falling and her head got stuck down there. Would the bugs and worms crawl all over her eyeballs and nest in her hair and poop on her blouse?

“Should I take you to a doctor? I have a guy, real good, named Dr. Felp…I’ll give you a ride.”

Jenna knew that a doctor couldn’t help her, plus she didn’t want to go anywhere with the mailman, even if his offer was genuine and he was only a little creepy, so she just nodded and mumbled her thanks before walking-tottering past him and shutting the door.

When she got inside she did what all teenage girls do when they’ve had a rough day: she went to her bedroom and flopped on the bed. Or, rather, she tried—but she couldn’t hoist herself up onto the bed because her legs were stuck. She gripped the edge of her bed and pulled and wriggled and twisted until all her veins popped blue-purple against her porcelain skin, but it was no use. Exhausted, she slumped over and decided that she’d just have to weep standing up.

But all that struggling must’ve done something because then she started to fall much more quickly, just like you do in video games.

Down

down

down she went.

The whole earth rushed past her: she tumbled right past all those bugs and worms and went straight through the earth’s crust, then she slipped through an ocean of oil and passed through the sunshine-bright molten core (Jenna was thankful that it didn’t hurt—she actually didn’t feel the heat at all). Then she did it all in reverse and fell through the sky somewhere around rural China and continued falling until she plummeted through the atmosphere and finally came to a rest somewhere in outer space—Jenna didn’t know where she was because she always fell asleep when her parents took her and her stupid sister to the observatory. Nope, she was lost

and alone

in outer space, and all she could do was float there,

and stare down at the big blue marble beneath her,

limp as a forgotten doll,

and wonder why nobody noticed

when she started falling through the

cracks.

- - -
Kayla Al-Shamma-Jones was a pretty weird kid, which is why she’s now a writer. Long ago she studied literature at the University of California at Davis and is now a full-time author of dark, disturbing, and fantastical fiction. She currently resides in Los Angeles, CA with her fabulous husband Orion and her two cats.

12/11/12

2012-12-11T00:00:00.009-08:00

There's such a thing as being too adaptable
By Erika Price

Scheherazade ran out on the bastard, retired someplace temperate, and started writing flash fiction on her shins and forearms with Bic rollerball pens. Every day, she squinted into the rising sun and narrated on herself while taking fortifying sips from a big plastic cup, until every limb was covered in jagged handwritten henna, which she’d then survey with brief pride, and forget.

She’d take a swill from a slurry of Kristoff and Crystal Light and ice. And another, and another, until the ice went from thick rocks to small, crispy meteoroids, and the liquid became more water than not, and she’d drain it and chomp on the ice and the sun would burst into swells of purples and oranges and fizzle into navy and she’d find she couldn’t re-read the story on herself even if she wanted to. Then, by morning, a crest of water’d crash over her passed-out drunk-ass and wash it all away.

—————-

“Battered wife syndrome my ass. I’ll haul out whenever I want, and that’s now, or later today, I’m serious.”

“…”

“I’m telling you, I got my bag right here and I’m putting my shit in it, and that’s it, I don’t need you to pick me up, huh uh, I’m out.”

“…”

“‘Financial domination’, they called it on the hotline. Like I’m a child. Like I’m a concubine. Like money justifies the thousands of, of like, women who stick around watching their kids get slugged for decades. Why? Because they need the fucker for a check? Like I need a job first?”

“…”

“Yeah, they’re the ones telling my ass to hold my horses. Get some financial security, get a safe space set up with a friend, you need a parachute. Legit, they said that. But, no, that’s not true.”

“…”

“I don’t need to work on a thing. I’ll eat bananas and sleep on the beach. My hair and skin and sand all the same color, all taupe everything, all warm and dusty-dry. I can live there, fuck it. I won’t get skin cancer from it, I don’t burn, not hardly ever, except at water parks. That’s it. Just me and the sloshing sound of the water and a pen. I’ll live, like, forever in the now.”

“…”

“It’s that practicality crap that kept me hanging around here in the first place.”

“…”

“What, no, I’m not drinking.”

—————-

Once you’ve written a story, it doesn’t belong to you, even if you get credit for it. It reads in your head like something said by a sibling: it has your patter to it, but not your essence. So why try to own it? Why own your babies like an animal hoarder or a parent of helicoptered children?

There’s about three ways that can go. One, you can cling to what you’ve done in the past, while slowly losing your grasp of it nonetheless, failing to identify with your prior self more and more. Two, you can jump hoops and ride unicycles in parody of yourself, trying to get your own tone right. To keep sounding like the person you once were. That didn’t work out so hot for James Patterson or Cormac McCarthy. Three, you can keep shitting work out, stories as disparate, ephemeral, and unfocused as selfhood truly is, while paradoxically claiming all those mis-matched productions came from the same source.

