In the Pickling Fields

Contributor: David Macpherson

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On the edge of the beginning, Moss Child crawled to the pickling fields for something to eat. This land was owned by the creators. The storytellers and cloth-spinners that chose to create this world, this beginning. They would not want her eating what was theirs, but Moss Child was hungry and hunger didn’t stand on polite expectations.

With soft green fingers, she dug out the first jar that gravity and divine edict nestled under the earth. The jar was cast from the hide of old Gods. It was brittle and broke to the touch.

She took out the second jar. It was made from black ink. Inside she found a giant ossified heart. She gnawed at that organ for two days and stopped only when she thought she might tire.

She took out the third jar, made from the caul of infant stars. Inside were people, the we. She put one in her mouth, found it bitter and spit it out. She upended the jar and all the people tumbled out.

To their fleeing forms she shouted blessing, "Be free you bad food. Ruin the taste buds of those who should never have harvested you. Worship them, but never forget to get a decent wage for the adulation. Never be satisfied. When that happens, your flesh will mellow and taste sweet and they will greet you with smile and fork."

Moss Child found the other jars empty and went looking onto the next page for something new to please her.


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Bad Teeth – Good Whiskey – No Girls

Contributor: John Laneri

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Webster Nightingale trudged on, feeling another gust of winter wind blow against his neck. He needed sustenance – anything to warm the fibers deep within his being.

The storm raging about him was a severe blast, one reminiscent of the blizzard of 1887 when the Brazos froze from bank to bank. Now, only a few years later, he, along with most of the people in Neverton, a small town on the cattle trail to Fort Worth, were indeed feeling its fury.

Grumbling, he lifted his collar, determined to make his way to Aunt Jillie’s Boarding House, the finest establishment in North Texas. Near the town square, he looked up and spotted Roscoe Sayers standing in front of his newspaper office leaning against a post. Curious, he turned in Roscoe’s direction and made his way across the street.

“Mighty cold morning,” he said, when he reached the boardwalk.

Roscoe looked his way, his eyes lifting weakly. “I’ve been standing here since dawn, hoping the cold air might give me some relief.”

Webster spoke out, his voice bellowing against the wind. “I thought you promised the Good Lord that you’d stay away from Mexican beans. Most folks consider ‘em powerful enough to prime cannons.”

“It’s not the beans. It’s my tooth,” Roscoe replied, as he turned away from another gust of wind.

Webster scratched at his whiskers and reached for a back pocket, his eyes settling on Roscoe’s bulging jaw. “I remember one year when I was workin’ cattle on the high plains in the Panhandle....”

“I don’t need another of your long-winded stories. My tooth hurts too much to listen.”

“I wasn’t talkin’ to your tooth.

“Maybe so, but, my tooth has ears. It hears you just the same, and it says, talk softer ‘cause it feels the words.”

Webster took a draw from his flask. “You may be right, but like I was sayin’, a good drink of whiskey works magic for easing tooth pain. There’s no a finer remedy known to man.”

“My little lady frowns on whiskey -- claims it’s the fastest way to get possessed by the devil.”

Webster lifted the flask and downed a shot, smacking his lips. “But, it’s a mighty fine way to get possessed, leads to all kinds of interesting possibilities.”

“Like what?” Roscoe asked.

“Like getting acquainted with one of those pretty young girls over at Aunt Jillie’s Boarding House. There’s a world of pleasure waitin’ at her establishment.”

Turning away from another flurry of snow, Roscoe replied, “I don’t step around. And besides, it’s too cold.”

Webster did a double take and looked directly into Roscoe’s eyes. “It’s never too cold for a good tossing. As a newspaperman, you should know that. A little lovin’ keeps the world warm when the snows ‘a falling… might help your tooth too.”

Roscoe lifted an eyebrow. “Fooling around with young girls won’t help my tooth.”

“Maybe so, but they did me some good when my rheumatism was acting up.”

Roscoe cocked his head in Webster's direction, his eyes brightening. “As I recall, you were laid up in bed for quite a spell.”

“I was until I visited Aunt Jillie’s and met a cute, little filly with flame red hair. Afterward, I came out feeling like a new man. Yes sir, a good tossing has a remarkable way of curing most maladies.”

Webster handed the flask to Roscoe. “Take a couple of swigs. Then we’ll head over to her place and get out of the cold. The girls are always happy to have visitors.”

Hesitantly, Roscoe took the flask in his hands and turned a portion, his face contorting in various directions. “Your whiskey tastes terrible.”

“Take another shot. It might do you some good.”

Roscoe again tipped the flask and took a healthy pull. “You’re right, it does make my tooth feel better.”

Webster chuckled. “After a while, it makes the girls look pretty too.”

For some time, they passed the flask back and forth while they continued to discuss Aunt Jillie and her girls at the boarding house. Finally, the sound of groaning caused Webster to lower his flask and glance in Roscoe’s direction.

Seconds later, Roscoe pitched forward and bounced off a hitching post, his face plowing into the snow.

Hurrying to his side, Webster helped him to his feet. “You needn’t be in such a hurry. Most of the girls sleep ‘til noon.”

“I wasn’t headed to the boarding house. I was trying to lean against a post and rest my tooth. I so happened to miss the post.”

Webster downed another shot while he watched Roscoe stagger about with his fingers in his mouth. “Is something bothering you? It looks to me like you’re trying to eat your fingers.”

“I got it... Look here,” Roscoe said, as he shoved a hand at Webster's face. “My tooth came out when I fell in the street.”

Webster lowered the flask. “By golly, that does look like a tooth. Now, I’m disappointed.”

“Why are you disappointed? I’m cured. The Good Lord saved me from going to the boarding house and sinning.”

Webster grunted. “He only saved you from suffering a toothache. I’m confident He expected us to walk over to Aunt Jillie’s and spend some time with the girls.”

“But, I made the right choice. You can still go to the boarding house. No one’s stopping you.”

“I would,” Webster replied, as he stumbled into a snowdrift. “The problem is, I’m too drunk to walk by myself.”


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John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit can be found on the internet and in several print edition periodicals.
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Not A Bad Day

