Contributor: Miles Gough

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For a change of scenery, the Grand Fiend took me to an abandoned hunting lodge. We sat well above the city, that was now engulfed in flames. From our vantage point, it was hard to determine who were the humans and who were the marauding monsters. “Conflagrations are so beautiful to gaze upon and consider the joy of it all, don’t you think.”

I was just happy to not be in chaos below so I had to agree. We watched for several minutes and I asked, “Do you know what the monsters are?”

“I am sad to admit that I am not quite certain, though really, I think they are doing a fine job, a little on the grandiose side, but isn’t that anyone's prerogative? Monsters can interpret the job anyway they so desire.”

Watching further, I began to see glints of light reflecting off some of the marauders. “Look at that, I think those monsters are metallic. Its possible that what we are watching is a robot attack.”

“Robots,” the Grand Fiend pronounced the word slowly, as if testing it on his tongue. “That is slightly disappointing. Shouldn’t this be a job for living monsters? Another instance of automation taking over jobs.”

“I’m confused, what is your opinion on robots? Do you feel they are monsters or are they not to be considered one of your ilk?”

“Now that is an interesting debate and a divisive one in the extreme. Most monsters look at them with disdain. I think it is because they are created and originally maintained by humans. Its like food that create their own assistants. Imagine if you will, a hamburger who decides that being a hamburger is too difficult a task and needs to create a metallic semi sentient hamburger to help them in being hamburgers. Its absurd. We monsters are own creatures, we do not conform to the whims of our food supply.”

“But,” I interjected, “don’t vampires and werewolves come from humans as well? They were men and now they eat men.”

“And that’s why the issue of robots is so problematic. Yes, the similarities between vampires, zombies and lycanmorphs and the robot horde you see below you are evident. Perhaps the difference is that robots were created to be subservient to humans, while we nether creatures were never anyone’s beasts of burden.”

I cleared my throat, “I hate to be contrary, but wouldn’t being forced to be the servant to humans give robots a better reason to hate and attack them?”

“If I must consider that, I would say that you are correct. But we are monsters, we are fiends, we have the right to be discriminatory. I am a master of fear and attack. I am the beast you wake up screaming about, and I do not want to be compared to a toaster with a foul disposition.”
I opened my mouth to add one more thing, the Grand Fiend gave me a shake of his giant head and I knew to remain silent. “Let us not worry about who is doing the killing. Let us just celebrate that killing. They are proving themselves worthy by deeds. Let’s just revel in the sheer artistry of this messy anarchy.”

From our vantage point, the smoke was almost complete, though when the wind was favorable, we were still allowed to hear the faint screams of the survivors. The Grand Fiend smiled and quietly said, “Robots.”