Or you can do it up real, that storytelling thing, and throw out your loose ends with each coming night. You can murder your children and feed rocks to your forebears until their bellies burst and you’re the only one standing. You can come up with really hasty climaxes and put all your energy into composing catchy pitches and premises that beguile the listener until he passes out in a drunken stupor on the dog’s bed in the living room at four AM before he gets the chance to go all surly and whale on you. You can get really heretical with it, if you want, and tell stories not for their craft, but to save your crafty hide.

—————-

If someone writes your ass-saving stories down, and retells them, you might become mythological. But it’s little comfort. Trust me: people think Scheherazade’s story is a love story, for chrissake, because she marries her would-be murderer in the end. People know all about Aladdin and Sindbad the Sailor’s adventures, but they don’t think about how it’d be to pace around the palace every day with the scythe hanging over your head, being forced both to bang your be-header and tuck him in with swash-buckling, cliffhanging narratives every night.

Sounds like a hell of a writer’s retreat, though. It obviously did Scheherazade’s career wonders. See her there, hunched over herself on the beach, ostensibly free— but still married, somehow, to her old adaptations. She clutches to the drink and the tireless unwinding of narrative, those vestigial structures that kept her above the crest so long. You can’t swim very fast with your water-wings on.

Watch her sip, and write, and perhaps learn: Abuse is the art of turning gifts into weapons.

- - -
Erika D. Price is a social psychologist, writer, and eternal student living in Chicago, Illinois. She writes all her first drafts on the Notepad app of her iPhone, which sounds insane but is actually quite a convenient way to bang out ideas on the go while simultaneously looking like a vapid, perpetually-texting woman-child.

12/4/12

2012-12-04T00:00:00.003-08:00

The Scorpion
By Michael Fontana

I missed work Friday because a scorpion had grown from my spine. The scorpion was actually an extension of the vertebrae, with a stinger and claws to boot. It didn’t like people seated in too close proximity so it would sting their ass but good if they crept too close. You know how that is, someone who’s not respectful of personal space and wants to touch you before they decide that there’s room enough for both of you. That’s when the scorpion lashed out.
“Scoot your buttocks over,” the scorpion said in a distinctively brassy and feminine voice.
The recipient of the sting took a hop but definitely away from me, which won the scorpion plaudits from me.
“Who’s next? Huh? Huh?” The scorpion was on a roll now, bobbing in and out of my spine, snipping claws in the air. No one was going to mess around with her now.
Except for Monday, when I returned to work. My boss was all over the tale of my tail. My boss had hair slicked back with Brylcreem, strictly out of the sixties, all of it gray as well as his thin little risqué beard. He had beady black eyes and a nose striped with gin blossoms. Not a pretty sight.
“What’s this growing out of you then?” He said, pointing at the scorpion but not daring to draw close.
“She’s my bodyguard,” I said.
“Very funny. But let me tell you, if anyone gets hurt you will bear the legal liability alone, got it?”
Oh, I got it all right. My boss was probably one of those with a wee peccadillo for such critters, spent his bedtime animus dreaming of the formations he might make in a dune with such a beast.
“She’s in my custody,” I told him, even though it was a blanket lie.
“This is a meager excuse at best for missing work on a Friday afternoon,” my boss said. “I’ll expect a doctor’s note.”
“You’ll get one,” I promised. I sat at my desk but the scorpion was not amused. She chewed into the seat backing of my chair, she whipped her stinger around at anyone who passed. She was spoiling for fun and I was bringing none her way.
So I finally lifted myself off my seat and took a walk. It eased the pressure on my spine to move a little anyway, and it certainly freed the scorpion up for whatever gig she surmised. On this occasion the gig was to pierce the water cooler with her stinger so the liquid all ran out and she could have a splash in it. It embarrassed me because it soaked my clothes to make me look incontinent.
Other employees circled us and it was plain to see my distress at the incident. They were amused. They laughed and pointed fingers at my wetness. I pictured them shaming small children in a similar condition, they were so pleased about it. The scorpion soon began laughing as well, high pitched and squealing with it.
My boss hurriedly blustered onto the scene. “What’s this?” He said. He grabbed the scorpion by the tail, which prevented his being stung, but that didn’t mean the tail didn’t whip around and by default, him with it. He was like an untethered balloon there, bobbing up and down with the reflex motion of the scorpion’s tail.
“What’s the meaning of this?” My boss said.
Everyone, including me, was now laughing at him. The scorpion was having herself quite a time, flapping him around like a stale newspaper.
In the end this wore me out for the scorpion was still attached, after all. I seized her little head and squeezed and that caused her to drop my boss. He stood up, beet faced, and adjusted his tie before slinking away. I released the scorpion’s head but she wouldn’t sting me because it would be a lot like suicide to do so.
“Let go of my head,” she said, trying to deepen her voice to sound more masculine and menacing.
“I won’t. You need to control yourself. You’re going to get me fired.”
“Your boss is a blowhard anyway. What do you need with him?”
“His money every other week.”
“You should show a little more gumption and strike out on your own.”
“Well until I do, you need to exercise a little restraint.” I squeezed her head just a smidge harder.
“All right then, let go.”
I let go. She took a couple of random clicks at me with her claws but otherwise did no harm.
We went through what I would consider a sort of 12-step program for scorpions, informally. Every time she meant to lash out with her tail, I squeezed her head. It was training for both of us. She hated me gripping her that way, said I was violating her, but somehow still seemed to put up with it.
In time the scorpion started hanging off my back more, being less intense. She took up knitting and crossword puzzles. She crafted herself the cutest little caftan. Long story short, I was able to slough off the Vicodin and returned to work a happier and yes, far more productive, employee.
My boss meanwhile, learned the trick to her. He began to flirt. Severely. “How’s my pretty today?” He would ask the scorpion. She couldn’t quite blush, being severely red already, so she curled her tail up and down invitingly.
I objected the first time he asked her out for cocktails. “I won’t be part of this. This is crossing some employer-employee boundary.”
“You’ll be crossing the boundary over to the unemployment office if you don’t cooperate,” he said.
I cooperated. I sat at a bar nursing a beer with my back turned to the happy couple, who were drinking bloody marys like to beat the band. During their first kiss I heard the scorpion hiss with pleasure and I knew I was in deep trouble.
After a few months of this, my boss asked her to marry and she accepted. He liked the little stinger in the ass every now and again, I knew from far too personal experience, listening to the old monkey take his turn on the needle like a slab of wax. So on the wedding night I had to lay on my side, back turned to them, while they went through the motions of their kinky and bestial love.
“My darling,” my boss said with jowls flapping.
“My love,” the scorpion whistled like a tea kettle.
“My god,” I said. And I considered myself a heathen.
Thankfully they didn’t or couldn’t reproduce. But I was still part of this cracked relationship, flipping my backside to them whenever their passions overtook, which was far more often than you would expect from a codger like him and a critter like her.
That’s when I elected surgery. I spoke to my doctor about separating myself from said scorpion. She objected. “You can’t! I’ll die!”
“Modern science is full of miracles these days,” I said. “They’ll find a way to keep you alive all on your lonesome.”
“I like being attached to you,” she said coyly.
“Why?”
“Because it’s fun to do it all behind your back.” This made her titter with delight.
It was enough to provoke me to sign up for the surgery. They were able to remove the scorpion and keep her alive courtesy of myriad tubes and wires.
Her first independent action was to sting me in the ass.

