600 seconds

2009-12-03T13:03:00.002-06:00

Between the devil and the deep blue sea

2009-12-03T12:33:00.000-06:00

A violent jarring awoke Rosie. She was in total darkness. She used her hands to feel about her, noting the texture of everything she touched. A velvet-like material surrounded her, it was actually quite pleasant to the touch. And she felt it - all over her naked body? How had she gotten here? And why the hell was she naked? The questions ran through her mind like wildfire. She also noted that she while she could not see anything except complete blackness, Rosie and her velvety perch was actually some sort of conveyance - she was moving! She felt the energy of inertia coursing through her body and - what was this? As she explored the interior of her transport further, she noticed places that were hard and smooth, like dried reeds, thrusting through the velvet in some places. Strange. It was all so strange. What was she doing here, she wondered again.

It came to her as fast as the darkness began to turn to light. She was dead! She had gone in for an operation. She had been administered anesthesia . . . she remembered people shouting, lights flashing, machines screeching . . . and then here. Moving through . . . wherever she was!

The light became brighter and brighter, but revelaing nothing about her. She knew through the locomotion vehicle that the spped at which she was traveling was increasing exponentially by the minute. And then she saw it! A blue tunnel ahead in the distance! It began to get rather clammy. She hit the tunnel - and was surrounded by water! She struggled to keep her breath as she started to swim upward. She swam and swam . . . and swam some more. Just when she thought her lungs would burst - she broke the surface. She could make out a world around her. She spied the shore and swam for it. As she made her way, she heard something behind her break the surface. It was her carriage? What was that? A giant hand-basket?

She pulled herself to the beach and lay there for a few moments, catching her breath. When she finally found the strength to rise and walk, Rosie strode inland for a few hundred feet, noting her surroundings. Volcanic rock and sand. She looked forward and saw a tall man with long, dark hair, standing on a promontory.

"Welcome to hell.", he said.

2008-05-14T08:01:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, no matter what you do...

2008-05-02T14:57:00.002-05:00

The ground is hard out here, you can't get no sleep at all, and a man could get lost in the sky sometimes. If you start gazing you better hoof it up the block and see if the barman can't toss you a beer for a buck, 'cuz you're almost too late then. If you start thinking hard about anything at all, the philosophers get all over you like fleas on a dog, like children on a sled, like clouds on a rainy day, get my drift.
Don't draw their attention or you're in the grave already. Keep a foot free and your badge on your chest, you want this to end bloodless. See that man with a pistol, he don't care none for you or what you want out of today and he'll see to it you get nothin he don't set you up for. Cry Havok! Indeed! Totaled bodyshop wrecks piled off his urchin-breath kid, calling for milk and sucking on stones can't stop the flood, don't know what makes you think you can.
Keep it clean, keep it careful says the Activity Monitor, Congrats on your recent answers to our quizzes and surveys, next time answer 'A' more often or you'll get This! Buzzsaws and Chaingangs hang on the walls and careen carefully around the wainscoting, frozen mid-stride in ways that must make you want Shooters Poppers and Zappers. Don't try it, she says with her eyes even as she beckons you upstairs. Don't go, she'll kill you alive and make boots from your face. Oh, child, you're so far out of your league you thinks you got it made. Go back home and beat on fifth graders, they're so much more your speed.
We don't need you here and we sure don't want you none. Chime it, Freddy, this one's done, it's over and he don't have nothing else we can extract. Call it, toss it and tag him before he starts to stink up the joint or it'll be a long wait til the next one.

2008-05-02T14:47:00.001-05:00

Feebs just like Flime

2008-04-21T23:49:00.000-05:00

Whistle and Spit

2008-04-21T11:50:00.000-05:00

But the one that you hit, that's what comes next. But then you spend forty minutes or an hour on the internet looking up what the hell comes after that and after that, and you get bogged down in the Unusual Mrs Spitz which doesn't help you at all, she says, Was you in a play perhaps, a pageant, huh? and that sends you spiraling into the waters of their new stuff, little snips and snails of bigger things and other sounds ringing through the ugly steel pipes of the internets, and you ask yourself again if maybe The Stickmen and Bucket aren't touring again, and then you sort of forget why you were going online in the first place, and it turns out to be because you were going to write a thing for a blog, but what? What blog? Gah! The madness is tensing!

2008-04-18T09:19:00.001-05:00

Aside from the improvement, nobody will know the difference.

2008-04-16T13:45:00.001-05:00

Child,

I am but a cypher in this world of fools.

2008-04-14T17:10:00.000-05:00

Two times last week, Jim stepped into a store knowing precisely his mission.
The first, he sought socks. He entered the store knowing only that they carried a selection of clothing, and that his aim was footwear.
"Pardon," he intoned, "me sir, where are your socks?"
"Why, they are on my," replied the well-dressed man in the charcoal suit and orange tie, "feet. Where else? Ha ha!" The man walked away, obviously amused by his own genius.
Jim approached a second man.
"Sir, I," he said, "require socks. Does your store sell such things?"
"Yes, of," the man replied after a moment's thought, which he spent appearing increasingly annoyed, "course we do. Shoo, you silly man!"
Jim looked around the store. Display shelves were piled with literally hundreds of shirts, ranging in color from light green to khaki brown. Most were short-sleeved affairs in cotton, linen and silk, woven in Italy and Monaco, assembled by clever people who put little paper squares with their name instead of their employee number into the pockets of each garment made.
The store, in fact, employed a man whose job consisted only of removing those pieces of paper from those pockets and putting them carefully into a recycling bin.
Jim wandered to the edge of the shirts and saw a forest of pants with names on them which he did not recognize. Some were made in Canada. Jim felt chills just thinking of it. He walked up to one, and touched it. The fabric was cool and had a texture with which he was unfamiliar.
"Those aren't," said the first man suddenly, causing Jim to jump, "socks." He cackled and walked away, holding his stomach and pointing his thumb at Jim over his shoulder. The second man also began to laugh. Jim felt very small.
He left, then.
That was the first time Jim went into a store that week. He knew exactly what he wanted, but he walked into the wrong store.
The second time, he knew exactly what he wanted, too. He wanted revenge.

