Contributor: Brent Rankin

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Hey, like I was sitting at this bus stop, waiting for the Number Seven, when Jesus Christ sat down beside me and asked for a cigarette. I only had a doobie. Of course I gave it to him. I mean, the Son of God and all that. How do you say no?

He was wearing flip-flop sandals, worn out jeans, and a teeshirt with a majajuana leaf silkscreened on the front. He had the long hair, beard, and all.

“Are you…?”

“Yeah, yeah. Yeah,” he said. The questioned annoyed him. “What? You think I’m Windall Wilke?”

“Who’s Windall Wilke?”

“I don’t know. I just like the sound of the name. Kinda flows.”

He fired up the smoke, sucked a long drag, exhaled, and sighed. “Damn, that’s good,” he said and then, “Bet you got a few questions, uh?” He sucked in more smoke.

“I guess. Are you really Him?”

“What? Flowing white robes, halo? Scabby hands and feet? That is so yesterday, man.” He sucked on the roach and blew the smoke out of his nose.

Before I could asked the Savior a question, He said, “I’m no magical Genie. I don’t grant wishes. I can’t change the past or the future, if there ever was one. Dad saw to that,” he sucked on the doobie, “Didn’t know Moses. And get over this,” as he blew the smoke out, “I never slept with Mary! Where do you dudes come up with this crap?”

“I wasn’t going to ask that,” I said.

“All right, then,” he finished the last suck on the roach and dropped it. He crushed it under his foot. He said, “Hey, I did bring that old man back from the dead. Cool! Turned water into wine…very cool.”

I’ll go along. “Okay,” I said, “when will the world end?” I shoved my tongue into my cheek.

He ground the roach deeper into the concrete and shrugged, “Yeah. Funny you would ask that. In a few hours.”

“What? Are you for real?”

“Ain’t my fault,” Jesus said. “Hey, you people forgot about me. Everything I did, I did for you guys. Mankind. No one cares anymore. So the old Man sent me here to let you know. It’s over, man. Fire from the sky, dude…fire.”

“Like in the Bible.” This guy’s a nut case.

“I didn’t write that! Dad did. And, yeah, man. Kapoof!!” He held up his fingers and wiggled them, “Fire, baby. Just letting you know.” Then he said, “Well, gotta go now. Don’t care to be around for the bar-be-que. You know what I mean?” H winked at me, stood up, and said, “Hey, thanks for the smoke.” He walked away.

I sucked my tongue out of my cheek and when I looked, Jesus was gone. And I missed my bus.

Takes all kinds. At least he wasn’t parading a sign: “The End is Near.” Or, standing on a soapbox.

Yes, sir. It takes all kinds. You know, Windell Wilke does roll of the tongue, sort of.

Hey, do those clouds look funny to you?


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Having published the e-novella "The fisher man" on Amazon and Booktango, I'm experimenting with flash fiction. I'm finding it exciting. So much to say so briefly.

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Author: Brent Rankin

Contributor: Sean Crose

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Back in '95 I was really into the postimpressionists. Van Gogh and Gauguin were my favorites. I'd watch the Altman film, Vincent and Theo late at night by myself in my parent's den while getting loaded on beer, taking time every few minutes to step out on the back porch to smoke a cigarette and reflect. Those were the times. Art was important. Life was a mysterious, golden gift from God.
I had a girlfriend at the time named Gretchen who lived up in Western Massachusetts, by the Vermont border. On the weekends I'd ride up the to see her and on the ride back home I'd check out the fields and hills around the areas of Sunderland and Amherst and marvel at the colors. Everything looked almost purple or blush – just like in the Gauguin paintings of Tahiti.
I'm not sure whether the fields and hills really looked that way or I just wanted them to. After all, the fields and hills of Tahiti probably didn't look much like Gauguin had painted them. To the post impressionists, perception was everything and I was following their lead, perceiving life as I wished it to be rather than as it really was.
Perhaps that's why I resented the fact that I lived in Waterbury so much. It was hard to perceive life in Waterbury being anything other than what it was. There were no great natural scenes that Gauguin or van Gogh would ever be interested in.
Also, it's hard to perceive yourself as a starving artist when you're trapped working part time in a busy supermarket. Gauguin and van Gogh would never work in a place like that. They would literally starve first.
As time went on I began to realize I really wasn't much like van Gogh or Gauguin. They were the real thing, starving artists. I was merely a writer who struggled under the burden of unconventional normality. To this day I'm not sure whether they had it right or I did.
I'm glad, though, that I'm not van Gogh or Gauguin. I'm not going to cut my ear off, after all, and there's no way I'm going to die from syphilis in a hut in the South Seas.


