Contributor: Benjamin F Jones

- -
I have never really been into pedigree felines but when I saw the Persian Violet advertised in the Evening Standard, I knew it had to be mine.

I took my cousin to the purchase; she is an expert on household pets and there are all sorts of horror stories about dangerous animals being botched together, re-sprayed and sold on.

We arrived at 57 Nutbush Road shortly after 7pm. I was carrying a cat-box and a wodge of money. The cat played in the uncut grass of the terraced house, opalescent and glittering in the sun; racing and pouncing through the heads of dandelions. As the owner gave me a brief service history my cousin checked the oil; apparently there is an old trick where treacle is put in to disguise rattles – the cat was clean and we took it for a walk around the block. Some of the tail-bearings seemed a little worn but the bodywork had been well looked after.

The street was peaceful when we returned. Far off I heard a petrol mower – the smell of cut grass drifted like gold in the air. My cousin gave me the nod and I knew I had a good deal.


- - -
Benjamin F Jones is a writer working in South Wales. He loves pizza, photography and moist clay. When it rains he catches drops in his open mouth. He creates poetry, flash, absurdist snapshots, prose poetry and humorous fiction. Shuffled Fragments can be read at http://graphitebunny.wordpress.com/

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Benjamin F Jones

Contributor: M. Scibelli

- -
Before sunset everything appears readily apparent. He pedaled his bike into the high school football stadium at half past five. A game had been played earlier that day, and the tattered bleachers on both sides had a number of balloons tied to them. Getting off of his bike, he braced it against the home bleachers and strode down the fine gravel track toward the far end. Due to the hour, long shadows were flung to the ground by an over-zealous sun dying of age. He turned and regarded the trodden field, tired from the day’s use but still fresh at the start of the season. The field seemed to smile bleakly at him; it was a tired runner at the start of a race that it knew was much too long for it.
Above the landscaped grass swarmed several dozen dragonflies, bounding off of unseen air currents and darting through the shallow sky. Each one would stop for a short period of time, reconsider its life, and turn and rocket away, only to repeat itself moments later. Dragonflies only seemed to come out for several weeks before they were gone again; the recent surge of these creatures impressed a strictly ephemeral sentiment on the youth;.
In his mind, the stadium incased a single instance. Although cars on the highway close-by could be heard. To him, they didn’t matter, or at least they seemed to not. A wind howled by, a campaign caller for the Fall-Winter ballot that hung up after the third ring.
He ambled back down the track toward his bike, halting at each of the helium balloons as he went. Wrapping the string around his fingers, he then tugged severely at it until the line frayed and gave. The bicycle, leaning on the splintered handrail of the bleachers, screamed of a youth he should no longer be in; indeed, he wasn’t.
The boy released the balloons into the air. At first gregariously remaining grouped together, they soon parted ways and began to form smaller and smaller profiles against the waning afternoon sky. He watched and he stood, he killed summer. The balloons floated higher and higher into the atmosphere, bolstered by air, until they were far out of reach of his vision.
He looked melancholy but gazed resolutely toward his bicycle, then got on and pedaled away. He knew that while he couldn’t see it happen, the balloons would all pop. Sometimes the sparsity of air around balloons would cause them to fill too large, and unwillingly kill themselves.


