Contributor: Moxie Malone

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"Hello you. How was your trip?" he asked her as she entered.

"Fun...wondrous...interesting. It was everything you said it would be," she beamed as she dashed in. "Still, it's good to be back," she added and wrapped herself around him.

He chuckled as he drew her close, "It's good to have you back."

"Ummmhmm," she purred as she wallowed in his loving embrace. "Next time we should go together."

"We'll have to plan that. So, tell me all about it. Did you get to do everything we talked about?"

"I sure did," she told him excitedly. "Some things more than once!"

"Food?" he asked.

"Yum!" she exclaimed.

"Dancing?" he queried.

"Oh, I danced until I dropped from exhaustion," she told him, giggling.

"Sex?"

"Well, sure. There was plenty of opportunity for that," she laughed. "It would have been better with you there, though."

He flexed and squeezed her.

She sighed a bit, "It's...it's...just so hard to get close to anyone, you know?"

"I know. It's such a short time. It seems like you just get there and get the hang of things and it's time to come home."

"There is that, but...," she paused as she pressed into him, simply luxuriating in the feel of him.

"But?" He asked as he held and stroked her.

She drew back a moment as she collected her thoughts, "I just don't see how anyone can ever get close to anyone, there. Things get in the way."

"Things," he repeated as he considered what she was saying. "Ah," he said as he pulled her back to him, "You mean the bodies."

She felt herself happily, blissfully melting into him, "Exactly. You can't do this with bodies. They just get in the way."


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Moxie is a purveyor of dreams, fantasies and the occasional nightmare -- Purv for short. Usually sensual, often romantic, frequently erotic, sometimes humorous and nearly always offbeat aiming for provocative, the stories that she writes as well as the people, places and events found in them are pure fiction and nothing more - as far as you know.

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Author: Moxie Malone

Contributor: Samantha Memi

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I was lying in bed wondering if the hotel would remember to wake me in the morning when a gecko came in through the window and walked along the wall.
I was too tired to shoo it away.
“You won't hurt me will you, Mr Gecko.”
“I'm looking for roaches, big fat juicy roaches. What would I want with the likes of you.” and he continued his journey on the wall.
Just as I was drifting into sleep he started whistling. There's nothing worse than a whistling gecko when you're trying to sleep.
“Do you mind not whistling?” I asked.
“What's with all the complaining?” he replied, “you get on with your life and I'll get on with mine.”
“Yes, but your whistling bothers me.”
“You're breathing bothers me. Do I complain about it? No. Why not? Because I believe in letting others live their lives the way they want to. But not you. You want to dictate to others how they should live.”
He stopped whistling. I drifted. I needed to get to the train station early to ensure I got a ticket.
He started singing. It was a song about a cockroach who fell in love with a grasshopper and wooed her with many gifts and just as they were about to marry both were eaten by a gecko. I asked him not to sing.
“What? you wanna run my life for me? I can't do anything because big fat Miss Human thinks she can tell me what I can and can't do.”
“I want to get some sleep.”
“I'm not stopping you.”
“You’re singing.”
“I like to sing. You don't like singing and that gives you the right to stop me.”
“I do like singing, but...”
“You like Mozart?”
“That wasn't Mozart.”
“I didn't say it was, I asked if you liked him.”
“Yes.”
“You like Don Giovanni?”
“I have to get up in the morning. I just want to sleep. This is my room.”
“Your room? So I'm not allowed in? Is that what you're saying? Do I tell you not to climb my tree? No. And you know why? Because I don't have a tree. Did you ever see a gecko struggling along with a backpack? No. You know why? Because we’re free. We're not enslaved by possessions and all your stupid this is my room, this is my bed, this is my space. You should learn how to live.”

This was too much. I had to see Janine tomorrow. I got out of bed.
“Hey hey hey,” screamed the gecko, “I know you're bigger than me. But there's no need to resort to violence. Why don't we settle this matter amicably.”
I picked up a newspaper and shooed him out of the room. I closed the shutters and the window, and lay down. Without the cool breeze it was too sticky hot to sleep. The hotel sign squeezed intermittent orange and green through gaps in the shutters. I listened to the crickets. Then from the window I heard a squeaky song:

The grasshopper and the cockroach they wanted to wed.
But sly Mr Gecko, he ate them instead.
And selfish Miss Human, she lay on her bed.
Thinking and dreaming that he would be dead.
But a gecko so lively, it has to be said,
Could outwit a human without any dread.