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My name's Sean Crose. My writing has appeared in such publications as "Crack the Spine," "The Copperfield Review," Six Tales," "Fiction365," and "Breakwater." I live with my wife, Jen, and Cody, the world's greatest cat.

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Author: Sean Crose

Contributor: Mike Wiley

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My grandmother hated spiders. “Never turn your back on one that’s alive,” she said to me. “And not even when you think its dead.”

I’m not sure what they ever did to her.

Despite her warnings and condemnations, I grew up more or less indifferent towards the arachnid community. I guess you could say I even had one as a pet through my first year of college.

A tree-horned daddy long leg had made a home behind one of my stereo speakers. It didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother it. The thing even seemed to like most of my music. The harder, the better. If I played Slayer or The Dillinger Escape Plan, it would come out from behind the speaker and do a little bobbing, swaying motion. Nothing fancy. It’s not like it was a goddamn tap dancer; just a spider. Though I think it really liked The Refused, because it would actually change colors when I played that. During the buildup to New Noise it would sort of tremble, weak at all eight knees. Then when the lyrics came (Can I scream? Yeah!) it would burst into a bright red, like a clown’s false nose, one leg pumping up like a fist. I would have said it was amazing, except that I had seen a leopard gecko do a similar trick a few years back.

It was still living there in the dorm room the day I moved out. On that day, as I was packing, its body turned blue.

That part of the story took place on the west coast of the United States of America. About six years later, I found myself living on the east coast. Brooklyn, as it were. I had a career, a wife, and had more or less forgotten about Dave (Dave is what I had named the spider, by the way). Only occasionally during those dull cocktail conversations where one is pressured to produce a story that makes you appear interesting did Dave ever make an appearance in spirit.

Well, one night I came home after heavy drinking and a ton of head banging to find my wife, Emily, duct-taped to a chair in the living room. Her mouth was gagged with a gym sock and she had a black eye. The Refused was playing on a stereo in the bedroom. I knew right away that I hadn’t stumbled into a kinky love affair because the men my wife typically had affairs with all listened to pansy music.

I don’t know how he did it, but Dave had found me and he wasn’t looking to make friends.

Tears streamed down Emily’s face. Because she couldn’t talk, she gestured wildly with her eyes, indicating the bedroom door, which was neither closed nor open. It was ajar.

I crept up to the bedroom door. A red light emanated from the room that glowed like camp-fire coals. Suddenly, a large shadow passed before the open space and the light went out. I kicked open the door and immediately received a blow to the face. I fell on my back. Just like that, Dave was on top of me, spider fangs hovering inches above my face. A drop of frothy venom fell from one of the fangs and caught my ear. It smoked and burned like acid. The smell was horrible.

Normally I can hold my own in a fight, but you’l have to give me some credit here. Dave had one arm or leg for each one of my limbs, plus four extra. You try taking on the Lord Vishnu in hand-to-hand combat.

“What do you want?” I screamed.

“You left me and have taken up with this whore!” Dave said. Each of his four free arms delivering devastating blows to my face and torso. It was a flurry of hairy, glowing red arms and legs.

“Dave! Please stop!” I begged.