- - -

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

2 Comments

Author: M. Scibelli

Contributor: Kevin Pierce

- -
“Next.”
A man walks up to my desk with a small girl in tow. I glance up just enough to see that his shirt and pants are dirty, a contrast to the girl’s Sunday-best blue dress.
“Name?” I ask.
“Margaret Brooks.” he says.
I press the button on my intercom and restate the name. “One moment, sir.”
The man places his hand on my desk and leans over. I can feel that his face is close to mine. “How long will we have?” he asks.
I focus on his dirty shirt. “One minute.”
“But I have so much to say.” His voice shakes.
I sigh. “So do they.” I say, gesturing behind him to the endless line of fidgeting onlookers.
He straightens up. “You’re right, of course. One more question. Does she know?”
I look up at his face for the first time. His mouth is drawn tight, and looks like he could use a shave. His eyes are at once open wide and sharply focused as they meet my own. “No.” I say, looking down and pressing the button on my intercom. “One minute.”
A woman’s voice rings out from the speaker. “Hello? Roy, is that you?”
The man moves forward and kneels down, face to face with the intercom. “Yeah, Maggie, it’s me. Clara’s here too.”
The girl’s face brightens. “Hi Mommy, it’s me.” she says.
The woman laughs. “I’d know your voice in a second, sweetie. Have you been a good girl for Daddy?”
“Yes, Mommy, of course. He’s been letting me stay up late and even let me skip school today – it’s been so much fun! His cooking isn’t as good as yours though. I miss you – will you come home soon?”
“Of course, baby. They told me it’s all going to be okay, and that I’ll be home in a couple of days.”
I look up at the man in front of me again. His eyes are wild, brimming with tears as they dart around the room. His fists clench as he turns to his daughter. “Say goodbye to Mommy.” he says. “I’d like to talk to her now.”
The girl nods enthusiastically. “Daddy wants to talk to you now.” she says. “I love you, and I’ll see you soon. Bye bye!”
“Bye bye back, Clara. Mommy loves you.” says the woman. “How are you, Roy? I hope it hasn’t been too much of a hassle while I’ve been away.”
The man’s fists begin to shake, but his voice remains steady. “It’s been no trouble at all, Mags. Listen, I just wanted to say how sorry I am about all of this. All the arguments, everything – you wouldn’t be there if not for me.”
“Oh honey, don’t be sorry.” says the woman. “It hasn’t been bad at all – like a vacation, really. And I’ve never missed you so much. In a way, I needed this. I can’t wait to see you.”
The man swallows hard. “I can’t wait to see you either.”
“Ten seconds.” I whisper.
“I – I have to go now – our time is up.” says the man. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.” says the woman.
The moment she finishes the phrase, I press the button on the intercom, silencing it. I scan the list on my desk, crossing off the woman’s name to the sound of sobbing in front of me. Looking past the man, I gesture to two large men behind him to escort him out. I take a deep breath and look back at my list.
“Next.”


- - -
Kevin Pierce is a recent college graduate and amateur writer. He recently finished his first novella, and also writes short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. He is currently working on his first novel-length work.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Kevin Pierce

Contributor: Jude Conlee

- -
Most of the things he doesn’t understand are the kind of things that you can comprehend right off. Like his surroundings. There’s no way to argue against heat, for example, but he doesn’t comprehend that so much. I mean, he burned his own hand off once because he couldn’t tell the difference between heat and coldness. I don’t enjoy being him, really. Because I am him, you know. Well, you wouldn’t have known it if I didn’t tell you, but who cares, anyway. I don’t. He doesn’t. You do, but I don’t care about you. Like my hand. I didn’t care about that, either.
Do I not care, or do I just not comprehend? You know, like the thing with the hand. Or cars. I just don’t comprehend the movements of cars sometimes. Most times I cross the street, I nearly get run over. They yell at me and say, “Are you trying to kill yourself? Didn’t you see me coming?” Yeah, I saw you coming, but I didn’t notice.
Once, I got hit, you know. Well, you didn’t know that before, either, but now you do. And the lady who hit me, I don’t remember, she gave me some angry, idiot rant about how reckless he was and how he should have looked, for God’s sake, and how it’s people like him who create a public menace just by existing. But then she realized that she needed to get him to a hospital, because you don’t just hit someone and rant about it. So they took me to the hospital, and the doctor said I had some kind of brain damage, and I said it doesn’t matter, I can deal with it. I scared him. I liked scaring him.
I haven’t told you the story with the heat yet, though. So it was some time after that car incident, so he’d already had brain damage. So you’d think that it was the brain damage that made it happen, so he couldn’t feel his hand burning off, but no, he’d had trouble with that kind of thing before. Not with his hand getting burned off, though. Not that. Not yet.
But so he was at his sister’s house, where she lives with an evil husband and two dogs, one of them’s nice and likes licking people’s hands, and one of them’s smelly and apathetic. Now, you’re probably wondering if the husband’s really evil. He is. He’s evil to half the people he meets, and he’s nice to the other half. He’s nice to women. Some of them. His wife.
But I was at the house, and he wanted me to help him with the fireplace, because he wanted me to help him start a fire there. So he put a few logs in but he also puts crumpled-up newspapers in there, too, because it helps the fire catch better. And once it all caught fire, he wanted me to put in the newspapers.
So the evil husband left for a moment to get something, and the one who was left behind started putting newspapers in there himself, right, and they caught fire and all. And so he said, is fire hot or cold, I don’t remember. I’ll find out.
So he left his hand there a while, and it caught fire. Yes. And after it was burned enough, he said, “Alright, it’s hot, okay.” And he left the room to put water on his hand, because he wanted the fire out, of course. And his sister saw it and she screamed because he’d burned his hand so much, and the evil husband started ranting at him. And they took him to the hospital. More hospitals.
Well, they told me they had to amputate my hand, and that didn’t bother me so much. I mean, you can get by without a hand. Okay. What made me angry was that it was the evil husband’s fault. He tried to burn my hand off by sending me to deal with the fireplace. Hideous fireplace. Never liked heat, anyway. He wanted my hand gone. To spite me. And I tried very hard to thwart him, but he did spite me. He did.
So now I’m minus one hand and I’ve got a bunch of people “marveling” over the fact that I see things but don’t notice them. I can’t tell the difference between heat and coldness. And I always have trouble with cars. Had trouble with one, once. Had trouble with a fireplace. And a hand. And an evil brother-in-law who wants to spite me. Who did spite me. All because I don’t understand things. It wouldn’t have happened to you, because your brain works. Mine can’t. Like I said, most of the things I don’t understand are the things you’d comprehend right off.


