Weirdyear

5/25/12

2012-05-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Grandpa’s Musty Basement
By Tony Rauch

“It’s quite easy, you see,” he said, unscrewing the lid. The jar was a slippery clean - from off the shelf that had many other jars - all lined up in rows - with other colorful, exotic critters in them, some of which I did not recognize whatsoever.

The large, bright green frog was just sitting at the bottom of the jar as patient and calm as can be, just sitting there blinking up at us. Grandpa reached in and, cupping it softly, raised it out into the misty light that trickled in from the flood lamp up on the barn outside. Flies swirled around the lamp in the unfathomably deep darkness.

Grandpa reached over to another jar and removed an eyedropper. Then he dropped a few drops of golden liquid on the frog’s head, then returned the eyedropper back to the jar on the workbench.

The frog blinked slowly in the light, sitting in the middle of Grandpa’s outstretched palm, then carefully opened its mouth. Its long, thin slit of a mouth slowly grew back, back around its eyes, further and further in a straight, skinny line, suddenly curling up at the ends. It opened its mouth, looked up to me and blinked, and said in a deep, gravelly, guttural growl, “Well hello there, Billy. . .”

- - -
Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.

5/18/12

2012-05-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

My Tolstoy
By Edward T. Keller

As I read my Tolstoy with one eye, I keep my other eye on the flickering TV screen, and my third eye on the rat noses sniffing at the air through the crack of the kitchen door. Above the little noses and whiskers are set black beady eyes, and behind them - nervous ears that move around like tiny radar dishes.

I pretend not to notice the rats as not to encourage them. But then the portrait of Ronald Reagan as a young man fills the TV screen ominously. His broad shoulders seem on the verge of slipping through the plasma and into my room. In a second he could be already twitching on my carpet, covered with pixelated phosphor goo.

The thought is unbearable.

Briefly I think of slapping him with the Tolstoy but that seems somehow unfitting. Instead I get up from the couch, pretending to be looking at my magazines. I roll one up with deceptive slowness and then, fast as striking snake, I turn and swat Reagan on the forehead, spellcasting in my best hillbilly accent: “Git back, git back, you critter!”

He flinches and draws back, looking hurt and puzzled, as if trying to show that he had never intended to invade my privacy. They always pretend they never meant any harm. Damn celebrity stalkers.

“And you too!” I shout at the rats and for them I save the heavier prose - I throw the Tolstoy at the kitchen door. Opening in its flight, pages fluttering like thoughts, the book reaches the door and freezes a foot from its target.

The rats are appropriately impressed, their leader, a fat brown one with gray whiskers, scuttles forward and prostrates himself in front of me.

“That’s better,” I mutter and walk over to the book. It is still suspended in the air and refuses to budge even as I press at it with one hand, then with both hands. Finally I decide to sit cross-legged on it, appearing to be a levitating yoga, meditating a foot above the floor.

Servant rats drag in a dead cat and place it by the lacquered foot of the coffee table. Nasty things. But I know that this is their idea of a gift. I nod with regal absentmindedness and look at the TV. I don’t trust it. The last time I was making out with a girl on the couch, a male penis appeared on the screen and a hand with a wristwatch proceeded to fondle it.

Almost made me lose my concentration, I tell you.

Good thing there’s Tolstoy to keep me up.

- - -

5/11/12

2012-05-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Boxes
By DB Cox

Again it is night. Here, is where I hide from the soulless cold. A small lamp lights the corner where I sit. There’s the sound again—a junk-sick headache thumping and ringing and generally raising hell inside my skull. Everything in the room is moving in and out of focus.

I bend forward in the chair and lay my head on the kitchen table, waiting for the drugs to kick in. When it happens, the fog clears and some of the bad things disappear. Now, for awhile, I can make up any kind of dream that suits me—give life to the fantasy images stored in a spot just behind my eyes—cover the shit before the shit covers me.

I sit up, tilt my head back, and stare at the peeling yellow paint on the ceiling. I can feel the sweat running down from my hairline. I am sinking and rising in slow, dark circles. My breathing is slowing down and the nausea is beginning to ease off. I let myself sink like a rock to the bottom of an abyss where no one can reach me.

Feeling a little dizzy, I turn my eyes back toward the table and reach for a pack of cigarettes with my right hand—a right hand that is no longer there, except in my mind. More than forty years without a right arm, and the reflex is still hanging on.

In the mist-filled darkness, birds cry like human beings alerting the Viet Cong to our every move. The birds are like ghosts that refuse to depart this world. Above ground, threats come from every direction. Any time I am moving along a jungle trail, I can feel the tunnels below tugging at the soles of my boots. The only place that I feel safe is crawling around VC tunnels with a .45 and a flashlight. Inside, I am able to lose the sense of where I am—my underground sanctuary.

I can still feel the pressure of the tripwire just above my right boot. The sudden surprise of the explosion--a mouthful of bone and dirt—a ragged, wet hole just under my left eye—trying to scream for a medic, or maybe my mother. But the thing that is forever fixed in my brain is the shock of someone dropping my severed right arm onto my chest—the exact weight of reality.

Two months after being discharged from the VA hospital my wife says she is leaving me. Her explanation is simple and cold: “I want a man with all of his body parts.”
_____

I glance down at the box under the table—my box of words, damp and damaged words, words that have been picked at like old sores until the blood runs. In the box, I have captured the sights, the sounds, and the smells of fear—a place where I can push the characters without ever touching them and leave them where I will. All of the characters and actions are controlled strictly by whim and fate. They make no decisions on their own. There is no ending in the name of redemption.

After many years, I have learned to write with my left hand. At first the going was painfully slow—cramps in my left hand making it impossible to continue. Now, I have accumulated a huge cardboard box of note pads covered with dream images. I have become God within the borders of this paper world.

Just to be moving, I get to my feet, walk over to the sink, and throw up. I turn on the spigot and splash a handful of water across my face. A sudden sense of dread crawls along my spine. I let my left hand drop to the .45 strapped to my left leg. I look toward the front door. The bolt is locked. I am safe. I turn off the water, walk back to the table, and sit. I take a pad of paper from the stack on the floor, and select a pen from the many scattered across the tabletop. I gather my thoughts, and begin to write:

The Play…

is a never-ending performance made of watching & waiting. A solitary actor stealing sidelong glances into the wings, hoping to be fed the next line. Praying that another player will walk on—someone who recalls the plot.

The beginning showed promise, but now the story has ground to a halt.

The leading man stares at his feet, too bewildered to move. Where is he in this thing? The opening. The middle. The end. The stage has shriveled to a tiny box. The possibility of enlightenment has turned to an image of despair.

Are there no illuminating truths to be revealed?

The abandoned artist gazes like a fortune-teller into his sweaty palms. Wrinkled lines of a maze—all broken dead-ends…

_____

My headache is back—blood pounding through constricted veins. I leave the pen and pad on the table and get up. I grab a flashlight from the top of the refrigerator and walk down the hallway to the bedroom.

The room is empty except for a single throw rug. The walls are bare. No curtains or shades cover the windows—glass panes all painted black. I bend down and slide the rug aside. I lift the trapdoor and squeeze through.

The cellar is damp and smells of mold. As I make my way across the room, I use the flashlight to scan every corner of the concrete chamber.

Outside, the night birds are crying.

When I get to my mattress, I kneel down and roll onto my back. I slide the .45 out of the holster, and lay it on my chest. The weight is reassuring. I switch off the flashlight and close my eyes.

Far away, pinpoints of light come and go. My mind cannot hold them steady—little doors opening and closing—vague reflections of half-remembered places—clean, well-lit spaces that I can imagine, but never know.

The flickering fragments drift away. They are frail, and will not last the night.

- - -

5/4/12

2012-05-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Rust Maker (The Iron Balloon II)
By Tony Rauch

I’m on my way to the park, playing with my metal hoop and stick, making the hoop jump and wobble down the sandy road. I pass an old tilting barn and notice the owner, an older man, inside. He’s working on some strange metal ball. He has it up on saw horses and is filling this round metal cage with something from a mysterious gas can. I stop and watch. He waves at me from inside the dark shadow, then continues filling a container within the round metal cage. I wave back and keep walking, for he always seems to be in there fiddling with something, welding things, testing things, cooking up smelly liquids in a large metal pot over a fire and stinking up this area from time to time.

I’m in the park for a while, rolling my metal hoop down the grassy slopes when a strange shape appears in the distance. It is a round, smoky something hanging in the gray sky. It bobs in the wind, sort of floating along. It billows a dingy cloud of soot behind, like a dark banner fluttering in the wind.

The smoky shape slowly makes its way over to me. Smoke is emanating from the center of it as if from an internal engine, and causes quite a stink. The smoky floating balloon bobs in the breeze, drifting lower and lower. As it gets to about twenty feet from me, I run over to it. As I near I see a string dangling from the bottom of it. But as I run closer, I find the string is actually a metal chain, and that the balloon is an iron balloon - a pretty big one, about the size of a chair, chugging along and lumbering through the air like you’d think a metal balloon would. And then it strikes me, this looks like the metal ball that the old man was working on in his barn. Maybe he was filling it with fuel and then it got away from him.

The metal ball thing is puffing and coughing a thick, churning black exhaust. The trail of smoke swirls and curls in the breeze, fluttering like a long tail and wafting a strange stink, like pungent chemicals.