Contributor: Henry Lu

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Author’s note: this tale is reconstructed from a bunch of recently unearthed Han Dynasty scripts in Anhui Province, China. They are ink on woods and ink rubbing on hemp papers and are by the hand of Prince An Liu (179 BC – 122 BC).
After a breakfast of millet pancakes with tofu, Prince An Liu practices calligraphy. Today he writes down his favorite Confucius motto: “I would rather subsist on a diet without meat than downsize to a dwelling without a bamboo grove.” His handwriting, though meticulous and beautiful, lacks something of his own craving. Like all his elixir concoction hitherto, it’s missing the magic of immortality. “Send it to Regent Ho,” he instructs his royal butler, “as a token of gratitude for his supply of rare herbs, metals and minerals to my alchemy lab.”
The most recent shipment from the Regent has included gypsum which, the Prince has discovered via a sheer “what-the-heck” trial, can coagulate soybean milk into something he has christened as “tofu”(“bean curd”). Overnight, tofu has become a national sensation. The Prince, forever self-deprecating, dismisses his popularity as “15 minutes of fame”, not knowing that his phrase will be recycled some twenty centuries later into the parlance of time. His nephew, Emperor Wu, is fully aware of the Prince’s sway on the national sentiment. The Prince’s friends, including Premier Tien, have cautioned him about the Emperor’s unease. “Blood is thicker than water,” they tell the Prince, “but not thick enough to form indemnity against political purge.”
The Prince considers a coup d'état – as some of his advisers suggest – utterly unobtainable. He must come up with the elixir as quickly as possible. Then he can retire from politics and live as a recluse – but forever – in a Taoist temple, and wait for his nephew to die. Time is running out and everyday he must get a step closer to his goal. Today, he plans to mix an egg (the symbol of life) with some gold powder (the symbol of permanence) and see what happens.
The Prince punctures an egg with a pin and carefully enlarges the hole to the size that allows free flow of egg white but still small enough to retain the yolk inside the shell. The Prince sprinkles gold powder into the bowl of egg white, along with a potion of proving vitality-enhancing property. He sends it to his focus group consisting of the nation’s leading Taoist and Confucianist scholars. While waiting for their feedbacks, he orders an early lunch with some of his own aphrodisiac condiments – a slice of slow-stewed deer antlers and a handful of pickled caterpillar fungi. Before long, sensing he is about to pop a chubby, he sends for Lady Forsythia, the latest acquisition of his harem, and returns to his bedroom for a recess.
The romp in the bedroom lasts for three hours, ending with Lady Forsythia’s impromptu lap-dance accompanied by the Prince on the ocarina. Both of them indulge in generous amount of warm sake. Struck by a literary lightning conceived in the tryst of Muse and Dionysus, the Prince takes sudden leave of Lady Forsythia and goes to his study. There, he sits down and writes a twisted fable of a village elder whose horse one day defects to the Huns’ camp, only to return again on his own, bringing along a herd of the Huns’ horses. Thrilled with the sudden windfall, the elder’s son rejoices in riding the stallion every day till he breaks his femur in a freak accident. The Huns soon pour over the Great Wall and invade China. Every young man in the village is conscripted and dies in the battles except the cripple. At every turn of events, a fortune disguises itself as a misfortune while giving birth to a real misfortune in the end. The Prince orders to have the story gift-bounded and donated to the royal library. He does not know yet that the gist of it will become the most popular proverb in the Sinosphere, serving as the Eastern version of “every cloud has its silver lining”.
The Prince then goes to the opera stage in the garden, hours late for an appointment with a group of martial art masters. For their divine patience, he rewards them with a demonstration of Tai Chi, a slow motion version of Kung Fu he has invented, inspired by the graceful, slow demeanor of a turtle, a long-living species the Prince regards as role model.
After that he returns to his lab, where on his desk lie the glowing feedback from the focus group. Understandably, the purported life-prolonging effect is yet to be seen but the flavor and color is palatable and welcoming, with no ill side effect. Smiling, the Prince watches the sunset and listens to the frogs croak, drifting deeper and deeper in thoughts. Suddenly, he picks up the egg shell with the yolk still inside and studies it for a long time, as if admiring the perfect drilling he has done to it. He puts it down atop a mini hibachi grill, with the hole facing straight up, and lights the charcoal. The yolk sizzles and emits a disagreeable sulfurous smell; within a couple of minutes, hot, smoky air gushes out like a geyser through the tiny hole in the egg shell. With a pair of chopsticks, the Prince turns the hot egg shell so that the air hole faces straight down. The instance he relaxes his grip on the chopsticks the egg floats up in the air. It manages afloat for a while, a little wobbly, like a baby bird learning to fly and eventually crashes onto the floor when the hot air runs out. The Prince cries with joy. He has just created the world’s very first hot air balloon. Subconsciously, the Prince knows he will not live long enough to discover the magic of immortality. But there are days when he gets closer. Today is not a bad day.


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Henry Lu is a computer programmer by day, a painter and writer by night. Some of his paintings are installed in certain Federal Government buildings in DC. His fictions have appeared, or are forthcoming, on Postcard Shorts, Nanoism and Absinthe Revival Press' Summertime Anthology.
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G E O R G E

Contributor: Frank Holland

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      Mrs. Perkins asked her friend Jeanette, “Is that normal, for a man to give it a name?”
      “Give what a name?”
      “You know: it.”
      From Mrs. Perkins' timid manner Jeanette understood what she referred to; but, to make sure, she asked, “It?”
      “Yes, his-- ”  Mrs. Perkins's eyes closed modestly.  “ --manhood.” Then she reopened them.  “Do men do that -- call it by name, like it's human, like it has a life of its own?”
      “Well, sometimes it does.”
      “What?”
      “Have a life-- ”  She hesitated.  Although still in her forties, Jeanette was much more knowledgeable about contemporary life than Mrs. Perkins was.  “What does Cal call it?”
      George.  I just wish he would meet some nice religious girl and get married.  I want to have grandchildren before I die.”
      “If you want him to move into a place of his own, why don't you suggest it?”
      “Oh, I don't like to be pushy.  I don't want him to think he's not welcome here.”
      “I think he might even like that, living on his own.  But he thinks you need him here at the house.  And he doesn't want you to live alone.”
      “Or for that matter, I could move in with them.”
      “Them?  Him and George, you mean?”
      “No, him and his wife.  George, well, he goes along with him, of course.”
      Jeanette asked, “How long has he called it George?  All of his life?”
      “Oh, no, just recent, like he only took notice of him -- it.  Only in the past couple of weeks.”
      “That's odd.”
      “That's why I asked.  Isn't it sort of odd to give it a name?”
      “Not really.  I've heard of people giving names to, well, different parts of their bodies.  It's not really unheard of, no.”  Jeanette could have elaborated, but she didn't.
      Both women startled as the back door opened and Mrs. Perkins' son walked in.
      Jeanette nodded.  “Hello, Cal.”  He nodded back.
      Mrs. Perkins said, “Cal, look at these lovely tomatoes that nice young girl across the alley brought over.  Wasn't that sweet of her?”
      Cal gave them a perfunctory glance as he washed his hands in the sink.  “Yeah.”
      Mrs. Perkins continued: “So I invited her over for dinner tonight.”
      “What?  Why?  For five tomatoes?”
      “Because she's so nice and so kind.  She's such a joy to be around.”
      “Well, you be with her then; I'll eat early.  I don't want to see her.”
      “But she likes you.”
      “It's not mutual.”
      “But that's why I asked her over.  For you.”
      “For me?  To spite me?  And spoil my appetite?”
      “Because I know you like her too.”
      “I told you the other day, I do not like her!  She's a nuisance, annoyance.  I -- don't like her at all.”
      Smiling, Mrs. Perkins shook her head.  “That's not how I heard it.  I know different.  You like her in spite of yourself; you just won't admit it.”
  “What don't you understand about 'I-do-not-like-her-at-all!'?”
      “Well, part of you does.”
      “Well, it must be a part of me I'm not aware of.”
      “That may very well be.”
      “Last week when you asked me didn't I think she was sweet, don't you remember what I said?”
      “I remember exactly what you said.”
      “I asked you, why does she come over here all the time, what do you let her in for!  And   -- and -- I said she is a colossal pain in the ass!  She revolts me!  She makes my gorge rise!  So if she comes over tonight, you eat with her!  Not me!  You!  Because I won't!”  He slammed the damp paper towel into the trash and went upstairs to his room.
      Mrs. Perkins continued smiling with self-confidence.  “Jeanette, you heard what he said, didn't you?  The poor boy don't realize it himself, but he admitted it right out: she makes his George rise.”
      For a moment Jeanette considered correcting Mrs. Perkins, but she decided not to go there.


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I have had short stories published by several (over 20) publications, including Cicada, The MacGuffin, Oyez Review and Pleiades.
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The Incident

Contributor: Lewis Gesner

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My wife and I go into 7-11 yesterday in our village near Kaouhsiung. We buy rice balls or something and sit at their stools. There is a sound of a scooter outside, then, a second engine; a woman is spraying a cloud of disinfectant from a machine down a grating outside. My wife says, in a moment the cockroaches will come out. Sure enough, first one, then another, then, many many many - crawling over the steps, and onto the window of 7-11 - a man sits outside, we see cockroaches crawl on his foot. It is terrifying - we leave before they come inside. Later in church, we hear the scooter outside again, and then the sound of the second engine...


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Lewis Gesner is a writer and artist living in Taiwan. He publishers, exhibits and performs internationally, and is a member of Mobius artist group, from Boston, MA USA, currently on leave.
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The Tooth Extraction

Contributor: John Laneri

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The first time I visited Doc Merriman’s office was the day I took Lyle Winters in for a tooth extraction. At the time, I was living in Possum Hollow, residing in a double wide near the bayou.