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Matt Shaner

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The apartment building is three floors, a converted house next to a river. The storm started the day before and now the four of us sit in my living room. Rain still hammers the windows. I’ve spread four candles in the corners with the remaining light coming from a pair of cigarettes. We lost power two hours ago. The smoke hangs in the room since I can’t open the windows. Lightening punctuates our sentences.
“This is shit,” the girl says. She’s just out of college, blonde, wearing a sweatshirt and shorts. “I’m losing sleep.” Her apartment is flooded.
“Sleep? This is like a movie. I wonder if the foundation will hold.”
“Oh stop.” This is the couple below me. They are elderly and made their way to my place long before the sky darkened. I fed them dinner before we lost power and the water is now nearing their windows. He is a war veteran, retired from factory work and she was a nurse. They have family in California. He smokes despite her objections.
“More drinks? Anyone need anything?” I ask. I’ve started on the whiskey and attempted to get the others to join. The girl takes a beer and the old couple sticks with water. No one answers my question. The building shakes. Suddenly I think the guy’s concern about the foundation is valid. A spotlight crosses the ceiling. The girl gets up and runs to the window.
“It’s a boat.” She starts to hit the glass.
“They’ll never hear you,” the old guy says.
“Shut up.” She keeps hitting. I can barely make out the motor against the wind and rain. She strikes harder and I picture the boat getting closer. She starts to yell. “Hey. Hey, help us!” She sinks to the floor.
“See,” the old guy says. His wife is asleep.
“Fuck you.” She leans her head back against the sill. The house shakes again.
“Listen, we’re probably here for a while. We should just relax.” I say this and can see the words take shape into the humidity. The room is a jungle. The girl takes off her sweatshirt and a t shirt under to reveal a black sports bra. Her skin shines in the candle light. Her hair hangs in wet strands on her face. She shuts her eyes.
Thunder.
I down the rest of the Beam in my glass and attempt to sleep. It seems to be the theme of the moment. Sleep pulls at my senses. The air could be cut and served for dinner. I dream I can hear the water, dream of jumping out the window and enjoying the cold waves. I see the girl getting up, walking to me and stripping off the rest of her clothes. We kiss. She pushes me on the couch and forces herself on my body. We exist together in the moment. I hope she doesn’t see my arousal. Just before falling under, I realize I’ve never spoken to these people in my life.
A scream cuts through the room.
Wind blows the candles out. The moon is the only light. Rain soaks the carpet.
“Who opened the window?” I try to take inventory. I stand and reach for the old couple. They are on the couch. That leaves one person. No way.
I go towards the window, raising my arm to block the rain, soaking my clothes.
The river is alive, pushing against the house. Her skin looks gray in the night and her arms fight the current. I shut the window and sit down, not lighting the candles.
The house shakes again and the floor shifts, boards crack, stone gives way.
The couch starts to slide.


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I am a writer outside of Reading, PA with twenty short story publications online and in print included one selected for anthology by Fantastic Horror. My novel The Reserve and novella Life After Death are available through amazon.com and Eternal Press. I am currently a student in Fairfield University's MFA program.

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Author: Matt Shaner

{EAV:36ae30e2bba7c18a}
Contributor: Alina Yudkevich

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“You will sail to Havana and you must never look back,” his mother told him on his last night in Rotterdam.

“I’m going to rip your tongue out, you ungrateful…” his father started to tell him, but died before he could make his final wishes known.

“You gotta fuck the pain away,” a blonde at the bullfight said to nobody in particular, and he married her later that year.

“SHORTAGE OF RADIOLOGISTS AT KEY WEST MARINE HOSPITAL,” the notice read, and he had always loved the beach bum lifestyle so he went to the corner store for two American passports, a musculoskeletal imaging guide, and some sunscreen.

“I wish to see you again,” he told the raven-haired apparition that began visiting him in the night after his wife died in labor. “You are so very beautiful.”

“Tuberculosis, it looks like,” the orderly told him. “She’s that cigar maker’s daughter. Sexy little firecracker.”

“It’s you,” he said, standing over her hospital bed.

“¿Cómo te llamas?” she asked.

“I will give you all the jewels and worldly pleasures,” he said to his love. “I will save you.”

“OUT!” yelled her parents. “She does not need an x-ray!”

“I did my best, mi princesita,” he wept as the nurse pulled the sheet over her face.

“An above-ground mausoleum? That’s gonna cost you, buddy,” said the tombstone salesman.

“It must be so cold in there,” he said to her ghost as she serenaded him with a slow Spanish melody. “I will save you.”

“The shovels are in aisle 7,” said the girl at the hardware store. “Not sure about the formaldehyde...”

“I’m piecing you back together, mi amor,” he said, gently weaving wire through brittle bones, rolling mismatched glass eyes between his fingers. “My little doll. Now you will be beautiful forever.”

“I heard the most awful rumor,” said a stenographer on her lunch break.

“I reckon I smelled some stench,” his neighbor said to the police, the morning his heart broke a second time.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, last I checked, being a hopeless romantic is not a crime,” his court-appointed lawyer said, the day before he was released on a technicality.