I reach and jump to try and grab the chain and pull it too me. Maybe I can keep it. I think my friends would be impressed. Maybe I can bring it to school. Maybe it runs on oil or something we have at home. Or maybe it’s lost and there’s a reward for finding and returning it to the older man in the barn. Maybe I can make some money off it. Maybe it’s broken, and that’s what’s causing the bad smoking stink.

I jump and leap and strive and finally grip the chain and try to tug it down out of the breeze. But it is heavier than it looks, and feels like it’s connected to a cable, even through there is no cable in the sky. I get a closer look at it - the balloon is just a metal frame with wire mesh over it and emanating a thick cloud of chugging exhaust. It is heavy. It pulls me off the ground as it rises and lowers and bobs in the wind. I let go and drop to the ground. The thing lumbers through the air, whipping its long tail of thick black smoke about. And then I feel myself slow down. I was going to try to jump and grab the chain, try to give it another good tug or thrash about to bring it down. Or maybe I could ride along with it for awhile to see where it would take me. But as I try to run I only get slower and slower. I feel myself stiffening. The balloon drops lower, lingering about five feet off the grass. A shadow appears on the ground under it. But it is overcast out, a cloudy gray fall haze in the sky, so there is no sun to cast a shadow. Then I slow to the point where I can barely move. My joints go stiff. The grass under the balloon is turning to rust - at first a dingy black of soot, and then an orange-ish tinge. I look myself over and watch as I turn a dark brown. I stiffen. I can’t move. I’m rusting in place. I blink my eyes, and move them around and around to try to keep them active and functioning. I look around and see a trail of filth on the ground. The tree next to me is rusting in place as well, and so is some on the horizon. The small iron balloon slowly dances and spews its toxic filth. The grass below is changing from green to yellow to brown. And then I see another dot on the horizon. It looks to be another iron balloon, bobbing along and spewing a smoky discharge. And then another appears, but this one is even further away. And then I spot another in the hazy distance, just a smudge of a fuzzy black dot in the sky, with a line of black trailing behind. And then yet another.

- - -
Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.

4/27/12

2012-04-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Saturnian Lead
By Jacqueline Doyle

"Letters, lambent and golden, grew duller than Saturnian lead wanting the radiant luster of her eyes."
--Edgar Allan Poe, "Ligeia"

Ligeia. That was one scary bitch. Okay, there was the opium, but that was after she died. I'm telling you, things were wild already while she was alive. She had all these books, for one thing, really old books, and we'd read them at night. It was like fireworks, shooting stars, I don't know, it's hard to explain and I can't remember what we read exactly. Way out shit, that's all I can say. After she died I tried to read them on my own and it was like, you know, nothing. The words were dead on the page.

Metempsychosis was one of the things she liked to talk about. Yeah, I never heard of it either. Your soul keeps coming back after death. Fucking spooky. And I was so far gone in those days, man, ready for anything. There she was, dead. So I thought lead into gold, find some golden blonde chick, off her and bring Ligeia back to life. And it almost worked.

But let me tell you, it changed me. Fucking scared the shit out of me. I wouldn't mess with any of that stuff if I were you. Sure it's out there. I've been there. The woman of your dreams, rising like a phoenix out of the depths of your soul, black hair streaming, wings spread, dark eyes hypnotizing you with the possibilities. Immortality? Shit, yeah. But are you sure you want it?

- - -
Jacqueline Doyle's flash prose can be found in 5_trope, elimae, flashquake, Monkeybicycle, and numerous other journals. Her most recent creative nonfiction and fiction appears in Blood Orange Review, Front Porch Journal, Prick of the Spindle, and Bartleby Snopes. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

4/20/12

2012-04-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Skeleton Admiral of Considerable Quality
By Richard Paul / Peculiar Richard

The Admiral was a skeleton with a most disconcerting grin. It was the kind of grin which could level walls and cause the most grievous distress in kitchen utensils. The spoons, even now, are traumatised to a one, even the wooden fellow with the bad shins.

I’m terrible at introductions, but suffice to say we’d all agreed to follow our bony master into the bowels of a horrible location to retrieve the copious treasure of his mentor and late wife, the Lady Clavicus Al Ghoril. The crew was six strong and we all squeezed into the dread battle-barge HMS Incorruptible; which to be honest was a motorised bathtub with wheels and a mast fashioned from lies.

There was no mast.

For six days we traversed the swamps and riverbanks in the realms of the ere bickering mud princes, searching for the Obelisk of Gymnosperm, which according to legend would point the way to the resting place of the treasure. It was in this land that we lost our quartermaster, a Mr. Jonas Kerr. In a rather tragic development he was seized in the elastic mandibles of a catapult crab and hurled high into the air, landing with a shriek and a splat upon a nearby rock.

What a beastly development, and as you are no doubt aware, without a quartermaster we could scarcely be guaranteed a fair and equal distribution of the treasure once we had found it, however we figured this would just have to a bridge we crossed when we came to it.

About a week later we found the treasure in a cathedral. Forgive me if it sounds like I’m skipping great chunks of the story but to be honest nothing happened between the doctor’s death and finding the treasure. There was one incident involving a dragon but all he wanted was directions to Paris and an opticians therein, that’s it.

Because such things are of course never easy, it was no sooner after we had retrieved the sixty-two boxes of jewels, moneys and miscellaneous gold-bits, that a force of twenty two ruffians led by the infamous Duke Ruffian from the house of Ruffian in the disreputable country of Ruffianland came upon us; armed all with table legs and clad in armour fashioned from bricks. They were like unto a force of chimneys arrayed against our cadaverous master and ourselves.

The Admiral bid us move the boxes back to the ship, boldly announcing to all assembled that he would hold off these interrupting ne’redowells alone. Stepping forward and grinning his ghastly grin, he drew his sword named ‘foe-tweaker’ from its scabbard, laughed an insane laugh and stood ready to meet the first of his opponents.

A youth with no nose and a face that otherwise should have been handsome but wasn’t stepped ahead of his fellows and fellowesses. Charging as fast as his brick-bedevilled carapace would allow, he promptly fell lifeless to the ground, having been tweaked in the throat by the Admiral’s sword.

The rest charged on mass, only to trip and fall over, crushing their own Duke into an unspeakable mess of Duke-ooze. As they lay twitching and disoriented on the floor, the Admiral skipped whistling around them all, tweaking all who might potentially arise under their own power.

That done, we all went home and became unspeakably rich.

I now own a scarf made entirely from pewter.

Whoo!

- - -
When not scurrying about in the dust at his workplace, or procrastinating in some form or other, Richard partakes in writing, game reviewing and more recently producing dramatic readings of short stories.

4/13/12

2012-04-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTION FOR RANDOLPH CARTER
By Chad Stroup

Rise from the slumber of Unknown Kadath!
You wipe the fresh crust from your eyes and stumble to the restroom to rid yourself of impurities.
You look down to see that Randy Jr. resembles a Shoggoth that's seen better days.
That can't be good.
Re-trace your steps.
Last night you partied with the Night-gaunts and drugged some students from Miskatonic.
Uh-oh.
Don't faint, you sissy.
You need someone to assist you.
The Old Ones are out to lunch.
Yog-Sothoth is hung over (too much responsibility, this one).
Dagon is always a little fishy with advice.
Call Cthulhu. He'll know what to do.

- - -
I am an MFA Creative Writing Student with a focus in fiction at San Diego State University. I enjoy twisting the possibilities of the darker side of fiction. I also run a blog at http://subvertbia.blogspot.com/

4/6/12

2012-04-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

A Lucid Conversation (but not really)
By Derek Frazier

Transcript of a conversation between Baxter De Jean and Teri Thibodaux; July 25, 1996 (Thursday):

BD: Ah, shit. It ain’t no different than them el chupacabras.

TT: What’s that?

BD: You don’t know about them el chupacabras?

TT: Mm-mm.

BD: Well, el chupacabras is Spanish for the chupacabras. Now out here in the East Texas they’s pretty rare, but down in, uh, Mexico they’s pretty common. I think it’s cause of all them goats. See, a chupacabras is what they call a goat-sucker. And they got a lot more goats down there in Mexico than we got here.

TT: Goat sucker?

BD: Yep.

TT: What part of the goat do they suck?

BD: Well, it ain’t their peckers (laughs) Goats ain’t got peckers. They feed off of their blood. They’s blood suckers, just like a vampire and shit. They got these big fangs they jab into the goat and suck out its blood. You find them in the morning, all sucked dry.

TT: Does it kill them?

BD: Course it kills them. How they supposed to live without blood? I thought you’s a scientist and whatnot. (drinks beer) If you want a little advice, don’t poke your nose too far into them books. Get out there and poke around some, see what you find. Shit, you can learn more hanging round the fire with your amigos than you can in them books. (drinks beer) Sometimes. Fuckers are big, about the size of a black bear, got scales and shit, all over their bodies. And uh, big ass eyes like one of them (undecipherable) from land of the lost.

TT: Never heard of them.

BD: Well, they’s real, believe me. They never heard of you, either. (laughs)

TT: (drinks beer) That’s probably true.

BD: Huh?

TT: That’s probably true. (drinks beer) How’s that like that broken silt fence?

BD: Hell, I don’t know. You’re the scientist, you tell me. (end of tape)

- - -
I am a polymath (degrees in ecology, visual art, and literature) living in the Piney Woods of East Texas. My sculpture, performance and conceptual pieces, and writings primarily explore the relationship between reason and faith, via cryptozoology.