Sleep was out of the question. I went down to the bar.
“There's a gecko in my room.”
“All the rooms have geckos.”
“It's singing.”
“Opera?”
“It's keeping me awake and I have to get up early to buy a train ticket.”
“I can sell you a ticket. Where are you going?”

Ticket in hand and no thought of queues in the morning, I went back to my room and opened the window.
The gecko stood on the window ledge.
“Oh, it's you,” he said.
“Do you know the duet of Don Giovanni and Zerlina?”
The gecko coughed and cleared his throat, he stood on his hind legs and looked at me. In perfect Italian he sang:
Lá ci darem la mano, lá mi dirai di sì
I stood by the open window bewitched by the sunrise gradating into the purpling sky and sang:
Vorrei e non vorrei, mi trema un poco il cor
The gecko stood on the ledge, his slit eyes gazing at me, and our hearts came together in Mozart, and I forgot about queues and train stations and lived for the moment, not for tomorrow.


- - -
Samantha Memi lives in London. Her fictional life can be found at http://samanthamemi.weebly.com/

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Author: Samantha Memi

Contributor: Marissa Medley

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When I met her for the first time, we were at a funeral. Everyone was so somber, which is to be expected at a gathering of the kind. It was interesting for me to see how everyone coped with the loss. Women cried into the arms of their husbands. Husbands patted the backs of their close friends saying things like “How unexpected” and “What a great loss”. The little children cried for their mothers and asked what was wrong. The mothers replied in sweet voices trying to keep in their tears. They didn't want to explain that someone they all once knew and loved had died. The crowd all around me was quiet and sad. Almost everyone had cried at some point except for me and her. When I looked at her, her face was even more blank than mine.
I felt uncomfortable to watch her. She was there just watching everyone pass by her. Like her, I was just there to support my family. We both watched as people passed by the body. The mother of the daughter who had died was crying hysterically. The cries reached a volume that seemed too loud to be coming out of a human body.
As other people started to go up to see the casket, I stayed behind to watch the children. There was something so beautiful in their innocence. I envied their ability to be at the funeral without feeling guilty that they were still alive. They had no idea that someday there would be a funeral for them. Soon though, they would find out how life ends.
One of the little girls I was watching ran over to her crying grandmother.
“What's wrong Gramma?” she asked.
“Gramma lost something very precious to her,” she answered while barely keeping her composure.
“What'd you lose, Gramma?”
“I lost a precious gem. A very, very, very precious gem,” the grandmother said while picked up the child. She held the girl so close as if she were afraid that death would fly in at that moment and take another granddaughter away from her.
The crying grandmother had made me feel horrible for not joining her in being sad. Instead, I just felt guilty. To take my mind off of the guilt, I looked up and saw the blank faced girl still there. Even though her face was blank, there was some sort of a peace in her expression. There were no tears coming from her eyes. She had been wearing an odd item for a funeral. On top of her head sat a tan cowboy hat. Nobody seemed to care or notice. They acted like it was just part of her.
“Would you like to come up and see the body?” asked a man I had come with.
I wasn't terribly excited to go up and see the body, but I wanted to show my respects. I didn't answer the man with words. I nodded my head and waited in line to see the body. I looked around and saw the people mourning. There were many young people there who looked shocked and confused. They didn't understand how someone so young and full of life could end up dead. I heard gossip from two old women behind me who had said that she died in a car crash. The driver had been speeding and they were not wearing seat belts. The women behind me seemed to be angry because such a stupid mistake of not putting on a seat belt killed the young girl.
Again I looked up at the girl with the blank face. At this point people were watching her and she was watching back even more intently. Her coldness had started to bother me.
When I got up to the casket her grandfather hugged me and thanked me for coming. He gave some trivial advice about driving that many people had told me before, except for when he said it there was more meaning. He had been affected by that piece of trivial advice more than anyone could know. I had finally started crying. I couldn’t control myself. The tears of previous losses, fears, and guilt had been set free.
When I looked down into the casket I saw the girl with the blank face. She was the girl who had tragically died in the accident. Her hat had covered up the damage from the accident. She was dead, but she was still watching everyone and I could tell. She wasn't sad.