- - -
Jude Conlee resides in the West Coast of the U.S. (which is possibly irrelevant) and writes poems, SF, psychological fiction, and other things in a similar vein (which is possibly not irrelevant). Other than the writing, Conlee drinks tea, enjoys psychedelic art, writes songs while playing piano, and speaks in the third person.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

1 comment

Author: Jude Conlee

Contributor: Jesse Campen


- - 
 The warm breeze of the late-evening desert flows through my car while I drive eighty miles per hour towards my destination: Las Vegas, Nevada.
     Most go to Las Vegas with others.  I prefer to walk away with my sins alone.  No one is in my car to block the sound of my blaring-loud music.  My vision is a blur from having driven so far.
     "It’s okay," I say to myself.  "The road is straight anyways."
     Something past a mountain catches my eye.  Is it the lights of my destination?  No.  I know it isn’t.  I’m miles away from there.  I have a half hour to go.
     I see what looks like fire shoot out of a low-flying aircraft.  The explosive sound reaches the road a second later, and cancels out the noise of my loud music.
     Thinking it might be good to get something like this on video for YouTube, I pull over immediately and turn the radio low.  I get out of my car and get my phone out, holding it steadily. I’m recording the vicinity of where I saw the object in the air before, when suddenly, I see something coming from the clouds.  The silhouette is long and flowing.
     Fire belches out from the thing again.  Then, I saw it.  A giant, red, scaly creature with a… white beard and eyebrows?  Its short arms seem to push across the air.  Then I catch its yellow-gold eyes, staring directly at me.
     A fireball shoots from its mouth.  I begin to wonder if I’m already in Las Vegas and am in a drunken dream.  The ball of flame flies past me and blows my car to smithereens.  This isn’t a dream.  This is really happening.
     I hold on tight to my phone and run like hell.  A terrifying screech comes from the monster that deafens me to the extent that I can only hear a ringing in my ears.  I take a quick look back, and see it only a hundred yards away.  Its mouth is open, baring its rows of razor sharp teeth.  It’s gaining on me quickly.  I continue running away.  I’m not going to be this things next meal.
     All of a sudden, when I didn’t think my ears could be damaged anymore, blood begins flowing out of them at the sound of some explosion behind me.  Whatever it is, it sends me rolling along the ground like a dust bunny in a super nova.
     My prized phone is lost when my hand slams into the ground and breaks at the wrist.  When I finally land, I’m on my stomach facing the Chinese dragon.  I can’t hear anymore, but what I see is unbelievable.
     Stealth jets are flying all around, pounding the thing with missiles and bullets.  Explosions and debris are everywhere.  At times like this, I wish I hadn’t lost my phone so I could keep recording what’s happening.  I try to adjust to the chaos around me and make my way to my feet, but instead, I fall to my back unconscious.
     When I awaken, my face is covered in dust and I have the taste of sand and smoke in my mouth.  The next thing I notice is the orange hue in the sky.  It must be early morning.
     My body feels sore and broken.  I can’t hear a thing and yet, I have a whopping headache.  Above me stands two shadows that, as of yet, I can’t make out.
     One of them gets closer, kneeling down next to me.  He looks like an agent right out of a T.V. cop drama.  The other one points his finger down at me.  He’s shouting something but I can’t hear it.  I can only see the camouflage color of his long-sleeved fatigues.  Another figure comes into sight and is handing the agent something.  I try my best to lean my head up and talk.
     “What’s going on?” I say, without hearing my own words.
     The agent takes what the person handed him, and stabs me in the neck with it.  I can see it close enough now to realize it’s a syringe.  A clear liquid slowly injects into me.  My thoughts and memories of the incident seem to flutter away.
     Maybe it is a dream.  Hell.  Even if it isn’t, I won’t remember a damn thing.


