Contributor: Eric Suhem

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“Howard, get me some water!” ordered Manager #5 to one of his subordinates, as the management team of Acme MegaCorp gathered in the conference room to explore ideas designed to improve employee productivity and morale. “I suggest we add a mood-enhancing substance to the company’s drinking water. A number of drugs have been very effective in experiments on dogs, cats and pigs,” said Manager #5, staring moodily into his coffee mug. The management team approved the proposal for altered tap water.

Two days later, Howard was called into his manager’s office. “Howard, we’d like you to be the point man for a new company-wide high-profile project. In fact, you’ll be our guinea pig,” said Manager #5, handing him a plastic cup of enhanced water. “Now drink this, and give me a report later.”

“Yes, sir!” said Howard, grateful to be chosen for an important project. He’d always been a good team player. Maybe now it would pay off.

Back at his desk, arranging memos and paper clips into a geometric order that felt pleasing, Howard had a vision of a large guinea pig, sitting in the chair across from him, pounding its paw on the desk, “Let’s close the deal now, H.B.! And I won’t take ‘No’ for an answer!” The guinea pig threw its head back and laughed, pulling a scythe out from under the table.

Wielding the scythe given to him by the guinea pig, Howard went to the lobby and sliced up various artificial plants and topiary efforts, hacking rhythmically as a secretary looked on in horror. Later that day, Manager #5 called him into his office. “Howard, we need to discuss your behavior, upper management has taken an interest in your cutting of the welcoming area’s greenery,” said Manager #5, starting right in on an assessment of Howard’s workplace conduct, using the word ‘failure’ 12 times, Howard’s smile brightening each time he heard the word.

“I think it’s great!” said Howard in a good mood after drinking the enhanced water.

“Look Howard, we’re going to install a training wheel in your cubicle. “It will help you work off that energy in less destructive ways. You know, like a hamster or a guinea pig,” said Manager #5.

As the days went by, the drugged water increased Howard’s productivity and morale, which pleased the management team. Howard exercised vigorously on his little wheel, and some of the secretaries walked by his cubicle to feed him shredded lettuce.

One morning in his cubicle, Howard found the large guinea pig sitting in his chair. “Howard, we have to talk,” whispered the guinea pig, beckoning Howard to have a seat on the training wheel. “Howard, you don’t like this job, do you? It’s demeaning and humiliating. You’ve played by the rules for your entire career, and look where it’s gotten you.”

Sitting on the training wheel, chewing shredded lettuce from his little bowl that was adorned with pictures of rodents at play, Howard felt something open up in his imagination. He’d always felt trapped in his job, and he hadn’t been able to visualize himself doing anything else. But staring at the guinea pig, ideas began to flow: maybe he could join an organization that cares for and protects guinea pigs….maybe he could start a business building guinea pig cages…maybe become a chef that cooks guinea pigs in Cusco, Peru, near Machu Picchu. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the water, but for the first time he felt free, aware of options he hadn’t realized.

Howard went to his manager’s office to resign, bringing the scythe with him.


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Eric Suhem lives in the orange hallway.

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Author: Eric Suhem

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“Bill, what I like about you is your predictability, I always know what I’m going to get from you, and that’s hamburgers” said Bill Pleck’s neighbor nemesis Gene, peering over the fence as Bill barbecued hamburgers in the back yard on a summer’s evening.

Suddenly Bill Pleck tore off his barbecue apron and threw it down in disgust, stomping on it emphatically. Next, he poured lighter fluid on the apron, torched it, and reached into a shopping bag, removing a chef’s apron, on which was lettered ‘Mr. Enzyme’. “An enzyme is a chemical catalyst, an agent of change, and that’s what I will be! My new name is Mr. Enzyme, no matter what people say, even you!” he declared, gesturing toward Gene, whose eyes were glued to a pair of binoculars, focusing on the briquettes in the barbecue.

“I’m not pleased by this change in apron habits.” said Gene.

Mr. Enzyme approached his wife Barbara with his new plan for change. They both agreed that their lives up to this point had been unsatisfyingly predictable. Feeling ready for something new, Barbara agreed to a new identity as Mrs. Enzyme. They each talked of redefining their past. “I’ve decided that I’ve had a mysterious past in smoke-filled Mahjong dens,” said Mrs. Enzyme, staring wistfully into the distance.

“And I’ve had a past as a proprietor of a seedy motel on the outskirts of Los Angeles!” said Mr. Enzyme.