2008-04-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

Desperation,

thou fickle bitch goddess,

thy hooks abound.

2008-04-12T18:48:00.001-05:00

If there's any one thing that could make me a Yankee, it's the heat. If there's any one thing that could drag me back, it's the speech mannerisms one can expect to find in the northern climes.
I find I wither during the summer months. Today, we seem to be having a wonderfully rare beautiful spell. The sun is shining and the clouds are plentiful enough to cast the kind of shade that keeps ones delicate, Winter-softened skin from broiling to the unhealthy red one associates with these of the United States. The light breeze that wafts periodically across the plaza outside cools pleasantly any heat which manages to accrue upon the skin. This is that rarest of spells in which a young lady in a bikini may lay out upon a towel and enjoy the sun without fear of the Ultra-Violet Radiation which the weather forecasters so love to harp on about. This weather, hot and cold at once and sunny without being deadly serious, is that rare moment when one appreciates the summer. I hear they actually come to expect this kind of day up in the north, even to rely on it. I believe I have heard the rumor that they come to actually be disappointed by the other kind, so used are they to mild weather. Indeed, the siren song of pleasant Summer days is perhaps the only one which could entice me north of that old Mason-Dixon for any amount of time.
On the other hand, I'd be back before one could blink an eye once the pace of their speech met my tender ears. I do have a certain appreciation for a region in which a man is allowed to take his time in speaking. When words jumble as they do so up in the cold reaches of the continent, one can barely think between words, and ones verbal thought becomes so very flat and boring. Myself, I prefer the chance to languish upon a particularly pleasurable word, and more, for the listener to have half a chance to absorb the deeper meanings imparted by my several well-calculated turns of phrase.
If one is confronted with such a fast-talking gent as is so often encountered in the larger Metropolitan areas, one is often faced with the accusation that ones speech patterns defy conventional manners by wasting time. I find that, upon the third or fourth repetition at that break-neck pace they call conversational, one has wasted much more time than one would have by speaking slowly and clearly, as my regional brethren always must endeavor to do.
You see, friend, that is a sly witticism, a level of humor unreachable at lightning pace. There stands simply no time for slyness in its many wicked, enjoyable forms when one must be struggled to be understood for simple velocity. No, I find the highest one can reach with ones words so pressed together is a pun, which I believe we can all agree, is the lowest form of humor.

2008-04-12T18:47:00.000-05:00

Sun

2008-04-09T14:31:00.003-05:00

The bells chimed in the tower. Janice rushed through the hallway. Outisde the building, her boy was waiting. His name was Charles, but she forgot his name often enough that she'd replaced it in her mind with a series of diminishingly personal nicknames. Yesterday, he had become Bugaboo. Once he hit Darling or lower, she'd drop him, but the fact that he had a car kept him afloat a little longer than his own actual merits might.
Charles wasn't a bad guy, but he had a lot against him. He'd been in a long-term relationship with a woman whom Janice found reprehensible. The other woman had no job, not that Janice did either, but she had no motivation that way. She did little but sleep and eat, which would worry Janice if she held any compassion for Charles' Ex.
That wouldn't be so bad, but Janice kept catching Charles looking fondly at her friends. Fondness for her friends was not so bad in itself, but the look in his eye always verged on the unhealthy, and she felt she had to watch him closely to keep him in line.
She broke through the door and into the sunlight. She blinked in the brightness and threw an arm up to allow her eyes to adjust. She rushed over to the car upon which Charles rested, twirling his keys on his finger like a Western Gunslinger, or so he believed. In truth, most of what he did to try to look "cool" just left people with the impression that he was a little clumsy.
This was because when he twirled things on his finger, as he did just then, they often dropped, as his keys did just then. He stooped to pick them up, and made a little grunt, which worried him. A frown creased his brow.
Janice saw that he was frowning as he stood and had a sudden flash of what he would look like as an old man. The flash worried her.
"Hello, Janice." Charles waved, lamely.
"Hello, Dear," Janice blew him a half-hearted kiss and ran around the car to the passenger side.

2008-04-09T14:25:00.000-05:00

Strawberries and Cream

2008-04-08T19:45:00.002-05:00

Fury is amusing, when it's directed at somebody else. Fury is beautifully infantile, no matter its form. Distance is the best punch line, especially when something as pathetically, biologically chemical as fury takes over.
Do you remember how mad you were? Don't you feel silly now? No? That's Ok. Give it a little time, and you certainly will. That's really the beauty of fury, when you get right down to it. It always turns into maddening embarrasment, it just takes a little while sometimes.
I like stories where people stay mad at one another for years at a time. I like the idea that some people have that capability. Heck, I believe it, having met some people who seem to have, and even having some of them be mad at me for, gosh, is it a decade now?

2008-04-08T19:44:00.001-05:00

Eat worms, dummy!

2008-04-07T15:36:00.003-05:00

The year I was born, people born before the turn of the century were in their seventies. We were used to the convention of the two-digit year. We assumed that the year in which you were born began with a 19, and if it didnt, that you would say something to that effect.
Now it's the beginning of the next century. Kids born this century can't be more than 8 years old (7 if you're nasty). Unless you're meeting a young kid, a member of the oldest 1% of the Earth's population or a turtle, you can still pretty safely assume that people you meet weren't born in years that begin with other than 19s.
Not for long, though. Enjoy your security while it lasts, children. The twenties are coming fast and they hold no pity for us, the dinosaurs of ages gone by.
It's a new world, children, and it will eat you alive.

2008-04-07T15:31:00.002-05:00

Engine sputters ghosts out of gasoline fumes, They say you had it but you sold it, you didn't want it, no,

I'm half drunk on static you transmit

Through your True dreams Of Wichita.

2008-04-03T13:09:00.001-05:00

This is not a spam blog. Every day (sort of), we put up a topic upon which we write. It's been a little while since we did this regularly, but we're trying. Today's topic, just by way of example, is

Voluminous Omphaloskepsis

which sounds like a random spam topic, but it's actually more of a description of what I do, and what many of us do, I hope. I'm being snide, but please don't take it personally.