“Stop calling me ‘Dave’!” it said. “My name is Margaret and I love you. You left me behind like so much trash all those years ago.”

I stopped fighting.

Turns out ‘Dave’ was a female the whole time. And she had the hots for me. As soon as I found out the truth, I had a break down. I started sobbing.

Margaret gave up the fight too. Her body turned from red back to it normal, doo doo brown color and she fell onto her back by my side. I couldn’t stop crying.

“I love you too, Margaret!” I blubbered. We were both crying.

Just then, I heard a slow creaking sound as my wife tipped her chair over onto the spider, crushing it to death. The gag fell from her mouth.

“What is wrong with you?” she said. “That spider just invaded our home and beat the crap out of both of us. Untie me from this chair so I can leave you.”

So, to answer your question, that’s pretty much how I ended up homeless and begging for spare change outside this here liquor store. Now let me ask you a question. You gonna finish that sandwich?


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Mike Wiley is an active author and musician residing in Brooklyn, NY. He can be reached at rosebombsexplode.com.

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Author: Mike Wiley

Contributor: Mike Putnam

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The Taylor Triplets. The unvanquished juniors at our public ivy. Blonde, from one of the richer suburbs outside of Columbus with an Irish city's name. We had an entry for them, but it was a blank page once clicked. A member of ours had been on the case of the dyed-brown-one since fall of their sophomore year to no avail. Glasses-clad had a boyfriend going to OSU from another one of the 270 loop suburbs, or so we had heard. Intel was understandably weak due to the majority of the female student body knowing about our database. Someone once tried to tag all three of them under the TBSD (Taken But Still Down) category but it was removed from their page the next day after more than a thousand down-votes and hundreds of heated comments. Many of those comments about how, regardless of the validity of the statement, you couldn't tag three people to a lifestyle choice one of them allegedly practiced. That was just laziness, which few stood for in our community. So the hunt continued, for merely a scrap of credible information on any of them. Was one into DP? Or another into group scenarios? What about being filmed? Were they adventurous with their lovemaking? Did they have a strong stand on the whereabouts of the orgasms' final location? What semesters (and/or seasons) were they most active? There were currently two hundred and fifty-six possible tags that could be attached to a girl (or girls), giving perspective suitors an idea of what they could potentially try. No one had even posted drink advice or music interests for any of them. They were brick walls even at their drunkest and none left without all being accounted for. Much sleep and even more money had been lost trying to crack the code of the Triplets. Unfortunately, the entry between Rebecca Tanner and Jessica Turner was a total joke to all looking for advice.


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Mike Putnam is a writer currently living in Ohio. He considers himself a curious spirit.

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Author: Mike Putnam

Contributor: Nicole St.Onge

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I sat outside the house, as I had been for several days now, reminiscing the time that I had spent silently hiding among the grass in a sprawling field. I remembered watching as they came, creatures in pairs and groups, sauntering along and stopping occasionally to pick up and observe my companions with eager eyes. If one was not satisfactory, he would be dropped back onto the ground carelessly, and the creatures would continue on, leaving us glad that we had survived another day. After a good time of evading the eye of the creatures and hoping that I wouldn’t be the one to be taken next, it was to my dismay that I was selected by a group of takers.

Upon my arrival to their small dwelling, I was set on a table beside a few of my new acquaintances. We were terrified and curious as to what our fates would be, and we didn’t have to wait long before we found out. The young lad on my right was chosen as the creatures’ first sacrifice, and the rest of us were forced to watch in horror as the proceedings ensued. A knife shifted into our view, and we were shocked as one of the creatures dug the blade crudely into the top of our poor friend’s head and began to cut around its perimeter. After the larger creature had separated one part from the bottom, several of its smaller offspring dug in, tearing out his innards and dropping them into a bowl with a sickening splat. Following the gutting of our poor companion, we found ourselves looking on and holding our breath as the larger creature stepped in once again, this time slicing a grotesque image into his front side as the younger ones cheered in sick excitement.