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Alina Yudkevich is a 17th grader at the University of Georgia, studying English and Film Studies and working part-time at a particle accelerator lab. She enjoys pugs, video editing, running, b-horror, and exploring the unknown via Google street view.

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Author: Alina Yudkevich

Contributor: Chris Sharp

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I was resting in the Gentlemen’s Lounge when she came in. By resting, I mean I was doing what we do when we’re not herding cattle. The Gentlemen’s Lounge was at that time the only bar in town before she came and changed the name into “Ladies and Gentlemen.” When she got it going it was no longer a bar, or a saloon, but a “club,”
At that time there were over a hundred cowboys in town. At any given time, about a third of us were with the cattle, moving them here and there and trying to keep them perky and healthy so they could feed the entire Western Territory with good beefsteak. We had the only cattle for hundreds of miles, so we were all flush, with a lot of new greenbacks and not very many places to spend them.
She sneaked in on a coach. One of the regulars happened to be gazing out the window seeing nothing when suddenly the coach landed in from of him. “It’s a wo-man,” he said. “She’s a coming off the coach with a bag in both hands. Now she’s a putting one bag down, and she’s a giving the driver a tip of money. Now she’s a looking at us. She’s a looking right at me. She’s a got her bag again and she’s a stepping toward here, boys.”
“Why would a woman come here to see us hellhole cowboys?” I said, to no one especially, because to be honest I hadn’t dressed and washed to see any woman that day. The only one at my table was Whitey, and he had been tending to a nosebleed. “Fix your nose, Whitey,” I told him. “We got some kind of company, the female kind, without any warning.”
There had never been a woman in our town before, at least none that I had ever heard of. But the town was less than six months old, and if something stands around even for a few days, the odds have to better that it would be found by a woman. That’s why you could never hide anything from your mother even for just a few days, but we boys all assumed our mothers were two thousand miles away.
The woman burst through our swinging vintage-pair doors all covered in a heavy purple dress that rustled and flounced all over her. She looked around at us even as she was still stepping in. Then she eyed the mysterious piano that had just recently been mysteriously carried in by four big boys. Those big boys carried the piano in from a wagon and mysteriously left it here.
“Hello boys,” she said at last, smiling and looking at every one in a sisterly manner. “You try out that grand piano yet?”
“Ma’am, is that your piano that was left here?”
“It is my piano,” she said. “Now I intend to try it out after it’s been bumping over the prairie for so long.”
At first she touched the keys real carefully like she was picking up some rattlesnake skin but wondering if there was still a live snake inside it. Then for the first time in our town’s six-month history living music came out amongst us. It was good. It was real good.
“The song was written by a man named Stephen Foster, boys,” she told us. “He was a genius. He wasn’t a German genius or a French genius. He was an American genius.”
We boys just looked at each other.
The next song was another good one.
“Ma’am, who in tarnation are you?”
“I’m the new owner.”
“The new owner.”
We boys all looked at each other again.
“In the next couple of days, my husband will be coming in on the Pullman. He’s an official with the new railroad. Until then you’ve got me.”
“We’ve got you, huh.”
It was like we caught some strange new hiccup that kept us repeating her last words.
“Now I’m going to tell you about the new rules.”
“The new rules,”
We sat there and listened to “the new rules.” That was all that happened, us boys just sitting there, period. Our brains could only take in so much in one day. And right then, our brains were still taking in “an American genius” and “coming in on the Pullman,” without us taking a breath in between them.
So the woman in the big purple dress kept talking.
We just sat there, thunderstruck.


- - -
In addition to five other stories in Yesteryear Fiction, I have authored “Dangerous Learning: The New Schooling in California.” I am a public school teacher in Menifee, California. My wife Debbie and I have two children in the form of a Persian cat named Dr. Spooner and a talking parrot named Dr. Shana.

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Author: Chris Sharp

Contributor: Christopher James

- -


Day one.