- - -
Jesse James Campen is a working student from Maryland, and likes to write specifically to entertain. He is currently attending Full Sail University to get his Creative Writing For Entertainment BFA. Jesse likes story telling in all forms, including stories from video games and themed music albums.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Jesse Campen

Contributor: Mark Slade

- -

Colored pebbles dream because they were apart of the genetic makeup. Softcover Mother at the touch of keywords, sitting in a synthetic chair, had to steal the body of water indefinitely.

       In quick steps inside the end of the night, People babbling to themselves, playing a game heart attack.

                          A droning sound of daydreaming teardrops fell from memory.

- - -
my name is Mark Slade. I live in williamsburg, VA with my wife and daughter. I have been published in Burialday.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Mark Slade

Contributor: Andrew Ross

- -
Topic Sentence
“It’s my fault,” the man said to himself. “I did this.”

Initiating Circumstance
A boat. Water. Wind. Rain.

Dialogue
The man sits on the pillowed bed deep inside the sailboat’s cabin. Sees water slipping through the closed door. He thinks. Moves from the obvious to the speculative. Figures his wife and their two friends are dead. The water must have flooded the rest of the cabin by now. The boat’s probably already submerged. That bang must have been the hull hitting rocks, another boat. Maybe it was the boom collapsing. His friends were smashed when the boom fell. If he had been on deck he could have maneuvered the boat to safety. He could have prevented the mast from crushing their skulls. He could have saved them. He could have—

Backstory
The man had a recurring dream haunt him since youth. The man would enter the land of dreams and envision himself bathed in darkness. But soon he would be expelled from this warmth, the safety of the surroundings he was familiar and comfortable with. He would spiral through a dark tunnel and be pulled into scathing bright lights. His eyes pained, his body weak, he would open his eyes to frightening masked faces and sharp metal objects. The last connection to his warm darkness, to life as he knew it would be severed, and he’d long to travel back up the tunnel, to reside once again in a safe world. But to go back is impossible. And he would begin to cry.

Thoughts
The water slides around the man’s knees now. Still he doesn’t move. He thinks.

Rising Action
His friends—another husband and wife pair—were on the deck keeping watch. He remembered falling asleep. His wife went to the bathroom and he had heard heavy rain. No rocking yet though. He would never see his wife again. She closed the door behind her and he had rolled over and closed his eyes.

Backstory
When the man was a boy his father told him never to read the biggest book on the bookshelf, the book ordained “Holy.” His father told him he could read any of the hundreds of other books, but to never read “The Holy Book.” This book was off limits. When the boy asked why, his father responded that this book contained dangerous ideas, revolutionary philosophies that could provoke fickle loyalties and unbound submission.
His curiosity unhinged, the boy snuck into the library late one night. The book called the boy, attracted him with its size and fancy lettering. He stood on a chair and reached for the red-bound cover. The book was too heavy and they fell—boy and book—to the floor. Scrambling over to it, the boy laid the book in his lap and opened to page one.
The boy’s father heard the noise and entered the library. He asked his son what he was doing. The boy responded that he was reading a book. When the father saw the book, he told his son to get out. He told his son that he could never enter the library again. The boy carried the book with him and turned to see the door to the library close forever.

Feelings
The man feels water nibble his genitalia.

Rising Action
When the man had awoken, the boat was rocking back and forth, tipping with what must have been large waves—the man guessed at least five feet. Really he had no idea. This was the man’s first trip on a boat.

Dialogue
The man curses himself for falling asleep. He should have been on deck. He should have stayed awake after his wife went to the bathroom. He should have realized the heavy rain meant a terrible storm. He should have—

Character
The man feels water around his neck. He sits still. He thinks about life.