I watched as the horror continued on each time until finally, it was my turn to endure the damage. I had heard of these acts of insidious destruction before and had nightmares about the subject; families being separated, children and their parents being forced to stomach the inevitable torture that would occur, all the while knowing that they would never see their loved ones again. I never once thought it would happen to me; I was so young-I didn’t deserve to have my once peaceful life in that field end in such a gruesome and untimely way!
~
I woke up in a daze and eventually became aware of the steady warmth that was burning inside me. I felt no pain, just the brisk wind of the fall that I had come to know and love on so many autumn nights. Then I heard voices emerge from several of the small creatures as they walked down a path beside their fellow traveler;

"Come on, Dad! Hurry up!"

"It’s time to go trick-or-treating!"

"The other kids will love our jack-o-lanterns when they come!"


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Author: Nicole St.Onge

Contributor: Eric Suhem

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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

Contributor: Chris Rhatigan

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I drive on the interstate.

Things are very loud.

It is like the car is a noise-absorbing box.

I cover my ears.

The car veers toward the guard rail.

I uncover my ears.

The car no longer veers toward the guard rail.

I do not feel comfortable in the right lane.

I move to the left lane.

The left lane is uncomfortable too.

I see a bright, colorful sign for a gas station.

This seems right.

The gas station sign should be here.

The gas station sign belongs.

I need to go to the gas station due to my desire to go there, so I cut off a pickup truck. The driver yells obscenities.

Maybe they were not obscenities. I could not really hear him. I am driving on the interstate. As I may or may not have mentioned. And things are loud.

As I may have mentioned.

I leave my car running and enter the store. I select a sixteen-ounce cup of coffee. I add three sugars and no milk. I select a shrink-wrapped snack cake.

There are three people in line ahead of me.

I sip my coffee.

I want to eat the snack cake now, but I think (know) people will judge me for it.

“Why is he eating that snack cake? He has not purchased it yet. That is not his snack cake. Why can he not wait until he has paid for it? If everyone acted like him, what kind of society would we have? We would not be able to trust anyone. Everyone would go around eating their snack cakes prior to paying for them. This would lead to chaos.”

But why does the logic of the snack cake not apply to the coffee? Even though you have not paid for either, it is acceptable to drink the coffee, but not to eat the snack cake.

This is what I question.

I pay the three dollars and eighty-seven cents for my coffee and snack cake.

The clerk wears a hat advertising a mustache.

He also has a mustache.

The mustache is not special in any way. It is not a handlebar mustache or a pencil line mustache or a Tom Selleck mustache. It is just a mustache.

The mustache should be here.

The mustache belongs.

The clerk moves his finger in circular motion. He pokes a hole in the circle, obscenely. This display makes me think of the word serious.

He says, “You’re liable to land yourself a parking ticket, you keep messing around like that.”

I say, “What do you mean?”

He juts his mustache at me. The hat’s mustache is also jutted at me. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I do not.”

“Well, you’ll find out soon enough, partner.”

“Why are you calling me partner? We do not have a partnership. Unless I am unaware of our partnership.”

“That is true. We don’t have a partnership. Not legally, at least.” He smiles. “But I know a guy who knows a guy.”

I open the doors. It is raining.

I have nothing to cover my head with.

I consider buying a newspaper, but I hate newspapers. They depress me. Not the stories in the newspaper, but the ink. The ink is, at this moment, the most awful thing I can think of. The way it is on the page. This is truly offensive.

Maybe I could pay the clerk for his mustache and cover my head with that.

I would like a mustache.

A mustache says, “Authority over facial hair.”

There is an enormous stack of parking tickets on my car jammed between the windshield wipers and the windshield. The rain is making them wet.

The tickets are written in crayon for various amounts.

The first one is for thirty-two cents.

I can pay that.

I think.

The next one is for fifteen thousand dollars.

I cannot pay that.

I think.