Their next action was to remodel one half of their house into a pink castle in the image of her childhood doll house, and modify the other half into a dark oak wood old British men’s club motif that he preferred. (“As part of our redefinition, we’ll also mix the two styles together, so as not to be restricted by gender roles!” said the Enzymes) As the workmen started demolishing one of the rooms of the house to convert it into a garish purple and pink puppet theater, and part of the green pastel kitchen was wrecked to make room for vigorous espresso-toned living quarters, neighbor Gene approached the house, chunks of concrete tumbling down around him. “Look Enzyme, or whatever you’re calling yourself now, there’s a building code!” said Gene, who was a rising player in the Homeowner’s Association.

“We’re within code, Gene,” said Mr. Enzyme, showing him the paperwork. As Gene stalked away, Mr. Enzyme called, “See you this weekend at the neighborhood pot luck!”

On the evening of the pot luck, Mr. Enzyme proudly brought forward the chicken wings from his barbecue, displayed appealingly on a platter. Gene moved forward, challenging Mr. Enzyme's pot luck offering. “What’s your game, Enzyme? I usually bring the chicken wings to this shindig, you usually cook hamburgers.”

“This is a part of our redefinition, Gene,” said Mrs. Enzyme, standing by her husband, letting her natural gravitas weigh in on the situation.

As the evening progressed, the neighbors showed an overwhelming preference for the Enzymes’ chicken wings, leaving Gene’s wings untouched. “We can be anybody we want to be, Gene,” said the Enzymes, munching on potato salad. “It’s a perspective on reality, a choice you can make.”

“But you can’t run away from who you really are. You’re Bill and Barbara Pleck, you cook hamburgers!” insisted Gene.

“Or maybe we’re beings in constant change, not everybody’s the same,” said the Enzymes.

Gene stared at them for a long time, but had nothing to say. He picked up his chicken wings and went home, as the Enzymes slowly morphed into green lizard aliens, their protruding tentacles inspecting the coleslaw.


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Eric Suhem lives in the orange hallway.

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Author: Eric Suhem

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“They are so disturbing,” Lottie said to Sol when they were both 14 years old, rejecting his footsie advances, and staring at his toes, which she found strangely misshapen. It was a comment that would stick with Sol for years, causing him to develop a complex about his feet, for which he would compensate via career achievement as a podiatrist.

After years of study, Sol received numerous degrees related to the foot, and started a successful practice. To advertise, he had a large electric toe sign set up near the medical building in which he worked. After a typical day seeing patients work he’d sit alone in his office to do research, but instead dwelled upon the girl from his childhood who’d said his toes were disturbing, as the electric toe blinked on and off, casting a reddish light.

Lottie, meanwhile, embarked on a career as a professional bowler, though for her it was a lonely life, driving down bleak deserted highways to various tournaments, staying at desolate motels, often with no companionship except her bowling ball. When feeling extremely lonesome, she would set the bowling ball on top of the television set to keep her company, its finger holes resembling eyes, and its thumb hole looking like a little mouth. Lottie fought through the isolation and worked her way up through the rankings, succeeding on grit and moxie.

“Your toes went over the line, a foul!” screamed Lottie’s competitor Lois during a crucial tenth frame roll. An argument ensued, and Lois angrily dropped a bowling ball on Lottie’s foot, before stalking out of the bowling center to the parking lot. Showing steely resolve, Lottie went on to win the tournament, but woke up the next morning with swollen and disfigured toes. The swelling eventually went down, but her toes remained permanently twisted, reminding her of Sol, that boy from her past.

Lottie began a comeback on the women's bowling circuit, rolling in small-money tournaments, though she was unable to find bowling shoes that fit her bent toes. Even custom-made bowling slippers did not wrap comfortably around the contours of her feet. “I'm not going to let this stop me,” said Lottie determinedly, clawing her way back to the top of the circuit, earning a finalist spot in the national championships in Las Vegas.

In Nevada for a podiatrist convention, Sol was channel-surfing in a hotel room as his crooked toes wiggled comfortably on a vinyl Ottoman. He tuned in to a bowling tournament, and was amazed to see Lottie, rolling strike after strike. His heartbeat quickened when he learned that the bowling tournament was near the hotel.

The next day, Sol sat in a lounge chair by the hotel pool, staring at his crooked toes after giving the keynote address at the convention. He was recognized worldwide as a leading figure in the podiatric world, but as he sipped his Mai-Tai, batting the little paper umbrella back and forth in a carved-out coconut, he could only think about how to find Lottie. He watched the lounge chairs by the pool fill up with other conventioneers, and pro bowlers.