Lyle, as I remember, was a fishing buddy – a fellow with a real knack for making the best of most situations. The Doc was also one of the good guys, a through and through professional. Besides providing the community with dental services, he operated the only funeral parlor in the parish.

Just for fun, my girl friend Betty Lou tagged along, saying she wanted to see a tooth pulled from a man’s head.

The Doc went straight to work. He situated Lyle in a dental chair and reached for a shot of local anesthetic. Being hard headed, Lyle immediately sat upright in the chair and flatly refused the painkiller, preferring instead several shots of whiskey to numb his senses. Before long, he was so drunk the Doc began to look worried.

“Is something wrong with Lyle?” I asked.

The Doc scratched his head. “He’s not breathing well. Maybe, I gave him too much whiskey or maybe….”

I interrupted him right off. “Doc, Lyle’s been drinking whiskey since sunrise. I thought you knew. He’s turned at least a half a gallon to ease the pain.”

The Doc cleared his throat. “That’s not good. A man can swallow his tongue during a tooth extraction.”

I noticed Betty Lou lift an eye. “Please don’t let him die. He’s such a wonderful man.”

The Doc turned to her. “He won’t die, honey. He's fine. But, he’ll need some sobering time before I can safely pull that tooth.”

The three of us looked at each other unsure of what to do until the Doc suggested that we move him to a comfortable place. So, in around about way that’s how Lyle ended up in the funeral parlor resting inside a casket with the three of us watching over him.

We must have stood there for thirty minutes not speaking a word just looking down at his immobile form – head resting on a pillow, toes pointed to the sky, hands folded across his chest.

Soon, I began to feel a creepy sensation edge along my neck. I glanced around the room then down at the casket and back over to the Doc. “This place is spooky. I don't like being around coffins. You’ve got them stacked everywhere.”

Betty Lou moved close to me and whispered, “I’m getting goose bumps just standing here.”

Doc simply chuckled. “Coffins won’t hurt you unless you drop one on your foot.”

He did have a point, so we returned to watching Lyle.

Before long though, I started to get bored from standing in one place. I looked over at the Doc. “Some fortification would be good about now. Don’t you think?”

The Doc cocked his head to study me, and then his eyes lighted like they were rigged to one hundred watt light bulbs. He hurried away and returned with his bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses.

Finally, after another hour of sitting in the funeral parlor, during which time the Doc and I sampled the whiskey and engaged in friendly talk, I noticed Betty Lou ease near the coffin.

“Is he still breathing?” I asked her.

“I’m checking him now.”

I reached for the bottle and poured Doc another shot then glanced back at Betty Lou and saw her lean over Lyle and place an ear to his chest.

“Hear anything?” I asked,chuckling.

“I’m not sure,” she replied distantly. “He looks too serene. And, I don’t like the way his lips are curled.”

She bent closer.

I started to say something, but then, I noticed her fanny pointed straight up in the air exposing bright red underwear. Unable to resist the temptation, I reached over and gave the elastic a playful snap.

She shrieked and suddenly tumbled into the casket, her body landing on top of Lyle – totally surprising me. Behind her, the coffin lid slammed shut with a solid thud.

Surprised, the Doc and I came to our feet and hurried to the coffin, laughing all the way.

Sometime later, after listening to a lengthy duet of muffled screams and curses as well as a good bit of fumbling about, we finally managed to get the coffin lid raised and were back to offering toasts to teeth.

By then, Lyle and Betty Lou were sitting across from us on top of the casket, admiring his tooth.

Betty Lou turned to Lyle, “I’ll never understand how my panties got hooked around your tooth. One minute, I was listening to your chest. And before I knew it, we were squirming about in the dark groping each other. I didn’t know which end was up.”

Rubbing his jaw, Lyle replied, “I’m just happy you snagged my tooth.” He gave her a smile and turned serious, his year in college showing. “Your panties do good work.”

She smiled playfully. “You can touch 'em as much as you like.”

Lyle didn’t hesitate. And before I knew it, they were headed out the door walking hand in hand toward her place.

In all, I wasn’t happy about losing Betty Lou. But, a couple of weeks later, I got to know her sister Lillie, which was just as well because she didn’t bother with panties at all.


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John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit can be found on the internet and in several print edition periodicals.
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Barefoot to Johnny's

Contributor: JC Piech

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Her eyes try and fail to focus on the pair of spectacles that sprawl, all cracked glass and twisted metal, on the coffee table. She gives up and looks down at the beige and brown carpet instead. It needs vacuuming; she can feel little bits on the soles of her bare feet. Sticky little bits. Like they’re trying to keep her here.
“Look at me, bitch,” he says, his voice hoarse from too much cussing and too much smoking.
“Maybe ah wud if ah cud see!” Her voice quivers.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, “d’ya always hafta fuckin’ cry at evrythang? S’only a pair o’ glasses.”
No, it ain’t jus’ a pair o’ glasses! You end up breakin’ evrythang. When’re you gonna stop havin’ your li’l boy tantrums ‘n start actin’ like a man? A real man? Like Johnny… Yeah, that’s right, ya heard me. Ah’m in love with Johnny ‘n ah’m leavin’ your sorry ass. He’s somethin’ o’ mine you won’t never get to break. He’s bigger ‘n stronger than you, ‘n he’s even more pissed about what you’ve dun t’me than ah am…” she thinks to herself as she hangs her head, watching tears drop out of focus onto the dirty carpet. She loved those spectacles. “Th’ only reason Johnny ain’t already gutted you like a slimy li’l fish,” she thinks, “is cause I told him not to. Well… its full moon tonight ‘n I’m done tellin’ him to hold back. When that moonlight shines on him ah'm not sure he even can.”
For the first time in her life she feels strong enough to leave. She stands up and heads for the door. Outside, the sun has baked the ground dry and hard and cracked. She doesn’t need shoes: Johnny lives just two doors down the dirt track. She’s not going to waste time packing bags, Johnny can buy her some new shoes and some new dresses.
“It’s about damn time ah had sumthin’ new t’ wear,” she thinks as she opens the door. “Maybe a bright red dress for th’ summer, t’ sit out in Johnny’s backyard in. And a pair o’ heels to match, for his little werepups to run around at. And a new pair o' spectacles too."
“Where d’ya think you’re goin’?” says her husband, a man made up of hair and short temper. He’s the only thing of hers that hasn't been broken. Yet.
Heading out into the last of the days sun and turning her bare heels on him, she says, “Why don’t ya follow me ‘n find out?”


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JC Piech lives in south-east England with her lovely and patient husband, and her writing forms a pretty mixed bag. Perhaps it’s because she’s a Gemini? Or perhaps she’s just a weirdo.
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Mr. Snowball’s Miracle