2008-04-02T13:44:00.001-05:00

Was it the going-away party of the year? Maybe. Maybe that's not an appropriate question to ask, though. Lots of people were there. Hell, plenty of people were there.
They gave her a gold watch, even though she'd only been with the firm for ten years. A little over ten years, in fact, said Paula. Why, hadn't it been in January of 98? Maybe it was Christmas. She couldn't remember. Everyone clapped.
They brought out the salads and sandwiches, soups and green-corn cobblers. Everyone partook. It's how these things are done. You look hard at the watch, ooh and ahh and then you eat your cobbler, then go back to work.
It was back at work that the real gathering happened. Just three there, lifers all. They remember the time she walked in on Pete in the copy room. They remember how many times Paula had to tell her not to make calls on company time. They remember all of this and they whisper it, venomously under breaths heavy with coffee but empty of green-corn cobbler.
When you walk into the room on this, the real gathering, their voices drop and they look guilty, but when you walk around the corner, if they can't see you in the mirror down the hall, they start talking again. It is delicious and awful, that talk, listening to them hiss and spit as you pick kernels out of your teeth.

2008-04-02T13:16:00.000-05:00

Well, not all of the chairs...

2008-04-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

So, the difference between horror and epic fantasy, from the point of view of an uneducated person who has recently checked out the first part of Joseph Campbell's Hero w/K Faces is this:
In epic fantasy, the old master, the source of the new way of thinking and the author, at least in the examples he uses, of the demise from which the hero will Save us All, actually knows what's happening and is useful. In horror, or at least Stephen King's horror, which is usually a good literary example even if you don't like 'em yourself, the master who draws the character in is clueless or worse, serving to draw the hero into the problem without offering any kind of help or advice.
I take the following couple of examples: In Campbell's book, he uses the story of the Minotaur as the first example, at least in the edition I've got. Daedalus is the master who authors the problem and offers Ariadne and Theseus the solution of the ball of twine. Sure, he created the problem, but he also helps solve it.
In King's new book, Duma Key, Mr. Wireman, the lawyer, serves to draw Freemantle into the story, but really offers no help that the young Cantori cannot and does not provide.

2008-04-01T13:06:00.001-05:00

No foolin?

2008-03-31T15:23:00.000-05:00

So, yeah, I used to be one of those. I mean, that commercial, where they take the burrito with the appetizing-looking lettuce and stick it in the grill, I mean, I used to get the shivers. I still don't like that one, I mean, why ruin perfectly good lettuce with perfectly good flame grilling? That doesn't make any sense, right? I mean, like, I used to be a cold lettuce, cold tomato, cold plate, cold fork, cold room kind of guy. If the server wasn't aloof enough, I couldn't get started.
See, but then I discovered the reason it happens. I got my first salad with instructions.
What beats hot fat, right? I mean, as far as food. Or sex. Or skin care. Or siege weaponry. Nothing, right? Hot fat is just good stuff, that's my take. I hadn't tried it before, but now I'll never go back.
You just get about a tablespoon of dressing. See, I used to be a sinner that way, too. I used to be one of these, two cups per three cups of salad blasphemers, and my sans-a-belt pants and shirts size 'big' told the tale to any lookers. You don't need cups. Heck, you don't need much dressing at all. A tablespoon feels sinful, once it's hot. It feels like too much, like you actually need those croûtons, a foodstuff I've never been able to get behind, fresh, canned, frozen or bacon, crunchy shit on my salad has never quite sat right.
Now I'm a lettuce, tomato, pickle (right? but it works), raisin, pistachio, radish and most of a tablespoon of some tasty dressing kind of guy. It's done me in, as far as the cold salad goes. You gets no flavor when you eats cold food. It's a sad fact, but ooh, that hot fat and lettuce does things for me.
I wouldn't have believed it, and didn't until it was sitting in my mouth, delighting me. So there ya' go.

2008-03-31T15:22:00.000-05:00

Once, maybe, but no more!

2008-03-27T12:27:00.000-05:00

When the strains of music first hit his ear like a feather made of pure razor blades, he was sitting in a cafe, typing on a laptop not unlike this one. His fingers whizzed madly on the keys which clattered and creaked under the unaccustomed pressure of creation. The story he wrote wasn't good. He knew it wasn't good. He felt he must keep writing, though, under the possibility that it didn't know it wasn't good, and that he might hurt the feelings of his fickle muse if he did not commit fully to the first inkling he'd had in weeks.
The story was one of tears from the eyes of the jolly: a huge, fat man sat on a porch, drinking a mixture of lemonade and bourbon and thinking about the previous years of his fat life. The entire conflict of the story was so internal as to be communicated only in the movements of the fat man's stubby fingers and his piggy eyes. After two thousand or so words, the fat man began to weep, spilling big, greasy tears down his face.
It was at precisely that moment, though, that the music broke his concentration. It drifted on a stray wind and struck his ear drum, making the tiny bones in his head rattle and hum. He looked away from the screen upon which his story had been maniacally unfolding, and looked up into the sky.
It was in that instant that he felt his muse stand from her seat opposite him, sniff once, insensed, and leave. He looked back to the screen just in time to see her flip him the bird as she danced out, already panting hard and looking for another conduit. His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He finished his coffee in a long draught and turned again to the story.
He finished it lamely with a simple "But then the fat man died, the end."

2008-03-27T12:17:00.000-05:00

Sound my barbaric Yip under the floorboards of the world

2008-03-26T22:22:00.001-05:00

You can't find the source of the fire until you put it out. See? Your limits are insane. What kind of silliness is that? It's like not knowing who you are until you're dead. OK, so maybe it's not like that.
Maybe it's like waking up on the East side of the tracks when you went to bed on the West and you have no memory of moving. It can't be much like that, though, 'cuz it's more like opening a large box of coat hanger, all lined up and perfect, all white plastic and yellow wire, full of potential and possibility, but then actually only full of the potential and possibility of clothes hung up in the closet. No, it's not like that.
Maybe it's like being drunk on a pole twenty or thirty feet in the air, and needing very badly to eat a pizza, but having only miles and miles of green crepe paper whistling in the breeze, smelling of dust and pressed wood, just generally not being useful. Perhaps it's like driving a little car up the side of a glass wall while a Peruvian Lion licks the bottoms of your feet, slowly and sensually, clearly trying to get you to crash the damn thing.
No. It's not like any of those things. Maybe it's like not knowing who wrote a particular little snippet of language until you get to the bottom. No, nothing's like that:

2008-03-26T22:21:00.000-05:00

Absolutely Chuffed, Your Honor

2008-03-10T15:49:00.000-05:00

"I've lost my way." He looks puzzled, but not unpleasantly.
"No, you're in the right place." She stands in the doorway, blocking the traffic which consists, at present of one. Her robes are black and fall to the floor in sheets.
"No, I'm not supposed to be here." He turns his head to the left, like a curious dog.
"You are. I have the list, and you're right here. See." She makes no motion, moves only her mouth.
"Where? I don't see anything." He cranes his neck to see if she has, perhaps, moved an arm.
"Nothing? Well, maybe you're in the wrong place." Her tone betrays nothing.
"Well, I was told that I was to be here. I was told that this was the right place." He relaxes, visibly more comfortable.
"Who told you that?" She moves her elbows up to cover the entire width of the jamb and sets her feet further apart as if preparing for a charge. She bends her knees and lowers her center of gravity.
"Well, some lady in a doorway. I didn't get her name. She was quite adamant." He smiles and puts his finger to his nose.
"Well, what are you supposed to be doing here." Her voice sounds steady, still as sure as when she first blocked his way.
"I have no idea why I'm here, only that I was told to be here." He laughs a little on the last word, spiraling it into several ghost syllables.
"Well then, you'd better stay." She bends her knees still further, setting for a charge that doesn't materialize.
"I'll do that." He turns and slides down the wall, moving to a sitting position.
"You do that." She relaxes a little, but remains vigilant, "but you'll need to clear the hall for the other people. They'll be along soon."
"What other people?" He smiles up from the ground.
"The others who are coming down the hall. You can hear them if you try." Her voice finally takes on a note of agitation although in the main it remains calm.
"They will step over me." His eyelids droop.
"They will not. I have seen them before, and they are not the type to step over ones such as yourself." Her eyes dart from him to the inky distance.
"Oh, they're not so bad. Just give them a shance." His speech begins to slur.
"No, sir, they are quite as bad as all that. Please sir, go back the way you came!" She shakes a raised finger in his direction, her gaze now held by the hallway.
"Nigh-nigh," he says, and his body fades into the stucco of the wall.
"Well, he can't say I didn't try," she says, and shrugs.

2008-03-10T02:41:00.000-05:00

"I don't even know why I'm here."

2008-03-10T02:40:00.000-05:00

“I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Well, that might be a good place to start.” He was angry and sarcastic, and looked as if the one thing he truly wanted to do was slam the door in my face. He didn’t, but I could tell that he wanted to. It’s not that he doesn’t have a good reason, really. If our roles were reversed, I’m not sure I would have been able to show the same restraint. After all, I did practically rip his heart out of his chest and do my own special version of “Riverdance” all over it. And I don’t suppose sleeping with his older brother helped matters much.
Why had I gone to see him that day? Was I looking for some sort of forgiveness? I seriously hoped not because I doubted that it would be forthcoming given the barely restrained anger dancing across his face. Or maybe I was just looking to torture myself further by reminding myself of what I’d given up. And for what? What did I get out of the whole situation?
Absolutely nothing, unless you counted the guilty conscience that has become my closest companion.

2007-11-30T19:51:00.000-06:00

The two men were sitting on cardboard boxes, awash in a sea of the same. The halogen lamps above could not quite cut through the dank dust of the warehouse. The larger of the two men wore a heavy coat and knitted stocking cap. His knit gloves had the fingers cut out. He held a clipboard in his right hand and a pen in his left. He made tick marks as he talked.
"Ok, Derrick. What're we out of?"
"Well," said the smaller man, breathing on and rubbing together his hands for warmth, "We got no more 'them mushrooms."
"I don't see no mushrooms on the list." The big man bared his teeth for a moment.
"Not mushroom. You know. Them tree ear things that grow on the insides of the boxes?"
"Ain't no tree ears neither. Here, I'll put it under 'Fungus-comma-general.' What else. I seen empty boxes over th' East wing."
"Yeah, them boxes with the lifesize samurai fighter. We're out o' them."
"What? We just got them in!"
"Yeah, but they're popular. I can't help if folk like them. You want to tell folk what to buy? You tell them to buy remoras. We got crates of them down basement."
"Yeah? We got lots of sharks left over?"
"Nah, we been out o' sharks since Wednesday."
"Well. what good are sharks without remoras, I asks ya'. Some people don't know nothin from nothin." The big man made a note on his pad. "Folk don't like no remoras but they want sharks. All of it just comes down to image."
"Yup." The smaller man shrugged.
"What else we out of?" The big man flipped a page and tapped the end of his pen on the page, making tiny dots of ink.

2007-11-30T14:31:00.000-06:00

no more fungus, samurai sharks

2007-08-29T10:06:00.001-05:00

if there's anybody out there

2007-05-27T16:33:00.000-05:00

How The Workers Are Enticed

2007-05-19T14:54:00.000-05:00

The Incredible Hulk suffers from bulimia

2007-05-19T14:42:00.000-05:00

(off in my head)

What's that, Mr. Jacobs? Third quarter earnings? Yes, sorry. I wasn't paying attention. I must have been off in my head. I was imagining I was at the beach with my old ex-girlfriend Cyndy. She's the one who died because I was too much of a pussy to pull her out of a burning building. How's that? Yes, I'll get to the new memo folder covers in a moment. First I want to tell you about my ex-wife Jacquelyn and our son Tyler. He was stillborn. The doctors said it wasn't our fault, but I know better. Tyler died because God hates me. It's true. Jacquelyn killed herself less than a month after Tyler's death. She took a whole bottle of sleeping pills. I blame myself, of course. When I saw that CVS was having a sale on sleeping pills, I just had to stock up. Jackie's in a better place, I suppose. And I sleep like a baby, thanks to those pills. Not that I would know how a baby sleeps, seeing as how mine is dead.