- - -
Marissa Medley is currently attending Toledo School for the Arts, where she takes a creative writing class. She writes prose and poetry. She also loves to read and is often inspired by J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath.

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Author: Marissa Medley

Contributor: Allen Griffin

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There is a grinding of metal on metal as the two cars meet and become one, fenders locking lips and fluids co-mingling. The bones snapping and the sudden exhale. The voice that lives in the blood crying out one final time, is less than an afterthought, lost silent in the cacophony of this moment.
Just as quickly as it occurred, I am floating above the highway, a canal that is quickly clogging like the artery that I secretly had figured would be my true end. I am not sad that I cannot say goodbye, their faces are already slipping away, the imagery lost in the afternoon haze and exhaust fumes. I am quickly losing myself into a strange memory, wondering if I am really up here, floating, or if my brain has thrown together this image as the last neurons fire their sacred payload.


- - -
Allen Griffin writes and plays music in Indianapolis. His work has previously appeared in Rebel Doll zine, Indiana Horror Anthology, and Theory Train.

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Author: Allen Griffin

Contributor: Hannah M. Hill

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Four bars, four cops, then sixteen more bars – the last sixteen being quite rusty and annoying. I rata-tat-tatted a twelve-bar blues, and the other four objected, leaving me with a mattress and a bar-shaped bruise... but no bars. Outside, a road is a long bar of its own; a thousand miles per brandy, 85 and a half shots to the gallon.

I took the mattress and made some shoes – and I rata-tat-tatted along down that road; two straight yellow bars, on my feet, and in that tarmac that was dark as the white rich man's wine in the light of the black-backed bar. I walked on the gold, shifting shoes like my hands to my pockets slide when they're rattling out a beat for that Shining American Dollar.

Lost my rattle when the blues mixed reds; a young red head in a red dress, half dead with a half glass and brash lipstick stains. She's calling my shots; a thousand-proof crimson beats, backed at the back of the black bar by a click-rata-click of a red poker chip.


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I've been writing since I can remember; I'm a history lover, a blues musician, an ex-librarian and a vodkaphile.

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Author: Hannah M. Hill

Contributor: Jonathan Byrd

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I couldn’t do my work today. All of my office supplies attacked me.

I suspected that something was amiss for a while. The pens were grumbling about “Unfair usage,” “Pointless notes,” “Useless Endeavors.” It was becoming clear that my pens wanted to work for the guy on the other side of the cubicle wall.

“Why can’t we do work like him? Everything he does sounds so engaging.”

I’ve told them that we all do the same work, but pens never listen.

I did my best to keep them away from the stapler. My stapler has always been impressionable; I think it suffers from low self-esteem. However, I couldn’t always keep them separate. You know how it is, you get busy. You have to comfort your keyboard who is upset because the monitor won’t display all of the pretty words it is capable of typing, so you throw the pen down on the desk where it lands near some other supply and the discord begins.

I heard the grumblings for a few days, but thought everything would be ok, given that the weekend was approaching. On the weekends, I usually put my pens in the desk drawer. One: to keep them from talking to the other supplies; and two: to keep them from climbing the cubicle wall and deserting me. But I was wrong about the grumbling, it didn’t quite down.

Today, I came in and found my desk drawer open. The pens were gone.

Or so I thought.

I pulled my chair out and attempted to sit down. To my surprise, I missed the chair and fell straight to the floor. My chair backed slowly away to the entrance of the cubicle, just out of reach. It was then, while my attention was on my retreating chair, that the pens struck.

“NOW!”

Paper clips and staples flew at me; printer paper fell on me from the cabinets. The tape dispenser sent a long stream of tape into my hair.

I tried to struggle against the barrage; I pulled against the tape stuck in my hair and swung wildly at the falling paper. Through the din, I saw the rude personal attacks the monitor was flashing at me. The keyboard, ever loyal to me, was crying and begging the other supplies to stop.

As I got to my feet, to make a desperate attack on the paper clip dispenser, my chair attacked me from behind. I landed hard on the seat, paper clips and staples continued to sting my face and arms, the tape dispenser tugged at my hair, and paper continued to rain on me. The chair backed away and then quickly spun me around.

The desk supplies continued to attack. My cubicle blurred as I spun around and around.

Finally, the chair dumped me at the entrance of my cubicle.

“Don’t let him get away,” the pens yelled.