Lottie wandered over to the hotel pool after a strenuous practice session, relieved that her toes were no longer confined in the bowling shoes. She sat on the lounge chair and spread her tarsal digits freely in the summer air, slowly noticing the foot in the lounge chair next to hers, a foot with the unforgettably contorted toes of Sol. He was having a flirtatious conversation with Lottie’s bowling nemesis Lois, ensconced on an adjacent lounge chair. Under the sun’s glistening rays, Lottie rotated her foot to the left and made toe contact with Sol. When their feet merged a lightning bolt sensation burst through their bodies, the toe friction transporting them into the cosmos. Lois recognized their bond, and slinked off scowlingly to the tropical-themed bar.

Sitting by the fire, near his podiatry certificates and her bowling trophies, a half century after their poolside encounter, Sol said, “They’re looking a bit long, it’s time for your trimming.” Lottie smiled as Sol wielded the toenail clippers.


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Eric Suhem lives in the orange hallway (www.orangehallway.com)

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Author: Eric Suhem

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“3rd floor souls, Hardware and Lawn Care!” announced the department store elevator operator, a round jovial man with twinkling eyes and a mischievous grin. Helen and her husband Don were in the elevator, carrying boxes of hats.

Looking at Don from under her floppy hat, Helen said, “I had a dream that I was in a lobby of 400 elevators, each set of elevator doors a different color. Every few seconds, I hear the ping of one of the elevators, and I run toward its open doors, which slam shut as soon as I reach them. Then another elevator pings, I run toward its doors, they slam shut, and so on. So I keep missing the doors, but in the dream I’m learning how to miss the doors in style. My spiritual advisor says that all this has to do with issues of abandonment. What do you think, Don?”

Don hadn’t heard her, as his mind was filled with visions of green grass, fertilizers, sprinklers, and various lawn care responsibilities. “It’s not sensible to have so many hats,” he observed, looking at Helen’s hat boxes.

He set the boxes down in the elevator, and stepped out onto the 3rd floor of the department store, suddenly finding himself in the middle of a large expanse of grass. A woman in a blue tunic rode across the lawn on a riding mower, waving to him. “Join me on the mower, Don!” she yelled cheerily, “Adventure awaits!”

“You missed a spot,” said Don, pointing to a patch of un-mowed grass, as the woman in the blue tunic rode the mower around in circles.

“Good observation, Don,” said the round jovial elevator operator with the mischievous grin, his twinkling eyes cutting through him. Helen looked on without much regret as Don boarded the riding mower, deserting her in the elevator as the doors closed.

On the next floor, a man in a yellow tunic entered the elevator and picked up one of Helen’s hat boxes. “Get your hands off of that,” ordered Helen promptly, slapping him with a fly swatter she had bought in the ‘House Wares’ section. The man in the yellow tunic wasn’t bothered so much by the fly swatter itself, but did not enjoy the swats of the hard plastic coating package in which the fly swatter was contained. Nevertheless, he continued to eye the hats with great interest.

The elevator stopped at each floor, but Helen did not disembark, as the level of her soul had not been reached. "You're soul's floor is the roof," said the elevator operator jovially, his twinkling eyes cutting through her. Upon reaching the roof, the elevator doors opened upon a sweeping, colorful sky. The man in the yellow tunic led Helen onto the top of the building. As she stared at an airplane in the sky, she flashed back to when she was 8 years old, waving to her parents on the runway as they boarded their flight, her mother in a floppy hat, her father wearing a fedora, hours before they would disappear from her life in a plane crash.

“Hey, we love your hats,” said the people on the roof, all in yellow tunics, admiring the contents of Helen’s hat boxes.

“You’re the first people who have appreciated my accumulation of hats,” she declared, gratefully. Earlier in the day, she had met with her spiritual advisor, who told her that she was buying too many hats.

In the rooftop community, Helen instantly became known, and thrived as ‘The Hat Lady’.


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

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Alma sat in the kitchen at the rickety Formica table, wearing a faded pink bathrobe, flicking ashes from her cigarette into a cracked cup of cold coffee, the crack running through a scenic mountain panorama on the cup. The clock said 5:38 a.m. and the crossword was half done as she stared at the tattered curtains. In a couple of hours, she and Mel would go to the coffee shop, as they did every morning. The coffee shop had a large lit cup of coffee situated above its roof, though cracked and fading bulbs gave it an odd, decaying appearance. In the torn plastic booths, she and Mel would make their breakfast orders: a poached egg, coffee, and toast for Alma; pancakes, bacon and coffee for Mel.