Come again, sir? No, I don't know how the new hard drive got re-formatted. It certainly wasn't me. The only time I use my computer is to play solitaire. Or sometimes to open emails. My friend Bill sent me one last week. I didn't open it right away. I figured it was just another bunch of golf jokes. Bill cracks me up. How was I to know Bill was emailing me his suicide note? I could have saved him if I had opened it and sent him a text message on my Blackberry. Too late, I guess.

Anyway, I apologize, Mr. Jacobs. I'll get back on task real soon. What's that? What did you just say? I'm fired? Well, Mr. Jacobs, that's too bad. It's too bad I put mercury in the water cooler. And took the fuses out of the air handler. That's why the A/C doesn't work. Hot in here, right? Been drinking lots of water. Water with mercury in it.

You will all die.

2007-05-19T13:23:00.000-05:00

off in my head

2007-05-14T13:36:00.000-05:00

There are things to be said for it. They aren't very common things, but they will do.
You can't staple it to your finger. I mean, people try, but they don't succeed. It wiggles, in an odd sort of way, one which is really just a trick of the light. It's hard to convince oneself that the wiggling isn't real, though.
You can find it in many fine stores. Not stores near you, probably, but fine ones, nonetheless. Maybe, the reason they're so fine...
But I digress.
It lubricates. Anything. It repels water, and repulses parking maids. It does it all, but it does it in a very unpleasant way. You don't want details, but if you just have nothing to do this afternoon, check out our ad in Myrtle Beach Chronicles of Sex and Houseware. It's gross. There's pictures.
You can even cut a tin can with it! If you've got too many cans! And time! You Loser!

2007-05-14T12:58:00.000-05:00

Smile, You Shrimpy Pill!

2007-05-05T15:13:00.000-05:00

Do you want me to love you or do you just want to be loved?

2007-05-05T15:01:00.000-05:00

I was out of staples. I'd been in the office all weekend. We were gearing up for a huge PR blitz. The deal was to hand out free toasters to everyone who signed up for one of our fraudulent high interest credit cards. What they didn't know was that each toaster came equipped with a tiny hard drive which functioned as a data logger. We would spy on people, learn where they went, what TV shows they liked, how often they made love. Then we could use this information to sell them things.

I went to the supply cabinet looking for staples. It was locked. Damn Rollins! He was in charge of supplies, the bastard. I hated him. He never worked on weekends. He always took an hour and a half lunch. At meetings he'd compliment the boss on her nails. That bitch was forever getting her nails done. I needed staples. I had to staple together 3000 more press kits or I'd have to spend all of Monday in the barrel. Believe me, you don't want to be forced to go to the barrel. That's worse than losing the Special Olympics.

I used my pocketknife to pry open the door. I fucked up the hinges and the hasp. I didn't care. I yanked on the door and it flew open. Rollins jumped out. He'd been hiding in there, waiting for me. He took out a staple gun and shot staples in my eyes, blinding me. The pain was incredible. Then Rollins threw me down on the table and stapled my ears to it. He pulled my arms down to my sides and stapled the webbing of my fingers to the table. He stapled my clothes to it so I couldn't get up.

Clack clack "AAAHHH!" That was the noise the stapler made, and the sound of my frantic screams. Rollins was totally silent. He was totally silent as he doused me in gasoline and lit me on fire. The boss lady would come in Monday to scrape up my ashes so they'd be trapped under her fake nails. Thus she would own my soul in the afterlife.

I hate my job.

2007-04-30T13:19:00.001-05:00

Clack clack Aaaah!

2007-04-26T18:43:00.000-05:00

I'll tell you a story. You won't like it. It will be about a boy who finds his little toy rattle, and isn't happy in the end, because he's all grown up, and the rattle is still the same damn rattle it used to be. He's older. It's older. He's more mature. It's a stupid rattle.

Oh?

You heard that one? Well, I got the old one about the man who stays the night in a haunted house, with his dog, I think. The dog is sitting by the fire, and there's a bloody head outside. Well, I kind of spoiled the punch line of that one.

Hmm?

"And it was a bloody head." That's the punch line. "And a head fell down the chimney, and it was a bloody head." The head sings to the dog, the dog sings to the head, and the head comes down the chimney. You know that one too? Yeah, it's either a classic, or one by Alvin Schwartz. I don't remember which. Either way, it's an old one, like I said.

You heard the one about the eagle and the mouse? No, I didn't think so. I heard that one just yesterday, sitting at the bus stop. It seems that this eagle was-

Seventh street.

None of your business. I can take the damn bus anywhere I want to. May I continue?

Fine. So, it seems that this eagle was flying over his kingdom, and he espied a mouse. The mouse was just sitting in a patch of grass, not moving, but the eagle caught sight of just his tail.

Hmm?

No, all eagles are kings. This one wasn't anything special. Every eagle is the king of his territory. That's why he can hunt what he pleases. Even human children who ask too many questions. Now, if I may continue?

Thank you. He caught sight of the mouse's tail. He flew in two large loops, which is what Eagles do when they want to think. He flew first to the left, looking to see if the mouse would move, and then to the right. The mouse didn't move. He shrieked his hellacious Eagle shriek, which makes even the least timid of mouses jump, then freeze. The mouse did not move.

The Eagle was puzzled. He could see the mouse's tail, but he couldn't make the mouse move. He flew down lower, keeping first his right, and then his left eye on the tail. The Eagle made smaller and smaller circles as he came slowly down, keeping his eyes on the tail all the time. He screamed again, his loudest scream, a scream which gave him a sense of pride no Eagle should be without, but which most Eagles only feel seldom, when they scream a truly terrifying scream. The mouse did not move. Only his tail stuck out of the grass. The Eagle, giving up, finally dove, grabbed the tail in his left talon, and flapped back toward the sky.

He was suddenly beset as a mouse leapt from a nearby rock. The Mouse landed on the Eagle's back and began to stab him with a tiny knife. This confused the Eagle, who did the only thing he could: He dropped the tail and dropped like a stone to the Earth. The mouse continued stabbing, and as the Eagle died, he saw that the mouse had a tiny tourniquet on his tail. The last thing that proud Eagle heard was the giddy laughter of this tiny dynamo of a mouse.

Hmm?

No, it has a moral. The moral is this: be damn careful. Mice are sneaky, and some of them have knives. Also, some mice will cut off their tails to catch an eagle.