A white hair.

“Hello, you little bugger. What are you doing there?”

White hair is removed.


Day two.

Two white hairs.

“Oh, I see. I suppose you think you’re being funny. Well, two can play at that game.”

White hairs, plural, removed.


Day three.

Four offenders.

“Christ. This is getting beyond a joke.”

Offenders taken out back and shot.


Day four.

Eight glaring reminders of old age.

“You’re like the dragons in Dungeons and Dragons. Except you’re hairs. I should warn you. I was a dab hand at D&D, back in the day.”

Eight glaring reminders of old age, lying in a row in the bathroom sink.


Day five.

Sixteen.

“For fuck’s sake.”

My wife – “Stop pulling them out. Every time you pull one out, two more grow in its place.”

“You’re right.”

Sixteen white hairs removed.


Day six.

Thirty-two.

Not going to pull them out today, no matter what. By end of day, after a few close shaves (bittersweet pun intended), thirty-two hairs remain. Hopefully the situation will not develop.


Day seven.

Sixty-four.

“What the hell?”

My wife – “You’re getting old.”

“Getting... something.”

Stare in the mirror for a long time. Face looks worse than it used to. Grow frustrated.

Sixty four white hairs removed. Countless brown hairs are innocent casualties in this senseless war. We mourn their loss, more than they will ever know.


Week two.

A short fortnight after hostilities began, devastation has been wreaked. Every brown hair on my head has been replaced by white. People at work are ignoring me. Work is going to others. It doesn’t go unnoticed that the people being asked to write reports that I used to write have coloured hair. I’m embarrassed to buy dye from the chemist, so I ask my wife to. Then I’m embarrassed to use it.


Week three.

Fallout has reached a critical stage. Without work, I’m reduced to aimlessness. Far too much time to ponder old age. Will work replace me? This is the curse of white hair. Can feather it no longer. Dye hair. Have to put up with a few jokes, but effect is overridingly positive. Feel better. Reports are coming back to me. This is a good week.


Week four.

Dye doesn’t work. White hairs return. Work and self-esteem fall away. Try different dyes – none of them are strong enough to fight the white. This calls for drastic measures. Someone on internet recommends illegal product, only available through illicit manoeuvres. Manoeuvres undertaken. Product arrives.


Week five.

All hair gone. Destroyed by product.

Called into meeting with boss next week. He may sack me. Bald. Bald. Bald. This is terrible.

Have never felt so low.


Week six.

Single white hair returns.

Brings with it... hope.


- - -
Christopher James lives in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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Author: Christopher James

Contributor: Miles Gough

- -
My number one, huge ass, disappointment this week was the show Cupcake Wars. I heard the title and liked the possibility. I was point six on the stoked meter. I even told the fellas working the line with me that I couldn’t go out to have some brews, no I was going home to watch Cupcake Wars.

Then I watched the dunderheaded thing. The hell. Teams battle to be chosen to make a thousand cupcakes for some made-up party. And the loser? They still have to make the thousand cupcakes and only then told that oh yeah, you suck hard wind. Its like, I’m sorry, but though you did discover a cure for cancer, its just not as sexy as Team B’s cure for cancer, so here’s your complimentary t-shirt and get the hell out of my studio.

And the worst part is, the cupcakes they make are just cupcakes. They totally reneged on the opportunity of the concept. It’s called Cupcake Wars, so why are they not making armaments out of them? Am I the only one to see this as the killer pitch?

Follow me. Your assignment, make the tastiest poisoned cupcake ever. A cupcake so delectable, you would eat two or three of them even after you knew they were lethal. Now that’s some tasty shit. I call that the Borgias Challenge.

Or you can go the full Mission Impossible and have a grenade challenge. Make a cupcake that can be eaten just as you please, but flip a chocolate chip on the frosting and that baby is armed. To win, it must be delicious and blow a hole in a half inch steel plate.