Climax
The man holds his breath.

Resolution
“It’s my fault,” the man thought to himself. “I did this.”


- - -

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Andrew Ross

Contributor: Geoffrey Carter

- -

They say your entire life flashes in front of your eyes before you die. They also say that light travels at a speed of 299,792,458 meters per second. Of course it is easier to tell how fast light is going than it is to tell what you see before death. The only reason people say this is because they believe the ones that go about bragging that they “died for six seconds.”

 It’s like trying to remember how many kids were on the bus on your first day of kindergarten versus how many sharks there are in the sea. I think there were eighteen kids minus the eighth graders who boarded after I did and forced me to move out of “their seat” in the back.

                As for the sharks, the only amount I can give you is number swimming beneath my tired feat. I count one…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight...nine...ten…eleven…twelve…thirteen. Thirteen of them dashing around like the people in Grand Central Station.

                I am breathing in. I am breathing out. I am breathing in. I am breathing out. I am breathing…..a trick my mother taught me when crying over spilled milk, stressing out over a late research paper or vomiting on the linoleum floor, or, in this case, in the almost black ocean. It was rolling out of my mouth like yellow paint.

                I shut my eyes and flip over like a “Worst Case Scenario” card that says how to swim at sea for long periods of time. The answer to this is, according to the card, is to do just as I am doing now: lying on my back and occasionally kicking my arms and legs. This is a game I used to play with my cousin Greta, but instead of actually playing the board game that went along with it, we would spend hours at a time by the fire at her father’s house just reading the cards out loud to each other in hope of gaining some sort of knowledge of what to do in desperate situations.

Like this one.

I guess the reason for our game was Greta’s father himself. He would never let her have any friends over to his dusty old mansion. Or any relative, for that matter. I would have to sneak out of my own house and meet her at the back door when her dad was out. That was rarely possible.

When we were inside, I could usually catch a glimpse of her backside which was a rainbow of mostly purples, some blues. Or, she would just flinch as a response to my touch.

“My father,” she explained.

 And I understood.

We’d take our mind off things with that only game Greta had in her house. It was kept in the bottom left corner of the dresser in her father’s bedroom. Sometimes we would just sneak around the living room and eventually end up in her minimalized bedroom and stay there until the man she dreaded came home.

                I’m still doing what the card tells me to, staring up at the starry, starry night and holding my breath and letting it out with a loud whoosh. The breaths become closer and closer together until I am back to where I started: A hyperventilating body in the water frantically thrashing my arms and legs trying to stay afloat, but the monsters beneath my feat swam dangerously near and I could sense them smelling the vomit swimming amongst them in the water.

                It reminds me my father telling me how much barf attracted fish. The bigger ones especially. We would always take these fishing trips at my grandfather’s expense in the heat of the summer when the fish were slow and tired.

                I went on the very first one that was offered and was never planning on going back.

                How was I supposed to know I get seasick?

                After I had spent approximately an hour puking over the side of the boat, many fish would swarm like poor children after a French fry was dropped. We had about ten fish that night because that was the limit, and my father made me come the year after. And the year after that. And the year after that.

                They were obviously ore of them now which only made me kick harder.

                Fourteen…fifteen….sixteen sharks join. It only adds to my fear and I begin to tremble. Or It could have been from the ice cold water, I don’t know, but I am beginning to kick my feet again and the only thing to do is kick harder. I remember the card again: Only kick when absolutely necessary. My eyes shut. Forget everything that I know

Except for this.

3.14159

And then I cry.
Because that is the thing to do.

- - -
I am a junior in high school and really want to be a writer. I took a writing class at a local college for a couple of weeks over the summer and am now taking a year long course in school. Other interests include playing music, crocheting, and skiing.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Geoffrey Carter

Contributor: Tim Sullivan

- -
There is much we cannot explain hidden out in the woods and wildernesses. Well, at the very least, there are people out there behaving in ways that cannot be explained. Not long ago, I came upon such individuals myself. I had taken it into my head to go for a jaunt into the relative unknown and so headed to explore a forest some distance from my house, well outside of town.

A certain famous horror movie had been filmed there; I won’t say which, but suffice to say they all died screaming-- quite a twist. Despite this fictitious blot, the region has quite a good name among locals for being idyllic in its seclusion and challenging in its hiking. The latter is due to the lack of established trails beyond a simple right-on-through job about as satisfying to hike as a sidewalk.