3/30/12

2012-03-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

His Name Will Work Against Them
By Steven Comstock

In Morehouse Cemetery, Clint clears away a patch of chilled, wet grass as Mikayla had instructed. While Rebecca leans against a gravestone, he positions thick red candles in a pentagram. They recount their years as Slate High School’s outcasts. Clint suffered the labels of “emo,” “super fag” and “captain queero,” which didn’t come close to the gym shower incident, but the labels – still hurtful. Deeply hurt-full. He reminds her that her big tits and baseball star brother lessened the weight of her cross.

“Fuck you,” she says to Clint’s now cigarette-smoking face. He shrugs off her retort and wipes dirt on his black Smiths t-shirt. He isn’t even a Goth, but the label stuck because he’s not interested in school dances or serving his community, and the shaved left side of his head doesn’t help.

“I’ve been thinking about the cutting part,” he says. “I’m not into it,” but Rebecca eye-rolls him to shame, turning her attention to her blue fingernails.

Mikayla, Doug and Annie (who demanded to be called Shiva) join Clint and Rebecca. Mikayla, the witch among them, acknowledges the two. Evaluating the pentagram, she adjusts the candles to her satisfaction.

“Everyone ready?” she says. They look at each other for signs of fear or hesitation, then make a circle around the pentagram. Mikayla reminds them to stay focused on the ceremony. She says the spell will work.

“Shit, hold on.” She turns around to open a wood box she brought. She takes out a Bell jelly jar and a pouch. She pours the contents of the pouch, crushed bone, into the jar and sets it in the pentagram’s center. Mikayla displays a paring knife, slits her index finger from tip to base, and drips her blood into the jar. She hands the knife to Doug, and he copies her actions. The rest follow too.

“Join hands,” Mikayla orders. She begins, nurturing a sound from deep in her gut, like the growl of a wary cat. The sound crawls up her throat and flies out into the night. A breeze pushes the candle flames back and forth. The group chants words to gain the services of the Dark Lord. Annie notices that Clint is crying, but she leaves him alone and straightens her back.

“His name will work against them,” Mikayla chants. The others repeat.

“Our enemies will suffer his will,” she chants. The others repeat, but Clint, refusing to repeat the words, steps away. He wants to leave. He bumps into something that is not a gravestone. Iron-cold arms, rotten and earth-smeared, flow around his chest and legs. They pull him away from the pentagram. He witnesses the same fate for the rest. Impossibly long arms extend from the graves, pulling them backward, and as Mikayla rejoices with cries of “Free! We are free!” Clint feels his body snap to fit a small, dark hole on his way beneath the earth.

- - -
I am a teacher who lives in Connecticut. I pass the time in the shape of a writer seeking readers. My goal is to keep writing until I can't anymore.

3/23/12

2012-03-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Gnostic Welding Arc and Vitamins
By Brian Barbeito

The light went inside the place from the openings, and the tall bushes were all overgrown, - but still reaching up and up. They always stayed there in the night- the bushes, and before that in the dusk- they watched the bats- sometimes one, sometimes two, and rarely three- come overhead. If the sky was a reddish hue then, it seemed like someone should say something, or take a photograph, or even write something. But nobody ever did. People were used to the world. It was not that it was a great sky- but it and the tall shrubs held their own type of allure- and were somehow also a warning- not a portent of doom, but just a nature note that the day was over and you were entering something else now. Take a little caution, like you take a little pill. A vitamin- not a narcotic. But you better take it nevertheless. Later in the night it became easier and harder. Easier because there was room to think- the hustle of the century- the automobile, the rampant business- calmed down- and since it was a bedroom town originally- it went back to its own roots a bit. It had not come completely cut off, unhinged as it were, from the good and sustaining earth. Sometimes then, wind came, down the walls, and playing with the shrubs, or across the little makeshift valleys and into radio bedrooms, and you could almost think it was some idealized day of old. It was harder though- because there were no distractions- no surety of the schedule of bright and dawn, or the taken for granted light and bright calendar day. Thoughts of the one that was there with dark eyes and some knowing grin. Sweet and sinister at once- sometimes naive, sometimes cunning. She was good, and they had been on a powerful and upwards arc- the chemistry had it as such- like the arc from a welding torch- only it was invisible- with a quiet power. That was what they had been together- Gnostic. But the torch was let go, and that receded like most all times recede. Now only the abstract remnants of what they were remained. But the bushes, and the light that creeps in, and how the wild unabridged flowers push against old windows- and the odd bat against the beet sky, a bat like the one he had caught glimpse of as a child once while walking with his uncle. They moved quickly. Like little tiny lightning bolts that changed directions, or like they were on strings and someone hidden could adjust and pull these threads at incredibly fast movements. Soon night would envelope everything and he would have to take some kind of vitamin for the good but difficult spacious ache of its environs.

- - -
Brian Michael Barbeito writes impressionistic vignettes, flash fiction, short stories, prose poetry, experimental novels, book and film reviews. His work has appeared at Glossolalia, Subtle Fiction, Mudjob, Six Sentences, Thinking Ten, American Chronicle, Our Echo, Ezine Authors, Author Nation, A Million Stores, Crimson Highway, Paragraph Planet, Useless-Knowledge Magazine, Exclusive Conclave of Delights Magazine, and Lunatics Folly. His work is forthcoming in the Contemporary Literary Horizons Journal, and in Kurungabaa Magazine. He is the author of ‘postprandial,’ an experimental novel, and a compilation of his work, ‘Vignettes,’ is being compiled. Brian resides in Ontario, Canada

3/16/12

2012-03-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

Three Minutes and Three Seconds
By George S. Karagiannis

* Note: It has been scientifically hypothesized that the human brain may last for approximately three minutes in hypoxia (oxygen deprivation), before brain cells start dying.

***

The Mother Temple was too tricky to catch and no one ever imagined humanity would crack the problem, now steady in the row, more than four scientist generations were literally sponged off, beyond the stage of their ‘Remembrance Day’. As a matter of fact, it required scores of mathematical freaks reconfiguring a long-lasting domino pattern, made of compound questions, to manage towering up the puzzling algorithm to its hard end. When, at last routine geodesic distance calculations, daily satellite screenshots, unlimited geologic, seismologic and stratigraphical measurements, along with partial differential equations and other stochastic algebraic models were put together, yottabytes of documentation, visional and auditory information were readily integrated to give birth to an ultimate prediction algorithm for tracking the Mother Temple.

The chief challenge with tracking the Mother Temple was it was constantly altering its relevant location to the Earth. Most of the times it was laid down somewhere in the core, expanded under the soil not in touch with the lower atmosphere; in yet other times, it was spanning aloft, somewhere in the circumference of cloud-crafted kingdoms and way up to the stratosphere in retro-space intervals; the less frequent was the short appearance at the level of the ocean, which could actually define a one-chance paradox for the humans to unravel the secrets of life and death; for this relic seemed to be so holy and precious an artifact, that Mother Earth opted to reassure it would never be caught at the hands of mortals, because it would most probably be industrialized and commercialized.

When the night-shift service mechanic witnessed that the sophisticated computer algorithm predicted Mother Temple would appear for a total duration of three minutes and three seconds, in exactly eighteen hours from the time point of prediction, somewhere on an island in southern Pacific Ocean, he was first iced, and then taken aback, but eventually, he urgently proceeded to signifying the red alarm state.

In moments, all governments were fully briefed; excessive military forces besieged the destination point with quite an army load; thousands of reporters and cameramen were packed in helicopters to capture a moment, potentially sealed through history; religious and spiritual waves began their own propaganda to allure ignorance and grow in zealots; and the rest of humanity measured the final countdown, jammed right before the TV screens, miraculously staying away from the soap opera tranquilizer; for the only time the story was repeated all over again, in a similar context, had been the Millennium.

When everything was pretty much settled to perfection, and the specified temporary home for the Mother Temple was cut clear on the sniper rifle, a mind-blowing silence echoed around the island, with amounts of energies capable of lifting tsunamis. Cameras zoomed at the center of the fresh meadow; reporters transmitted their agony through the lens; the war leaders were prepared for the unknown; presidential committees were engaged to their cell-phones, as first-line access to giving orders upon a crisis. The tension reached peak levels way above the normal magnitudes of reference values.

In the nick of time, the artifact emerged, in strict geometry and perfect time- and space-symmetry, resembling a cubic die, dynamically altered through time. The Mother Temple was blinding white, like fresh snowflakes on a sulfur garden, instilled in icy plates glistered and sharpened by diamond knifes, through sunbeams. Before selling the view as a pallid dream, everyone felt his belly muscles utterly contracted, pointing at the periphery of their detached diaphragm to concrete congestion. Now, every second passing by was not planning to pay a visit back to humanity’s memory shells, as it was one of the exceptional moments that time was not negotiable.

The human representative took a leap of faith and leaned forward to fulfill his destiny and apply the pinnacle of his hard and whole-life training, as if he was only born for this very moment, like a divinely chosen and naturally elected Messiah. He walked the heavenly pathway to the Mother Temple and sighed at the momentum of making it to the clandestine entrance. He wished for establishing a prosperous communication with Mother Earth and becoming a witness of the serpentine pathways life offers by itself. When hesitantly entered the structure, he saw a hexagonal prism, mirrored in all sides by multiple light sources and gravity immediately deteriorated. He jumped in gentle hops, like an innocent rabbit heading for its burrow, towards the middle of the room and felt the caressing breeze worming around his light-filled body. Naked from a handful of sins, his lifetime deeds were spoken to him in time, through eternity, making him lose contact with the local time. When he approached the heart of the room, he, there, found out a natural carbon plinth with a glossy appearance retaining a large, finely-cut diamond on the top. The diamond’s luster sounded and tasted nice.