My favorite is the Voltron Challenge. Create five individual cupcakes that with a cue will fuse together into one giant sword wielding uber cupcake. Body count baked goods, that’s what this show should be about.

It could get wonderfully out of hand. Each contestant upping the ante with deadlier cupcakes. Pastry proliferation would occur. Machine gun cupcakes go to smart bomb cupcakes to dirty bomb cupcakes with fresh strawberry topping and up and up until there are nuclear cupcakes with Three Mile Island frosting.

There would be stale mate. Each contestant with atomic ingredients and no one willing to bake. A game of chicken. No one wins because if someone did, that would be the end of everything. Mass annihilation and butter cream. That’s what this should be. Ought to be. But of course not. They wimped out.

Not me. I believe in the vision. That’s why I’m moving ahead to phase two. Oh hey. There’s the oven timer. My first batch is ready. I got to go. I need to focus on taking them out. It took a while, but I found a pair of lead lined oven mitts. If we ain’t a blasted out radioactive rubble in five minutes, come on over and help me taste test these bad boys.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: E.K. Smith

- -
“So, I’ve called you in here today to let you know that… well, there’s really no easy way to say this, so I guess I’ll just say it--- we’re going to have to let you go. I wish we had another option, but we don’t.”

Clinton sat across from his boss of ten years in a stuffy, cramped office on the twelfth floor of a high rise built in the 1970s. As soon as he heard the voice stop emanating from his boss’s gingivitis-ridden mouth, he closed his eyes to allow each word to sink in--- one by one--- into the utter chaos that constituted his fatigued, painfully mediocre brain. Just as he was starting to process the meaning behind the string of words, a brisk banging sound shoved its way into his ears. It came from behind him.

A morbidly obese, blonde man in a skin-tight button up shirt turned the doorknob and stuffed himself into the tiny room. “Uhh… Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Jonsen, but I just wanted to know if you and your staff might be interested in joining this ‘water club’ I just started down on the eleventh floor.” He gasped for air and continued without any concern for the fact that Mr. Jonsen was staring at him as if he were an old whore standing in the middle of the street wearing nothing but Christmas lights and Clinton’s eyes were still firmly shut. “Basically, the way it works is that each person contributes $1 per month and then we get water delivered for one of those big dispensers that everyone can share.”

Clinton opened his eyes when he heard the word “share,” precisely on time to see a large, grey pigeon fly into the window above Mr. Jonsen’s head.

“What in God’s name…” Jonsen started, but his voice trailed off as he saw Clinton rise abruptly from his seat. For an awkward twenty-three seconds, Clinton stared at a $55 fountain pen that was collecting dust on Jonsen’s desk. Then he pushed his way past the doughy mounds of the water club guy’s belly and ran down the hallway. He flung the stairwell door open and bounded down twelve flights of stairs at his top speed, almost tripping a couple times. As soon as he was outside the building, he looked up, fighting the urge to close his eyes against the stinging sun. It was easy to assess where the window was. As he walked anxiously toward the bird that was laying on the blazing hot concrete, he saw its ratty wing twitch slightly. A wave of pure joy flushed over him. He knelt slowly, scooping up the bird in both palms and lifting it to his face. With his cheeks starting to burn in the heat, he whispered gently, “It’s just you and me.”


- - -
E.K. Smith's work has appeared in Misfit's Miscellany. She is a new writer.

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Author: E.K. Smith

Contributor: Michael A. Withell

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I'm tired and I can't remember why they didn't bring me my tablets. I have my tablets every morning at six, it's strange that no-one brought them to me. The lady walks over to my bed, touches me on the face.

Not too hard.

And she gives the small cup to my tired hand. They always taste like the cold; bitter and metallic like the robot that they intend to turn me into. I wonder if a robot can feel the cold?

Cold; it's cold in here. The Sun seems to be on the other side of the corridor and it's dark. I can even begin to see my breath in front of my eyes, dancing in the remnants of the morning light.