Alma and Mel lived in an apartment on the 2nd floor of the Palm Vista Village on a slightly seedy, wilted-palm tree street in Los Angeles. Alma griped about the neighborhood, but Mel would just smile, saying “One day we’ll go on that vacation you want!” before heading off to work at one of the El Segundo aircraft factories. Only four more years to retirement.

On a hot, sweltering Tuesday morning, Mel had a hunch. He entered the bank as soon as it opened, requesting a withdrawal of his life’s savings. After a considerable delay of paperwork, Mel left the bank with the money. He arrived at their apartment, where Alma was vacuuming the worn, faded carpeting while watching television. “C’mon honey, we’re going to the track!” yelled Mel, changing into his lucky Hawaiian shirt. Alma looked up from her vacuum, annoyed. “I got a hunch,” said Mel, giving her that light wink of the eye that she loved. He showed her the travel pamphlet he’d been reading.

They got into their battered Toyota Camry and drove out to Hollywood Park. Alma looked askance at the burlap bag Mel clutched as they walked to the ticket window. “Number 7 to win in the 5th race,” said Mel, pouring all of their money out of the burlap bag onto the scratched steel counter. The man at the window squinted briefly and gave Mel his ticket.

A creaking, rusting hulk built in the late 1950’s. The last either of them remembered was lounging on the main deck, each drinking a ‘yellow canary’, the specialty of the ship’s bar. The horse they had bet on days ago, Number 7 in the 5th race, had won, and they’d collected the winnings quickly. They’d celebrated with a couple of chili dogs at a food stand, Mel staining his Hawaiian shirt. Mel and Alma had followed the directions on the vacation pamphlet, and boarded the majestic boat in San Pedro, ready for the “vacation of a lifetime”.

Mel thought he remembered a couple of dark figures approaching him on the deck and holding a chloroform-soaked cloth to his face, but he wasn’t sure. He and Alma both awoke on the ice floe, the ship nowhere in sight. As the large chunk of ice approached land, Alma and Mel saw dozens of television screens, some affixed to the sides of buildings, some lodged in hillsides, some floating in the water near the shore. All of the television screens displayed large eyeballs staring back at Mel and Alma. The ice floe drifted to the shore. A man in a dark sweater and goggles was digging in the sand when he saw the ice approaching, he threw up his hands and yelled “Hallelujah!” He ran toward Mel and Alma as the floe slid onto the sand. “Our leaders have arrived!”

“Where are we?” asked Alma, dazed and staring at an eyeball on the television screen at the end of the beach. As Mel and Alma looked further at the hills beyond the beach, they saw numerous television screens lodged into the dirt, each screen displaying an eyeball. Mel bit his lip, thinking about the vacation they could have had, described in that other pamphlet. Alma stared into the eyeball, entranced.


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Eric Suhem lives in California and has spent a lot of time in El Segundo.

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Sally looked at the pile of lima beans on her plate. “I don’t like this food, why do I have to eat it?”

“Be quiet and eat your lima beans, or you’ll go to your room.” said her mother.

At the bean conference in Lima, Ohio, on a small table, in the middle of the auditorium, under harsh white light, sat a single lima bean. “We all must eat the town bean,” was the general agreement voiced.

 “But I don’t want to!” responded a small child’s voice, to which the instant response was to remove the youngster from the room.

There was an argument in the auditorium about the origins of the lima bean. “The lima bean’s origins are in Lima, Peru,” correctly asserted a woman in a pea-green sundress, and there were roars of agreement throughout the auditorium.

A man in a severe yellow suit disagreed, arguing that the bean either came into existence in Lima, Ohio, or that the lima bean’s beginnings were somehow linked to former pro golfer Tony Lima (one of only 3 two-time winners of the Buick Open). There was some murmuring in the room about the Tony Lima theory when the yellow-suited man asked, “But what about the kumquats?” followed in response by a thunderous ovation.

A steaming vat of lima beans was wheeled into the auditorium, and all participants consumed one bean apiece. “Will this help resolve the disagreement about the lima bean?” the leader of the bean conference asked the briefly munching throng.

The answer was a resounding “No!” as eating this bean with broad pods seemed to put each person into an even fouler mood, and the debate about the lima bean became more rancorous and unproductive.

The man in the severe yellow suit arose once again and announced, “I am one of the kumquat people!” Half the auditorium roared cheers, joining the man in a chant of “We are the kumquat people!”