- - -
Michael Fontana is the author of two novels, Sleeping With Gods and The Sacred Machine. He lives and writes in beautiful Bella Vista, Arkansas.

11/26/12

2012-11-26T00:00:00.009-08:00

The Job
By Tony Rauch

- Hungarians? Would I have a problem shaving one down? Maybe even several? No sir. No problem at all.

- Moon the President of Paraguay? Not a problem. Heck, I practice at home all the time – different angles and techniques. I enjoy mooning visiting dignitaries and hope to do so many times in the future. Yes, I enjoy dropping my pants. For sure. Definitely.

- Steal a pie from a church? Maybe even several? Not an issue with me. Not at all.

- Run off with a drunk man’s trousers? No worries. None whatsoever.

- Throw a fit in a monastery? You only need to ask.

- Wear my pajamas to the library and spend all day there? Yeah, sure. Why not? Is there anything better to do?

- Berating the elderly? I look forward to it.

- Fire bomb the liquor store our rivals frequent? Not a concern. In fact, I keep several incendiary devices in the trunk of my car at all times, along with several other little beauties – just in case, you dig?

- Kick a hobo in the groin while he sleeps? No problemo.

- Push a nun into the mud? I can’t wait. I see no problem with that either.

- Throw a handful of monkey feces at a sidewalk reporter or people waiting for the bus? My pleasure. Can do.

- Kill a man with my bare hands? Really getting right up in there, all close and personal? Just getting in there real close and tight like? Yeah, sure, why not?

- Steal a wagon or tricycle from a kid? Glad to. Often. Count on it.

- Dress up like Ethel Merman and parade around the town square? Thank you, I would enjoy that most specially. That may be my finest hour.

- Run naked through the supermarket? I couldn’t be happier. I keep myself in tip-top shape. Top notch. They’ll never know what hit ‘em. They’ll never catch me. Just grease me down. Grease me up right now. Let’s go. Right now.