Contributor: Craig M. Workman

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            I came in and slid the grocery bag down my thigh until the bottom tapped the linoleum. For some reason, it seemed a bit too quiet today.  Hey!  I’m home!  Anybody home? I said.  Where the hell was my dog?  Mr. Snowball always licked my hand the moment I got home, but was nowhere to be seen.  Ever since he’d been a puppy, he had always had this thing with licking the floor and chewing the chair leg.  He’d lick the computer desk and chew on the carpet.  Where the hell was he?  I suddenly remembered the need to send my online pals a reminder that I was going to be out of town for the computer gamers’ conference until Wednesday.  The back room had become my de facto study, and I kept my computer and everything else worth considering there.  I walked on back, and there sat Mr. Snowball in my Retune gel office-chair, his head bobbing up and down over the keyboard.  Hey there puppy I said.  Hey there puppy what’s…what…the fuck?  I moved closer and noticed he had a pencil clamped in his mouth, and was punching at the keys with the mealy pink eraser.  And guess what?  No, he wasn’t eating the pencil or screwing up the keyboard.  He hadn’t pissed on my chair.  He had shed a fair amount of his signature whitish-fur all over the backrest, but that doesn’t bother me.  This is the part of the story that gets weird.  There, on the screen, Mr. Snowball was typing something.  It said:
Rjrsdityo can youseeeee it turirueoyi  ittt—o
In the space of a moment, I realized that this was it.  This was the moment I’d been waiting for my whole life.  Mr. Snowball looked up at me looking down at him, pencil  wedged in his mouth.  Oh God!  Oh, good boy.  Keep typing!  Keep…do it!  Keep doing it, boy!  It occurred to me later that this was something of a dumb thing to say to a dog but he was just doing such a great job, and I didn’t want to ruin the moment.  The moment, nonetheless, was ruined.  He dropped the pencil and walked into the kitchen. 
            I had so much to do now!  So many people to contact!  So many others needed to know how special my dog was, and how special I was by proxy.  I saved Mr. Snowball’s document as Mr. Snowball’s Miracle in a folder called Special Documents, which I’d created some time ago for situations just like these.  I got online and sent out a mass email to everyone I knew praising my brilliant Mr. Snowball, and that they had to come see when the time was right.  I alerted the media; this was pretty difficult actually, partly because in the movies when they say “ALERT THE MEDIA” you don’t really understand that there isn’t one phone number that alerts the media.  It took a while to call the media, and even longer to convince them to believe me and come on out to this house of knowledge and miraculous typing.  Oh, this was it.  This was my time.  Finally, no more frozen dinners and frozen hamburger patties, cold cardboard pizzas from the shitty delivery joint down the street.  I was going to be famous.  Beyond famous.  Everyone was going to want to know about Mr. Snowball and about me.  Endorsement contracts, amazing weed, and chicks.  I was going to have sex with large-chested, fake, overly made-up women in droves.  Every day is a gift, but at least one day wasn’t going to be a necktie from my grandmother.
            Yesterday, the small backroom was so cramped with cameras, reporters, and all my online friends, there was barely room for Mr. Snowball to perform his work.  He sat in the office chair, the staccato pulse of flashing cameras and reporters’ voices droning in unison to their respective stations.  Then Katharine McNamara, the Voice of Austin Action Four nodded.   It was time.   Solemnly I wedged between two reporters and placed the old pencil in Mr. Snowball’s mouth so that the eraser stuck out.  I scratched him behind the ears, and he began to peck away like a furry chicken.  The video cameras whirred.  This was it.  There was no going back now.  It was time.  Chuck, chuck, chuck went the keys.  Mr. Snowball dropped the pencil.  He had finished for the day.  And what was his masterpiece? 
,,,,,,,,,,,w
Fucking dog.



- - -
Craig M. Workman is currently an adjunct professor of english at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, as well as an I-PhD student there. His work has appeared in Kerouac's Dog, Midwest Literary Magazine and Literary Juice. His dog cannot type.
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My Vegetable Love

Contributor: Samantha Memi

- -
I was born into an ordinary family in Berlin in 1938. My father was a stick of celery, my mother, a tomato. I was a grapefruit. My father sometimes queried the origin of my birth. My mother never answered.
‘Never had a grapefruit in the family,’ he would say. She stayed silent.
I went through the state education system and more by luck than talent I arrived at university to study Vegetable Bake for Amateur Cooks. I wasn't happy, I couldn't understand why anyone would want to treat vegetables so cruelly. I left during the first year. I drifted, hung around in grocery shops, got in with a bad lot of spinach. It looked like my life would turn out bad. Then I met a gorgeous Maris Piper potato, He was new but, despite that, could find his way round the supermarket shelf. We married, had a baby carrot, I was so pleased.
Then one day we heard marching bands. We looked out the window and saw what we later learned were stormtroopers. Two weeks later the door was smashed in and my husband was arrested. I heard later he'd been boiled and mashed. Didn't they have souls, these people? he was a frying potato.
I was alone with my baby carrot. Everyone stared at me in the street. I realised it was because I was fruit and my daughter was vegetable. What gave them the right to judge me.
Then we were put in a camp where I was forced to chop up leeks and cauliflower for swarthy arrogant soldiers. It was a horrible job and I was warned that my daughter, who was too young to work, would be old enough to bake in a pie. I met a leek from the escape committee, he said they could help my daughter escape. They couldn’t help me, they only worked with the vegetable community. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to my little carrot.
‘Mummy,’ she cried, ‘don't leave me.
You'll be safe where you're going I said and stroked her topsy-turvy leaves, and then she was gone, driven off in a van painted as an ambulance but full of veg.
I was distraught. Friends said I had to continue working otherwise I'd be steamed. But I was so depressed I thought a good steaming might be better than the miserable existence I had.
Then other soldiers arrived. They killed our captors, and freed all the fresh veg. Some of the elderly couldn't be saved, but at least I was free. We had a party. I got sliced into segments and tipped into a fruit salad. A melon pip told me my daughter had married a handsome young cucumber. I hope she is well.


- - -
Samantha Memi is a patisserie chef in London. Her recipes for a happy life can be found at http://samanthamemi.weebly.com/
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Visionnaire

Contributor: Alessandro Cusimano

- -
Dead, I keep walking around the city, I want to drink. My face is reflected on each thing and every time I have to see it again. My watch has stopped. Le Strange, my name means something in New Orleans. Le Strange, the prince of Serendip. Le Strange, the visionary. Le Strange, an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Robbed of Every wonder and enchantment, the city dies in the silence of a false dawn. The sigh of the wind takes me to places unknown to my imagination. There where life ends, starts an adventure that whispers words that only the heart can interpret. Towards infinite dreams. A magical place where The stories of the future write the poems of the past. New Orleans sinks into the hypocrisy of the best friends and the scorn of alligators. The best friends lie, the blend of the good intentions gets quickly lost. The untrue assertion spirits the clever arguments and predisposes to the prodigious. You must make friends with the lie, being ourselves hands over to the hypnosis and the paralysis, to the opposite of ability. The absolution returns a merciful grace, a sugar plum which satisfies the lame matter. Consciousness is rude, woos the stray canard who welcomes the travail of her woman friend. The falsehood is not satisfied with the peasant scuffle, with the resentment, the amusement. Pretends and hides every policy, opinion, pandemonium, without the deception of discernment, of the wrath.
Madness seizes the sorrow and becomes a flower, flatters happiness, living, for a moment, the emotion of a different life, meets the delirium and falls in love. Where the soul, that lives life with resentment, does not scare and bewilders the reason. Domino brings home her puppet boyfriend and plays with him. The tall convex space appears turquoise, draws a sinuous line, sensual on the perimeter, steeped in the events of others. Is the profile of a sea wave, villain of the most beautiful seawater, ensures the persistence of blue. The opposite of darkness is spreading slowly, the wave breaks regular, long, smooth. Has a changing effect, hands out colours. The night owns the future, forgives the guilt, multiplies the fixed and reflected light, surrounds the vaporous game, unties a curtain. After dark, you look and measure the content of mirrors, the anxiety of angels goes on stage, have memory, remind all. The vibrations are perpendicular, penetrate the skin, A mass of water rises and falls. Is female, able to overwhelm the spectator with the honesty of her sins, under a dim light, so as not to be seen, so you do not see the others. There's a glare, the vision is complex. A comely light, double. The volume of the music is consumed, a ruby-throated hummingbird flies free. Growing soft folds follow the trend, the long radius, the imagination to reach, the underside of the tables. Steel and water deposit the gray and blue in the depths of the deepest eyes. Wooden puppet head is sitting on himself, his face is opalescent, flattered, inspired by an happy melodrama built on the water. Hellish exile of the east peacocks, worship of the great flame, ray of the vain vampire. In the pagan temple a creole beauty crosses the pavilion with the half-mask and the rule of the despot queen, winning the pedestal. In the underworld of the ragged little girls, her serpentine allures each sharp talisman, every drunk javelin. In her room, bricks with a transparent bark, tapestries, mats, torn canvases, decorated shutters climb up from time to time, a cobalt coloured carpet draws Chinese ideograms. Oriental lamps similar to distant galaxies with a bright opacity commend the pale meeting of demons and witches, the pandemonium. The stubborn emptiness of chatters attracts the discontent and an intermittent fever in the meaningless space of a vacant abyss. Myriads, gaps, secrets, the profane grants the Sabbath, the small of the abuse, the crackable demonic. The officiants pass the sentence, the holocaust of pythonic. Her hair detains the instant century, with the favorite balsam, fruity. The loss is made elixir, Essence and flower. The guillotine runs through the hazel thinness with the rush of maltreatment. Disheveled, wrapped in a tipsy cloth, the lifeless body on the infamous slope, cold, in the shade of slaughter. Immortal embrace of a fragrant victress. Caressing, bodily shape mimosa, carnal scent of Louisiane, female equivalent of a tempting faun able to appear bronzed, statuesque. Rising hues verging on rosy, surrounded by a medieval ocean, immense sacred vestments, the courting of a majestic Moon, remembrance in love with a perpetual symphony. If the Judgment did not lay the blame on me, the defeat. If the Assassin asked for mercy. Under a priesthood of disgrace, the Whitish Light of the Icy God is in love with the beloved first blood in the morning. In the pale carnage, short bodies fall reddish on the Stone Earth. Half a shadow of the vermillion child glides along the blade-beast of a bluebottle-razor. In a rusty and purple garden, the amaranth sting whips the shot and the Martyrdom with the rope flame. If Endless Father shed his own blood, if Heaven had no more blood. If, Enemy of God, I were a butterfly. If, Demon of Devils, I accepted, on a whim, the agony and invoked, sweetly, the madness. If I upheld, I swear, the torment, if implored mercy. If, Beautiful Prince, I tore my teeth and my eyes. If small arms, rich in blood, waved flags painted like butterfly wings. I am the nervous wandering, the arabesque, the disorder. I am the restless story, the agony in cage, the excellent madman. Mementos, still in the light, cast into a bottomless pit, before a regret depicted by the frosty warmth of my pale smile.



