“Yesterday, upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away!”
–William Hughes Mearns, “Antigonish”
Category: Fantasy
Fear and Loathing Amongst the Ducks of the Serengeti (or, Coup D’etat Foie Gras) (In memory of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson) by Leila Allison
Last night I dreamt of the happy-clappy pixie-land extolled by the counterculture of yore. That hippie Eden where daisies shot from rifles because everyone there was so high on lysergic acid that they no longer experienced reality. It was a place populated by paisley-eyed toad kissers who honestly believed that they were the first generation of paisley-eyed toad kissers who knew that the world sucked and that they alone could kiss toads into The Gurus of Change. Viva Revolucion! Alas, psychedelic drugs and fairy tale-belief systems are the stuff of idealistic chimeras. It all eventually wears off and leaves you cold and cynical. By and by you come to the hideous conclusions that the Good Guys never stay good after they win the Revolution, and that every toad you kiss has a way of changing into Richard Nixon.
Labradoodle, Lippybyte, Tabby and Shogg: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison
But First Another Erudite Introduction by That Noted Supernaturalist Miss Stoker-Belle
Ha! I’ve at last wrested control of the bold font header from Ms. Allison. In the past she has used the header as a platform to throw shade my way, which I’ve been forced to refute in the first hundred words or so in previous displays of my genius. In yet another stroke of brilliance on my part, I recently introduced both the disinfecting and misremembering properties of anise del toro to Ms. Allison. She’s been gazing out her office window for a number of hours now. The Great Authoress is temporarily beyond the grasp of reality, and incapable of doing more than creating mist on the small mirror I occasionally place under her nose, let alone able to sling further shade on the intricacies of my personality. Rest assured, she’s fine. “Comfortably numb,” as the song goes. Really. Thus I have never been better.
Right?
Mercy by Martina Braunegger
The slippery slipper slipped from my hands. The glass leaving its bloody traces; a path of dark red leading to absolutely nowhere. Straight into silent nothingness. How fitting! My vision blurred, my skin scarred and my life shattered into tiny pieces. Every time I tried to pick them up, to put them back together, they cut me again and I could hear the devil’s familiar laugh paralyzing my everything. My life rejecting me. Still, I was weirdly proud that I did this all to myself. All by myself. I didn’t need a Prince Charming to do the shattering. I was perfectly capable of ruining my own life.
Sun Lun by Frederick K Foote
Solitude’s slight light falls faintly across my folded hands
Surrounded by the vacuum of his absence I shiver
a freedom vibration to the tune of Footloose and Fancy-free
Fiona and the Footfallfollower: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison
But First, Noted Supernaturalist Miss Stoker-Belle, Unnecessarily and Inexplicably Evacuates the Contents of Her Mind
Before I educate the readers on the ways of the Footfallfollower ghost, I’d like to introduce an innovation to the world of literature; an innovation of my invention (here, I will allow the suspense to build). Of course no stylistic innovation can spontaneously occur without inspiration. Hell, even Shakespeare played Hollingshead for a stooge–Right? In my case the Big Idea presented itself in the otherwise useless world of modern pop music–specifically that dodge-word creators of such use to obscure naked acts of plagiarism–namely, “sampling.”
Tabitha and the Tintintinabulator: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison
But First, A Word From “That” Noted Supernaturalist, Miss Renfield Stoker-Belle
Unlike you “real” guys, I, as a Fictional Character, am able to speak directly to my “Creator” (aka, the nom de plume called “Leila Allison”). There ain’t no praying involved, nor are there a bunch of “mysterious ways” to incorrectly interpret. No, my Creator isn’t the type of deity whose image might be gleaned from the strewn innards of a calzone. To put it plainly, we meet and I tell her how it’s going to be whenever she wants something from me. Such happened when Allison came around and muttered something about having me take over the Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical introductions on account of my having actually written a Feeble Fable and appearing as a “Supernaturalist” in past stories.
At long last Stardom! Right?
Witness Mark by Emily A Garfield
A witness mark is a groove, a dent, left by people gone before. Sometimes they’re deep, gouged, gone over so many times by people, living and reliving moments on moments. Sometimes they’re just a scratch, easily sanded away.
It was Catia’s first time waking up in a coffin. It would not be her last.
Advice From the Otherside: How to Avoid Literary Success in Life and Be Considered a Genius in Death By The Late Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender (Leila Allison)
But First a Word From Judge Montague’s Great-to-the-4th Granddaughter
Whenever a woman is constantly besieged by unseen faces and disembodied voices, it is for the best that she believes that the legions of non-violent hoo-doos and haints that only she experiences are real, and are not indicative of a mental illness (technical name for the affliction: scewious loosiest). Such is the case with Yours Truly. And although you may think that my thinking “it is for the best…” is misguided, I assure you that the hoo-doos and haints (whether they be actual or of my own creation) want only happiness for everyone.
Ship by L’Erin Ogle
Do I love?
Of course, Ship can love.
I mean, who the fuck are you to ask?