The other half of those in the auditorium yelled in response, “We are the bean people!”

“Why didn’t you buy the lima beans at the discount mart instead of that strange health food emporium?” asked Sally’s mother.

Sally’s father took a deep breath and loosened his yellow tie, saying, “The discount mart didn’t have the kumquats I like, but that ‘strange’ health food emporium did.”

The bean people came from pods, but that was their only ‘abnormality’. In every other aspect, they were exemplary citizens, living life on the low burner of the universal gas stove. Some had been through tumultuous incarnations, and were now ready for peaceful conformity, forming the rules that would be the bedrock of their bean-oriented society.

The kumquat people had been crawling from their caves for centuries, agitating the bean people. “We bring revolution!” the kumquat people would always scream, thumping their golden orange citrus tomes.

The bean people countered, “We shall slay you and your heretical ideas!” while fist-pounding their corresponding legume scriptures.

Sally’s mother rolled her eyes. “You know we need to save money, Sally needs new clothes for school. Why can’t you be responsible? Am I the only adult here?”

“I’m going to buy more kumquats tomorrow!” yelled Sally’s father.

The man in the severe yellow suit arose once again and announced, “I believe that no resolution will be met at this time about the origin of the lima bean, nor about the merits of lima beans vs. kumquats. In fact, there seemed to be no discord at all until that little child refused to eat the town bean, and had to be removed from the room. That’s when the trouble started!” He looked to the nearby woman in a pea-green dress with sensible shoes, and she nodded her slight approval, eliciting his relieved sigh.

There was a roar of agreement. “Yes, it’s the child’s fault that we disagree! Destroy the child!”

“Well Sally, that’s a nice little story about kumquat and bean people, but you still can’t have any kumquats until you finish the lima beans,” said her mother. Sally scowled at her plate, and her parents resumed arguing.

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Eric Suhem dwells in office cubicles and ocean waves. His book 'Dark Vegetables' can be found in the orange hallway (www.orangehallway.com)

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Author: Eric Suhem

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Bill sat on an overstuffed bag of feathers, beaks, guts, spleens, stomachs, livers and eyes. He could hear the faint chirping and quacking emanate from the chair. He was in his den clicking at the television remote control feverishly, wisps of smoke rising. It was 6:02 p.m., and he finally settled on Channel 38 University of the Air, Sky and Galaxy. On the screen, a man was sitting at a wooden desk in front of a blackboard in a stark room. Suddenly the man at the desk, and the blackboard disappeared in a big ball of light that was filling the television screen. “Bill!” it roared, “you are not what you think you are, you are a stream of energy coursing through a body, a vessel, a shell. You are like me!” said the ball of light.

The quacks and chirps from the chair began to get louder and Bill snapped, “Ssshh birds, I’m trying to watch this!” As he uttered those words, the ball of light disappeared from the television screen, and the man reappeared at the desk, frantically hitting the blackboard with a steel pointer and quacking. Bill then slowly murmured, “Hello birds, thank you for letting me enjoy your vessels. When my vessel has deconstructed into a new form, and its pieces fly off in shards of flame, I hope you will enjoy the use of it, just as I have enjoyed the use of yours.”

The chirping and quacking continued from the chair as the ball of light returned to the television, saying, “Yes, you are just a stream of energy coming from the universe.”

Bill’s wife Norma was in the kitchen with their niece, cooking a chicken. Norma heard the commotion and entered the den, where she was instantly alarmed by her husband's appearance. “Bill, you look like you had too many of those 99 cent vitamin packets from the 7-11,” she said in a concerned tone, looking at the array of brochures on their coffee table. “Have you been reading more of those New Age transcendence pamphlets?”

“No dear, I’m fine,” he said, staring at a picture of mallards on the den’s fine-wood-grain-paneled wall.

“We have enough problems just trying to pay the bills, without your excursions into metaphysical whatnot,” said Norma, leaving the room as Bill slowly transformed into a bright ball of light.

When Norma returned to the den, Bill was gone, and on the television screen was a duck, sitting at the desk in front of the blackboard. “Now listen to me, Norma,” said the duck. Norma tried to use the remote clicker, but the television was stuck on Channel 38. "You have enjoyed our vessels, though we are all really one with the universe. Quark-Quark!...I mean Quack-Quack!"

The duck insinuated itself into her being, its webbed feet grabbing hold. It pecked at Norma's conscience, hunting for niblets of corn inside the inner reaches of her cortex gray matter, perching on a cactus of thought beneath the blue shine of her inner cranium. The duck’s bill pecked urgently, as Norma was transformed into a bright ball of light, joining Bill in a new consciousness, in tune with the cosmos.