Yes sir. Yes sir, you can count on me, sir. For sure. When do I start?

- - -
Tony Rauch has been interviewed by The Prague Post, Oxford University, and Rain Taxi. His books have been reviewed by MIT, Savanna Collage of Art and Design, and Rain Taxi, among many others. His stories have appeared in numerous literary journals. Rauch has four books of short stories out –

- “I'm right here,” from Spout Press (funky/jazzy/arty experimental short stories)
- “Laredo,” from Eraserhead Press (funky/jazzy/arty fairytale short stories)
- “Eyeballs growing all over me . . again” from Eraserhead Press (fairy tale surreal fantasy action adventure sci-fi short stories and story starters)
- “As I floated in the jar” from Eraserhead Press (fairy tale surreal fantasy action adventure sci-fi short stories and story starters) [to be published in the next few weeks]

For more info and story samples, refer to his website: http://trauch.wordpress.com/

11/19/12

2012-11-19T00:00:00.008-08:00

Dragon Science
By Dave Hughes

"Fact of the matter is, your rooster is actually a dragon," said Dr. Horace. His lips were tight and his brow was chiseled in place, and he stood a mere foot from Mrs. Stanislaus's nose.

She wondered for a second if this was some new way of saying "you've got a nice be-hind at 35, wanna cheat on your husband?" Which Dr. Horace had said before, but this time, thankfully, he was sober. His gaze turned from Mrs. Stanislaus to Ernesto, the portentous black-bodied red-crowned rooster in the three-foot cage below, a high source of income and blue ribbons for the Stanislaus family.

"Oh," said Mrs. S, taking a step back, "thank you. Ernesto appreciates the compliment. Don't you, big guy?" she snuck a finger into her prize-winning cock's cage and Ernesto pecked at it in either curiosity or suppressed rage at being owned.

Dr. Horace sighed and slicked back his brown toupée. "I'm serious, Mrs. Stan. I've talked it over with my colleagues at the school."

"I don't follow."

"Yes you do, it's not hard."

Mrs. S scoffed. Dr. H had overstayed his welcome fifteen minutes ago, and the amount of grace annoyances had been whittled away to almost nothing. "Sorry, it's just, why is he a dragon? He looks like a rooster to me."

"You see, Miss Stan, we've been looking all over for a dragon. That's just the sort of thing cryptozoologists do. And were there any dragons?"

"Komodo dragons, maybe."

"Yes-- but they're not nearly awesome enough. Nothing like a fire-breathing reptilian monstrosity with wings that St. George would fight. We haven't been able to find anything of the sort. But I realized just the other day, while looking at porn for scholarly reasons-- we've never seen a dragon. It could look like a chicken for all we know. So," he pointed to the black rooster picking at the lock of his cage, "we hypothesized that maybe Ernesto and other roosters like him were dragons all along. Such fine black plumage, great size at such a young age, a look in his eyes that means business-- and chickens are closely related to reptiles."

"Don't be ridiculous, Mr. Horace. Ernesto doesn't breathe fire."

It was then that Mr. H had that sort of grin that made actual dragons cower. "I'm a scientist," he said. "I test these things."

---

The blue flames of the stove came on and a waft of heat spurted at Ernesto's face. Mrs. S. held him like a rifle.

"Now all we need him to do is exhale with all his might to see if his breath can catch fire," said Mr. H.

"This is asinine," said Mrs. S., as she stroked the nervous chicken's back, despite holding his twitching face inches away from an open fire. It was at times like this that she wondered why she said "yes" to so many things that involved her prize roosters and Dr. Horace.

"Yes, and if it's true, it'll make us asininely rich," said Dr. H.

Relaxing her hold on Ernesto, Mrs. S. glared in surprise at the scientist. "Us?"

"Well, yes, us."

"But it's my rooster. My husband's as well."

"And I discovered it. I'll get money on my own accord."

"All right, Dr. Horace, I believe this has gone way out of hand."

Horace smelled something resembling sub-par coq au vin, looked down, and pointed in horror. "Certainly has. The dragon's on fire."

Mrs. S. looked down and saw that maybe loosening her grip was a poor idea over an open flame.

She shrieked and dropped the also-shrieking bird as its crest ignited, then the plumage around its head, and within only a few seconds Ernesto the rooster had become a cheap knockoff phoenix that doesn't come back to life. It howled a flaming-rooster howl as it sped across the kitchen floor to the back room to find a better place to die. He left a trail of shag carpet behind him as Mrs. S. ran after the poor bird with a wet towel.

Finally, the blazing rooster found a suitable place to lie down and die- next to a propane tank for the outdoor grill.