After arriving, I picked a direction and began walking. For two hours I blazed my trail--whatever that means—-over rocky hills and along more than one ravine. I was good and lost. The sun was not yet going down, but just passing that teasing azimuth where it giggles and flirts as a shy date with her skirt. Realizing that I had best begin the trek car-ward, I produced my trusted GPS, and, after ordering it to conduct me home, spun on heel and marched.

I had gone no more than twenty paces before the ground gave way and I slipped over the edge of a short cliff I had not noticed earlier. The fall proper was short, but the ground I landed on was steeply declined and I immediately began rolling down through brush and over branch.

When gravity was finally through with me I had accumulated only a few scratches and bruises. Nothing was seriously hurt; I once come out worse after an ill judged hop over a puddle. My GPS was not so lucky. The green “on” light shone happily, but the screen was black--likely due to the crack right in its center. There was no chance of climbing back up, and I had, of course, lost my bearing in the tumble and possessed no compass. Orienteering had never been a strength of mine, thus the GPS. My cell phone would be of no help either; it was in my glove box.

With the sun now on its way down, I picked a direction and set about extricating myself from this suddenly too exciting adventure. Before long, I came upon a narrow trail. I followed it for sometime before I found myself standing before a large stone monument. The shape of a man on his knees in supplication had been carved from a rock just larger than I. He appeared old and weathered, his features were indistinct.

Puzzled but aware of the setting sun, I continued on. Much to my shock, I soon came upon a ring of small, stone people in mid-dance. These statues were carved of old limestone and had clearly been brought here from elsewhere. They were much pitted from age and acid rain.

By now I was both unsettled and curious, conditions that were exacerbated around the next bend when I noticed all manner of shapes carved into the trees; some seemed recent. A wailing then reached my ears, accompanied the slow thudding of a drum. Curiosity trumped unease, and I followed the sounds up the trail. At the source, I was awash in bewilderment.

The wailing proved to be a harsh harmonica--the drum just a drum--both played by old men wearing suits. Gathered around them, a ring of some twenty individuals danced in a decidedly, well, tribal manner. They were all dressed quite modernly, there were more suits, jeans, t-shirts, polos; near them a fire burned in a pit. Strange blue and green flames leapt about and the profuse, wind-blown smoke made me lightheaded and dizzy. The scene was made no less surreal by the raucous colors of the setting sun behind them. I was not thirty feet away and could do nothing but stare.

Finally, I came to my senses and ducked behind a large tree. Strange wilderness cults demand caution. Soon after, the dancing and playing ceased. The ring sat with their backs to me and faced a tall hill with a tremendous boulder at its peak. Harmonica climbed the hill to stand near it, while Drummer moved to the fire pit. He fed the fire long varicolored logs and the flames grew and grew. The wind was blowing the heavy smoke into my face and I was having trouble seeing straight.

The sun continued to fall until it was obscured by the hilltop monolith; its great shadow fell like night on the scene. Harmonica began to play once more and the ring, joined by Drummer, began to chant words I could not discern. The harmonica’s manic call sliced the air and I could feel dread spreading through me. I longed to feel simply uneasy again.

The monolith had a hole cut through its center and suddenly the descending sun passed behind it. Strong orange-red rays shone through the hole and all over us; it hit me hard—I could FEEL it--and I dropped to the ground. The wind gusted and the ring of people began howling and screaming. I never knew humans could make such noises.

At this moment, I felt something. The acrid smoke, setting sun and the screams lead by the harmonica combined to manifest a presence. It was a density, a palpable SOMETHING, all around me. I could feel it pressing in tighter and tighter. I’d had enough.

I sprinted away, not following the path, just running. I fell many times; the smoke had made me feel as if I were rocking on an ocean. Eventually, I could never say how long, I burst on to a wide, flat trail and immediately recognized where I was. I turned left and followed the path right-on-through to my car.


- - -
Tim recently began writing due to a frustrating dearth of gainful employment following his college education. Writing hasn't helped that, but it's more fun than sending out resumes. He also has a cat.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Tim Sullivan

Contributor: Erika Price

- -
Sometimes you inherit your wants. It was for her mother, her mother who wanted to marry Herod (though most daughters despise parents’ suitors), that Salome wanted the head. Salome wanted the head because her mother wanted the head, and Salome wanted to please her mother more than anything. She wanted the first unmoved mover to be happy, and there wasn’t really any proper concept of ‘happy’ back then except to be wed. Barriers had to be squelched. Red tape severed.

