The Weeping Consort by G. Arthur Brown (Random Title #1)

This probably happened in a palace, or a manor, or a chateau. It was certainly the olden times, when the royalty had really opulent crowns, with every kind of precious stone encrusted in the solid gold spikes that surrounded a dome of purple or red velvet.

My father was there, I think, and he kept taking pictures of everyone with one of those old fashioned telephones that you have to crank. The pictures were black and white and grainy. It was the olden days.

When we got to the inner chambers, we saw a man in a pink satin suit, cape draped about him, rapier on his hip, powder in his wig. He leaned his face into his hand and wept. It was very moving, so I tried to be discrete as I sidled up next to him for the snapshot. Father cranked the handle furiously. Perhaps the best photo of me and a nobleman yet.

“I am the queen’s consort,” the man confided in us, though we told him we had no interest in protecting his feelings or his privacy. “She has cast me aside now that she has clockwork cats. Give them a winding, and they chase clockwork mice or they hop up on shelves and break dishes all day long. A real cat breaks fewer things, but these are mechanical engines and the art is in its infancy, though the Turkish men who design them are certainly very skilled. They are now working on a clockwork consort and I feel that I must challenge them to a duel, though I fear they will abscond to a secret place where I cannot track them.”

“That’s a sad tale,” my father said. “Whenever I hear a tale like that, I say so.”

“Yes, I am moved by your weeping, sir, and I would like to say that if you do challenge these artisans to a fight, I would watch and cheer for you,” I told him.

“Thanks, sirs, but it would be unseemly to have a cheering section. It is better that I do this alone.” He departed the hall, still weeping, and we could not help but think we would never see him again.

We never saw him again.

Hotdogs were being prepared in the kitchen, so we went there, seeking to dine on these fine meats. The members of the kitchen staff were engaged in scuttlebutt, thus we overheard that the consort had indeed challenged the Turks. As he battled them, he showed superior skill in fencing, but the Turkish men were of course made of metal, and every blow to their body did no real damage to them.

They then sent a clockwork swordsman after him, which finished him by sticking its blade all the way up his nobody’s-business. The clockwork swordsman was given a special award and married to the queen promptly.

“Sometimes, I am sure that life isn’t worth living,” I said to the sous-chef.

“Tell that to the mechanical consort,” he replied, making sauce.

My father took a picture of what it was like to be there in that magical time. The print is still on display, probably in a museum or a gallery or an installment of some sort. He was not given a major award, nor was he married right away to the queen, and my mother was glad of this. When we got home, we had snacks and remembered our encounter with that weeping consort, as if it were an episode of a cartoon show, though I’m fairly sure the man was actually live-action. That was just how we chose to spend our days at that time.

It was the olden days. 

Copyright 2014 G. Arthur Brown

Artwork Remedios Varo

What it Means to Mow by G. Arthur Brown

The eyes of Balkan Sam, carrier lunatic, were duple. What this means for future generations is still uncertain, but binocular vision was a particular skill of his. A few people admired and wrote about that. But I’m not one of them. I just mowed his lawn.

I mowed his lawn enough times to really get good at it, and he paid me in lengths of velvet ripped from the robes of long dead chamberlains. Balkan Sam, he’s the left side of heaven, my dad used to inscribe on vans.

I think it was already August. I was mowing and not just for vanity’s sake, but to protect the innocent from the armadas of dangerous tick terror cells that were rumored to be spider-holed betwixt blades of too-long grass hidden in respectable lawns owned by crazy men like Balkan Sam.  Being a hot summer, he brought me a glass of poison lemonade. I didn’t drink it, of course, because I’m not a fucking moron. But I thanked him and I continued my mow.

Mowing is a manly art. Man against Nature in the most primal form you can find in contemporary society. It is man with a large mechanical tool telling nature how to behave, what to look like. The mower I use is a riding mower, but it’s not a tractor. It’s the kind that drives like a tank, the kind that can do a 360-degree rotation. I’m at war with these weeds. And Balkan Sam can see that, so he brings me a lemon-grenade, but I’m not a fucking moron and I know it’s poisonous, so I don’t pull the pin and throw it to blow up the tiny arachnid enemy, who may or may not be couched tentatively under a leaf of clover, waiting to suckle the capillaries of some unsuspecting dachshund who certainly doesn’t belong on Balkan Sam’s lawn, but who tends to end up there when his owner has had far too much mead at the Renaissance Faire. 