I will have to get out a loan from a bank. I will use the clerk’s mustache as collateral. They will say “How can you afford to pay this loan?” and I will pull the mustache out of my pocket and they will say “Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I will fill out all of the necessary paper work.”

I sit on the hood of my car.

I eat my snack cake and drink my coffee. The rain makes me wet. This makes me think of the word dog.

I am not going to let these parking tickets make me depressed.

I wonder if I will get another parking ticket.

It would stand to reason that I would get another parking ticket.

Although I know there is a flaw in my logic.

The wind sweeps parking tickets away and they swirl around me like dragonflies.

Magical.

I drive on the interstate. The parking tickets swirl around me like bumble bees.

Threatening.

But they do not strike.

They must be biding their time. Waiting until my guard is down. Then they will devour the supple flesh around my rib cage and between my toes.

Three weeks later, I receive a letter from the gas station. They apologize for the inconvenience. (No problem!) The parking tickets were issued by a rogue force who has since been terminated. (Phew!) They would like to offer free snack cakes and coffee to anyone who suffered mental duress due to the errant parking tickets. (Compensation!)

My return to the gas station is triumphant.

I eat two snack cakes and drink two cups of coffee, making the whole world seem excellent, I should be here, I belong, there is no question about that.

The clerk stares at me.

He pets his mustache, maintains his stare.

Authority.

Maybe I should have paid the parking tickets.

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Chris Rhatigan is the editor of All Due Respect and the co-editor of the anthologies Pulp Ink and Pulp Ink 2. He has published more than 30 short stories in venues like Needle, Pulp Modern, Shotgun Honey, and Beat to a Pulp. He reviews short fiction at his blog, Death by Killing.

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Author: Chris Rhatigan

Contributor: David Gill

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The men were gathered around a great table in a conference room on the 78th floor of the Baxter Building.
“We could call it Pep,” one man said.
“Or Zazz” another chimed in.
There arose a clamour in the boardroom as several of the men offered their opinions at once.
Then, the man at the end of the table spoke, “Hell, boys, we can call it whatever we want and people will buy it by the caseload if it’s as good as you say.”
The man at the other end of the table, in a lab coat,
responded, “All the testing sir, ind_
The man at the end of the table cut him off, “I don’t care about the tests, son, what’s it like? Have you tried it?”
The man in the lab coat looked troubled for a moment and then spoke, “I haven’t tried it, sir, but my lab partner did, and I documented his experience very thoroughly.”
The man at the end of the table asked, “Well...?”
The man in the lab coat dabbed at his brow with a handkerchief, “The chaos in his life certainly seemed to get better.” The man in the lab coat paused, “It... went away.”
The man at the end of the table stared. The man in the lab coat continued: “At first the subject was full of newly found confidence. He seemed surer of himself, somehow. There was a marked change in his behavior.”
The man at the end of table said, “...and then?”
“Well sir,” the man in the lab coat stammered, “we’ve since dealt with this, but, the subject, began exhibiting anomalous behavior, he started making mistakes. These were minor concerns we corrected during our dosing calculations; we’ve taken this all into account. But the subject was mistaken about nearly everything. If you asked him who was president, he would respond with the name of a prominent shortstop. If you asked him to do a simple math problem, he’d get it wrong, spectacularly wrong, and then, because of his increased confidence he would berate anyone who tried to correct him. Finally, he left the lab in a huff after some argument, got lost on his way home - it was December - and he died, dropped dead on the sidewalk. Still in the hospital gown.”
The man at the end of the table said, “You’ve fixed it? You’re sure? Johnson, hell, let me try the stuff.”
After a long moment, the man in the lab coat removed a tupperware container from the inside pocket of his lab coat and handed it to the man at the end of the table.
The man at the end of the table opened the container and removed a bright red pill which he then put in his mouth and swallowed, without water.
What struck the man first was the prow of a vessel, its great beam expressing the scope of the pointlessness in all things. The meaninglessness blotted out the sky completely. Tears welled up in his eyes the way sea water rises through the bottom of a sandy hole dug at the shoreline, and he succumbed to quick waves of searing loss and guilt which consumed him. And just as he thought the tragedy too great to lament, he saw how stupid it all was, how inconsequential, and he began to laugh, a great set of giggles that engulfed him until his jaws and abdomen ached. And then like the water emptying a tub, everything left the man at the end of the table, until he was completely empty - without a sense of time, who can say when that was - but after that there was only space and drifting. Without a sense of body, or purpose, or time, just drifting. And then his body, drifting in space, out beyond the first light of the stars, in infinite, inky, blackness.