You shouldn't smoke in here, they'd say to me; but I'm not smoking.

It's the cold, I'd say, A picture painted by my very lungs.

The door in front of me is open and my breath quickens in apprehension of the threshold. I wonder why they don't lock it? I thought they always locked it? Something faceless is on the small television screen, I can't make out what it is. All I see is the flowers sitting on the desk, relaxing in the glare of the morning Sun.

They look comfortable.

The man on the desk smiles past me, not making contact with my dancing eyes. I wonder if he knows why the woman didn't bring me my pills? But I can't ask him, I don't want him to look inside my head.

The front door lets me walk through it. I thank it for its courtesy and let it close and rest; I wonder if it ever gets tired? I can't imagine how a life like that can be much fun.

Open, close, open, close, open, close.

It's closed now and I can smell the flowers, they look pretty in their various states and positions. I can see the Sun now, bright and proud on its large pedestal; even when I close my eyes I can feel it touching my face.

Not too hard.

And she gives the small cup to my tired hand. They always taste like the cold; bitter and metallic like the robot that they intend to turn me into. I wonder if a robot can feel the cold?

I am not cold now, the Sun and flowers make sure of that. There are other people walking around the flowers, I don't recognise them. They are wearing green and appear to be cutting the heads of the flowers. Why are they hurting the flowers?

I lurch, move to say something, but they can't see me; I don't want them to see me.

The main gate is closed but the adjacent tunnels through the wall aren't, they are open to the elements and open to travel. I can't see anybody near the tunnel, only standing on top of the wall with their metallic grins and fingers. The light appears to be bouncing off their hands, like a tracer hurtling out of the barrel of a gun. They can't see me from there, their eyes don't stretch that far from their head.

The tunnel is cold, sheltered; I can feel the droplets taking residence on my cheeks. My cheeks must be warmer than where they usually sleep, under the tunnel; under the tunnel under the wall. I wonder why they didn't bring me my tablets?

I can hear an alarm, I wonder who got out? I hope they catch them, you're not allowed to escape.


- - -
Michael A. Withell is a British law graduate from Hull, England. He mostly writes science-fiction, and has recently had short stories published in 'Mossyhearth Magazine' and 'Farther Stars Than These'.

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Author: Michael A. Withell

Contributor: Janet Yung

- -
The old, light blue, faded mini-van moved slowly down the street, pausing for a moment in front of the house. Emily wouldn’t have noticed except she was in the yard adjusting the sprinkler set up to water the newly laid sod.

“Twice a day, one hour each for two weeks till it takes,” the landscaper who’d installed it the previous week advised. Emily stuck to the regimen in spite of the slightly water logged appearance it was taking on. “It’s doing okay,” the landscaper said in response to Emily’s frantic call regarding it’s condition.

Stooped by the faucet behind the shrubs, she glanced up as the van crept by. The water sprayed droplets on the driver’s side with the sign advertising yard clean ups specializing in scooping poop.

It could’ve been any old van, similar to the ones that trolled the alleys for junk. Emily would’ve thought that was the case or, she’d imagined the whole thing, except for the sign.

She crouched lower and hoped she hadn’t been spotted. The van moved on when a woman in a S.U.V. suddenly appeared from nowhere and honked her horn.

Emily anxiously waited and tried to focus on the sprinkler’s range as she contemplated the possibility the van had turned left at the end of the street to circle the block and make another pass by. When no vehicles materialized, she sprinted along the lawn as the spray moved away from her.

Inside the security of the house, she pressed her back against the door. What would she do? If she’d been at work, she wouldn’t have seen the van. Her mind raced at the prospect it wasn’t the first time it had cruised by and, suddenly, she realized how vulnerable she was.

She set the timer on the kitchen stove for an hour and stood in the familiar space. Emily remembered the sense of relief when the driver and van had disappeared from her life for what she hoped would be forever. Looking back, the events that led up to the departure were still fresh in her memory.