Out of his ignorance, he thought this was the one-way ticket for life, and dared touching it with an impulsion to contact Mother. At the minuscule touch of his soft finger pad, the diamond took a red color, as if a pool of blood emerged from its core and revealed a wreckful of lesions around it, ultimately cracking like a sand castle.

Exactly three minutes and three seconds after the diamond was shattered into a cornucopia of pieces and the pedestal bloomed with pure blood, everything that was considered alive -including humans, animals, plants, fungi and bacteria- up to that point, suddenly died, exactly like a fetus does, when lacking a motherly placenta.

- - -
George S. Karagiannis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece and is currently a PhD student at the University of Toronto in Canada. He enjoys writing science-fiction in the subgenres of hard science fiction, bizzarro and apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic settings. He has recently got an accepted story in the magazine "Apocrypha and Abstractions", pending to be published. He is also an abstractionist/surreal artist and his blog can be found here: http://abstractsur.blogspot.com/

3/9/12

2012-03-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Define: Eidolon
By Andrew J. Stone

1. An unreal image; phantom; apparition.

2. An ideal.

3. Or remember that time I came back from Seattle? I just finished my sophomore year and you were picking me up from the airport with mother. Mother says she doesn’t believe me. You remember, right? You’re my only way out.

- - -
Andrew J. Stone lives and writes in Southern California with two cats and coffee. He sleeps with one eye open. This is a lie. Recent work has appeared in The Mustache Factor, Yes Poetry, Negative Suck, Danse Macabre, First Stop Fiction, and Short, Fast, and Deadly, among other places. In 2010, he received a national Gold Medal from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for his poetry. Recently, he finished a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry and is currently seeking publication. He'll eat you at: http://andrewjstone.blogspot.com/.

3/2/12

2012-03-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Mudman
By Robert Keiser

Mudman comes in a dream.
Smoke in winter winds is all I crave,
But the snow chrome knob singes. I walk,
And the moon depraves, CRUNCH,
Mulching its white beam next to a barren
Tree. Mudman claws from muck.
Pores seethe tar in wicked shine,
Says to me, Respect and cleanliness
Consume the world, while poets and questioners
Are forced into the muddeep. They cringe,
Afraid to gasp air, because respectable men,
Vile beings, will surely hunt them down
And label them crazy.
Mudman splotches mud onto my gaping eyes,
Wiping the mud, I come to find, Mudman
Leaving prints on my linoleum tiles.
Mudman has something to tell me.
He knows I want smoke, harsh smoke,
Muck, vice, grime, and mud.
I follow Mudman into the pantry,
But respectable men surround,
With suits and rolled sleeves.
Pernicious lights fluoresce my eyes.
Mudman begs to return to past times.
LUDICROUS! Respectable men scream.
WASH YOURSELF CLEAN OF MUD.
FORGET YOUR DREAMS!
Respectable men, perplexed, rub sharp
Chins and grit grinding teeth.
Who is this repulsive Mudman? From what sewer
Did he creep? He will ruin our game,
And tell the world about the poets and questioners
Who lie beneath. HURRY! GRAB THE TOILETRIES!
WE WILL LAVISH THIS CREATURE WITH SOAP
UNTIL EYES BLEED! So respectable men bristle
Steel rags over his mud face, robbing
Precious mud. Mudman succumbs
Bubbling a shout:
FUCK YOU AND YOUR CLEAN WORLD.
YOU MIGHT AS WELL BURY ME!
Respectable men stand back, crossing arms
across puffed chests,
As wicked laughter rushes from hanging lips.
Stunned, Mudman looks through himself.
The linoleum gleams
Mudman squirms
Jelly fish body across the floor.
MY MUDD!
He swings open the heavy door.
Into the blazing moon. He squeezes
His body back into the womb of earth
And muffles a call.
Know the mysteries of the Muddeep.
Forget your clean world.
Follow me.

- - -
My name is Robert Keiser. I study fiction and poetry at the
University of Pittsburgh.

2/24/12

2012-02-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

Burdens
By Lucas Ahlsen

He ruminated on the feel of the pallbearer gloves: the stretched cotton, the parallel ridges on top of the fist. They turned his hands into a stranger's hands. For the third time this week, he sat down to eat and lit a cigarette instead. Even his favorite meal couldn't drive away memories of work. The spaghetti sauce had dried against the whipped cream tub he stored it in.

The present receded and the details of the service returned: cigarette musk, burnt coffee, rickety chairs, strong perfume, and stronger disinfectant--the wails and the sobs and the painted flowers. He always stood by the funeral director and briefed the pallbearers about moving the loved one to the internment site. "Coffins will seem much heavier than they are where there's an audience," he warned them. "Remember that you're performing a valuable rite. That will give you strength."

Despite fantastic insurance, the funeral home injured him in ways he didn't expect. The vacant services hurt most. Sometimes only a handful of mourners attended. There were regulars too, strangers to the dead sponging up the sorrow of others. Enemies of the deceased confessed their pasts to him before catching a cab. Whatever the case, these people reminded him of satellites streaming across the night sky, looking out for each other as they passed deeper into space.

It also reminded him that his girlfriend didn't have any living relatives. She often joked to him that he would be the one to bury her, unless their future children were up to the task.

Besides marriage, he thought, the funeral was the only ritual that gathered strangers in a room and encouraged them to button up their emotions. In ancient times, women would beat their breasts and men lopped off their hair. Competitions went on for days on end to honor the dead and distribute their belongings. Today, people wrung their hands and peeped at one another, waiting on someone else to break the dam of tears.

The cigarette singed his finger, he had stared into space for so long. He stubbed it out on his kitchen table with a cuss.

The phone hung heavy in his hand and his mother's number returned like a stumbling memory. She answered the phone dazed.

"What're you doing calling at 11?" she asked.

"Sorry. I know you're usually in bed by ten," he said. "Listen: thanks for the recipe."

"What recipe?"

"The spaghetti one."

"Oh, right. I forgot you took the recipe. I don't cook it anymore, with the diabetes and all. Are you," she said, "still seeing that girl you asked to marry you?"

Dizzy, he looked to his refrigerator at the wrinkled prayer card from her funeral. He worked that day, and the stranger's hands carted her into the earth.

"Yeah ma," he told her, "I see her as often as I can. But hey. Thanks again for that recipe. It's good to have a reminder of where I came from."

She was halfway through asking when he'd visit again when he hung up.

His chair squeaked when he returned to it, and he shoveled a forkful into his mouth and rolled his tongue around. It tasted like the midnights he spent raiding the refrigerator as a young man, when fireflies sparkled over the hay field while he drank stolen beer outside--a stranger's life now. Chewing like a bovine, he ground up a meatball and closed his eyes.

But the memories wouldn't recede. He thought of how his fiancee's lips shone in the accent lighting of the viewing room. The makeup guy got it all wrong. Her expression was never flat--always just slightly pursed, tinged with curiosity, as though she were always on the verge of a discovery. Even her hair seemed freshly bleached, not at all the dirty blonde he used to catch in his fist. The flavors turned to ash. Mechanically, his jaw opened and the food plopped back into the dish.

So he stepped back into his bedroom, where a woman looped a bra strap over her shoulder. "You'll have to pay for another hour, unless you want me gone," she told him. He told her "no," and lifted a discarded wig off the back of a rocking chair. He hated the stringy feel of it,but it was just the right hue.

"I would rather you didn't remove this again until you've left my house. This may be a game of pretend, but it's my game of pretend. So please--follow the rules." He finished his request with a hundred dollars and a smile. Rubbing her wrists, she took the money and wig from him and slipped off her dress.

The city awoke to a chorus of sirens led by the falsetto of an ambulance. He approached the bedroom window. It reflected his ghoulish cheekbones. An ambulance sped past in the street below, washing the cathedral across the street with scarlet strobe lights.

By the sound of things he'd work the weekend, but he determined to not let that spoil his evening. Opening his underwear drawer, he removed the rope he kept there and asked his guest to hold out her wrists.

- - -
Lucas Ahlsen grew up in the suburban forests surrounding Portland, Maine. He enjoys post-apocalyptic fiction and off-beat humor, but harbors an addiction to mythology. His fiction has appeared in Everyday Weirdness and Abyss & Apex. He also serves on the editorial board at BULL: Men's Fiction.

2/17/12

2012-02-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

Anyone for Squirrel?
By Cheryl Anne Gardner

They serve slop in the galley. The sort of overly rendered fatty crap you had to paddle your way through before your stomach got wise and aborted the unmentionable shit as if you ate a toxic bag of medical sharps. Broccoli and cheese mash soup served over urinal cake. It had a curious citrus scent soaked in forest fire. "This tastes lovely," my wife said aloud so that Greta the Nazi chef could hear her over the squirming and squealing in the soup pot. "Did you have a nice day, dear?"

I hadn't, and I really didn't feel the need to reciprocate the nicety since she'd obviously spent the day with prince valium, and I couldn't care less.