Bill and Norma’s molecules seemed to have disappeared from the neighborhood, though it was rumored that they were still in the vicinity. Their niece went to the park’s duck pond every week, to sit and listen to the quacking.


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Eric Suhem dwells in office cubicles and ocean waves. His new book 'Dark Vegetables' can be found in the orange hallway (www.orangehallway.com)

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Leo squeezed into the tiny little chair in the children’s reading room of the public library. Seated around the room, fittingly, were children, aged 4 through 8. On the walls and shelves were various children’s’ art projects, such as finger paintings, drawings, ceramics. The children waited eagerly for Leo to begin reading the story, he chose ‘Crime and Punishment’ by Dostoyevsky. As he read page after page, Leo became more and more animated, eyes bulging, jowls sweating, yelling intensely. Leo was a professional wrestler who liked to volunteer at the library to help the community, and the tiny children’s reading room chair was creaking under his girth. Many children had already left the room. Some of them were disturbed by the incident and dealt with it in their own individual ways. A couple of the children remained to stare, as they were fascinated by the phenomenon.

Leo decided to regroup and start reading chapter two, but his mind twirled into his last visit with his girlfriend Meba. Their relationship had transformed each other’s lives in innumerable positive ways, but Meba had a number of concerns about Leo’s wrestling, and Leo had become disturbed by Meba’s obsession with rabbits. The other night, after a dinner of carrots and lettuce shreds, he had picked up one of the rabbit figurines and threw it into the sink. Meba’s apartment was filled with them, tiny glass rabbit figurines. Also porcelain rabbit statues, rabbit drinking glasses and mugs, pictures and sun shades with little scenes of rabbits at play. Meba’s vacuum cleaner had a rabbit head which she had constructed out of felt and bean bags, attached to its top. There were brass rabbit door-knockers and a rabbit telephone. In spite of Meba’s rabbit-like bent for sex, which he enjoyed, Leo had become disturbed by it all, and he loudly told her so, one night in her apartment, which she called ‘the hutch’. In response, she threw a number of the glass figurines at him. He picked the silicate rabbits up off the floor and left the apartment.

Now, in the library, the children watched, intrigued, as Leo continued reading ‘Crime and Punishment’, using some of Meba’s glass rabbit figurines as action figures, though dramatically breaking them into shards on the floor, in a rage over Meba’s rabbit fixation.

By this time, the children had pretty much abandoned the reading area, hoping for greener pastures. In fact, many of the children were now on the pastoral library lawn, where a lunchtime outdoor play was to be performed by some of the volunteers. The play was to be George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, modified and condensed for a younger audience. The modifications called for the performers to merely run around in animal costumes making noises for 30 minutes while the children ate lunch. The library volunteers were randomly assigned the animal they were to portray. Leo was designated to play the rabbit.

Meba happened to be walking by, on a lunch break from her shift at the nearby hat factory, and recognized the grunts and moans of the man in the rabbit costume. She knew it was Leo, and approached him at the end of the play. “I’m glad that you’re taking an interest in rabbits,” said Meba flirtatiously, her left eyelash batting madly, as she chewed shreds of lettuce, “how about if we meet at ‘the hutch’ tonight, and bring the rabbit costume!”

“I’ll bring my wrestling costume, too,” said Leo. They looked into each other’s eyes, knowing their fates were entwined.

The next morning, Leo packed some books in a bag for that day’s reading session with the children: Peter Rabbit, Watership Down, The Runaway Bunny, and The Wrestler’s Handbook.


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Eric Suhem dwells in cubicles by day and scribbles stories by night. He can be found in the orange hallway (www.orangehallway.com)

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He pedaled more furiously. He was 3 years old, riding a tricycle through a maze of hedges in the springtime. At each turn he became more lost, and he could feel the wings bearing down on him from the sky. His brain started to throb and bubble, seemingly simmering for an imminent explosion. Finally he couldn’t pedal anymore, and the tricycle stopped in the far corner of the labyrinth. His sister was there and she looked at his head. “There’s a dead butterfly in your hair,” she said, pinching it with her thumb and forefinger. He stared at her, and looked around, seeing nothing but foliage towering above, and started to smile.