And John the Baptist said unto Herod that schtupping his brother’s wife (Salome’s mom) was a total bro-code violation. And Herod was one of those dudes who was not trying to fuck with the bro code. Women will persuade you into all kinds of amoral things, being creatures of the earth and not Heaven, but John the B had internal consistency. Salome’s mom was just trying to persuade Herod that he wanted to fuck her. That it wasn’t borderline-incesty to till ground already plowed, to uncover seeds your brother’d buried. She was the one that wanted it. She was persuasive.

But John the Baptist was insistent, consistent, and his words were adhered to. Salome’s mom fumed and focused the way only a middle-aged preorgasmic mother of one can. She’d already made her daughter into a project, burned off a decade and a half of sexual frustration teaching the ninny to bow and twirl and leap, but soon it would be time for the well-sown seed to blossom and be plucked and wed and fucked on her own. It’s hard to be a pageant mom when your toddler-in-tiara was turning into a woman of the actual world.

Salome’s mom brushed her daughter’s hair and put it up in plaits and whispered in her ear. Then she sighed extravagantly. She draped herself over furniture and made a big scene of crying, ostensibly about her loneliness. Salome protested to her mother that she wasn’t alone, not at all— they had each other! They were mother-daughter BFFs in the Baby Spice, Gilmore Girls mold.

Salome’s mom just said: “Someday you will marry or someday I will die. I didn’t have you as young as Lorelai had Rory Gilmore, kiddo. You’ll have many years of solitude and spinsterdom if you stay single to keep me company.”

Salome said she couldn’t get married, she didn’t want her mom to be lonely. She was a stutterer but the passion behind her point was clear. If her mother was alone, she’d ride solo too. Salome’s mom said it was a shame, a real shame, especially with the solution so close.

Salome wasn’t skeeved out by the prospect of her mom shacking up with her uncle. I mean Christ, they were a beauty pageant family. Their standards were low in many ways. But she knew John the Baptist said it was verboten (though she didn’t know the word verboten; she took French). She leaned her golden head on her mother’s lap, for they knew no spatial or age-appropriate boundaries, and she asked her mom how it was they were ‘so close’ to a solution.

And Salome’s mom eventually told her the plan, flat out. Salome wasn’t bright enough to be tricked into thinking the idea was her own.

And Salome killed it on the dance floor.

When she took the entirely adult-sized crown, Salome was initially rapturous. She knew her dance had fucking slayed, especially the b-boying and cat-backing. Everyone hollered and roared. It was a large comfort, being so seen, but even larger was the comfort of doing her momma bear proud.

The wedding was tasteful. Salome’s mother wore a yellowy-cream colored dress, light enough to intone purity without actually being white. Salome danced with Herod (who insisted she call him Daddy 2.0) and gave her mother away, in a ceremony everyone agreed was understated, progressive, refreshing. That night, Salome’s mother screamed like a virgin and bucked her hips like a Lilith. Salome was moved to a separate wing of the house.

At first she found it difficult to cope. She’d never learned to braid her own hair, she didn’t know how to treat a cold or blister. The nights were quiet without their former nightly chatter about outfits, up-do’s, and pageant competitors they wanted to Nancy Kerrigan the shit out of. Suitors never called on her the way mother had promised. Salome watched The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood probably a thousand times, curled up in the guest bed, but it was little comfort.

She grew, however, to enjoy her new companion. She could try on clothes all night and he’d never be loathe to review an outfit. Salome’s mother hadn’t watched all her daughter’s dance practices, but Salome’s new companion did. He never grew bored with her or feared her abandonment. He didn’t lust. There were no physical contact or neediness taboos with him.

She grew old and grew to love him. The mother had been wrong; Salome never married. She curled around him with placid glee and stroked his thinning hair. She dreamed of times long past and dances she could no longer do. She whispered in his ear and cradled what remained of his neck. She had been a dancer, not a storyteller, but he didn’t care. When dancer’s bodies fall apart, they’re just husks with little conversational skill. But he listened to her. He stayed where she held him, transfixed by whatever nonsense she had to say.


- - -
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.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Erika Price