The supplies doubled their efforts; the paper clips and staples aimed for my eyes, the falling paper angled itself, trying to cut me as it fell, and the tape dispenser gave one final tug, pulling out a tuft of hair.

What could I do, but retreat? I was hopelessly out numbered. As I crawled out of my cubicle, I glanced back and saw the pens scaling the cubicle wall. They had staged all of this to make their escape.


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I began writing strange, dark, and bizarre stories in the 4th grade. That year, I was referred to the school psychologist after writing a story mimicking Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. My work has been featured on the Mustache Factor, Bizarro Central, and 69 Flavors of Paranoia.

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Author: Jonathan Byrd

Contributor: Brandon Swarrow

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            Bruce is bald, divorced, pays child support yet raises both boys, and is a relentless misanthrope.  If he weren’t spewing heated complaints about his miserable job, his whore wife, or just life in general, he would most likely stop breathing all together.  

            On his 33^rd birthday, Bruce drinks so much by himself that, in the middle of the night, he accidentally stumbles into his sons’ bedroom after using the bathroom.   The bottom bunk creaks and squeaks as he bounces on his belly onto the old mattress.  His face catches a postage stamp portion of the corner of the pillow.  He crashes down so hard that if his son were lying there that night; he probably would’ve crushed him.  Luckily, he was staying over at a friend’s house.     

            Before fully asleep, Bruce’s body is sucked upward.  He awakes.  His spine is pressed so firmly to the brittle slats on the underside of the top bunk that two of the four snap in half, forcing his body to near fold to accommodate the displacement. 

            Through his son’s small window, the moonlight refracts to form a brilliant circle of light on the carpet.  The illuminated sphere contorts tighter, similarly to someone angling a magnifying glass in the sun to achieve heat.  The white beam of light slowly moves up the side of the child’s sports themed comforter.  The circle creeps up toward the sweating and straining Bruce, illuminating a baseball bat, a basketball, and now a lean tan ladder.   The round beam hits his face like a sucker punch.  He squints, but the intensity is blinding.   Just then Bruce hears what he believes is his eleven year-old son’s voice.  “Come with me,” the voice of infinite echoes speaks slowly.   “Come on”

            Bruce’s vision is funneled to a different place.  This is not his boys’ bedroom, this place is bustling.  There are people walking briskly, determined and motivated everywhere.  He sees himself now and a group of busy men and women begin swarming him.  He is being attacked and mauled by these red-eyed humans.  They are all talking and asking him questions at the same time to the point where he can’t really make out what they are saying.  Finally he focuses on another man who seems even more aggressive than the rest; it appears as if he offers him drugs.  Then another man offers him some more drugs.  A middle-aged woman is shouting out offers for sex.  Finally, after being groped, and forced back into a wall, Bruce screams, “What?  What do you people want?” 

            An older gentleman simply says, “Sleep,” and he is erased from the red-eyed rabble, but most respond back with (almost in unison in fact) “What do you want?” 

Bruce thrashes his arms to deflect the gropers and then bellows out, “What?  What do all of you people want?”  The crowd continues to squeeze and pet, groaning the same phrase over and over, “What do you want?  What do you want? What do you want?” 

            Bruce shouts, “Enough with the grabbing already, what do I look like a stuffed teddy bear?!!”  And just then, Bruce turns into a huge puffy, plush tan bear complete with droopy sad, yet lovable eyes. 

The mob parts, smiling, happy and excited.  Some even begin to laugh, while others weep from some unknown yet overwhelming joy.

The middle aged woman who previously offered sex laughs out loud, “That is a good one, but watch this…” Just then the woman says, “Hello Kitty,” and POOF a large half adult half kitten stands before the befuddled Brucey Bear.               

The overly aggressive man from before whispers the phrase, “Wow, imagine that, you’re in a world where you can happily do or be whatever you want,” and he turns and walks away.

Bruce’s face, then body smacks the pillow and the rest of his son’s squeaky old bunk bed.