- - -
Son of a painter and a teacher, Alessandro Cusimano was born in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, on July 2, 1967. He lives in Rome, where he is writer, poet, translator, with a special focus on visual arts, from painting to cinema, from photography to theatre. Expressivist poet, he freely refers to the peripheral and irregular languages, drawing on the dialects, the slangs, the various sectorial and technical form of expressions, recreated with personal inventions and varying intensity, in every moment of his literary production.
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The State Versus Robert Citadel

Contributor: Jerry Guarino

- -
“So Mr. Citadel, you don’t deny that you have committed these violations?” The tall, grey haired man wiped sweat from his brow, stuttered and replied. “No, your honor, I don’t.” The judge nodded solemnly. “Then you may step down. I am ready to pronounce my verdict.” The accused stood up next to his attorney nervously.

“For twenty years of incessant public radio fundraising, for the unmitigated gall of suggesting that people donate their vehicles to save money on gasoline, for your interruption of the most important news events, for calling any program other than ‘car talk’ entertainment, for implying that saving a mosquito is more important than providing food and housing to 3rd world people, for giving equal time to the noble and the inane, for wasting the time of countless thousands on a daily basis, for offering worthless goods as rewards for donations, for thinking that diversity is the same as equality, for pretending to be the friend of the people while courting the wealthy, for more coverage about Michael Jackson’s death than his life, for paying any attention to the Kardashians, Tiger Wood’s extramarital affairs, offensive, gangster rap lyrics and Howard Stern, for giving Sarah Palin as much air time as President Obama, for dedicating 30 minutes of prime air time to business news that is as irrelevant as drips from a water faucet, and last, but most egregious, for insisting that public radio is not commercial radio when every other minute you speak about programs being supported by, funded by, brought to you by and underwritten by of all entities, corporate giant oil companies and financial services companies who caused 99% of our country to suffer countless indignities and the ability to provide for their family, I find you guilty of representing the public broadcasting space and sentence you to work at Tom and Ray’s garage cleaning up oil spills and putting them into environmentally safe disposal sites until such time that Wall Street restores the American economy, New Yorkers have justice for 9/11, teachers and nurses earn what they are worth and the drug cartels are wiped clean from the face of the Earth.


- - -
Jerry Guarino’s short stories have been published by dozens of literary magazines in the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain. His first collection of twenty-six critically acclaimed stories, Cafe Stories, was released in October, 2011. It is available as a paperback on amazon.com and as an e-book on kindle.
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A Man Without Evils

Contributor: Jon Wesick

- -
Joseph K got fired from his job standing in line at O. Henry’s Market. He wouldn’t miss the customers’ dirty looks when he pretended to pay with a check. No, he would only miss Stella, the cashier with the musical laugh and breasts like the fluffy, pet-store rabbits he’d so wanted when he was five. But that was all over now. Resolving to leave the smell of Rabbit Chow behind, K made his way home to a brownstone apartment in a shtetl on the outskirts of Iowa City.

“Did you remember to pay the assassination tax?” his roommate, a cockroach named Sid, asked.

“Damn!” K opened the wall safe, broke off a piece of gold plaster, and placed it in an envelope addressed to the Federal Reserve of Hope. After bribing the mailman he returned to the apartment where Sid was rehearsing his role in Streetcar.

“You want lunch?” K reached for the boric acid under the sink. “There’s Pol Pot Pie and Top Dog Ramen.”

“No, I had some wallpaper paste an hour ago.”

“You sure? I’d hate to see you pass out from hunger on stage. How about I blanch some carrots?”

“Whether I succeed or fail in insect monolog isn’t up to you,” Sid said while shaking his chitinous head and making his antennae flop like rabbit ears. “The die was cast nine million years ago when my ancestors traded opposable thumbs for lick-able hands.” He fumbled with the script. “Stella! Stella!”

The mention of his lost love brought back K’s teenage fantasy about Nazi war widows. As always he imagined them infiltrating the country by U-boat, that most phallic of ocean-going vessels. Lost in an onanistic reverie he failed to realize that he had less than an hour before his creative writing class when his semester project had to be turned in.

K wiped the monkey glide from his palms, dashed outside, and hailed a pedicab. After a thirty-minute tour of Iowa City’s canal zone, where gondolas of field corn plied rivers of Karo syrup, K arrived at his destination. As he pranced up the granite steps, K marveled at his decision to enroll in the MFA program at the Iowa School of Mines instead of at that other one across town. True, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop had a few good teachers but the School of Mines inspired him to write stories about real people, stories about anthracite and tungsten-carbide drills.

The classroom loomed heavy with the daily roll call while Rocco Mukasey, the instructor, paced like a panther in a daycare center. He’d been head writer for The Barney Fife Show so he damn well wasn’t likely to water the seeds of mediocrity in his students. Like a Hellfire missile targeting a Pakistani wedding he zeroed in on the eighty-year-old woman in a plaid skirt and bowler hat sitting in the front row.

“Maude.”

Maude Lawson stood and read a meandering character study about the malaise of an aging writer. Since it had little to do with erosion control or acid mine drainage, K’s thoughts drifted to the Nazi war widows and how before leaving the Fatherland their diets had consisted of twenty thousand calories a day: sauerbraten, spatzels, German chocolate cake…

“Enough!” Rocco fired his Browning automatic into the ceiling. “That really isn’t a story, Maude. Is it?”

“Sorry.” She curtsied and tipped her hat. “I was just making noise with my mouth and couldn’t stop.”

The next reader was a former actor who’d debuted in Rocky 3 and had had a supporting role in an eighties TV show. His poetry was so full of gold chains and Mandingo haircuts that an enraged Rocco emptied the Browning’s magazine into the actor’s chest. This only angered the actor who then beat Rocco into meat paste with a filing cabinet while shouting, “Be somebody or be somebody’s fool!”

As K stared at Rocco’s blood pooling on the Linoleum, he reflected on how the modern short story no longer ended with a climax that tied all its stray elements together. Instead it ended with the protagonist on the verge of some monstrous insight. He thought of rabbit ears, how craisins reminded him of cremains, and whether casting a cockroach as Stanley Kowalski was a radical postmodern statement or merely a way to save money. He thought of Tennessee Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Tennessee Tuxedo. But most of all he thought of his grade point average and whether Rocco’s tragic death meant he’d have to take the class over.


- - -
Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published more than fifty short stories in journals such as Space and Time, Zahir, Tales of the Talisman, Blazing Adventures, and Metal Scratches.
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A Small Hole in Time

Contributor: DJ Barber

- -
It was a bleak and somber trek back to the old farm. Brisson Hanoran took the Old Swamp Road as far as Kilkenny's Mill. The troubles had begun right there. A small ripple in the courses of time--a singularity, they said.
Brisson had no talent in the art of mathematics--left even simple cyphers like making change at market, figuring bushels to pounds, and such as that, to his younger brother, Paddy, who had no mind for the mundane world that comforted Brisson; just dreams and wonders and mathematics--physics, his favorite.
This fold in the time-space--or was it space-time? See, that was Brisson's problem. This ripple, er, singularity--was what Paddy called it. Well, this thing! It just came one day--was there like a speck of mold on the bathtub tile. But its presence was just like that speck on the clean, white tiles: small, but blatantly obvious.
Brisson had looked away--didn't want to know such a thing could be. But Paddy! Couldn't leave well enough alone, now could he? Said it was an impossibility! And that's when all the troubles commenced. The small thing seemed to beckon Paddy--drawing him into its mystery.
The waterwheel turned, churning the mill run waters. The sound of the water was splashy and gay this fair summer's morn. And just by the edge of the flowing waters, the small, black speck sat about knee-high above the shaggy turf; like some suspended gnat. But this was no gnat! Paddy flicked a small piece of straw and the speck sucked it right in; seemed to become almost conical for a split second; like some tiny tornado and stretched nearly touching the ground.
Paddy could not have been more fascinated. He flicked another fragment of straw, then another. He dared to pick up a pebble from beside the waters and tossed it haphazardly about four inches wide of the mark. But it too was sucked in around a fanciful arc. The speck's field of influence only seemed to span some ten to twelve inches, but it devoured ever larger and larger bits of debris tossed its way by Paddy.
Brisson could watch no more. It was some fell and evil trickery by all he could see. Singularity! Bunk and Hooey! But Paddy remained behind--mesmerized. Brisson trudged off for home and hearth. It was some hours later that one of the boys from the village came running through the garden gate; all out of breath and goggle-eyed in fear. Brisson didn't wait for the boy to catch his breath; for he knew as sure as pollywogs turn to frogs, Paddy was gone. That speck of total blackness sat there by the water's edge, a bit fatter than Brisson recalled, trailing a small pointed tail that dangled now above the ground. Brisson picked up chunks of brick from the ruins of the old bridge that had once spanned the mill run and slammed one forcefully onto the speck. But the speck, er, Singularity, swallowed it up just as easily as it had that first bit of straw Paddy had cast its way. Fire and Hell! But wait. Brisson dropped the second and larger brick, turned up a palm in thought and wandered away towards the village; for the speck had just winked out of existence.


- - -
Writing is a canvas for the mind to write sounds, paint scenes one can only imagine, not touch or see; and share with the world.
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Reparations

Contributor: Michelle Ann King

- -
It all began with a Speak and Spell toy, which to Lisa's five year old eyes was the single greatest thing imaginable. It was red and shiny and glorious, but unfortunately, it wasn't hers. It was her older sister's, and Becky hadn't been keen to share her precious possession with her over-eager, sticky-fingered sibling. So Lisa waited for her turn until her patience ran out, which took about five minutes. Then she simply took it, played with it, and broke it. And then felt bad about it.

Talk about setting a pattern.

Lisa fished Oliver's toenail clippings out of the bathroom bin and pressed the ragged crescents into the plasticine figure she'd moulded into something resembling his likeness. For her sister's version, she added some of the long blonde hairs that luckily still clung to a jacket that she'd once borrowed and never quite got round to giving back. Why magic had to be quite so gross she didn't know, but she was determined to not to mess it up by being squeamish. She'd messed up quite enough things for one lifetime.

She took the dolls into the living room, where a stick of jasmine incense smouldered. She waved the Becky doll through the pungent smoke and held it up to eye level. 'You were right,' she told it. 'All those things you said about me, I deserved them. Well, most of them. But yeah, what I did was wrong, and I'm sorry.'

She turned to the Oliver doll. 'It's not you, it's me. Actually, it's nearly 30 years of sibling rivalry that a very long and expensive course of therapy hasn't been able to fix, but there you go. Same end result. You're a nice bloke but I don't love you, and I never did. You're not right for me. You're right for her. You always were, and I'm really sorry I interfered.'

She tied the dolls together with a length of pink ribbon as instructed, sealed the knot with a drop of wax from the red candle she'd anointed with oil and the sign of Venus, and tucked them into her suitcase for safe keeping.

Then she sat down at the computer, where she'd loaded up the login screens for all three of their online banking accounts. In the password box for Oliver's account she typed BECKY, and in the password box for Becky's, OLIVER.

Five minutes and two transfers later, Lisa's own balance looked a lot healthier than it had previously. Healthier than it probably ever had.

They'd work out pretty quickly what had happened, but it would take a while to sort out. And it would mean the two of them had to spend time together, present a united front to the bank. The enemy of my enemy, and all that.

She had faith in her spell, but it never hurt to have a back-up plan.

She checked that her tickets and passport were in her handbag. She'd look after their money, of course. Although if it was still all there by the time she landed in Vegas, maybe she'd borrow a little for a quick run at the blackjack tables. Just a little

Lisa smiled, grabbed her case and locked the door behind her.


- - -
Michelle Ann King lives with her husband and stuffed penguin in Essex, England. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming at Daily Science Fiction, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, The Molotov Cocktail and others.
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Zhu Xaoshin and The Man of Clay

Contributor: Jack N. Waddell

- -
The little man made of clay stared lifelessly from his box toward Zhu Xaoshin.

``Ambulatus!’’ The word, once so strange, rolled easily from his tongue. Xaoshin waved his wand just so and gave it a flick at the end. His fingers buzzed and his wand flared with magic, motes of light and a cyan beam which struck the clay homunculus.

The little clay man wiggled his toes and then his fingers. He sat up and looked Xaoshin in the eyes.

Xaoshin inspected the clay figure carefully as it stood. Did its leg just shudder as it stepped forward? Were its movements balanced on the right side and its left? The form itself was perfect, of course. The homunculus would not have come to him otherwise.

``Dance,’’ Xaoshin said, and the little clay man danced to music Xaoshin could not hear. ``Jump,’’ Xaoshin said, and the little man leaped as though he had won a soccer match. ``Run,’’ Xoashin said, and the clay man jogged laps around his box.

Xaoshin nodded to himself and reached for a piece of twine from the stack of pre-cut strands that hung from his workstation. The homunculus struggled in his grasp as Xaoshin tied a loop around the little man’s legs. He placed the little clay man back in his box and shut the hinged lid. Beside him, a red light flashed three times.

The track beneath the box slid along, delivering the little man to the next magician in the line. A new box arrived. In it, a little clay man stared lifelessly upward, and Xaoshin stared back.


- - -
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Repossessed and Decomposed

Contributor: Edward T. Keller

- -
The king sits on his throne, facing us, lost in thought, his chin resting on his fist.
A messenger runs to him from the left. Percy. He has two arrows stuck into his back.

PERCY: My liege, my liege!

With a start the king leaves his reverie and eyes Percy inquiringly.

KING: Speak, gallant Percy

PERCY: The mongo, the mongo...

KING: Wah? Woh?

PERCY: The mongo, the mongo...

KING: Wooh? Weeh?

PERCY: The Mongols are coming!

KING: The Mongols?!

PERCY: Ja, das mongolen shvine!

KING: What do they want?

PERCY: Er, I didn't ask them.

KING: Well go and ask them, you silly person

Percy leaves. The king returns to brooding. Percy returns. He has now seven arrows in his back.

PERCY: My liege, my liege!

KING: Mein liebe, mein liebe!

PERCY: No time for that your majesty - the Mongols want to be paid tribute.

KING: Really?

PERCY: Yes

KING: Well how much do they want?

PERCY: Er, I didn't ask them.

KING: Well go and ask them, you silly person.

Percy leaves. The king shakes his head. Percy returns, now with three spears also sticking out of his stomach and an ax in his skull.

PERCY: My liege! My liege!

KING: Yes, Percy!

PERCY: They want to be paid in... chihuahuas!

KING: Bless you my boy!

PERCY: I did not sneeze, my liege, the Mongols want to be paid in live chihuahuas.

KING: What?! /indignant/ Let me see!

King takes out a small telescope from behind his back, unfolds it and looks into the direction from which Percy keeps coming back.

KING: Wait a minute, these are no Mongols!

PERCY: What are they, sire?

KING: These are de Gaulles. An army of short Charles de Gaulles bred in the underground laboratories of Morocco!

PERCY: But they ride on ponies and wear fur hats, your highness!

KING: That’s just to confuse you, my boy.

The king takes a revolver from his pocket and fires into the direction of the de Gaulles. Once, twice.
As the shots ring out a sleepy third character appears. Unshaven, crumpled, in a dirty T-shirt, holding his aching head, whiskey bottle in hand. Max.
He looks at Percy stuck full of arrows and spears and shrugs.
The king is now without a telescope, and is simply gazing into the direction of the de Gaulle hordes with majestic insolence.

MAX: Hey, what's the rack... hack...hack...blaaaaaaah /vomits/

KING: /looks with contempt at Max/ I say, Max, old boy, are you ...blaaaaaah /vomits/

King and Max look at Percy with expectation. Percy looks back at them uncomprehending.

MAX: Look, you...blaaaaaaah /vomits/

KING: You can't just...blaaaaaaah /vomits/

Percy realizes something.

PERCY: My bleaaaaaaaah /vomits/

MAX: Atta blaaaaaaaa /vomits/

KING: Sacre bleaaaaaah /vomits/

A preacher appears running from the direction from which Max came.

PREACHER: Stop, stop! You have been possessed!

All three possessed look at each other and shrug their shoulders.
Eight men dressed in work overalls, with masks of Charles de Gaulle, appear on the stage. Moving briskly, working in pairs, they pick up all four people and start carrying them away.
A foreman with a general's hat and a notepad in his hand walks over to overlook the procedure.

FOREMAN: You have been re-possessed.

****

ACT TWO

An old lady is sitting on an easy chair, knitting.
A man walks over to her, holding a megaphone to his mouth. He speaks only through the megaphone.

MAN: Mama!

MAMA: Yes?

MAN: Mama!

MAMA: Yes?

MAN: Mama!

MAMA: Yes?

Pause

MAN: Papa?

MAMA: No!

MAN: Papa?

MAMA: No!

MAN: Mama?

MAMA: Yes?

MAN: Papa?

MAMA: No!

Man ponders

MAMA: Stop speaking to me through this thing!

MAN: I can't. It's stuck to my lips.

MAMA: Come here, let me take a look.

MAN: I can't, I'm stuck to the floor.

Mama eyes him with suspicion, then shouts into the other direction.

MAMA: Help, help, I'm being attacked by a crazy person.

MAN: No, mama, I'm not crazy.

MAMA: Help, he is going to saw my head off!

Mama whips out a hand held saw from behind her back and start sawing off her head. After a few seconds she stops with a dying gurgle.
Enter policeman. He comes from the direction into which mama shoute; cautiously, a gun in hand.

COP: You!

MAN: Yes?

COP: You!

MAN: Yes?

COP: Me!

MAN: No!

COP: You?

MAN: Yes?

COP: Me?

MAN: No!

COP: You! You killed her!

MAN: No!

COP: You... killed her!

MAN: No!

COP: You killed... her!

MAN: Perhaps.

Cop looks satisfied, nods head in affirmation.

MAN: Please stop pointing that gun at me.

COP: I can't. It's stuck to my hand.

MAN: Come here, let me take a look.

COP: I can't, I'm stuck to the floor

Man takes two hand held saws from behind his back, throw one to the cop, they both begin sawing circles in the floor around their feet.
A de Gaulle in work overalls rushes to them.

WORKER: Wait, wait, don't... blaaaaaaaaah /vomits/

Another de Gaulle in work overalls rushes to them. He looks at his ill comrade. He admonishes the sawing man and cop.

WORKER 2: Now look what you've...bleaaaaaaaah /vomits/

King and Percy appear and carry off the first worker.
Man and Cop succeed in cutting through the floorboards. They fall through the floor.

WORKER 2: looks surprised/ Say, where did they ...bleaaaaaaaah /vomits/

Man and Cop appear again, with wooden circles still stuck to their feet. Hopping, they get to worker 2 and carry him away as well.
Preacher appears. Standing by the dead mom in the easy chair, he addresses the audience.

PREACHER: Compose yourselves, compose yourselves, my children.

Four de Gaulle workers appear and carry the preacher and the mom away.
Foreman with a general's hat and a notepad in his hand appears. He addresses the audience

FOREMAN: You have been decomposed.

CURTAIN



- - -
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The Animals

Contributor: Eric Suhem

- -
Calista drove down to the mini-mall to have her nails done. Her car was at a stoplight when she started crying uncontrollably. The tears were flowing as she was just able to maneuver the Toyota into the mini-mall parking lot. She sat in the car, outside the pink stucco nail shop, clenching the steering wheel, and weeping. A large yellow duck, holding up a sign for a ‘$1.95 Car Wash SUPER DEAL’ in the oppressive heat, saw her and walked over from the intersection to see if she was all right. He gently tapped on the car window with his orange plastic beak, sweating and itching in the duck costume. Upon seeing the duck, Calista let out a scream and wailed, overcome by new waves of sadness, pounding the steering wheel with her fists.

During the humid day, the duck had been ‘molting’, as the glue holding its artificial feathers in place was coming loose. Bright yellow feathers slowly fell from the duck into a little pile on the sweltering pavement, as he stood next to Calista’s Toyota. Eventually he picked up his sign and walked back to the intersection.

The duck, actually a man named George, completed his day of work, and returned home to a dripping faucet and screaming child. The duck’s wife asked him about his day’s revenue, and he shrugged, the wilted yellow feathers falling onto the faded yellow carpeting in their one-room flat. He proceeded to pull off the heavy burden of his costume, and sank into his armchair, contemplating the doom of his slowly encroaching tomorrow.

That same evening, Calista was starting to feel better. She wanted to thank the man in the duck costume for his earlier concern, but when she drove past the intersection, he was gone. Calista still had a few errands to run, heading towards the grocery store and dry cleaners. As she turned a corner, she saw an emu situated on the sidewalk. Night had fallen, and a foggy mist drifted through the air. Hedgehogs scurried about before dropping into the sewers. An ostrich stared at the neon ‘Dry Cleaners’ sign. A panther looked menacingly from around the corner of a building. Some guinea pigs were gathering around a parking meter. Calista thought that perhaps the animals had escaped from the zoo, but there was no zoo in the vicinity. She managed to get home, and locked the door.

The next day, the animals seemed to have disappeared, so Calista got into her car and resumed her errands. She had been having the animal visions, and episodes of acute sadness, since her pet beagle had been recently killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Meanwhile, George returned to work in his duck costume, though over half of the feathers had fallen off. He was told by the car wash proprietor that he needed to go purchase a new duck outfit, and the time away from work would be deducted from his paycheck. As more feathers molted, George walked to the costume shop.

A block away, Calista suddenly saw a herd of giraffes rampaging down the middle of the boulevard. She swerved away from the giraffes, not seeing George crossing the street in his duck costume, thumping him heartily in the right hip with her left fender. As the giraffes rumbled by, George lay on the sidewalk, blood staining his ragged duck costume.

Calista screeched to a stop, got out of the car, and an ambulance was dispatched. Between the insurance payments, and Calista’s out-of-pocket settlement, George and his family were able to move into a new house, and he bought the car wash. The giraffes went on to trample the driver who had hit Calista’s pet beagle.


- - -
Eric Suhem lives in California and enjoys the qualities of his vegetable juicer.
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Soft Floating Dream Machines

Contributor: Tony Rauch

- -

I find myself floating through the sky, sitting in a strange mechanical device. It looks like an old, brass canoe – but with the front and back gradually tapering to curl up at the ends, with long canvas wings and delicate mechanical gears controlling it – fragile gears, rods, and thin levers at my side projecting from the curving floor. I don’t know how to control this thing. I’m afraid to even touch anything, so I look around in wonder as I drift through soft white clouds, floating gradually on a slow, gentle breeze.

It’s as if everything in the sky that was once old is now new again, for I see palatial mansions appearing through the clouds. Some are up close and some are scattered in the misty distance. It looks as if the mansions are built on the clouds. Large weeping willows surround their yards. The houses and trees in the distance look grainy and hazy, as if semi-transparent - as if they’re there and yet not there, as if stuck between time, caught between realities.

I pass so close to one large ornate house that I can see inside its big windows. It has rooms of decorative wood and burgundy carpets and chandeliers. In back there is an elaborate classical garden with a fountain and formal hedges circling the yard.

Then there is a brick lined sidewalk with a fancy iron fence and street lamps. I approach another tall, brick house with a steeply sweeping mansard roof and iron work running around the top. Inside the corner turret I see one of my cousins. She is looking out the window. She recognizes me and waves with a sudden, surprised smile. I watch as I slowly pass. I smile and wave. She runs from the window, as if running for the door. She runs around the side of the house and begins running along my gently floating sky boat. “Pull the lever,” she waves and slows as she knows I am drifting away. “Slow down. Come inside,” she calls, trotting in the mist.

“I don’t know how!” I call back, kind of loud, but yet kind of quietly at the same time, as if I don’t want to wake anyone or disturb anything.

“The lever!” she cries and points, “Pull the lever!”

My head darts - looking to my sides, looking to the floor. “Which one?” I shrug. There are several golden brass rods shooting up at my sides. I don’t know which to pull. I should pull one, anyone, to try and stop, but for some reason I just can’t seem to decide. This is a familiar feeling – too startled in a moment to react. So I just stay there, stuck, unable to do anything. My cousin turns to mist and becomes transparent with the brick houses and full trees and everything else in the crystalline, celestial distance, and the moment is gone as if slipping away into forever. And at that instant I remember my cousin had died a long time ago. She fell asleep one night and never woke up again.

I continue through the milky fog, strands of clouds waving by like twisting blankets and long strings. I wonder if she wanted to get into the sky boat with me. If she did, would it bring her back to the living again? But she asked me inside. What would that do, if I went inside? Maybe this is a dreamland? One of several perhaps. Maybe she fell asleep and ended up lost here, unable to get out, and thus unable to wake again for some reason.

Then I see a clearing to the side with a tall gazebo. A brass band is playing in front of it. There are some people scattered about before the band, dressed in their best clothing – women in flowing frilly dresses with parasols on their shoulders, and men in tight suits with tall top hats holding fancy canes. The band is dressed in navy blue uniforms with gold tassels and trim. They wear tall, furry hats. There are only a few band members though. There are spaces between some of the band members where I can only assume others should be standing. Their music is hard to hear through the gusts of breeze and the long distance. What I hear is an incomplete, fractured sound – something almost beautiful, poetic, and inspiring, and yet at the same time somehow completely beautiful and inspiring in its incompleteness, in its wanting to be more.

I turn to watch, but continue floating on. The band passes my view to disappear into the soupy mist of the distance. Another small boat machine appears ahead, but is passing directly in front of me, right-to-left, about two hundred feet ahead and thirty feet above. It glimmers a golden brown. Three large mouse-like beings appear to be riding in it, sitting in a row, one in front of the other. One is wearing a green derby and plaid vest.

Then I pass a field. There is long grass, then some short plants with big leaves in the distance. I notice some figures in the field. Five of them. Their backs are turned. As I pass I see they are tending to the fields, dressed in workers’ overalls, and bending and digging with long sticks. One bends and pulls something up, what looks like a head of lettuce. The figure turns in my direction and peels away some of the leaves. The figure is a hunched-back beast of some type, with curls of dirty blond hair obscuring its face and several large horns curling out of either side of its head. It is peeling away the leaves to reveal a baby in its large clawed hand.

More trees appear, getting thicker and thicker, and I veer around them, as if my mind is controlling the steering of the sky boat. The trees are thick old willows, twisting and leaning, draping me in a silky shadowland. There is a small wooden hut in the trees and a woodsman walking away, carrying a wicker basket at his side. A yellow cloth covers the basket. Then there is a little winding creek filled with large stones and a stone bridge curving to arch over it under a thatch of thick trees.

Then there is a series of small stone houses. Some have tall turrets on their corners, others have tall, curving roofs with small dormer windows. On some houses the dormers are tall and narrow, on others they are low arches. The area is overgrown with plants and trees. Then there is a small clearing, like a town square. Several people are in it and playing what looks to be a strange form of baseball – the diamond is a square with four bases instead of three. There is an ornate bandstand behind home plate with pointy spires or finials on the tall, curving roof. This viewing area is half filled with well dressed people. They are watching the game at hand. Some of the people have the heads of great lizards with scales that glisten green and purple and gold, while many of the others have regular people heads. The players in the field are wearing floppy uniforms that look too large for them. They are adorned with a strange large symbol on their left chests, as if an insignia of some sort. There are two batters standing on either side of home plate, one slightly behind the other as to not hit one another as they swing at the pitched balls. There are two pitchers. One swings and misses, while the other manages to make contact. He runs to the base on his left and another runner on a different base runs to the same base from the other side. Unfortunately, I wander on before I can report anything further.

I pass into more trees for a moment. Then the trees thin and I pass another of these machines. As I come closer to it I notice my friend, Parker, is in it. She is sitting and taking it all in, just like me. I smile in recognition as she moves closer. “Hi, Parker,” I grin, “This sure is a strange place, isn’t it? How do you suppose we got here?”

“I don’t rightly know,” she answers in wonder.

“Should we hop out and run around?” I call, “Maybe go into one of the houses?”

“Oh no, I don’t think we’d wanna do that,” she swallows hard. “We probably shouldn’t go in there, go in any of ‘em. . . I got a feeling this is the land of the dead or something,” she is working the levers to slowly steer her machine to spin around to be next to mine. “I’m afraid if I get out, we’ll be stuck here forever.”

“You’ve been here before?” I ask as I look down, through the clouds that reveal another rolling field about fifty feet below me.

“Oh, yeah. A couple of times now,” she shrugs as she slowly spins and settles to rest at my side, “I think this is the land of the dead, or half-dead anyway.”

“When you’re sick or something? Or are we both just dreaming?” I ask.

“No. Not when I’m really sick or anything. And I don’t think this is all just a vague dream. I just find myself here. Sometimes. But not often. But I’ve learned to kind of control this boat thing and steer things. . .” she slows up along side me and bobs gently on the slight breeze.

“Really? Wow. Can you show me how to?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she shrugs. “It’s like everything else, I suppose. You just have to learn how. . . It just takes practice.”

We drift ahead, into some curtains of fog. There is a strange creature that comes into view. It looks like a tall penguin – at least four feet tall, but not a penguin, but something penguin-like, or penguin-shaped. It has short white fur all over and short, flap-like arms running down its sides. It waves at us as we glide past, five or six flap-like arms rising slightly on one side. “Hey,” it says in a thin, human-like voice. “First time here?”

“How’s it goin’?” I nod casually. “Yeah, first time for me, but not for her,” I nod over to Parker as we gradually slide by.

“Well, enjoy your stay,” it says as we drift on, “It never seems to last as long as you think it should.”


- - -
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.
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