I'd had to swallow my fifth rejection that day. My mouth already tasted like ass, so what did it matter. Greta was the housekeeper. She loved to cook, and my wife loved it because she couldn't. Every night we ate rare and exotic dishes from the old country: our backyard. "Put hair on your chest," Greta always said while pounding her sagging tits lower on her torso than even gravity could manage. My wife loved a hairy chest. I didn't have one. Over the years, it had migrated to my back. My wife didn't seem to notice, like she didn't notice the dead cat on the lawn or the hair in the soup. I suppose even if she did, she wouldn't care. She'd puke it up later anyway and then wash the taste out of her mouth with a bit of vodka. I wish she'd suck my johnson like she sucks on that twist of lime.

I stabbed what was moving on my plate and then looked over at my son in his droopy socks and scuffed patent leather shoes, who sat there pinning roaches to a napkin with map tacks. "Don't play with your food, sweetie."

My wife has the maternal conviction of a hot dog with rigor mortis, so my son just smiled at his mother, put a live one in his mouth, and started crunching to the rhythm of whatever pop nonsense bullshit he was listening to. The boy wanted nothing to do with the conversation. He didn't understand what a nice day was.

A nice day for him was picking scabs, and he once proclaimed after calling me an old fart, that I should know that better than anyone.

- - -
Cheryl Anne Gardner is a hopeless dark romantic, lives in a haunted house, and often channels the spirits of Poe, Kafka, and de Sade. She prefers writing art-house novellas and abstract flash fiction to writing bios because she always seems to forget what point of view she is in. When she isn’t writing, she likes to chase marbles on a glass floor, eat lint, play with sharp objects, and make taxidermy dioramas with dead flies.

2/10/12

2012-02-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

That’s Just the Way I Stop Talking
By Rich Ives

A swagger of a song lisping from the leak of his throat, a rasp of weather like territorial bravado?
No such action, no razor of clever banter before the misplaced bump and grind. And the baby clapped happily for the stuffed toy, already in a better world.
Then the earth beneath his mother's lung garden fell, cigarette smoke commandeering the vital organs.
I hope I have not shamed you. I hope I have not disguised the fears. Isn't it lovely the way the ugliest ones free us? A beautiful rat of a peach dripping with wounds and gorgeous clichés.
I had to let out a little of the certainty. Otherwise it just hurts. Father wouldn't approve. The careful little shit.
So hello hello from the useless shoes and the closets and the lost destinations in the elders' paws, trailing smoke across the escaping boat that rocks on the carnal waves like jellyroll, hawking up expectations with a pretty little lilt and tussle of petticoats dipping decorously towards the invisible shoelace anthems of the departing river.
Male child motherless, I am not the name of anyone or anything that claims me by proliferation, or by falsifying my passport so that I am forced to participate freely. It only proves me wrong again.
I am named: Not This.
Or I am named: This.
A movement between.

- - -
Rich Ives is the 2009 winner of the Francis Locke Memorial Poetry Award from Bitter Oleander. An interview and18 hybrid works appear in the Spring 2011 issue of Bitter Oleander. In 2011 he has been nominated twice for Best of the Net.

2/3/12

2012-02-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Log Lady Incident
By Jon Konrath

“FIGURE SKATING IS PROSTITUTION!” Odin yelled from the passenger seat of my VW, as we drove to Denny’s for the 23rd anniversary of the cancellation of Twin Peaks. He wore an SS officer’s uniform with a stick-on mustache and a fake plastic monocle, and sieg heiled the pedestrians as we drove through Jet City side streets, weaving through surface roads to avoid the I-5 pileups.

“Hey bro, you think we can drive through more school districts? Those crossing guard cops really dig the uniform.”

“He’s right,” said Freddy. “Every Washington cop that straps on a badge and a glock’s got a secret fascination for Nazi gear.” Freddy sat in the back seat, dressed as a very unconvincing Log Lady, trying to chop up some Sudafed tablets with a giant Gerber combat dagger on a Slayer mirror precariously balanced on his log. “I used to go to this Uncle Kenny’s Sex Dungeon off in Issaquah, the one right off of 90, and the FOP had gang-bangs there every month, crazy domination orgies and bondage marathons. They’d all dress like Goehring, Goebbels, the trannies all trying to beat each other and be the best-looking Eva Braun. There was even this one traffic cop, I think a local from one of those little hick towns right before Portland — what are those?”

“Longview? Kelso?” I asked.

“Something like that. Anyway, he was really into bestiality, had a bunch of german shepherds named after Hitler’s dogs. Some sick bastards.”

“YOUR MOTHER SUCKS HER GUATEMALAN OPTOMETRIST!” We sat at a 4-way stop, and Odin kept screaming insults at a group of ten-year-old kids waiting for the bus. “YOUR ECONOMIC PREDICTION MODEL OF THE VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT IS USELESS IN A TARIFF-BASED ECONOMY! KILL YOUR DENTIST! DO IT NOW!”

I peeled out, not an easy task in a front-wheel drive diesel Rabbit with maybe two dozen wheel horsepower and skinny twelve-inch tires. “Dude, can you cut the shit? This is my car, my license plate number.”

“Sorry bro, I always assume everyone’s driving a stolen car,” he said. “I’ve never bought tags on any of my cars. The WADOT is slavery, dude.”

We pulled into the Denny’s, and I shut off the car stereo, which was playing the latest posthumous Euronymous project, a bunch of his black metal remixed to Sinatra standards and respun into dubstep by Mike Oldfield and Paul van Dyk. “Do we know who’s coming to this thing?”

“I don’t know man, but they were supposed to reserve the back bar.” For some obscure reason, when Schedule I drugs were decriminalized, every Denny’s in Washington State opened a shooting bar and trip room, separate from the main restaurant. You'd walk through the lobby, past the morbidly obese eating their Moons over My Hammy, and into an annex lounge with sports bar TVs hanging from the ceiling, and crusty old waitresses selling Sam Adams, Jack and Coke, methamphetamine samplers and PCP one-hitter pipes. Each lounge had a different theme, like the one in Ballard had all Swedish death metal decorations; one on Aurora was decorated in a hookers-slaughtered-by-serial-killers motif, and the location by the Lynnwood mall was all UFO conspiracy stuff, with an emphasis on anal probing. I think the dude that owned the Denny’s franchises in the Pacific Northwest had some serious problems as a child. He’d later get arrested for some torture-rape rap involving Rick Astley music, which got blown way out of proportion because of the rickrolling meme.

The server at the front podium asked us “how many tonight,” and Odin screamed “FUCK OFF BITCH!” as we blew past her and made a beeline for the back lounge. This one was done up with the theme of failed Microsoft products. Every flatscreen had a WebTV hanging off of it; instead of mini-jukeboxes at each table, they all sported Zunes; when you waited for a seat, they handed you a little pager thing that was a Windows Phone.

Inside, the tables were packed with people dressed as characters from M*A*S*H. A dude dressed as a zombie Colonel Blake bumped into Freddy, spilling his drink, which was one of those surgical beakers filled with moonshine, like Hawkeye and Trapper John used to brew in the swamp.

“WHAT THE HELL BRO?” Freddy yelled.

“Hey man, that’s the worst Klinger in drag costume I’ve ever seen.”

“It's a fuckin’ Log Lady costume!” he screamed. “What the hell is up with all of these M*A*S*H losers?”

“Dude, every Tuesday is 4077 night here,” he said. “You want a bong hit?”

“Freddy, you illegitimate son of a migrant farm worker!” Odin yelled. “Did you screw the schedule again?”

“No! The web page said it was Tuesday the 22nd, Shoreline Denny’s!”

“You are a god damned genius,” I said. “This isn't the shoreline Denny’s, it’s the Lakeshore Denny’s.”

“Partial credit — it’s on a shore, dude.”

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Odin yelled. “THOR’S FUCKIN’ HAMMER DUDE!”

“Look, let’s try to sit at the bar and get some chicken fingers and angel dust,” I said. I stole a menu from a cashier. It was all in Comic Sans, a throwback to Microsoft Bob.

- - -
Jon Konrath is an absurdist writer from Oakland, California. His hobbies include fantasy demolition derby and collecting nuclear hardware. Go read more of his stories and books at http://rumored.com

1/27/12

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Wind Between Motherhoods
By Noelle Havens

Mother only comes out at three in the afternoon before she slips into the room of plenty, a space in center field, yet is off by a smidgen. My birth name is Abigail Constance Bertram. My nickname is Abby, Gail, or G. My mother calls me Moon, Starlight, Milky Way, Earth, Orbit, and sometimes Meteor after I’ve showered. I call my mother Galaxy, for she is the vastness of such a space—when darkness becomes her, I know her winds will speed across the divide between her and me to force my resistance.

An aviary holds our possessions where vultures perch on rafters above and record the echoes within this room. Mother says these vultures squawk, but I say their sound becomes a sweet harmony in my ears. That’s when she calls me Earth. She says the beauty of the Earth requires the beauty of sounds to surface. Mother cannot hear the vulture’s harmony for she is Galaxy—a whisper away from Earth.

We moved to this aviary after Father died of what Mother calls jostling syndrome. He shuttered and caused our tumble and crumble into this place of vultures. I call my father Q for it’s as if his powers consumed him from just beneath the Earth’s surface and these powers frightened him into fits of the shakes. Today, Father is gone a year.

I run to the fields across the drive and leap into Earth’s palette of oil paints. Hands grab green stems, tug, and carry them inside the aviary. From the speakers, strings of melody lift above my head toward the vultures who croon into swirls around them. My feet find their center and spin me into bittersweet celebration. Times like these are when Mother calls me Orbit.