Now he was riding a bright red bicycle over the new pavement in the tract-house suburban neighborhood. He was 9 years old. It was a bright summer’s afternoon, the temperature over 100 degrees, the light and horizon shimmering darkly in the pavement’s reflection. He was sweating as he popped wheelie after wheelie over the sidewalk curbs. He was sucking on a lemon popsicle, and he could feel the wings upon him, as he rode the bike faster and faster down the hill, trying to outrun them. Playing cards were clothes-pinned on the bike spokes, and he saw a few pomegranates situated oddly on the sidewalk, but they were just a blur as he sped by, the cards clacking. The skies darkened as a swarm of butterflies flew overhead, blocking the sun, their shadow weighing him down. At the bottom of the hill, he slammed on the brakes and left a tire skid of about 10 feet on the asphalt. During the skid, he felt freed from the butterflies.

He was now an adult, 32 years old, riding a rusty bicycle to work in the autumn. Big sunflowers started to grow out of cracks in the sidewalk. He could see peaceful golden hills on the horizon and a clear blue sky. Birds were chirping, butterflies flew about, and the air had a crisp smell of early morning. He approached the pomegranate orchards, the sights, smells and sounds filling his body with energy. The sunflowers were growing taller and taller, towards the sky. The weather was cold, but felt so good. His hands were getting numb on the handlebars, but he didn’t care. He rode through the pomegranate orchards, amongst the butterflies, to his construction job at Caterpillar Inc.

The butterflies flutter through the black corridor. All colors: yellow, blue, orange, green, red, purple. They sail past each tightly bolted black door, down the hall, through miles and miles of blackness to the 457th door on the right, slightly, ajar. They swarm into the hospital operating room, bright hues flowing amidst the surgical masks and gowns. They fly, and then settle on the beeping iron lung.

He was 81 years old, in a wheelchair, being pushed through corridor after corridor in a pale green institution. The smell was one of cold antiseptic efficiency. He was being pushed by someone in a nurse’s outfit with rolls of gauze wrapped around his/her head. A screaming sound of little wings furiously beating together filled his ears. Finally, the gauze-bound ‘nurse’ gave him a mighty shove, and the wheelchair went speeding blindly down the corridor, crashing through the doors at the end. There was nothing on the other side of the doors but black winter’s night, and the wheelchair, with him in it, started falling… He saw large butterflies above him, and he reached for the big wings, hoping they would lift him up, but he missed, and laughed as he fell into oblivion.

His mother was pushing him around the park in his stroller on a warm spring day. He was back to 8 weeks old. He saw a monarch butterfly on the left safety bar of the stroller. He put it in his mouth, and chewed.


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

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Author: Eric Suhem

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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.


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

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Alfred was a somnambulist. As a somnambulist, he would walk about the house in the middle of the night, deep in slumber, sitting in different chairs, turning on and off various faucets, eventually winding up back in bed. His family had become accustomed to his nocturnal ramblings. One morning, after falling asleep in bed the night before, he woke up in a brightly colored lawn chair out in his vegetable garden. The morning after that, he woke up in a neighbor’s yard, and the next morning in another neighbor’s yard. Each morning Alfred would wake up in the brightly colored lawn chair, closer and closer to the nearby freeway, until he woke up 10 feet away from the road’s speeding cars. At this rate, he would wake up on Lane 1 of the freeway.

Two mornings later, after the usual nighttime ambling, he did wake up in a brightly colored lawn chair on the freeway, but saw that 78 other people were either asleep or awake in brightly colored lawn chairs on the freeway, so everybody got out of their stopped cars and had a picnic. While chewing on a blood orange, one of the lawn chair occupants asked Alfred, “Who are you?” Alfred was about to describe his dead-end job at the orange grove, packing crates, preparing invoices, and sweeping up orange peels, when, in an epiphany, he suddenly visualized his new career, saying, “I’m Alfred Lindquist, I sell lawn chairs.”

The person chewing the blood orange looked at Alfred strangely, and cryptically muttered, “Through the miles of desert in the blazing sun…on the arid, parched, barren ground…ants and worms crawling amidst wayward oranges…wind howling through the empty canyons…in the middle of the silence sits a wooden coffee table…on it pumps a heart…veins, arteries, aorta, valves, pulp, peels…blood and soul spread out on the dirt…it’s the heart you’ll never know.” He then handed Alfred an orange.