It’s like hunting. There is a part of the male mind that needs to sit in silence and fight nature, destroying something living, or at least cutting large bits of a living thing away and leaving them to shrivel and die in the sun. Plants have a whole different kind of existence than do animals. It’s hard to say when they are alive and when they are dead, when they are the parent and when they are the offspring. Balkan Sam comes out and cuts off one of my fingers. He wants to create a rhizome that will grow new hunter-mowers, and you can sell that kind of shit on eBay now.  I’m not a fucking moron, so I don’t care that he cut my finger off because that was my poison finger and I’m not a fucking moron. I’m an adventurer, riding into the thick of a very tiny jungle, as far as five gallons can take me.

Balkan Sam rushes back out, those two googly eyes just googling at me, and tries to fill the tank with poison gas. “Save it for the Texas chambers!” I shout over the sound of some of the best mowing the East Coast is likely to see this summer. It’s already August, I think. I should be done by Christmas. 

Copyright 2013 G. Arthur Brown

Artwork Max Ernst

The Tour(ette's) Guide by Shawn Misener

This is my sixteenth glass of orange juice, and the sixteenth glass that has shattered before I can lift it to my mouth. These dry and quivering lips have grown impatient and are threatening to spew expletives in Portuguese.

I am of course naked, my skin sticky sweet and matted with pulp. The walls are on fire, as they should be, my frustration turning dragon. There is a woman in here- I am never alone- but she is fully clothed in Detroit Derby Dolls gear and stands at a modest seven inches tall.

I turn to her and sigh, “Are you the one doing this to me?”

She cackles like a demon, her bellow cutting through the smoke. “Who the fuck do you think I am? That chick from The Hunger Games? Legolas? Cupid? Any old coot with a bow and arrow?”

“I think you are some kind of evil bitch, and I would appreciate it if you crawled up my ass now.”

She languidly sits at the edge of the coffee table and dangles her bruised legs in a violently playful rhythm. “Hmmm,” she muses. “Back where I came from?”

“Back where you came from,” I hiss, nodding imperceptibly.

The South wall crumbles from the flames, thousands of neon embers billowing up and settling into constellations above us. I find myself standing, with a new glass of juice in one hand, the other one flailing behind me, trying to grab her. She is suddenly normal size, no bigger than that, a freakish giant, squatting behind me and working her forearm into my anus.

A disturbingly unreal scream escapes me in the form of a cacophony of cuckoo clocks chiming all at once. . . underwater. The glass again shatters and I use both hands in a poor attempt to extract her from inside me.

Her voice smashes into my earholes: “HOW FAR WE HAVE COME, HOW FAR WE CAN GO, I'M IN THIS SHIT, UP TO MY ELBOW.”

And she's in. The world feels perfect again, clean, delineated by straight lines and Febreeze.

I'm sitting on the couch, watching the fireplace and thinking that maybe this was the most symmetrical and pleasing wood stacking job I've ever accomplished. The fire seems content with its balance. The pictures of my eight children smile back at me, so evenly spaced, so full of goodness. I resist the urge to rearrange them in alphabetical order. The first week of the month is always by age, the second by melatonin concentration, the third by income, and not until next week do they line up by name.

I slowly swallow the orange juice, wishing I had a straw to protect my teeth from the acid. When I belch, it's her laughing. She wants me to check the lock on the door. She wants me to shout random words. She wants me to blink and blink and blink and blink. She wants me to execute the tic where I rub my eyebrows until they bleed.

“COCKSUCKER! TERRIFIC PIZZA! COCKSUCKER!” I yell, jumping from the couch to the rug. I know that she's satisfied, somewhere in there. She's satisfied as hell and she has a cool grip on my thalamus.

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Shawn Misener lives in Michigan.  His chapbooks include Dry Humping a Fire Hydrant and In Your Face(book), and he edits the absurdist blogazine Clutching at Straws.

Copyright Shawn Misener
Artwork by Max Ernst

How to: Make Your Own Live Kitten Necklace by Madeleine Swann

Live kitten necklaces: you’ve seen them on the runways, you’ve seen them on TV, but the amount they cost could leave you without emergency moustaches for an entire month. So, the question is, how can you get your own? The answer is so simple it makes my toenails bleed-make it yourself!

Step 1) Everyone knows the ultimate fashionistas wear the best kittens, so this means finding pedigrees. Find out where breeders live and either wait until they go out (check out our fabulous stalker’s range online) or ingratiate yourself into their home. One option is to wrap yourself in sisal rope to look like a scratching post, another is to cover yourself in the same wallpaper they used. Don’t pass up the opportunity to get some good people watching in, just remember not to breathe too heavily.

Step 2) The other possible route is to kidnap a breeding pair. Watch out, this involves some more DIY! (All items mentioned are available in our ‘Breaking and Entering’ Catalogue). First cut a hole in the bottom of a litter tray and fill it with tissue paper. Then sneak into the cat owner’s garden late at night and dig a hole big enough to fit yourself into. Place the litter tray above the hole and wait-it’s that simple. When the cat finally takes the plunge its best you wear head cover and this week we’re just loving the Bearskin cap.

Step 3) Take an ordinary collar that would fit your neck, the same kind you find at pet stores only stolen from local animals instead, and some clothes pegs from your neighbour’s line. Spray the pegs a colour of your choice and glue them to the collar. Now it’s time for the best bit!

Step 4) Gather up those mewling beauties and attach one to each of the waiting pegs. When picked up by the scruff of the neck they’ll automatically hang quietly so the only thing left for you to do is get out there and bust some moves until they’re too old to be cute. Then put them in the bin.

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Madeleine Swann has had several articles published by various magazines including Bizarre and The Dark Side, ranging in subject from church restorations to toe wrestling championships.

 

She writes from her home in Essex and has erotica published in the likes of the Forbidden Fiction website, The Darker Edge of Desire and ‘Big Book of Bizarro’ anthologies. She also has surreal comedy and horror in Polluto magazine, LegumeMan Books and Black Petal magazine.

 

Copyright Madeleine Swann
Artwork by Max Ernst

Rat by Darrin Naill

He spent his morning trying in vain to keep the bread from copulating with the toaster. Each time he would leave the room, he would hear the click of the toaster going down. Each time he returned, a new set of twins lay on the counter covered in butter or jam or, on one occasion, honey.

The radio in the basement was supposed to be off, but would come on of its own volition each time he passed by the closed door to the basement steps. He would hear the white noise tune itself to an all-Spanish station and then fade to pops and buzzes only to go quiet as soon as he would open the door.

The window unit air conditioner in the upstairs bedroom played country music in faint bursts as he walked by the landing.

It had been weeks since he had heard from his cousin, who had, months before, been abducted and transplanted into the television. He always told him what to do to keep the appliances in order, but now, he was increasingly lost. So he did what any sane person would do: he sat in his cat-eating recliner and stared at the blank screen to wait for the next episode of his cousin.

He called for a glass of sweet tea, and it came (though he should have requested "iced" sweet tea, as what he got was lukewarm).

After his tea, it was time to hunt. The rats, at times, rolled across the floor like giant dust bunnies. If he could manage to stand in the right spot, then the corner chair, which always tried to kill him, would slide across the floor and run over the little buggers.

Just as the chair was zeroing in on him, the TV rang. That had never happened before, so he was a little put off. He kicked the television, which made it slide across the floor, crushing the corner chair, and ending his hunting trip.

"in a moment" the television shouted "will be the end".

He looked at the television. No picture. The floor began to tremble.

"there's a hole in the bottom of the sea" a passing rat sang.

The floor gave way, folded, and swallowed. All stop.

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 Darrin Naill. 70s born, father of 3, husband of 1. Eater of meats and cheeses. Hunter and Fisher; general killer. College degreed, yet employed at a bargain. Acquainted severally, friended fewly. Bourbon.

Copyright Darrin Naill
Artwork Juan Gris

Attention to Detail 1-5 by Eric Stoveken

            1.

"I don't take Opposite Day seriously at all." she declared as she picked up her egg-shell whisk and vigorously stirred a bowl of molten steel.

2.

Bob's lawn is immaculate. This can be attributed to many things, not the least of which is the lawn comb that he developed. Carved from balsa wood, with rounded teeth perfectly spaced for his exact species of grass, it allowed him to lift and separate the individual blades before clipping them with his titanium scissors.

            3.

He was an artisanal saltmaker. He would start with a block of pink Himalayan rock salt and diamond sharpened rasp. Once he had a decent pile of shaving to work with, he brought out the jeweler's fob and his specialized tools. He would custom grind each minute granule into a perfect icosahedron.

His salt was expensive, but grotesquely wealthy foodies would put nothing else on their cantaloupe.

4.

It opened down the road from me. The Fast Food Joint. It is there for people who want to make a political statement; who want to rage against the machine; who want to follow in the footsteps of Gandhi.

You walk up to the counter, pay your $7 and they give you no food.

The chairs are also really uncomfortable.

I thought that was a nice touch.

5.

It takes her 3 weeks to read your palm. 7 hour sessions every day. She doesn’t just read the usual heart and head lines like your typical new age shop gypsy. She reads every line on your hand; she can divine the first book you ever read, the last movie you saw and the name of the last person you will ever kiss based on nothing more than the ridges of your index fingerprint.

You have to pay significantly more for her to disclose the secrets contained in the lines at the base of your thumb, but I wouldn’t recommend it to those who cherish their sanity.

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Eric Stoveken is a writer of strange and unusual tales living in eastern Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Devil Yearns for The Perfect Denver Omelet and Other Revelations, which is available from Amazon. You can visit his website at www.ericstoveken.weebly.com or follow him on Twitter @EMStoveken

Copyright 2013 Eric Stoveken

The Much Delayed Ray Fracalossy Interview

One of my favorite writers, whom I stumbled upon almost accidentally at the (currently non-operational) New Absurdist, author of Tales from the Vinegar Wasteland (rereleased by LegumeMan ), Ray Fracalossy, allowed me to pester him with a few questions.  He answered these questions.  Then I decided to publish the whole thing, call it an interview and post it here on my blog.  Without further ado:

GAB: When did you start writing?

RF: I've dabbled with writing since high school, but never found my voice until I discovered the New Absurdist website around 2003. I actually discovered the site through a surrealist newsgroup.

GAB: Why do you write?

RF:I think I mostly write as therapy. I'm also not a writer who feels any need to mass produce. In fact, I'm of the opinion that most people only have a limited number of stories within them before they begin to repeat themselves. I think that's true with most art as well.

GAB: You have expressed to me previously that you think of yourself as an absurdist. In your mind how is absurdism different from other genres such as surrealism, irrealism, magical realism or Bizarro?

RF:I've heard all those terms tossed around. Modern absudism is virtually indistinguishable to surrealism and irrealism. I'm sure there may be subtle differences, but they're all contrived.

It comes down to a preference in labeling. Magical realism is a different beast, and I find that term a little confusing. From what I know, they share elements, but absurdist writing is much freer. That was my initial attraction to the genre. It can be very non-linear. There doesn't even need to be a plot, a definite beginning or ending or any strong characterization. There can be all those things, but it's not necessary.

Bizarro is just a catch phrase. A made up genre trying to tie all oddball writing together under one umbrella. So I guess all absurdist fiction is Bizarro, but not all Bizarro is absurdist. Again, lots of common elements. I'm not a big fan of the term. It implies certain things.  Bizarro seems to attract writers captivated by disturbing images. I think a lot of Bizarro authors would be writing horror if they didn't find that genre so over done. It's also very cultish and kitschy, tons of pop culture references. Very B-movie influenced. I think my main complaint with the genre is its disposition towards novels over short stories. I love short stories. There also tends to be a lack of childlike innocence concerning Bizarro. Often they appear to be shooting for shock value, or a gross out.

GAB: Which other absurdists are you reading?

RF: Daniil Kharms is a must. Other old schoolers I enjoy reading include Alexander Vvedensky and Eugene Ionesco. Barry Yourgrau is real good. His stories are always short and in the first person. Very dreamlike. Other good reads include Eric Chevillard and Valery Ronshin. Lewis Carroll ranks high. At the moment I tend to be reading more nonfiction. I've always preferred it.

GAB: What non-fiction in particular?

RF: Biographies, anything regarding altered states of consciousness, texts pertaining to the spiritual or paranormal.

GAB: Are there any Bizarro authors that you do particularly enjoy reading?

RF: D. Harlan Wilson, Kevin Donihe, Matt Revert, Bradley Sands, Gina Ranalli. (Although she isn't fond of the label either.) Again, my favorite stuff by them is their short stories. I'm not up on Bizarro. Not following it, I may be missing writers I would really enjoy. Christy Leigh Stewart is really good as well. You can find a bunch of her short stories online (http://christyleighstewart.com/). Very clever stuff. I'm also a fan of your writing.

GAB: Also, you've got a relatively unconventional view of psychopharmacology. Can you elaborate on your views of the subject and explain how this ties in with your overall worldview, view of the mind, writing as a therapy, etc.? 

RF: Wow, heavy stuff. Like a rather large portion of the population, I've had my own personal experiences. I'm neither for nor against dabbling with chemically altered states. It can indeed come with a price, but life is a series of gambles. Considering that the human population spends their sleeping hours in a hallucinatory state, and while awake experiences everything from memory flashbacks, daydreams, fantasies, and the countless hours we sit hypnotized by television and music, which is another very real altered state. People cry at movies. How weird is that? So dabbling in chemical realities is not really all that unnatural for mankind. It's the nature of the beast.

I often feel guilty being caught in the consumers web spending money buying books and music, material possessions, but I think we need it. We need the Internet. We need new experiences, new sounds, new thoughts, CONSTANTLY. I think that is the real purpose of life. Live, and send those experiences back to the source.

Regarding writing as therapy, it's often used in psychology. Hard to say its impact on me, as I'm restless, and tend to need a drink or something just to sit still and focus. Most of my writing is done late at night, or semi intoxicated.

GAB: I too love short stories and find it puzzling that in our fast-paced, instant gratification culture that novels far outsell short fiction collections. What's you theory about why this might be?

RF: I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's like certain movies. Lots of action, everything is spelled out. People don't want to think too much. So a novel paints everything out for them. But it's a lot more effort reading a novel. I'm a horrible reader. Most novels I've read, I read in bits. I put them down and move on to something else, and return to them much later. Reading itself can zone you out. I can't maintain that focus. My bookshelf is full of books, all with bookmarks stuck in them.

GAB: Do you find that films have an impact on your writing? If so, which ones have been particularly influential upon you?

RF: The Marx Brothers movies have probably influenced me. Other than that, I think only the approach has influenced me, meaning sometimes I'd write a scene as if I were writing a film script. I'd see the scene in my head as if it WAS part of a movie, and try to do it justice.

GAB: And music - you played in the band Lord John. Do you find much connection between the composition and performance of music, and the process of writing fiction?

RF: Only in the finalizing process. Tweaking a song is not that different than doing editing. Similar mind set. In both cases you're looking for the definitive final version of a piece of art. Other than that, it's apples and oranges.

GAB: Is "Tales" the only book you've written?

RF: The only novel. I have two e-books available for free download: mOsbURAnd and Garbage Head.

GAB: Was Tales from the Vinegar Wasteland a very personal story? It seems like there are elements of your self in it, though maybe I'm just wishing them to be there.

RF: Stupidly so, to the point that I was certain huge amounts of it wouldn't make sense to the general public. There were a huge amount of ‘in' jokes in it, as well as other personal things, such as things people had told me, or odd things customers at work would spout, and I'd scribble down.

The blue gary apple game is an actual game my nephew created where you chase someone, and yell, "Get back here, you Blue Gary Apple." It was too weird not to use somehow. He was also the inspiration for the flashback where the main character thinks back on a children's book he's read, where a boy's pillows come to life. I used to make up stories for him about such events. There's mention of The Jesus Lightbulb, which I thought would be a good band name. The chapter titled "More money for paisley shirts" was an unused song title for my ex-band The Narc Twins. Gregory has a fear of dogs, like myself. The main character has a phobia of driving, and is extremely introverted, also like myself. I don't think it's possible to write without throwing huge chunks of yourself into the mix. I think those are the bits the reader enjoys the most, because they come off as the most true. But I do wonder how much of the obscure bits I put in there made sense to anyone at all.

I also made myself a character in the book, and it's a fairly well defined representation of myself, seen through my own eyes.

I threw just about everything into this book, because I wasn't sure where I stood creativity wise. I was feeling as if I'd spent my load, was insecure about myself and the future in general, and pulled a Dylan. There's a story where Dylan was so unsure of the future that he composed "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" from the first lines of a stack of songs. I constructed Vinegar Wasteland the same way. It's a swan song, in case I never do anything else. It breaks the fourth wall, uses allegory, is self aware, and uses a bunch of tricks and gimmicks to grab the reader. I threw in the proverbial kitchen sink, thinking if this is the totality of my official output, hopefully down the line, someone will sing its praises.

I'd also like to announce its re-release by Australian publishers LegumeMan. It's an honor that they found my trashy little novel worthy of a second pressing. And many thanks to Afterbirth Books for giving me an outlet in the first place. I'd also like to say the best thing that could possibly happen would be if my book influenced someone who went on to have some success. Good luck to all you odd ball writers out there. Don't lose the faith. Keep believing and producing.

The Fellow on the Balcony by G. Arthur Brown

"The party that's going on down there," the fellow points to a small group of nuns standing below the balcony upon which he and I both stand, "doesn't invite anyone to join it. It just keeps going on in the same fashion, like black and white reruns."

"Of the Flying Nun?" I joke.

"That was in color, moron!"

He seems indignant, so I stop smiling and take a sip of the punch. It tastes like something evacuated due to extreme weather systems.

"It's more like... The Munsters. They can't figure out that Marylin is the only normal one. I think that show could have run for another thirty episodes--more. I bet they could have pulled off two hundred episodes. Batman put it out of business because it was in full color!" He slams his fist down onto the railing. The nuns look up at him and then titter to each other, probably speculations about what G-d must think of this fellow.

This man has hair that I could never manage. It's sculpted, but the sculpture is boring and currently on display overseas where children are taught how to drink alcohol right from the womb.

"The Flying Nun was Spanish," I lie.

He takes out a dog-eared pad of paper. "I'm writing this down," he says and starts writing.

When I look at his pad, this is what I find, the beginning of a short story:

The Map of Canolune

I saw it for the first time on an outdated map I found amongst my uncle things, tucked behind a Middle-Eastern oil lamp at the back of his steamer trunk. I was in my early twenties, no longer a boy but still a romantic at heart. I think then that I knew I had uncovered my destiny accidentally, which is how these things always operate. The mystical city of Canolune was marked out by the Dutch cartographers of the 17th Century quite clearly amongst extant locales on that crumbling, yellowed paper. My late uncle was not available for questioning, so the detective work ahead would be quite challenging. I decided to call together my only close friends, have a large breakfast, and make plans to uncover the secrets behind the map and the possible existence of Canolune.

Hamilton and Theodore munched on sticks of toast before I unveiled the purpose of our congregation. Hamilton was the cautious third son of a formerly very well-to-do banker. He was lean if not scrawny, his clinging suit had been pressed, albeit imperfectly, and his fair hair attempted to mimic current fashion. Theodore didn't need to try to be fashionable; his father was an Old World aristocrat who imported suits from France and Italy. Theodore smelled of musk and manliness, and he was dark, handsome, and always up for adventure. I showed them the map and after many moments of scrutiny and consideration, they both agreed it looked authentic.

"We should get one of the professors at the University to verify this before we go off gallivanting," Hamilton offered.
I informed him, "I do not think sharing this secret would be the most beneficial route to take. Secrecy will be necessary until we have proof that Canolune is real, so that we may get the credit. We cannot tell anyone else what we are up to, do you understand me?"

Theodore, looking very distant, said, "Western Asia isn't exactly civilized. We'll need guns. My father has many hunting rifles. I'll see what I can do about something heavier. And dynamite."

-------------

I tell him I'd already read that story years ago, in a porno magazine that I had found.

"Well, I thought I'd go ahead and write it just in case you never had," he says nervously. Then he looks at the nuns again. "Don't tell them, will you?"

The New Absurdist

The two men cowered at the corner of the tavern, fearing almost everything in sight. The glasses were dirty, which meant germs, and the patrons mostly had dark skin, which meant danger. Neither germs nor danger were friends to the two men, nor did these men have any friends apart from each other. “I’m very glad you came with me,” said one to the other. “I’m very glad I came with you,” said the other to the one. They both wore scarves, though it was not very cold. They both wore helmets, though they were seated inside. These two men proceeded to observe what they knew was about to transpire in that ramshackle tavern.