---

As firemen doused the last fires of what was left of the Stanislaus residence, Mrs. S. and Dr. H. sat on a bench outside.

"This is all your fault," said Mrs. S. with a sigh.

"Me?" Dr. H. pointed at himself in indignation. "You should have seen it coming, Mrs. Stan. You were the one with a pet dragon."

- - -
I'm a college student with a love of Finnish metal and Winnie-the-Pooh.

11/12/12

2012-11-12T00:00:00.001-08:00

The Awakening
By Amy Pollard

You tighten your grip on your wind-battered umbrella and huddle beneath its protective wing. The headstone before you is dark and impending, mimicking the distant mountains, almost glaring at you as you bend over and arrange your store-bought daisies in the little built-in vase.

How your grandmother loved flowers. Already you can smell her rosy perfume serenading your nostrils. You remember the garden she kept in the back of her house and how she would let you inside it. She would name all the flowers, stretching around you like an endless rainbow. After you had seen all of the buds, she would fetch her watering can and feed the flowers, all the while telling you how important water was in sustaining life. “Water is the key to any garden,” she would say. “Without it, there can be no growth.” Then she would go on about the beauty of the flowers and the satisfaction of tending them. She’d given you some seeds, once—pansies, your favorite—and encouraged you to plant them in your apartment window tray.

But you didn’t listen back then. You never listened. Always too busy. Always something else on your mind. What was growing a bunch of skimpy flowers compared to getting your rent paid a month in advance? What was a watering can compared to a raise at work? What was a homegrown garden compared to a house—a real house? You gulp, a teardrop swelling in your eye when you remember the cold, callous funeral procession, full of intoxicating well-wishes and sobering hymns. It wasn’t until the dust accumulated on your unopened pansy seeds that you began to wonder if a garden might do you good. You started thinking about the seeds and how you’d never planted them or given them water, how you’d never given them anything but a dusty existence on the corner of your shelf. Your head felt unusually jammed as you mulled it all over. A garden wouldn’t hurt. In fact, you rather liked the idea. Maybe you could plant the pansies. Maybe you could start over. Rising to your feet, you glimpse the daisies, still strangled by their price tag, and you sigh. It will do no good. You’ve forgotten to pick up the gardening tools on your way here. You have no shovel. You have no spade. You don’t even have a watering can. What a fool you’ve been, thinking it was that easy, that simple to nurture life. Now those cheap daisies are the best that you will ever do. Biting your lip until it bleeds, you swallow and turn away from the gravestone. And then a drop of water splashes onto your cheek.

The umbrella slips out of your palm and sprawls on the grass, sticky and shriveled. You take the packet of seeds out of your pocket. You get down on your hands and knees and start tearing open the earth. The soil cakes your fists as you dig further down. You hadn’t stopped to examine the packet or read the directions. But what four-by-four inch packet could explain how to coax flowers from the ground, how to wring water from the skies or how to hold the sun’s potent gaze long enough to make it all possible? What could ever explain any of that to you?

You feel the rain spilling over you and suddenly you can see. The trees become an emerald carpet spread over the mountains, distant and knowing, veiled in cloudy starlight. The rain dares to whisper its secrets to you as it drums across the grass. The moist, grimy earth mixes with the cold, crisp water as you empty the packet into the man-made hole before hastily packing the dirt back in again. A paid rent, a raise at work and a real house are the last thing on your mind now as the water soaks your face as surely as it is soaking the pansy seeds, lying in wait beneath the earth. All your life, you’ve waited for this garden. You gaze up at the sky, a chalky silver, and see the clouds unfurling. The radiance splashes onto the graves around you, shedding light onto the unborn pansy seeds as if to wake them from their slumber, enticing them to bloom a season early.

You scrape the tears from your cheeks and gaze at the smooth stone in front of you. She has never been this close before. You feel the rain spilling over you and suddenly you know that the world will keep turning, the water will keep falling, and the flowers will keep blooming. Your lips break into a smile. You can’t believe it’s taken you this long.

- - -
Amy Pollard is a poet, writer and student. She maintains a book review blog at cafereads.blogspot.com. Her poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Emerge Literary Journal, Eunoia Review and The Copperfield Review.