As the minutes ticked by, she alternated between eating cookies, digging through the freezer for a lost pint of ice cream and peeking through the front window, convinced the van would be waiting at the curb, relieved when it wasn‘t.

The longer she waited, the more she was able to convince herself the incident had been nothing more than the by-product of her over active imagination and erstwhile anxieties. She jumped at the sound of the buzzer going off and took one last look before going outside. The street remained empty and quiet.

It didn’t seem possible after all this time he had returned, but as she bent over to retrieve the sprinkler and wind up the hose, she caught a flash of light blue and knew her fears were not ungrounded and couldn’t be ignored.


- - -
Janet Yung lives and writes in St. Louis, MO. Short fiction has appeared in several on-line publications. Most recently “Epiphany Magazine On-Line“ and “The Feathered Flounder”.

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Author: Janet Yung

Contributor: George Sparling

- -
Two ugly lizards climb my wall to eat sow bugs, flies, and cockroaches. I can direct these glaucous reptiles back into their home, a terrarium, with my pineal gland. I eat human placenta whenever I can to boost my immune system. Red peppers, beets, turnips, dandelion leaves, and fetus-food I mix in a cast iron skillet cooked on a wood-burning stove. My teeth, serrated from too much port wine and bad horse while living in Oakland, yet my words are fluent, so others tell me, thoughts spilled loose from my lips, doves escaping their cage.

It was in the hole in prison that I understood I was a shaman, one who knows. The hole was midnight black, with a concrete floor, a small opening to piss and shit, and I was always naked. Where else would you expect to find a man convicted of second-degree murder? Unceremoniously, without mysticism, spirits tore me apart to count my bones. For countless hours I slept in a half-dream as they meticulously counted all my bones. I had that extra bone. Otherwise, the spirits would’ve killed me.

My body, for a while, was a single diamond, quartz crystals filling my intestines, making me adamantine. When the guard delivered slop to me, and said, “Here’s your food, beast,” I knew I had changed, and I was human.

A saddle-billed stork and three cassowary birds lit up the darkness. The stork had a red beak that burned and suffused the hole with light, while the cassowary birds’ necks, glowing blue, red and blue sheen kept me alive in the pit. I saw the earth held up by a giant mammoth and growing from it was the Navel of the World from which the Cosmic Tree grew. I sang like a bull, and talked to yellow lemurs and dark bison. When they finally released me, I told the guards that I lived in the Tree and played on a drum made out of antelope skin. The men howled derisively, and taser-fired electric currents into me but I clung to that Tree and they looked startled because I hadn’t fallen. They stopped the torture.

After I served my sentence, I went back to my cabin in the wilderness where I wore an antler crown on my head, two stitched bear legs wrapped round my waist. I painted deer’s blood on a shirt: frogs, lizards, snakes, and birds, all crimson, life jittered on my torso. My misshapen past I cast aside, unsheathing my criminal skin. The tranquility of the creek danced through my hands, a counterpoise to the violence calcified to my bones as if to dark impermeable granite.

Dressed in street clothes, the next day I went to a bar to shoot some pool. Within ten minutes, a guy slashed me with a long black knife. “Just a quarter-inch more and you would’ve slashed my jugular,” I said to the idiot, my eyes drowning in hate, But after I got stitched up, my eyes reverted to what they were when the tasers struck me: indomitable. Don’t doubt me, you weren’t buried alive in my soul. Home, I laughed, a delirious, ludicrous roar banged against the walls. The knife reminded me of a silver salmon flashing in a ripple of water.

Now, a beard covers the scar like tough, recalcitrant black moss: unafraid eyes, my fierce beauty I stare at in the reflection of a chipped, cracked mirror. But, that wild thing plays in my being’s jazz, its storm and peace, which makes my life a dream of dance, of blood, love, death. Even murder.


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Author: George Sparling