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My fiction has appeared at the Jersey Devil Press, The Daily Love (!), and is forthcoming in issue one of Theurgy Magazine.

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Author: David Gill

Contributor: Brent Rankin

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He was standing in front of the door to his apartment. He rapped on the door three times. He knew no one was inside. There was no one outside. There was no one anywhere, anywhere in the world. He was alone.

He had always been intrigued with the paradox of time travel. Paradox. He liked the word. Travel back, say, one hundred and fifty years. Kill your great grandfather. That would be impossible. If he killed his great grandfather, then the proceeding generations would not be born. He wouldn’t be born. There would be no one to kill his great grandfather. Mind bending ideas. If he killed a butterfly in 358 B.C., would the Second World War have happened? What if his timing was off by a few seconds and he returned to the present, two minutes earlier than he’d left it. And he met himself. That, he knew, was utterly impossible.

When there were people on earth, he adjusted the time travel device he’d created and took a deep breath. His thumb was on the red toggle switch that, when tossed, would send him back to sometime before the species of modern man began. A very long time ago.

He flicked the switch.

In the past, the air was putrid. He gagged and spat. Enough. He flicked the switch to return. There was a momentary delay, and then he was back to the present.

He returned and discovered he was the only person on earth. The buildings were there, the roads, the infrastructure. Everything was as before, except there were no people. The world was void of humans. Except for him.

What had he done? He only spat in the past. He almost upchucked. He didn’t touch anything, nor kill anything. He didn’t interact with anything, but still, he changed everything. He was utterly alone.

He went into his apartment. Nothing there had changed. It was just as he left it. Looking out his window, pouring himself a stiff drink, he didn’t see a person anywhere from his eighth floor advantage. God, he thought, what have I done? He went to the sofa and sat.

He took a large gulp from the glass, and then rested it on the arm of his chair. Think. The moment of hesitation just before he returned. Had that caused a riff? Did it cause the annihilation of mankind?

He was the last living person on earth, alone in his living room.
Then, there were three loud raps at the front door .


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I've been around the block a few times more than the ice cream truck. I graduated from college with a degree in English (a long, long time ago) and decided to put it to work.