11/5/12

2012-11-05T00:00:00.007-08:00

The Jackpot
By C.J. Johnson

The pile of bills sat innocently atop the kitchen table. Not a letter bomb among them, they each still had the same devastating effect when opened. Not ten minutes earlier they had taunted Sheila needlessly with their contents, causing her heart to flutter in panic and anxiety.
Tears shone in Sheila's eyes and she suddenly whooped loudly. Laughing and hugging herself, she began to dance around the kitchen table. The telephone conversation with Harry, her husband of 12 years, played and re-played in her mind.
"We've won the Lottery babe," he'd told her. "I'm on my way home now with the ticket!"
He'd walked out of the office to come home!
That must mean a substantial win.
Sheila, exhausted from her delirious antics, sank onto a chair and grabbed the pile of bills. One by one she tossed them around the kitchen, squealing in happiness.
No more debt collectors, no more worrying.
Sheila spent the next twenty minutes daydreaming of the wonderful life she would soon be leading when the sound of Harry's key in the front door sent her heart pounding in excitement and caused fresh tears to gather in her eyes. She raced to the door, throwing herself at Harry who stood holding his briefcase and grinning at her.
"I can't believe it," Sheila gasped, her words muffled as she hugged him tightly.
"Believe it babe, we've won on the Lottery!"
He handed her the ticket from his left pocket. Sheila could barely focus on the piece of paper as her eyes constantly filled with fresh tears of happiness. Once she managed to focus however, her happiness turned to confusion. She looked at Harry.
"You...you," she stuttered.
Harry began to laugh. Hearty laughter soon gave way to hysterical peals and wails as he bent over and clutched his sides, the sounds sending wave after wave of crippling disappointment over Sheila.
Haaa haaa haaa, Ahhhhh haaaa haaaa!
The almost psychotic laughter stirred a dark place deep within Sheila, a dark place that she had struggled to contain for years. A dark place that had whispered unspeakable things in her ear during the course of her marriage to this cruel man. An hour seemed to go by, but it was likely no more than thirty seconds. Regaining some sort of control, Harry stood straight and began to adjust his suit and tie. Sheila again looked at the ticket in her hand. They had indeed won the lottery, Harry had not lied.
They had won £10.
"You should see your face," Harry told her before bursting into a fresh round of laughter.
"But you left the office," Sheila muttered, feeling completely detached and numb.
"Left some important papers here this morning, just popped home to get them."
Harry laughed as he went to his study to retrieve the papers, laughed as he brushed past her frozen figure in the hallway, the ticket still clutched in her stiff fingers.
"Classic!" he yelled at her before leaving the house, his laughter fading as he walked down the garden path.
Sheila sank into a heap on the floor. Through her numbing disappointment and shock, the dark place, once again, began to whisper to her.
Six months later...
Sheila sprawled on the sun lounger, soaking up the sun as she gazed at the view from her balcony.
Harry's life insurance had made her a rich woman. A car accident had claimed his life, faulty brakes, the official report claimed.
It was amazing what one could learn about cars from the Internet, both how to fix them, and how to disable them.
Sheila grinned, then began to laugh.
The dark place slumbered within her, satisfied.
For now.

- - -
My name is C.J. Johnson and I'm 30 years old. My first horror novel entitled Female of the Species will be released shortly in digital format and I'm currently writing my second novel, which is a thriller. My first Flash Fiction story will appear on Linguistic Erosion on 27/8/12. I can be 'Liked' on Facebook for anyone interested in my work.

10/30/12

2012-10-30T00:00:00.002-07:00

Casey Jones and the Naked Hippie
By Newamba Flamingo

The hippie and I walked briskly out of the movie theater, into the moonlit parking lot. Sirens blared as a cavalcade of cop cars, ambulances, fire engines, and media vehicles descended onto the scene. A SWAT team rushed by us in single file.

We arrived to an empty parking space.

“Some sumbitch stole my van!” the hippie shouted, his Mississippi drawl barely audible over the sirens.

“What?” I shouted back, more out of surprise than not being able to hear him, because I did hear him.

“The van! It’s gone! I had all my gear in it!” the hippie screamed, this time even louder.

I realized by gear he didn’t just mean his favorite electric guitar. He meant more his book of acid sheets and tub of homegrown.

The hippie stared down at the ground in disbelief for a good few seconds. His long, curly red hair and bushy red beard blew around in the wind, which seemed to be picking up.

“Over there…” he pointed, across the street, to a dimly lit public park.

He slung the acoustic guitar he’d been carrying over his shoulder and ran across the intersection, through oncoming traffic, into the park’s direction. Cars honked and swerved out of his way. I waited for the stoplight and followed him. Off in the distance, from the movie theater’s parking lot, I could hear gunshots.

The hippie stopped and stood in the sidewalk in front of the park, put down his guitar, and tore off all his clothes.

His tall, obese frame was covered in red body hair. His skin was pale as a ghost, and he had a protruding beer belly that hung so low it obscured his privates. Nearby pedestrians who’d been rubbernecking at the scene across the street shrieked and scampered in terror upon sight of him.

Picking up his guitar, he strummed and sung “Casey Jones” horribly out of tune for about a minute, then took off running into the park. I again followed him.

I heard someone from the park yelling “fuck you!” over and over. The farther we ran into the park, the louder the yelling got.

We ran into a forested area. It was dark. I could barely see anything except the hippie’s red mane and pale flabby ass, between the trees, fading into the distance.

Finally we got to a steep hill and the “fuck you” yelling was now deafeningly loud. The hippie ran up the hill way faster than someone his size should, hurdled over a thicket of bushes, and disappeared into the night. Just after he disappeared, the yelling ceased.

I took a few steps back but stopped when I bumped into something large, warm, and hairy. It was the hippie. He was behind me and still naked and had a flashlight in one hand and his acoustic guitar in the other. He shined the flashlight into his face, under his chin, and stuck out his tongue. On it was several hits of acid. He then withdrew his tongue, shut his mouth, made a gulping sound and smiled.

Then he shined the flashlight to his left. Another hippie was there, who looked sort of like him, red hair, tall, obese, but with a shorter haircut and a goatee instead of a bushy beard.

The other hippie wore two garbage bags as clothes and had plastic shopping bags tied around his feet. The garbage bag hippie began to yell “fuck you” at the naked hippie. Then the naked hippie threw the flashlight at him and proceeded to beat him over the head with the acoustic guitar.

The guitar hummed as it broke over his head. After it completely split apart, the naked hippie bludgeoned him with the fretboard and stabbed him in the throat a couple times with it, too, and, soon enough, the garbage bag hippie looked pretty well dead.

Halting his murderous assault, he turned slowly to me.

“I know who stole my van…” he said, pointing to the hill, the top of which now appeared to be on fire.

“I know who stole my van…” he repeated and he ran back up the hill, into the spreading fire, singing “Casey Jones” and waving his bloody fretboard triumphantly in the air.

- - -
Newamba Flamingo likes dragon fruit, alien abductions, and trying to talk to John Cheever via Ouija board.

10/23/12

2012-10-23T00:00:00.002-07:00

Toxic Nostalgia
By Kyle Yadlosky

I have to wear a mask to make sure the present doesn’t kill me. I’m sitting in my apartment, and a grey haze drifts through the window. I’d shut the window, but what’s the point of getting up?
I don’t have cable, so I’m staring off into nothing-at-all. It’s not too bad. My mind keeps me busy. My memories keep me occupied.
Life used to be so good.
I remember I was one of the last kids wearing bellbottoms. Everyone at school called me gay for it. It was eighth grade. Melisa, a school slut, liked the bellbottoms a lot, though. She whispered it in my ear during gym: “I’d like to see what’s underneath them.” It was a victory over every bully in the world that day.
She blew me.
I have those pants in my closet. They hang on the inside of the door, so I can look at them while I get dressed. They don’t fit, anymore.
Industrial equipment sounds from outside. It’s a construction site out there—all around, really. The grey mist is from the wrecking ball wrecking everything. It swings, and there’s a deafening SHATTER. Then, more grey haze wafts in. It’s the mist of what-once-was soaring up into eternity.
I wonder if the workers remember I’m here.
Grey mist—I had a grey mutt. His name was Scout; I named him, myself. That made him mine, even if my mom fed and walked him. We were always together. He’d bark and roll around, and we’d play. I was seven. I lived in a town where no one was afraid to let their kids play alone outside.
Now, it’s dangerous to leave your apartment.
There’s a WHOMP of the top couple floors of a building near mine being wrecked. I’m on the sixth story of an eight story building. The WHOMP is drifting closer. I can hear its steady fall closing in. My eyes go to the ceiling. The visor to my mask fogs up with my every exhale. The WHOMP hits, turning to a CRASH, SHATTER, and BOOM. The light falls from my ceiling and smashes on the top of my blank television. I can see myself, hunched over on the couch and clad in gasmask, reflected in the screen.
There’s a steady sifting sound above. Then, there’s a CREAK, and my ceiling tears back and cracked concrete rubble plummets through, exploding my television to sparks, glass, and plastic.
Now, I live on the top floor.
My television was an old fat-back. I bought it when I was seventeen. It was my first purchase with my first paycheck slinging burgers. I remember I stayed up three nights straight trying to get porn to show on it. I eventually unscrambled the end of a sex scene, saw a nipple, and then the movie had ten minutes of dialogue and ended. The station scrambled again, before anything else came on. I was still excited by the little I saw.
There’s a banging on my door. It’s locked. Workers are calling through, “Are you still in there?” “You have to get out!” “The building’s gonna cave in!” There’s a pause, then, “We can hear you fucking breathing!”
They can. I breathe in that serial killer way through the mask, making sure the fumes of now don’t seep through and change me.
I rented this apartment three years ago. I pulled together all the cash I had working day-and-night as a manager of a burger joint to make the first month’s rent. I’d see this apartment complex driving to work every day, and I’d tell myself I’d live here. It was an exciting day. I felt like my future was opening. That night, for the first time since eighth grade, I found a woman and made love to her. I did it in this apartment.
We made love in my train-shaped bed. She thought it was strange, but it’s a big bed. I got it for Christmas when I was six. This was before my parents were divorced. It was the last time I saw them smile together.
I sleep in it every night, completely at piece.
There’s a yell of, “Shit, we gotta go!” then they’re stomping down the stairs. The CREAK presses the ceiling down; it strains further. I inhale, exhale, and my eyes fog over.
The manager told me four months ago that the complex was being torn down, changed into a retirement village. He told me I’d have to find somewhere else to live. I remember how I stared at him; my eyes shook. I pushed him against a wall and told him, “No.” It was simple and direct, and I marched away.
It was the bravest thing I’ve ever done.
The fact is that a cut on girl’s tongue transmits herpes, men in baseball caps will shoot your dog in the woods, televisions shatter, parents divorce, and hookers charge extra for fucking in weird beds. The place you spent your life working to live will get torn down no matter what you do.
The fact is that the past is and always will be better than the future, because you can forget the parts of the past you don’t like. In the future, the parts you don’t like are all you have to look forward to. I had four months to think about the end of my past, and I couldn’t deal with it. I fought against it.
I breathe in and out more quickly, beginning to hyperventilate. The CREAK turns to a steady RIP. The ceiling is tearing under the heavy slab of concrete property. I stare, and I stop breathing. My vision clears.
For a second it’s silent.
Then, there’s a CRACK and a THUMP and a CRASH. I SCREAM, and the rubble of what-once-was buries me alive.
The fact is that the future will always move on without you.