The door was forced open and a gust of wind filled the room, though not very cold wind. A little old Irishman, whom the men knew was formerly a priest, entered with that gust, as if blown inside. He was a frail man, and though not truly frail enough to ride a breeze, one might get the impression he would try. In spectacles and cap, he shuffled inside, said a quick howdeedoo to the barkeep, and then trudged to a small table at the back where was already seated a heavy Black woman in Afro-centric kaftan. She gave the old Irishman what seemed to be the evil eye as he took off his cap and sat down.

Just then, the accordion player started up again, momentarily distracting the two men’s attentions. He played a lively, but repetitive shanty that both men had heard as boys down by the docks. Their eyes glazed wistfully as they thought of their lives in those days, as they thought of all games they didn’t play for fear of injury, and they thought of all the cats they’d killed so they wouldn’t be bitten or scratched unexpectedly.

“Oh, oh, oh, Jesus!” They turned their heads wildly in the direction of the heavy Black woman, who was nearly shouting. “We pray humbly to you, O Jesus….” She and the old Irishman with eyes closed, heads bowed, holding hands, prayed intently. “Tell us, Jesus, who is on that train, Jee-Zus!”

“Yes, Dear Lord,” the Irishman intoned, “tell us who it might be that’s on that train. We want to know so heartily that we are imploring you now, Lord, tell us who is on that train, sweet Jesus.”

A waitress, late thirties though not unattractive, strolled by and reminded the two men, “Marinara is on television at eight o’clock. You can’t watch TV if you go all the way in the back of a cave, can you?” She smiled, eyes bugging in a false show of enthusiasm. But the prayer was not yet over and so their attentions returned very quickly to the odd couple.

The Black woman smacked her hand on the table, spilling a bit of the ex-priest’s lager. “Jesus, Jesus, Jee-Zus! Who—I said, who is on that train?”

“Jesus Lord, Jesus Lord!” rumbled the Irishman.
“Lord Jesus—Lord Jee-Zus!” thundered the Black woman.

The two men fished in their pockets, nervously eying the other patrons. They each pulled out their tickets, stood slowly and deliberately, and began to march toward the unlikely pair of supplicants. One spoke firmly and at moderate volume: “We are on that train, brother and sister.” “Yes,” said the other, “it is we who are on that train.” The one handed his ticket to the Black woman, who squinted at it skeptically. The other handed his to the Irishman, who adjusted his spectacles skeptically.

Seeming convinced of the authenticity of the documents, the man and woman both nodded to each other and punched them, handing them back to the pair of friends.

“Just one question though, Father — Oh, I can still call you father can’t I?” asked the one.

“Sure, my child,” the old man nodded.

“Where does this train go?” asked the other. Then the two men drew their pistols, leveled them, took painstaking aim, and killed the Black woman and the Irishman without further ceremony.

“We are on our way,” said the one to the other. “On our way we are,” said the other to the one.


For more like this - The New Absurdist

Something New (Story of Job)

I got an idea for something new while at work the other day. I've nearly completed it and hope to have something to submit by the end of this week. When the muse comes upon me, I can write so quickly that I'm glad I took a typing class in high school. I can't imagine how hunt-n-peckers can possibly write anything longer than a drabble.

But here's a little slice of "The Story of Job," tale of a 'Mongoloid,' that I'd like to share:

“Hi, Job,” I say with as much false enthusiasm as I can manage at eight in the morning. I try to scurry to the produce department too fast for him to take a real interest, but he’s predatory in that regard. My scurrying makes him hungry for my attentions. I pray to my heathen gods that he doesn’t want to touch me. But he’s coming my way and holding up his crusty, reptilian mitt because he wants to do a combo high-five/shake. Whatever grows upon him will come in contact with my flesh, but I don’t want to be rude, so I make direct, skin-on-skin contact. And I imagine the birth defects that I am liable to pass along to my future offspring, assuming my seed one day finds purchase (only $9.99 at my website).

“Hey, Leary!” he says with a warped grin. “Guess what?” And he doesn’t give me time to guess; he comes right out with: “I laid more eggs, and I hope they are going to hatch this time. The shells are still real leathery and scaly but I’m keeping them warm. When they hatch I won’t call them abominations. I will call them beautiful babies! ‘Cause, you know, I got compassion for them, ‘cause when I was a baby my mommy tried to throw me back.”