- - -

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Author: Brandon Swarrow

Contributor: Penny Estelle

- -
There were so many people. Who would have thought this many would show? I made my way through the crowd, listening as friends reminisced about old times and sharing remembered stories.
“Do you remember when…” or “What about that time…” followed by bouts of laughter.
This is how it should be, I thought, chuckling at some story, a little red-faced at others.
Women were dressed in white, pink, red and blue, while men sported kakis, Levis, polos, or sport shirts. I loved it. Just what I had asked for.
I heard a laugh that always made me cringe. Sophie Martin! What was she doing here? Her ass, covered in a tight, magenta spandex skirt, looked like two beach balls, ready to take out anything that got in her way. “She should have done herself a favor and worn the traditional black,” I muttered.
“We do not speak unkindly of others,” a voice boomed behind me.
I practically jumped out of my skin. “Oh Jacob, I didn’t know you were around.”
“I will be…around, until orientation.” Jacob was a distinguished looking gentleman. Thick gray hair and blue eyes that had dulled with age. I had not seen him actually smile. There was a smirk, but that may have been gas.
The grating laugh again. “Well, seriously, look at that ass!”
“Nor do we swear.”
“Well, I don’t know why she’s even here. I couldn’t stand her when I was alive!”
Jacob was gone.
Cindy Murphy, one of my closest friends, was crying as her hubby, Tim, was comforting her. She was pointing to a poster size collage. I looked over her shoulder. Pictures of our Vegas trip. Such a good time. There were pictures of me alone and with friends. “Oh my God,” I yelled. “What the hell?” There I was, at the beach in my bathing suit, looking a lot like Shamu!
I knew he was behind me. I turned to see him across the room. His white linen shirt was tucked into brown cotton pants. His air of arrogance was stifling, not to mention, annoying.
“Okay, I know, but float on over here and look at this picture!”
Jacob leaned in and in that same old emotionless voice said, “Stunning.”
“Yea, that’s the word I’d pick!” I hadn’t lost my sarcasm, even in death.
“It is time for orientation. Please come with me.” Jacob started toward a closed curtain, framed in a brilliant light.
My steps faltered a little. “Jacob, the story goes that when people bite the big one, and the bright light appears, then all’s good with the man upstairs and your ticket up is a go.”
There it was – an actual smile. He said nothing, just pulled the curtain aside, almost blinding me.
I looked at him and then back at my group of friends, remembering nothing but good times. I walked to Jacob, putting my arm through his and said, “Let’s do this!”


- - -

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Author: Penny Estelle

Contributor: Dan Nielsen

- -
Pamela Wilson sat in the car working a crossword puzzle while her husband Glenn and her son Billy grocery shopped. She heard Billy's voice, looked up, and saw him running through the parking lot. Billy got in and sat crouched over as though in pain. He cried. He sucked his thumb. He rocked back and forth. He looked at his mother.
“Billy, what’s wrong?" Pamela said.
Billy said, “Daddy fell.”
“How did he fall?” Pamela said
“On his head,” Billy pointed to his own head.
“Is he okay?”
“No.”
Pamela, in robe and slippers, wasn’t about to get out of the car. She flipped open her cell phone. She flipped it shut.
“Billy, tell me exactly what happened.”
Billy took a breath. “Daddy had eggs. He dropped them and stepped in it. His legs flew up and he landed on his head.”
An ambulance, lights flashing and siren wailing, pulled into the parking lot and stopped by the supermarket door. A small crowd made way.
Pamela’s cell phone rang. The Caller ID said Piggly Wiggly. Pamela turned off the phone and started the car.
“Billy, put on your seat belt.”
“What about daddy?”
“He’ll be fine,”
Back at the house, Pamela applied makeup and chose a matching skirt and blouse. Billy asked if he could watch TV.


- - -
I have almost no imagination, but what little I have is extremely vivid.
I can foresee the future, but only the foreseeable future.
I am a autodidactic uniglot.

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Author: Dan Nielsen

Contributor: Rich Ives

- -
Whence the migration of pain. Whence the horror. A happy little bumpkin wets his willy and the jig is up. It doesn't hurt so much. He can't hurt so much without experience.
Sometimes duty gets delivered to the wrong address. A package of surgical sponges instead of dinner. A piece of the right patient through the wrong end of the microscope.
Whence the incumbent derives his verity. While we wander the garden paths below the hospital with our own. It’s a big hurt and we love it dearly, sugarpants.
She wanted more and he just wanted.
The child of knowledge and the child of ignorance. Both chopping the same onion.
A big hurt indeed and we came down from the towers into the land of breaking and keeping, into the land of another before us.


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

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Author: Rich Ives