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Author: Brent Rankin

Contributor: Layden Robinson

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The year is 2012, and I had been lying dormant in a coma for the last 38 years. When I came to, I was told I had been in a head on collision and that there was no long term physical damage. (The Doctors said that it was the massive impact of crash that caused me to “go under”.)
I can vividly remember driving, listening to “Houses of the Holy,” looking up into the watermelon skies riding the finest wave of acid there was to offer. I was truly living, with my crush Melissa by my side as we fused together in perfect warmth, one and one. (Then as sudden as the realization of a passing moment, I ended up here, 38 years later.)
“Mr. Murdoch, please follow me. You are free to go.”
“Experience your new beginning.”
So confused was I stepping into my “New reality”, wondering if I was still tripping on that wonderful, fluent acid I had gotten a hold of ? “Had the acid taken me further than I ever expected to go?” I contemplated to myself.
The air outside was pleasantly brisk, as I decided to take a left and then several rights, becoming more and more overwhelmed by my “New situation” with every passing moment. I tried to hail down a taxi, but there were none to be seen. (Everything was being run by robots, HUMANOIDS.)
“So wild that everyone has bought into such a synthetic dream,” I thought quietly to myself while “scanning” my ticket and stepping onto vessel reminiscent of something right out of a fucking terrifying Sci-Fi movie. (We began to float, passing a purple lit gas station, as I could feel “The eyes” begin to fall upon me.)
“$11.11 for a gallon of gas?!”
“I wonder how much it is for an ounce of weed, or if weed even still exists?”
There were TV monitors situated all around me inside the macabre futuristic vessel I was inside, spurting preposterous political scripture and propaganda, the latest sensational food recipes, and Madonna videos.
“Who in God’s name is Madonna?” I said underneath my own breath.
“A beer should take the edge off a bit.”
[Two blocks down, I found a tavern with a Neon Budweiser sign illuminated within its front window.]
“Yes Budweiser. Now there is something I recognize, SOMETHING I can relate too.” I sit inside a too pristine and empty bar, requesting a bottle of frosty solace.
“That will be $7.50 please,” a young, Brylcream-laced bartender emotionlessly states to me.
FUCK ME. I say nothing, paying my tab, moving on to a record/ CD store.
“CD?”
I am nervous, jittery, out of place as I ask an androgynous clerk if they have any Led Zeppelin. He/She is utterly confused, going to something called a “computer”. After a head nod and confirmation from another boy/girl, I am shown Led Zeppelin’s “Houses of the Holy” on Compact Disc. (The price reads “$27.78” and I almost shit myself in shock and dismay.)
“What the fuck is going on in this wicked fucking world? And what the fuck do I even do with this CD! This is getting to be one big fucking drag, Man!!” (Time traveling Drag mimes.)
Discouraged, I exit out of the music store, making my way down to a dock by the water, trying to gather my limited sanity and sporadic thoughts.
“Hey mate.” A drunkard approaches me, knowing I am suffering in a “different” way.
“Hey man.” I responded back with a faint smile, continuing. “May I ask you something?”
“Sure mate.” The drunkard gives me his consent.
“What the fuck is going on here, man?”
“What do you mean, mate?” The drunkard responded within a consoling tone.
“I mean, I have been asleep for decades, and now there is ‘This’.”
“What do you mean by ‘This’ mate?” The drunkard becomes more curious.
“I mean this – A disillusioned land without a plan.”
“Hmm, you’ve got a point, mate. I never thought of it that way. I guess I have just accepted it for what it is?” Such a sullen stare the drunkard gazed out into the distance before asking of me:
“Could you happen to spare some change, mate?”
“Of course, man. Of course”
I give my only friend in the known world all of my change, moving on from the dock by the water to try and find my lost love, Sweet Melissa. (Oh my sweet Melissa, with her flowing Strawberry blond hair and sunshine smile. ) I was given an address of where she might be from the Holy white institution where I had slept my lengthy deep sleep. (After hours and hours of old school hustle, I located the address. When I arrived, everything is wrong.)
“Can I help you?” It is her, but not “her”.
My Sweet Melissa had been transformed by her own doing into a synthetic, living breathing demented mannequin. There was no more life in her eyes, no natural sag in her tits. My God!
“Sorry, I have the wrong address,” I responded with sadness and mass confusion owning my existence.
I go about my way staring up into the restless evening sky, suddenly sensing something of Biblical proportion was beginning to transpire. [It was quite obvious.] Fire, Hail, and a Sea of locusts began to fall and ravage the world from every direction. (A second seemed like an eternity, until abruptly, an arising stillness overcame the sky, revealing the silhouettes of two figures shaking hands, coming to terms on their Master plan.)
Good and Evil had both decided things had gone too far. The world had lost face and everything had ended up the way it was supposed to. I had awakened briefly, but now it was time to go back to sleep, drift to another time, to the true promised land.


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I am a Independent Writer of three Ebooks and have a successful Wine Review Blog as well. Hope you enjoy my voice! Best regards, Layden Robinson

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Author: Layden Robinson