I heard my orchids screaming last night. They were angry I did not kiss them and spit blood on their pistils. My body was numb from the combination of red wine and rum. The day had been full of anxiety, so I made the decision to exhaust myself with harmful liquid.
Vince hid the look of disbelief as he stared at the twenty-something punk who had just asked him the ridiculous question. Worse, had done it with a smirk that told him right away what he already suspected from the beginning.
He didn’t have a chance at this job.
“Out, out!” roared the unfolding supernova, its end birthing one last litter of photons into the universe. Out these photons flew, alongside their elemental brethren, into every direction of this breathless third dimension. Out they flew, these fairies of light, into the stunning dark.
Crazy Ed Mahoney went out the back door on Monday to urinate in his garden. He believed, incorrectly, that he was saving on his water bill. His neighbors had given up on changing his ways. After seeing him in the act a few times, they learned not to look in the direction of his backyard at 7am, 1pm and 4pm when Ed would urinate like clockwork. Whatever else was wrong with Ed, he had an excellent prostate.
Craterville came up like the rock came down, in one helluva hurry. When the dust cleared, there was a town where the hole used to be, and a hundred or more shafts were slicing down into the earth. After six men were shot, five of them bushwhacked, one surprising a thief deep in his digs, the saloon owner, Harry Wilkes, called a meeting of town businessmen. Wilkes once was a conductor who got off his train one day outside Omaha and never got back on.
Continue reading “The Craterville Catastrophe by Tom Sheehan”
The Land Rover is making an awful grinding sound because Dave took a bump on the beach too fast while staring at his reflection in the rearview mirror. I hear a splat and look behind to see we’ve run over another jellyfish and Dave’s back staring at his reflection again.
“I look good don’t I?”
His face is gaunt and hollow with bags under his eyes from a sleepless night in the tent; his hair is greasy, unkempt, and longer than I’ve ever seen it; he is unshaven with the patchiest beard I thought possible; but he is tanned, I’ll give him that.
We are quiet, motionless and sad faced at home. Sometimes I smile just to startle you. I wonder if you still love me or if I am a particle you depend on to avoid the throb of loneliness.
We once argued, both of us so angry murderous thoughts surrounded our minds. You smacked me until I stumbled backwards against the wall, my eyes malicious with hurt and resentment. When the shock was over, I giggled and staggered towards you. “Do that more often. I love the devilish feeling it provokes.”
They vanished. One by one. The first to disappear was Pedro Nogales. Jaime Morales said he couldn’t imagine why his cousin Pedro had taken off like that. Without a word to anyone. Even more puzzling, everything that mattered to Pedro, including his favorite wide-brimmed straw hat, a black leather-look jacket he’d saved months to purchase and a shiny red polyester shirt he wore to birthday parties and dances, had been left behind.
The next morning I arrive at Judge Fong’s office at 7:30 am as ordered. I’m suffering a headache hangover. I’m mildly irritated to see the Judge’s Clerk beaming with excitement. “What’s up Bob? You look remarkably bright this morning.”
Robert “Bob” Mitchell gives me a classic shit-eating grin. “Tecumseh, your ass is grass. The Judge’s mad as hell at you for letting your client get killed. What the hell was that all about? That’s all everybody’s talking about is the Mayhew mess. The word is he was practicing voodoo–”
Continue reading “Author (Part 2 – extended version) By Frederick K Foote”
Day #16
The Little Rules of Engagement Handbook—Rule #1: Once you have arrived at your assigned location, hunker down and wait for ancillary instructions from your Assignment Coach.
4 a.m.
The crows quarrel over dead rat scraps in the gutter.
CNN, I haven’t turned it off for two weeks. Images of desert proxy-wars, percolate through the cable; ISIS driving US Iraq-abandoned Humvees and armoured vehicles; teenage recruits firing AK-47s into the Mosul sky; American Republican Party candidates debating penis size.
The assignment is to instigate a shakeup, by diverting the ginger haired sociopath’s motorcade down the street below my window. I have his picture taped to the wall, a smug man orbiting himself. He’s been granted Secret Service protection. That may complicate things. There’ll probably be revolution if I accomplish my assignment. A master class in failed democracy, for all those who care to attend.
Continue reading “The Little Rules of Engagement Handbook by dm gillis”
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