Mother usually calls me Moon but the last time was over a year ago, before the quake. She used to tell me, I call you Moon because when you were but a twinkle I stared at you like I stare at the bright moon in the darkness. She says, I found you in that moon and found myself in your reflection. Like Mother, I stare at my namesake every night and see Father’s eyes watching over us. Mother hasn’t called me Moon since Father became that reflection.

The vultures chant a tune that reminds me of Mother’s song. She sings like a whisper into my ear—the most gentle state of galaxy. She sing-says, you, my Milky Way, once swirled within me as the great unknown. Milky Way is Mother’s name for me when understanding eludes us, usually in the moments when Mother sees Father in me.

We sit across from a vulture that joins us to discover Father’s daylight, for it’s his warmth which soothes us into tomorrow. Today, Father is called Sun. Mother and Father unite to create a gentle breeze on a hot summer afternoon.

When dusk settles across our half of the Earth, the vultures swoop down into this aviary, their wing spans majestically flap down then up. Mother calls these vultures Forces of Air. It is by their wings that air churns into a rushing wind—clouds dissipate to uncover sky’s night splendor.

Mother and I lay on the grass. We gaze at Father in the moon and name each star, Vulture, for if the vultures in the aviary watch over us indoors, the moon and stars protect us from above the rafters. Mother tells me the stars are called Vulture. She tells me they cluster like an army prepared to guard. I provide luminosity along their path to Earth, so she calls me Starlight. We lay on the grass, in wonder of Father and the many clusters of Vulture and she says, Starlight, show your moon’s reflection and orbit even when you’re unsure, for it’s your beauty of Earth that echoes across the galaxies.

So, Mother calls me Infinity.

- - -
At odds with linear prose, Noelle Havens flips words around to create an omelet that swirls in the pan. She currently lives in Chicago, Illinois where she is an MFA candidate at Northwestern University.

1/20/12

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

Subway
By Eric Suhem

“Orange, red, green, blue, black, white, yellow, turquoise, magenta, brown, peach…” Ben was examining his array of crayons. “Hmm…yes this will be quite nice for my purposes,” he thought to himself with a twisted grin. “Quite nice indeed.” He got on the subway and went in to work.

Ben was an insurance adjuster. He was at work, and the silk tarantulas crawled across his brain as he toiled away for the strange, faceless energy waves. Occasionally, the energy waves would attach themselves to a management skull, and then move on, upon departure leaving nothing but a pile of task-oriented ashes, enshrouded by a sensible suit, dressed for success, or a Hawaiian shirt if it was Casual Friday. The tarantulas eased along, massaging their 8 little claws into his cortex as he tapped each computer key, or scrawled a line on the papyrus. With every keystroke, a portion of his life force vacuumed from his soul, sucked up by the strange, faceless energy waves, which promised to redistribute his electrons for the common good. Ben opened one of his ledgers and a swarm of black butterflies flew out. ““Yes, yes my pretties! Pay a little visit to Don in Accounting,” said Ben.

It was at this point that the Venus Flytraps slowly approached, having been shipped across the ocean on the anonymous freighter, and now carted into the bright white office by the nameless technician, ready to do battle with the silk tarantulas. The spiders were quickly consumed by the plants. On Tuesday it was scorpions, today it was spiders, tomorrow it would be Gila monsters. These were the things that filled Ben’s mind as he stared at the actuarial tables. At 5:00 p.m., Ben left the office and walked to the subway station.

At the entrance, he looked down upon a dark cavernous area in which small unisex figures were scuttling about. They wore dark coats and little hats, milling about endlessly in circles, veering lines, various patterns, constantly moving, but eventually ending up back where they had started from. The air was clammy, and the walls of the station were dark moss-covered rocks. There was a bank of eight pay phones located on one of the walls of the station, and once in a while, one of the phones would ring. Whoever reached the phone first would pick up the receiver and listen to the voice on the other end, which would usually say something like, “You have just won $1 million! Board the train to collect your prize!” Immediately, an empty train would enter the station, with the yellow destination sign above flashing the word “RICHES”. The one who had answered the phone would scramble to the train and board it. Ben watched as the others would try to board the train also, but there seemed to be some sort of invisible force that pushed them away from the subway car. The doors would slam shut and the train then sped into the dark tunnel.

Ben saw more tarantulas on the floor as another phone would ring, and a voice on the line would say, “You have just won a dishwasher and 500 acres of prime real estate!” or “You have just won dictatorship of a small yet strategically significant foreign country,” and the person who had reached the phone would dash onto the train, while the destination sign blinked “WEALTH” or “POWER”, and the train then sped into the tunnel.

Then the phones didn’t ring for a few minutes, and people became more agitated, waiting for the jangling bell. Finally, a phone rang, and an aggressive businessman, who Ben recognized as Don from Accounting, snatched it quickly. Ben could see the spiders crawling on the phone, as the voice on the line said, “You have just won your death! Board the train to collect your prize!” And the train barreled into the station, with the yellow sign flashing “DEATH”. The doors opened and Don tried to get away, but he was pulled forward by the invisible force into the empty car. The doors slammed shut and the train sped into the dark tunnel. The phones started ringing again.

Ben wandered out of the subway station, and walked down the littered streets. He moved through the urban sprawl towards the beach. When he arrived at the beach, it was twilight, and the smell of sea spray was strong. He found the long-forgotten box of crayons in his pocket. Ben looked at his array of crayons with a slow grin. “I’ve waited for this moment, when the crayons can be used to fulfill their purpose.” He pulled out a sheet of paper and began coloring as he sat on the windy beach with the seagulls flying above, the tarantulas disappearing.

- - -
Eric Suhem lives in California and enjoys the qualities of his vegetable juicer.

1/13/12

2012-01-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

Sale!
By Lissy Jones

“Sorry!” says the woman behind me. She had just stepped full force on my foot. I look back at her and smile:

“No problem.” Then I bite with all my strength into her chubby hand that is wrapped around the lamp post right in front of my face. She howls and lets go of the pole.

I look back at her again.

“Sorry!” I say, a grim smile on my face.

This is my lamp post! I have my elbow and my right leg wrapped around it and I’m not gonna let go of it. That bitch behind me just wanted to take my space. That’s why she stepped on my foot. We are all waiting for the biggest sample sale of the year to start and I know all the tricks. Whoever clings to a lamp post cannot be pushed back to the end of the line. Just step on my foot, bitch! I’m wearing steel toe boots. My hair is tucked away under a beanie cap. Last year I lost a terrific t-shirt because an enemy got hold of my braid and almost pulled it off including the scalp. But you live and learn. I know, it is crazy to put myself through this, but I had a very traumatic experience a couple of years ago. I didn’t go to the sale, stupid me, just because of a broken leg. And guess what: my friend Mary came back with a neon green sweater with sparkling little dogs on it. This sweater screamed to belong to me! But Mary wouldn’t give it to me, not even for money! That was the end of our friendship. The thought of the sweater still haunts me and it taught me what it means to miss a sale.

From my safe place at the lamp post, I watch the minor battles that are going on around me. The security has already collected scissors, kitchen knifes, pepper spray and tweezers and now we’re all left to fight with our bare hands. They didn’t take the sharpened pencil that I have in my pocket. They don’t know, but a pointy pencil is an excellent weapon. Some women have long fingernails, shaped into triangular claws like the teeth of a chain saw, but of fingernails, I’m not afraid. That’s just scratches and my eyes are protected with diving goggles.

“We will open in five minutes”, announces one of the security guys in front of the building who are protecting the bullet – proof glass doors. At the front of the line a minor war breaks out.

Other women are discussing last minute strategies with their allies. I don’t believe in allies. They will without any doubt turn against you at the sight of an incredibly marked down blouse and will start a tug of war over that blouse accompanied by swear words and the most embarrassing details of your private life like:

“What do you want with a size two? You are an eight!”

The only people who could be your allies are those who are at least four sizes away from your own size. I had briefly considered taking either my obese friend or my anorexic friend but then I decided against it. Neither one would have been of any help in the fights. They can be too easily pushed over because of their unbalanced relationship to gravity: one has too much, the other one too little.

Male company is out of the question. Males panic at the sight of female war fare. A sale fight is not the sexy cat fight they would love to see. No, this is a fight with blood and injuries, a fight that disregards all rules of the Geneva Convention. I’ve seen it happen: men being carried out on a stretcher, at the brink of insanity, screaming or mumbling: “ I really don’t want that blouse! Please, let go off me! I don’t want that blouse….”

Countdown. Opening the doors. I fling myself over the shoulder of a relatively short woman in front of me, throw myself on the ground and manage to gain a few precious yards by wriggling through a forest of legs. I reach the sales area with just some minor bruises around my neck where someone tried to strangle me.

The next three or four hours I cannot quite recall. That comes from the adrenalin rush in your body when fighting. All I remember are several bleeding or unconscious women in my immediate surrounding and I remember that my pencil got stuck in the back of a hand with a turquoise ring. I had to pull really hard to get it out. It was in the battle of the pink angora sweater, I believe. In the fight over a green blouse, a woman tried to hit my hand with a stiletto heel, but I could pull it back in the very last moment together with the blouse. My hands are my vulnerable part. Everything else is safely encased in motorcycle gear, but hands you can’t protect. You need them to hold on to stuff. But whenever I get scared about my safety, the image of Mary that bitch in my green sweater pops up and my fighting spirit is revived.