- - -
Voodoo, sideshows, and a good ghost story—if it’s outside of the everyday, Kyle Yadlosky revels in it. He lives in-between corn fields in Pennsylvania and has been published on Dorkly.com and in Shoofly and Essence literary magazines.

10/16/12

2012-10-16T00:00:00.003-07:00

Heart Hunting
By Michael Dwayne Smith

Her name was Emma. She asked if I was from the south, and I wished I was. The way you wish the prettiest girl in high school secretly longed for someone shy, sweet, chivalrous. I was just in from the city, putting down for the night, square to drive out first thing and meet up with old friends, and she was a full surprise.

Emma’s long blonde hair made me tell the truth. She said we’d get along just fine and dandy.

I felt oblong sitting at the table, my sister-in-law Karla angling around the kitchen, half-circling around her three-legged lab. The honey-color down on Emma’s arm captured sunlight from the breakfast nook window. Her teeth were so white, so perfectly sculpted she could’ve been on TV.

When Emma said she was on TV, Karla snorted one of her snorty laughs at the dumb face my raised eyebrows and O! mouth made. They had a confederacy.

Karla knew Emma from college. Emma stole her boyfriend, but they became BFF after Emma dropped out to model, leaving my loser jailbird brother to Karla and her frizzy black hair.

That night I dreamed Emma’s sassy, southern-belle cooter was with me at the triplex. We were sitting on the café patio, a geometry of stars overhead, some constellation I kept trying to recall from school—Orion, I decided, and we were chatting about movies, Chasing Amy, I think. “She” had the same sugar and molasses drawl as Emma, deliriously pink lips, and would call demurely to couples walking by, “How ya’ll doin’?”

Emma’s vulva wanted to know about hearts.

None of the passing lovers thought this was odd. They smiled or said, “Fine, thanks for asking,” holding hands.

In the morning Emma was lying next to me, golden locks curled around the pillow, like silky storybook ribbon.

When she opened her lids, emeralds fell out, but I couldn’t look. I’d stolen away with her vestibule last night while she slept. After we’d made love, Emma, her vagina, and I, I had cheated on Emma by running off and wild with her Eden-naked sugar truffle, without even leaving the guestroom bed. I’d kissed those delicate labia, made those tender promises under the stars—about a future I didn’t really see Emma’s cooter and I could share.

Karla appeared in the doorway, pink robe half-open, carrying a tray of black coffee and burnt toast, sat down between Emma and me. Karla slathered butter with a gleaming knife. Wanted to know, How did I like the heart position?

I rubbed my eyes, asked if this was love.

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As Michael Dwayne Smith, I did not invent the English language, but I have messed it pretty well. Mastermind behind stories, poems, hybrid works found at Word Riot, BLIP, Monkeybicycle, >kill author, Orion headless, Northville Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Right Hand Pointing, Short Fast & Deadly, and wow just so many rock candy stores or stereophonic outlets near you. Lastly, rumor of my being abducted by aliens untrue, though I am a meat Popsicle.