Alfred started a new business selling yard furniture, and the sleepwalking stopped, much to his family’s relief. One night, after the business day had ended, Alfred sat down to fill out some paperwork that had been piling up. The plastic blinds of the window were open, filtering the glare of the streetlights onto the imitation wood paneling of his office. The first item in his inbox was a refund request for one of the lawn chairs he’d sold the previous week. This particular lawn chair included the wide orange ‘Happy Face’ on its seat. Unfortunately, customers of this product had reported skin rashes, and more severe epidermis disturbances. It was soon discovered that some fibers in the ‘Happy Face’ symbol on the lawn chair, derived from an obscure toxic plant, were creating itching, and much worse. Hostile litigation would undoubtedly flow in, and further tests indicated that an increase in degree of the smile caused more skin rashes, as more of the toxic threads of the wide smile were directly under customers’ legs on the chair. One of these chairs was in Alfred’s office, and he looked at it, the ‘Happy Face’ seeming to word, “Who are you?”

The next item in his inbox was an invoice for another lawn chair he had sold that week. Alfred needed to sign his name on the invoice, but for some reason, no matter how hard he tried, could not remember his name for the signature. He set the invoice aside, and picked up the next piece of paper, a memo from the orange grove, having to do with his some minor job severance insurance issues. His name popped instantly into his head and he was able to sign his name: Alfred Lindquist. He picked up the lawn chair invoice again, and stared at the signature line, unable to sign. The somnambulism returned.

The next morning, after a night of sleepwalking, he woke up in a lawn chair under orange trees in the orchard where he used to work. In his lap was the orange that the strange person had given to him on the freeway weeks ago. The orange had a little “d” imprinted on its side, and it was ticking, like a bomb. A year ago, Alfred had seen another orange with a “d” imprint, which had been an advertising stunt from a fruit juice stand, extolling the benefits of Vitamin D, but this time he realized that the “d” stood for “decide”. He stood up, threw down the lawn chair, and went to the orchard manager’s office, where he got his job back. The orange stopped ticking, and later became a refreshing mid-afternoon snack for a passerby.


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Author: Eric Suhem

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Oliver, just out of jail, was in the supermarket committing a holdup, threatening the employees with curare-tipped darts. As the frightened store manager was opening the safe, a bag boy emerged from the produce section, and threw fruit at Oliver’s head. A cantaloupe knocked Oliver out, and he slipped into oblivion.

The next thing Oliver knew, he was entering a pool hall, feeling disturbed by the neon-colored sprouts on the outside sign, which lit up the bleak alleyway in an organic glow. “Another sign of gentrification,” he declared darkly, walking through the door. He approached the cashier and upon payment was given a rack for the game, each pool ball replaced by a fruit or vegetable. The cue ball was an orange, the 1-ball was an apple, the 2-ball a head of lettuce, the 3-ball a lemon, the 4-ball a lime, and so on.

The rack was set and it was Oliver’s turn to break. He hit the cue ball (orange) into the 2-ball (head of lettuce), and it rolled across the felt, unraveling quickly, resulting in lettuce leaves strewn across the table. Oliver took a deep breath, trying to maintain his temper. After enough times hitting the cue ball (orange), it started to spring leaks, with orange juice and pulp joining the lettuce leaves on the felt. As the 6-ball and 7-ball (blueberry and raspberry) engaged in a number of collisions, they also began to come apart. “You have now created a fruit salad! Congratulations on your accomplishment, as we are also a dining establishment!” announced one of the proprietors cheerfully from behind the counter, quickly handing menus to Oliver and his opponent. The pool hall had been purchased by a nameless, faceless conglomerate that was combining various services to increase profits. Oliver glared at the proprietors, annoyed by the distractions.

Looking towards the dart board, Oliver pulled out a small case he had brought, filled with darts and a vial of curare. It was his hostile use of curare that had landed Oliver in jail. “When I was a kid, all I heard was ‘Eat your fruit, Oliver’…and now this,” he said, looking at the fruit scattered across the pool table. “I just wanted to play a simple game of pool, but now it’s time to play darts,” he added grimly, dipping the tip of a small pointed missile into the poisonous curare, aiming towards the proprietors.

Oliver gazed over at the pool table one more time, noting the tangerine in the middle of the green felt, which transported his thoughts back to when he was a kid. “Eat your fruit, Oliver!” There was always a bowl of tangerines in the middle of the kitchen table. The neighbors had a rickety pool table in their basement. Young Oliver was the best pool player in the neighborhood, and had gone on to win a number of tournaments. Everything seemed so full of promise. What had he done with his life since then? Oliver looked at the tangerine, and knew those days would never come again, but suddenly things seemed a little more clear. Maybe there was still time to change?… He put the darts and curare back into the case, grabbed the tangerine, and slowly walked home through the dream.


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

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Author: Eric Suhem