When my big black trash bag is full of clothes, what kind of clothes exactly I don’t know, my shopping fever dies down a little and I’m thinking about making my way to the cash register. Not an easy task; especially when you think you made it, an enemy might jump out of the ambush from behind a clothing rack, hit you over the head with a pair of hiking boots on sale and disappears with your bag. But I’m an experienced sales shopper.

I approach a security guy from behind and in the spur of a moment I have chained my wrist to one of the hand cuffs that are dangling from his hips.

“Hey! What are you doing?” he yells. I start pushing him towards the register, the bag of clothes safely tucked between his large behind and my chest. He tries to detach the hand cuffs from his belt, but a few stabs with my sharp pencil into his private parts convince him that this is not a good idea.

“W-w-what do you want?” he whines.

“Not much. You are coming with me to the register, I pay and then you’ll escort me to the exit. That’s all.”

“I’m not supposed to leave the sales area.”

Another stab with my sharp pencil makes him change his mind and I can easily maneuver him to the register.

Outside, there is still a full blown battle going on in the line and a lot of security guys in front of the building are meanwhile severely bruised or wearing bandages.

“They should have manners on sale, too” I remark to my captive, “Some of these people here could really use them.” I let him unlock the hand cuffs. “Thank you very much,” I say politely and I give him a dollar as a tip.

The rest is easy. I cover my face with dirt from the street and I’m dragging the trash bag behind me, pretending to be one of the homeless women in downtown LA

. Nobody pays attention to me, the dirty seemingly homeless woman. I also adapt a little limp to complete the look.

At home I empty the bag on the living room floor for a first inspection of my booty. I got wonderful stuff this year. A lot of it is either too big or too small but who cares at those prices! I also don’t care about my black eye or the front tooth that I’m missing. I scored this year. Just look at this blouse: yes, I know, the color is really awful this hideous purple with orange polka dots. But that I can fix. I can bleach the whole thing, dye it another color, and the areas with the polka dots, I can embroider with flowers. The ruffles in the front I will cut off and insert a piece of Italian silk. It will also give the rest of the material a lift, which is unfortunately 100 % polyester. And then I only need to change the buttons and this will be the most terrific piece in my wardrobe. And the best of it: marked down from $10.25 to $7.99. What a deal!

- - -
Lissy Jones grew up in West-Berlin during the Cold War. She now lives in LA and she just finished her book “Burn, Heart, Burn! – The last decade of West Berlin,” a novel in short stories.
Her work has appeared in Wired Ruby, Circa, Clarity of Night, Humorpress (honorable mention & 4th place winner of contest), Storyatella, Microliterature, Echo Park TV and the radio show ‘Hear in the City’ on KPFK.

1/6/12

2012-01-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

A Dark Premonition
By Susan Martin

A crow just walked across my grave. That, my grandmother told me, was what someone would say in the old days in Russia if ever he had a dark premonition.

The yard of our house had many tall trees, the perfect nesting place for crows. One spring day I saw crows on the roof of our house. Out of nowhere I said to my husband, "Someone is going to die, someone important. I'm feeling New York." The next day we heard that John Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop of New York, had died of cancer.

"How did you know?" my husband asked.

"A crow walkd across my grave," I replied.

One month later I went to visit a family friend who was in a nursing home. Outside, scratching and cawing in a freshly dug flower bed was a small flock of crows.

"Mrs. Worth is going to die," I told my husband when I got home. Three weeks later that was the case.

"What made you think she was going to die?" my husband asked.

"A crow walked across my grave," I said.

In the middle of a sultry summer we looked out into our atrium, the setting for a fish pond. A crow, feathers all ruffled, teetered on the edge of the rain gutter. "Who's going to die now?" my husband asked.

"The crow," I said to him. Then to the crow I said, "Go somewhere else to die." I left the room. When I returned, the crow was gone. That night there was a torrential rain storm. I thought I heard a loud splash, but it was, after all, a rain storm. The house was in the woods. Strange sounds in the night were usual.

After the storm I went out to clean debris from the pond. I never wore my glases for this task. I saw what looked like a plastic garbage bag caught underneath overhanging plants. I reached with my hand to pulled it out, then screamed as I brought into my range of vision a dead crow, all bedraggled feathers, red eye glaring at me. The crow had died, fell ito the storm gutter, was washed out in the rain storm, and fell into the pond.

"West Nile virus," the man from animal control said.

My husband said, "You're giving me the creeps." It was one of the last conversations we had. Soon after that my husband suddenly died.

A few days ago, after hearing some dark news about myself, I felt compelled to visit him where he lies. In a voice that sounded more familiar than ever in the silence from which it came, he said, "I knew you would come today."

"How did you know?" I asked.

He answered, "A crow walked across my grave."

- - -
Susan Martin is a retired English and creative writing teacher. She has had poetry and short fiction published in anthologies, e-zines, on-line sites, and literary magazines. She was a prize winner in the 2009 Inspirational Women's Poetry Contest sponsored by Oneal Wallters at The Age Begins.

12/30/11

2011-12-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Silent Partner
By Neil Robertson

So you arrived. You arrived unannounced and I didn’t even notice, with a limp and a smile, a hole in the back and oil stained face. You disappeared for so long with no explanation. I dismissed you from my memory because to think of you hurt too much, but you return intermittently and I’m grateful for that. You return in the skies above my head and the air as I walk down the street fending off attacks from imaginary enemies made flesh just by thinking about you.

I turn down my vacuums and my pulse, the pace of reality burning holes in my retinas, my idiot ideas and purposeful gait already gaining momentum. You’ve change your shape again, from velociraptor to dreadful beaked hulk, from lively mannequin to pale dark shadow, from flailing disciple to sycophantic misanthrope. You changed your shape and I barely even noticed.

Your desperate lunge towards the heart of me, your last push for distraction and idealism becomes outwardly punishing, my limbs like black pistons churning the earth for an answer, digging and ploughing my way through your webs and your lies, through the false hopes and many diversions. All the time your ever changing myriad faces delineate themselves into some form of conquest, surrounding me with fake odours and listless smells, the reality of dreams, the realness of concrete.

I change your dark smile and I keep your old clothes, in a bag, in a basket, in a hole in the wall, behind brick and old drawings, you hide away in these places. You lurk like dark meanings with malice and divinity. Black dogs on my shoulder are always the same, the four legged doom merchants twisting my mind, in between summer’s last grasp at a fortunate outcome, the vines. A populated masquerade in an abandoned mine, drowning dead miners and lipid excuses, five hundred televisions tuned to the wrong channel each and everyone crying loudly at me to find the right position, cling to the correct posture, the flowering idiocy of messed up mad puppets, a kitchen full of derision, knives and bad odours, codex and inert notions.

A glib remark defining the way you see some situation, a thousand stark words making you flail and cry in despair, the last light of the day leaving you linear and clear, the oily residue beside your face when nothing makes sense. High tide moments in a listless display of festival blues, when your body wouldn’t make anymore movements. Eyelids broken with glass. Finger heavy.

Terrestrial hints and marked lay-byes, the individual centre, a clouded junction between the last known icon and the beaten delay, you wanted to climb upon the statues of a fallen king and burrow hermetically like knives, like seaweed, wrapped like pastry in a sealed cabin for the wreckage of lost words, lost genuflection, the cross the star the holy sealed beautification.

Your body seemed disconnected like a lost infant farmer, no expression just poses and passes, a miscellany of litany and generosity climbs and fights its way to your surface painting, when all of the crystallized idolaters pass you around in the invisible church, genuine worship and protection, in my mind I wrap you in cotton and cellophane to hide you from all these worlds and jagged edges, cauterised listless progress hunters.

You speed through the streets at night invisible to all, like a beam of string you inject each stone, in a maze the silent light spears close in on you and you howl like the first noise, a sub tone, a closed parade.

- - -
I'm an artist living in Manchester, England, I write and I paint and I attempt in my work to explore the recesses of my mind, those dark and often odd little places that seem to lie hidden for most of the day, I try to coax them out of there warm and dreary holes, and see what my mind is sometimes hiding from me.

12/23/11

2011-12-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

A Woman's Work
By Valerie Kravette

“No more Howdy Doody. I want you both outside right now. It's a beautiful spring day,” Doris called into the living room as she snapped open a fresh apron.

“Aww, Mom.” Billy slunk into the kitchen, dragging his cowboy boots.

Doris adjusted the bandanna around Sally's forehead, and her cockeyed feather.

“Why am I always the Indian?”

“No such thing as cowgirls, silly.” Billy pulled a toy gun on Sally, then pointed it at the linoleum.

“There is too! Mommy, tell him.”

Doris tightened the stampede strap on his cowboy hat. “You let your sister be the cowboy half the time.”

“Woo-Woo-Woo!” Sally did a victory dance.

“Aw, Mom!”

“You heard me, young man.” Doris pushed them out the screen door.

She tied on her apron and opened the cabinet under the sink. She heard a low growl. An eerie, green glow emanated from behind the Ajax cleanser. She froze. She stepped back and slowly drew a long-bladed knife out of the holder on the counter.

It moved fast, and she was ready. The alien cephalopod scuttled out and she stabbed it over and over. Blood spurted and arced all over her clean paisley print apron.

“Mommy!”

It scuttled back under the sink. She slammed the cabinet door, and turned to face Billy.

“Mommy, I want a glass of water.”

Billy stopped and stared.

Doris looked down at the bloody apron. “Mommy's having trouble with the roast. Here.” She put the knife down, filled a glass for him, and watched him drink it down.

Satisfied, he ran out. The phone rang. She picked it up, watching as the door of the cabinet moved slowly.