No, you can't have another. That's three stories. Now go to bed, and sweet dreams. Spread your sleepy wings and fly, but watch out for sneaky mice.

2007-04-26T18:42:00.000-05:00

30% Chance

2007-03-29T18:30:00.000-05:00

I put on over on him. He put one over on me. Tit for tat, right? I mean, sort of.
I hid his keys for like half an hour. He was jumping around and yelling by the end of it, and I got scared. He said he'd kill me. I thought it was, y'know, metaphorical. I thought it was like the way you say, "I'll Kick Your Ass!" You don't mean that you will literally kick somebody's ass, but rather that you will hit and beat them until they are soundly licked. I say he took it harder than he had to. I mean, I didn't even hide his keys very well.

They were on the counter anyway. I dropped them into an empty coffee cup that was sitting right next to where they had been, and I turned the cup upside down. All he had to do was turn over the cup and there they were, safe and sound. I even dried the cup out with the hem of hem of my shirt, so no coffee would get on his keys.
Now, here I am in the trunk of his car. I can hear him digging out there. He knows I can hear it. He knows I know he's out there. He's fucking with me. Not like you'd be fucking with somebody, if you were, like, fucking them, but like, if you were fucking with their head. Like if you knew they were scared to die, and you had them tied in a trunk and were digging a hole out in the middle of nowhere. And if you were, it sounds like, giggling a little and kind of talking to yourself. If you'd hit them a couple'a times with a tire iron, and you were thinking, maybe, they though you were going to let them go in a minute, and the two of you would just agree that there would be no more key-hiding in the future. You know, that kind.

I guess it'd be OK, really, if that was all. I mean, sure, I hid his keys, and I probably deserve some kind of lesson, but I don't see why Linda's here. I mean, she didn't hide anybody's keys. Again, she's kind of an object lesson. He's always using Linda as an object lesson for me. Things could be worse. I could be gagged. At least I can still breathe OK. I'll probably get over this eventually, I just wish my wife wasn't here. It makes a fellow feel uncomfortable, not only not being able to get himself out of a tough jam, but being stuck in it with his wife. What's a guy to do?

Lay here and hope this is all a joke, really. That, and remember never to hide his buddy's keys any more.

2007-03-29T17:40:00.000-05:00

It's too bad my wife is here.

2007-03-07T11:07:00.000-06:00

They despised each other in secret.

2007-02-28T15:37:00.000-06:00

Oh yes, Professor Makebelieve, I would just love it if you could arrange a meeting between me and my future. That would be awesome, totally awesome as a matter of fact. Because, you know, I'm not competent enough to meet my own future. No, I've stumbled through life up to this point, subsisting on whatever scraps of food I can salvage from the trash heap. I sort of just stroll along feeling sorry for myself and angering the people I meet.

So by all means, tell me where my life will be in another five years. Hell, make it ten years. You see, I have a theory. It goes like this: Things will never change. I will never have a big house or a fancy car. I'll always have to scrape by. I'll always have to content myself with watching other people succeed. That's all there is for me. All I have to look forward to is a lifetime of coming in last. And let's not forget, nearly half of that lifetime is already past. You might as well kill me now.

Could I be wrong perhaps? Please prove me wrong. I need a reason to keep going. If you can't give me a decent future, maybe you could lie.

Please be a decent person and lie to me. Lies are all I have. Thank you.

2007-02-28T09:47:00.001-06:00

May we introduce you to your future?

2007-02-23T13:51:00.000-06:00

Where have all the funny papers gone?

2007-02-17T08:40:00.000-06:00

The price of violence

2007-02-16T18:21:00.000-06:00

I was not using them anyway

2007-02-16T18:12:00.000-06:00

(the future we forgot to have)

What happened? To us, I mean. There was an us, once.
They say life is what happens when you're busy making plans.
Well to Hell with that. I never listen to They.

There is a greater thing. What can I call it?
It was what killed us, the only us I ever knew.
Now there's just me, and I am sorry company.

We would have had a garden,
With roses, collards and summer squash.
Our children would have laughed
And slid through the years and shaken off the cruelty of living.

For all of life is suffering. You knew it, even though you are no Buddhist.
Neither am I. Striving for Buddhahood has its benefits,
The greatest of which is nothing. But in the end
It is too much work.

Better to shrug off the hopelessness of our days.
Better to laugh as we roll the stone, as we watch it fall again,
Our Sisyphean secret orgasm.

To Hell with it all,
With gardens, children, suffering, and even Buddha.
There never was an us
And for that I would give thanks,
If anyone remained to accept them.

2007-02-16T10:58:00.000-06:00

the future we forgot to have

2007-02-15T15:24:00.000-06:00

If God cared for us at all, he wouldn't let us die on this foresaken rock, so far from home and all we've ever loved. He wouldn't punish us for a simple mistake -- no, not even that, just a mechanical glitch that no one could have seen coming. Pressure was stable; the engines were at optimum levels; there was no cause for concern. It wasn't negligence but dumb, bad luck that blinded our craft. It was a faulty coupling deep inside that caused the engine to sputter, then stall and die. That is why we crashed. Our fate was sealed before we left port. But that alone can't be enough for God to let his chosen people die.

The engineers are not so sure -- they have always been a superstitious lot, and the shipboard priest has not done anything to help allay their fears. God is not mocked, she tells them, and we have not kept up our daily prayers, our supplications, our sacrificial offerings. Perhaps we do deserve to be stranded here; perhaps this is part of God's plan. Perhaps, but then so too must be our desire to leave, just as so too was our original mission. That, we know for certain, was God's work. Is that not why we went out to seek the stars? What sort of God would send us out just to die, his work yet undone?

Some of the crew have suggested we bring God's word to some of the inhabitants of this strange rock, but even if that were possible, where to begin? It swarms with life, a terrible chaos, and none of these species seem in the least intelligent. They are not the chosen. They are not God's people. Already, they have attacked one of our patrols, left two of my crewmen dead. Was it our gray skin that frightened them, or was it, more likely, that they are heathen and backward creatures?

If God cared for us at all, he would not let us die here.

2007-02-15T14:42:00.000-06:00

If God cared for us at all

2007-02-14T12:02:00.000-06:00

to your heart's desire

2007-02-09T19:36:00.000-06:00

There is nothing wrong with your thermostat.

2007-02-06T16:58:00.000-06:00

The Devil's job is to make it real.

2007-02-06T12:07:00.000-06:00

I expected something different.

2007-02-04T18:40:00.000-06:00

You know I didn't mean it

2007-02-02T15:18:00.000-06:00

Stop being such a coatrack

2007-02-01T18:41:00.000-06:00

How to make sure your children waste their youth

2007-02-01T18:27:00.000-06:00

(that's just something he says)

"I will spare your life," the executioner said. I was relieved.
My life had flashed before my eyes. The emperor sat on his bejeweled throne, saying nothing, betraying no emotion. It was his decision, obviously. It was the emperor who was allowing me to live. Why had he spared me? I could not imagine. I had taken his daughter's virginity, burned down a third of his kingdom, hamstrung his horses and blackmailed his generals into having gay sex with each other. The generals had all subsequently killed themselves out of shame. I had poisoned the emperor's food and used my metaphysical powers to turn his rivers and lakes into boiling blood. I had eaten all his snack cakes. I had borrowed his car and brought it back with a scratch on the hood and an empty gas tank. I had used my money and connections to make "Achy Breaky Heart" a number one smash hit in the kingdom. I had hacked into the massive computer system that controlled all the movie theaters in the kingdom, and played "Ishtar" again and again until the people rioted. I had given every teenage girl in the kingdom a cell phone with unlimited minutes and "Madonna's Greatest Hits" ringtones. I had secretly replaced the coffee in the emperor's castle with Folger's Crystals, and installed Rosie O'Donnell as minister of finance. Given all that, it was nothing short of a miracle that the emperor was sparing my life. I lifted my arms in thanks just as the executioner split my head in half with his war hammer.
"But...you told me....you'd let me live..." I gasped.
The emperor patted his executioner on the shoulder and gave me a grin.
"That's just something he says."

2007-02-01T08:57:00.000-06:00

That's just something he says.

2007-01-29T21:08:00.000-06:00

Don't. Just don't.

2007-01-27T11:36:00.000-06:00

The ducks have eaten me again

2007-01-27T11:24:00.000-06:00

(the oceans are... different)

"Look at that," Glorvon said. "The oceans are different. Don't they seem a little bigger than they were last week?"
"It matters not," replied Flaxitron, tweaking knobs on the control panel of their surveillance pod.
"We shall enslave the humans, deeper oceans or not."
"Still, though," Glorvon said, "it seems a little odd, don't you think?"
"You bore me with your incessant observations, Glorvon."
"Well, excuse me for being born, Mister Serious. I was just making small talk."
"Ours is not the making of talk that is small. The purpose of our mission is to gather information on the inferior human race, that we might better infiltrate and destroy them from within."
"You know, I've been thinking about that. Maybe we could make friends with them instead."
"Friends?"
"Sure. It seems like we could conquer them more effectively by gaining their trust. We've got the podcam up and running."
"Podcam?"
"Yeah, you know, the one my Dad got me for my 347th Synthesis Day. We could make a video for youtube or something."
"A most excellent idea, Glorvon," said Flaxitron. "Look into your podcam now, young Glorvon. You shall begin taping at my command."
"Really? Wow, this is going to be great!"
Glorvon turned towards the podcam, mounted on the dashboard of their control panel. As soon as he did, Flaxitron took out his death ray and vaporized Glorvon's tentacled head.
"Fraternization with the enemy shall not be tolerated," Flaxitron grunted.

2007-01-26T09:32:00.000-06:00

"The oceans are...different."

2007-01-25T14:58:00.000-06:00

I want to go home.

2007-01-19T19:42:00.000-06:00

(if anybody asks)

Tell them I'm sick. Because I am sick. The stories are eating away and fighting inside of me again. I can't sleep. I can't talk to anyone. It takes all my energy to put on another pot of coffee and take a shower. The stories won't leave me be. There's the one about the privileged white kid who falls in love with the beautiful woman from Nigeria. They get close but she keeps telling him she isn't ready for sex. Finally it comes out that her family had her circumcised. Half her clitoris is gone and sex is nothing but torture for her. She cries because she thinks her man is going to leave. Instead he tells her how much he loves her, and they'll never be apart. See? This is the kind of story I'm talking about. Then there's one based on a dream I had when I was six. My family has a pet rat. He grew too big for the house and we put him in the sewer. Every Friday we go visit Ratty, feeding him table scraps through the sewer grate. Then one day a sinister man tells my father he's behind on sewer rent. Ratty gets evicted and we never see him again. Are you with me? Heartbreaking, yet ridiculous. I bet I've got a million of them. I can't get them all down. I spend most of my time trying not to suffocate on them. This is what I'm faced with every day. So if anybody asks, tell them I'm bedridden. Tell them I've left town. Tell them the mob finally got me. Tell them I found out I'm just a cartoon character. Tell them anything, but don't let them know I've shut myself away trying to unload all these stories before the hernia cracks my spine in two.

2007-01-19T18:20:00.000-06:00

if anybody asks

2007-01-18T22:07:00.000-06:00

(sometimes no matter how hard you try)

You still get run over by a log truck every day. Things come apart. You stand in line. You fill out all the forms and pay your taxes. You teach your kids the value of a buck. You rotate your tires and keep your bearings lubricated. You even cover your hand tools with a sheen of vacuum pump oil. You do all that, and you do it every day for your whole life, and what happens? You get audited. Your kid gets hooked on angel dust. Your tires blow out and the circus leaves town for good. It happened to me one time. I had gotten the lead in a play. It was my big break. I was going to be famous. Then came the day of the big premiere, and I got wet. Some joker dropped a water balloon on me. You know what happens when I get wet? I turn into a car, just like on that old TV show. So, I drove myself to the theater, but of course I couldn't get through the door. Jesus H. Christ on a corn dog stick. I'd be better off playing the lottery. Want some gum?

2007-01-18T17:27:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try...

2007-01-17T05:16:00.000-06:00

when perfect is not good enough

2007-01-12T18:12:00.000-06:00

(don't quit yet)

My fingers turned yellow and so did my teeth.
Don't quit yet the girl said.
I ran out of money.
Don't quit yet girl.
I lost my breath and labored up stairs.
Don't quit yet.
I started a fire. I stained my new couch.
Don't quit girl.
My friends and family shook their heads.
Don't quit.
But I can't even meet their eyes I told her.
Don't quit yet.
But I'm beautiful. I'm a Princess. I should never be unhappy. I should love myself, not you.
Don't quit yet the girl said.
I can't even do yoga or ride my bike. Everything's dark even my eyes now.
Don't quit yet.
That's all she ever said.
Don't.
Fuck you. Stop saying that. Go and die. Leave me be.
I quit. She's still here. I'm not friends with her though.

2007-01-12T12:48:00.000-06:00

don't quit yet

2007-01-11T05:18:00.000-06:00

The machine that would not burn

2007-01-10T12:00:00.000-06:00

freeze-dried android

2007-01-09T12:00:00.000-06:00

At first he thought she'd understand.

2007-01-08T05:29:00.000-06:00

The Most Outrageous Opening Line

2007-01-08T05:20:00.000-06:00

(when they accepted her application)

She very nearly flooded her underpants with delight. She screamed and jumped up and down on the rickety wooden deck attached to her apartment building.
"What's up girl?" her friend Gloria shouted from below. "You win the lottery or something?"
"No!" she shouted back. "The Starbucks coffee company just bought the rights to my name for $250,000!"
"That's great!" Gloria replied. "Now you can get that boob job and go back to modeling school. Oh, Wendy, I'm so proud of you."
As if on cue, a massive figure appeared in the blue sky. It was the mermaid from the Starbucks logo. She wasn't smiling and inviting customers to enjoy delicious coffee. She was shooting bolts of lightning from her mouth.
"YOUR NAME IS STARBUCKS VENTI LATTE! NOT WENDY!" the mermaid proclaimed in a voice that shook the cars in the parking lot.

2007-01-07T22:02:00.000-06:00

When they accepted her application

2007-01-06T22:01:00.000-06:00

This was the defining moment.

2007-01-05T23:15:00.000-06:00

I walked alone through oceans of broken sand and skeletal trees. The swamp reflected centuries of forbidden currency. It echoed through my head and shattered the memories I once had of you. We were younger then, and beautiful. Our skin was radiant and we feared nothing. We could not have known that our trek to the jungle would be the knife that sliced our shared arteries. We could not have foretold the future, and even if we could we would have ignored all the evidence. We were brazen and our heads were hard as petrified rifles. We took orders from nobody. Then we woke up and saw that we had gotten older. Our frozen moments had become glaciers and were moving so slowly as to be negligible. We took the train and you got off at your stop, leaving me to ponder my existence and fend for myself amongst the wild beasts lurking in the wilderness. Today I ate my Frosted Flakes and wept, for Tony the Tiger brought back our shared past. "They're great!" you always used to tell me. And I believed you. No matter what happened, how many of our friends fell and never got up again, I was sure there would be a prize at the bottom of the box. But there are no prizes here, only tigers, darkness, and solitary bones.

2007-01-05T20:38:00.000-06:00

finish with tigers

2007-01-04T21:27:00.000-06:00

"Look," said Julia. "Already your skin is flaking off and your eyes have turned the color of copper. I told you this was a bad idea."
"No it's not," Raymond answered. "I am going to set a World's Record for Most Vinyl Records Eaten In One Sitting. I can do it with you or without you."
"You can't do anything without me. You can't even move. You polished off our last Rachmaninoff LP."
"Are you serious?"
"As a heart attack. I am not enabling you, Ray. I am not going to the thrift store to pick up another load of Peter, Paul and Mary, Charley Pride, Neil Sedaka and Steve Jones post Sex Pistols records."
"Please, baby," Ray pleaded. He threw up, an unnatural and sickening mass of grayish vomit. "Think about the future. Think about our children."
"Children? We'll never have children. You'll probably go impotent if you don't die first. And I think your skin is never going back to its natural color."
"Julia! I need this. We both need this."
"No, we don't. I'm leaving. I can't stand to see you poison yourself. I'm sorry, Ray, but it's not as if I didn't warn you."
He was too weak to plead with her. He heard her footsteps on the carpet, the door opening, then slamming. His stomach heaved and churned. Black blood poured from his nose. He needed to clear his head with some good mood music.
"Damn, it's too bad I ate my last David Bromberg record," Ray thought idly as the darkness closed in, letting him know he was blind now.

2007-01-04T19:50:00.000-06:00

It's not as if I didn't warn you

2007-01-03T14:09:00.000-06:00

If I have learned anything

2007-01-02T14:40:00.000-06:00

If I remember this correctly

2007-01-01T19:53:00.000-06:00

If I could have just one thing

2006-12-17T15:04:00.000-06:00

Hundlegreth was sick of his job. He was a consultant for a large law firm in Manhattan. They'd call him in when a particularly sticky plea bargain required a spell of some kind. He'd been in the New York Times when he testified in the Mulroney murder case. Mike Mulroney had killed his business rival's wife using a spell from the Californian Book Of Darkness. Hundlegreth abhorred the stench of celebrity. He couldn't even go to the magic shop without some half assed pagan approaching him for a mystical autograph. One quiet Sunday he left his modest townhome for a walk. He needed to clear his head. He hadn't gone two blocks when a young girl with pink hair and a unicorn t-shirt spotted him.
"Hey! You're Hundlegreth! I'm a big fan."
The old warlock sighed, but put on his game face. "It's always nice to meet a fan," he told her. "I see you're wearing a unicorn shirt."
"Yeah, totally! Isn't it cool? Unicorns are such a source of power. I play one in a LARP that some of us do. I made the costume myself."
Something about this girl made Hundlegreth's gorge rise in him. She struck him as especially flaky. She was one of the people who gave magic a bad name. He could read people quite well, having been plying the dark arts for nearly five decades.
"I love unicorns too. Hey, you know what I like to do with unicorns?"
"No, what?"
"Fire up the grill and make some uniburgers. Come on over sometime."
The girl burst into tears. Hundlegreth smiled smugly to himself and continued on his walk.

2006-11-15T14:35:00.000-06:00