“Hi honey, I'm going to be half an hour late. Working overtime on the Lovecraft account again.”

“Just a minute, dear.” She juggled the receiver while a tentacle slithered across the floor. “Could you pick up a quart of milk?”

“Sure.”

It seized her ankle. “Gotta go, I have to mash the potatoes.” She slammed the phone down and reached into a drawer as the tentacle pulled her off-balance.

Just in time she grabbed hold of the meat cleaver and brought it down on the tentacle. The creature howled and retreated. Doris scrambled for the severed twitching appendage, threw it into her brand new garbage disposal and flicked the switch. The blades protested, and then sang, efficient and deadly.

She took off her apron, bent down and mopped the blood off the linoleum, glad that she hadn't let the salesman talk her out of the brown color. She threw the bloody apron in the sink, picked up the knife and the cleaver and stalked the kitchen. Which cabinet?

Carefully she opened each one with an espadrilled foot. Sink, clear. China, clear...

There it was. In with the canned goods. It bellowed when it saw her, and rose up, showing rows and rows of razor sharp teeth. Vestigial wings flapped the air, and its maw exuded a graveyard stench. Doris licked her lips and held the knife out in front of her, ready to swing the cleaver.

“Mommy! Not again!”

Doris started, and glanced to the side. Sally's eyes were as big as their Atomic Starburst dinner plates.

“Be quiet as a little mouse. Hand me your bandanna.”

The thing writhed and hissed in front of them. Doris threw aside the knife, ran a finger along the cleaver, and then used Sally's bandanna to soak up her blood. She waved the bandanna in front of the creature and it sniffed and made tiny malevolent lunges.

“Get ready, honey.”

“We're going to put it in the oven again. Like the wicked witch in Hansel and Gretel.”

“That's right, dear.”

They eased themselves toward the Tappan double oven. “Now!” Doris cried and threw the bandanna in the top unit. The monster lunged after it in pursuit. With Sally's help, she slammed the door shut. Tentacles flailed around the oven door as Sally whacked them with a wooden spoon. They slipped into the oven and Doris threw the self-cleaning lock and turned up the heat. Mother and daughter sighed in relief and stared at the appliance, ignoring the muffled screams.

“It's our little secret. Don't tell Daddy.”

Sally nodded gravely.

Doris hugged her, patted her on the back and sent her back outdoors.

The timer bell rang. Smoke poured out of the oven vents. Doris, wincing and coughing, waved a potholder and turned on the exhaust fan. She opened the window, in time to hear Billy yell, “Hi, ho, Silver! Look, Daddy's home!”

Doris wiped her hands on a red dishtowel, checked her reflection in the chrome door of the oven, and smoothed down her dress.

“Hey, Sweetheart.” John sniffed and grimaced. “What happened? Did you burn the roast again?”

She held up her hands and gave him a vapid smile.

He laughed. “My little woman. We'll go out. Sometimes I think you do this on purpose.” He winked. Billy plowed into John, followed by Sally. “Whoa there, Sputnik!”

“Sally screamed at a spider.”

“I did not!”

“She's just a 'fraidy cat girl.”

“Hush, both of you. Daddy's had a hard day.” Doris received a kiss from John, set aside his grocery bag, and picked up the receiver to call Sandra, the neighbor's girl, and arrange babysitting. As she turned, she saw the gash in the linoleum the cleaver had made. She was running out of replacement squares. She made a mental note to pick up more. And maybe call an exterminator.

“Yaaaay!” Sally pulled a blue box out of the cupboard and shook it. “Macaroni and cheese for dinner!”

- - -

Valerie Kravette is a former actress and cabaret singer. She lives with her writer husband in Tucson, AZ.

12/16/11

2011-12-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

Last Wish
By J. S. Hill

Among the dust-covered antiques I sat before the fireplace reading by oil lamp, a stack of handwritten journals left by my grandfather whose recent passing; consumption they called it- had left me as the caretaker of his estate, such as it was.

I had spent the previous day settling his affairs and retired to the bulk of the estate which rested in a drafty old house that perched on an abrupt hill overlooking the outskirts of town. Built when the land was open country and left in a timeless state, the only modern improvement since, was a road that cut away and revealed the cyclopean walls of the foundation. The trees around the house were dark and twisted equally as unkempt as the briar thorns and undergrowth below them. This further served to fuel the many rumors and legends that my grandfather and the house itself; were very peculiar, to say the least. On several occasions since his death, unnatural screams could be heard coming from the house at night.

As the full moon waxed across the sky in the wee hours of the night, and the orange glow of the dying embers in the fireplace danced with the shadows, I began nodding off, but the last entry in the journal stuck in my mind as I drifted into the land of dreams. Bring my child to me.

In the dream I saw the warm wrinkled face of my grandfather staring back at me; he was younger and appeared happy. Soon, his face distorted and a cloak of shadows enveloped him.

A terrible scream in the dead of the night woke me, and I threw myself out of the chair and clambered around in the darkness searching for the lamp, but found it overturned in my stumbling. Another scream pierced the silence and a chill went up my spine and the short hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The scream sounded again, this time louder and becoming more of a woeful cry.
In the dark I heard scratching footsteps behind me as I knelt to pick up the box of matches that scattered onto the floor as I fumbled to light the lamp. There was nothing in the room with me, save for the long shadows that fell in the glow of the lamp. The basement door rattled on its hinges and the screaming continued at irregular intervals, but grew louder and more horrendous as I approached the basement door.

I pulled back the latch ever so slowly and opened the creaking door. I trembled as I raised the lamp illuminating rough stone steps that descended into the cold darkness. Down the stairs I went, feeling my way along the cracked walls; damp from the recent rains. At the bottom, the darkness seemed intent on crushing the life from the lamp, I saw cryptic sigils engraved along the walls, and a dark pedestal rose up through the center and there lay a large leather bound book covered in layers of dust. It dawned on me that I had not heard a scream for some time and wondered if I had dreamt it; that was not the case.

In the corner, on the cold earthen floor was a small horrible stone statue the palid color of a corpse. The head of which, stretched back mouth wide with long dagger-like fangs locked in an eternal scream. Leathery wings extended from its back and the arms ended in razor sharp talons. I dared not touch it for fear that the vile thing would spring to life. A terrifying vision crept into my mind, again of my grandfather standing over the leather bound book, and the statue peering over his shoulder like a demonic tutor turning pages as my grandfather scribed horrific images into the book.

I turned away and tried to force the scene from my mind. I covered the statue with a cloth from the upstairs room and ventured out into the woods behind the house. There I found the sunken ancient crypt overgrown with moss and vines where my grandfather was interred and in the soft earth buried the statue at my grandfather’s feet. I cannot explain it, but fulfilled the last wish of my grandfather.

- - -
I am an IT professional and trying to find time to write pulp fiction when not spending time with the family- wife, cat, and dog.
Recently received an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, and that story was later published in
a small press magazine, Encounters #4.

12/9/11

2011-12-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

During the Eclipse
By Christopher Owen

Once a month I like to walk down to the beach at night and watch the full moon. I usually smoke cigarettes, or weed if I’ve managed to lay my hands on some. As the smoke drifts off into the night air, I like to think it’s some sort of sacrifice I’m offering to the moon–-if I worshiped the moon, that is. I don’t worship anything these days, but the moon seems as good a target for my veneration as anything else I might choose to cast it toward.
The smoke almost always seems to conjure someone from out of the darkness. Sometimes it’s kids who’ve caught the scent of my weed and want a hit. Sometimes it’s one of the half crazed homeless people who live in a little shanty town down by the retaining wall. One time it was a beautiful blonde girl who walked out of the sea and sat beside me. She was naked but for the glistening seawater dripping from her body.
“Are you a mermaid?” I’d asked her.
“I’m a Nereid,” she said.
“What’s a Nereid?” I asked, even though I knew what it was. She smelled like the ocean.
“I’m a daughter of the sea,” she said casually, her voice like a trickle of water. “What are you?”
“I’m a human,” I said, wondering how I smelled to her.
“What brings you to the beach tonight?” she asked.
“I’m worshiping the moon,” I said. I really didn’t have any other reason to offer.
“Have you ever seen the moon from beneath the sea?” she asked. I said that I hadn’t. “It looks like it has been shattered on the surface of the water, and been severed into a thousand bright shards of gold.”
I wondered if I should feign anger that she spoke so irreverently about my pretend god. Instead I said, “That sounds pretty.”
“There are many pretty things beneath the sea,” she said.
We sat in silence for a while, me smoking my joint, and she merely breathing in the night air and my second-hand smoke. At length, a shadow began to creep across the disk of the moon.
“Something is eating away at your moon,” she said to me after a while.
“It’s just an eclipse,” I told her. I’d read earlier in the paper that there was to be one tonight.
“What’s an eclipse?”
“It’s just the shadow of the earth, darkening the moon. Don’t worry, it’ll be back.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said. “It would be sad if you didn’t have anything to worship.”
I agreed. I looked over at her. In the growing darkness, she was indistinct. What little moonlight was left outlined her little silhouette with a pale glow against the shadows of the beach. “I could worship you,” I said at length.
She giggled. “But I’m not a god,” she said.
“Neither is the moon,” I said just as the last bit of its light slipped behind the earth’s shadow.

- - -
Christopher Owen lives in Texas with his wife and two cats. His work has appeared at Daily Science Fiction, Every Day Fiction, Mystic Signals and other places. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop.