Cactus Subconscious by Shawn Misener

I'm bouncing along the desert like a rubber ball, deftly avoiding cactus after angry cactus. My pants are soaked with scorpion juice.
      The voice in the sand: "If it has soul you must funk it."
      The field of geysers has turned to carbonation. A bubbling tribute to the three clouds suspended in the air. What does a cloud feel like when swallowed?
      Below, the army of Southwestern poets begins to gather. One by one they set up shop: Rusty typewriters, old booze, loose tobacco, and pissy attitudes. Flailing through the sky I see them as they skeptically measure me up.
      "He won't be up there for long," they croak, sharing nods and commiserating huffs. The clacking of atomic words explodes from their fingers. They blast away my abstractions with sex, drugs, and indie rock.
      "See you when you fall," they sing.
---
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 Carlo Carra

Before the Last Object is Thrown by R.A. Harris

Tomlinson spun the ultra-pink neon bulb, the final piece of the puzzle, on his finger before tossing it into the mix. It flew after the other objects in a beautiful choreography that only a professional meta-fictional juggling troupe could achieve. Between Eric, Gavin and himself, they now juggled twelve emperor penguins, thirty laptops, tension, the human genome, an orange so moldy it was turquoise, an old Swiss lady, a rabid pregnant television set, a television executive with a gun, smaller versions of themselves juggling even smaller versions of themselves (ad infinitum), a mobile phone, a couple of young spirits, a fluorescent green dildo with a pot of honey flavored lube and the ultra-pink neon bulb. The only thing that was missing was a woman with flaming nipples.

Tomlinson was shocked when the turquoise orange metamorphosed into a miniature dragon. After consideration, he realised that this may well have been a full sized dragon as he hadn't actually seen one before. It wasn't such a surprise to him when its razor sharp wings tore a hole in reality, letting in a collective of parasitic logicians, as he always suspected his world to be made of flimsy material stitched together with frail premises. The logicians flew in like locust, latched onto the soft membrane of reality with terrifying ferocity and immediately began draining logic from its virtual metaphysical processes.

Eric got bored with juggling, which was at odds with his very raison d'être. But given that his entire consciousness would otherwise revolve around juggling, it came across as a development that gave a previously unfathomed depth to his character. It was probably caused by the case of Praxis Illogica brought about by the parasite logicians collected on the membrane of reality like so many ticks, rather than any intention on the part of a Creator-entity. He yawned immeasurably wide.

“When you open your mouth wide like that I can see a black hole where your soul should be,” Tomlinson told him. “Maybe you should get that checked out. You're not supposed to be able to see black holes.” He juggled the pink bulb towards Eric.

Eric stretched his mouth wider, trying to get a glimpse down his own throat. He took his eye off of the pink bulb and it sailed down his gullet. His interior burnt a brilliant neon pink as the sphere imploded into its own negative state just before passing through the black hole.

Once the dazzling light had dissipated Tomlinson risked another look down Eric's throat. “Would you look at that? The black hole's gone.” His voice echoed around Eric's gaping mouth. “But you, my friend, are soulless.” And then, without really knowing where it came from, he added, “Merely an empty vessel to facilitate a world of events far removed from the mundane reality we inhabit here.”

“I'm blind,” Gavin said as he groped around for the soft membrane of reality that held him in place. “It's all pink.”

Tomlinson couldn't help but think that their existence was a mere formality now. No longer able to really call the three of them a meta-fictional juggling troupe, he set about dismantling the dimensions that had been constructed to house their essence. A flat packed Tomlinson cursed it all to hell.

“All this cursing makes me want to go boil a witch,” said Eric.

Tomlinson briefly pondered on the implications of his thoughts being projected so that Eric could comment on them, but just shrugged it off as a glitch in the mechanisms guiding their world, most likely just another symptom of the ontological virus represented by the plague of logicians. He held the deconstructed dimensions out at arm's length because they stank like rotten egg. He pinched his nose with his other hand and hop-stepped over to the tear caused by the dragon, where he tossed them out into oblivion.

Without a structure, the soft membrane of reality cascaded over the troupe like a collapsing circus tent, little bubbles of paradox silently rose from the mess and then popped, spilling antithetical notions and conclusions into one another, making their enunciation redundant. Tomlinson and the others swirled around in eddy currents, transient pools of liquid similarity, before descending into the depths of irreal virtuality like waste down a plug hole.



----

R. A. Harris lives in England, a merry land made up inside his head. He writes bizarre fiction and some of it gets published. Go here: www.leakylibido.wordpress.com to see some of his famous flash work.

Copyright 2013 R.A. Harris 

Soda Can: A Morality Play by Sarah Shaw

The man wearing the green shirt tilts back his head and drains the can of Mr. Bubbly Syrup, savoring the last bit of sugary liquid before tossing the purple can on the sidewalk and continuing his walk home. The can lies on the concrete near a recycling bin.
    Mr. Bubbly Syrup, known as Mr. BS to those who enjoy it, is the leading soft drink in America. Its high caffeine-to-sugar ratio earned Mr. BS instant success and popularity when it hit the market in the 1970s. The formula is a well-guarded secret. Armed mercenaries patrol the entry to the vault where the recipe is kept. No one has ever broken in.
    Now, a solitary and empty can lies on the sidewalk. It vaguely senses that it does not belong here, but since it is not entirely sentient, it hasn't a clue what to do about its condition. Mr. BS doesn't notice the color of the sky changing slowly from blue to a deep orange hue. Nor does it feel the droplets of sizzling rain that hit its aluminum body. The bright flash of light that encompasses infinity is also lost on the can. Mr. BS does, however, sense the mechanical arms and legs that grow quickly from its sides and bottom. Like a newborn calf, Mr. BS slowly rises and takes its first wobbly steps.
    The sky is blue again, with few clouds, but Mr. BS sees only green with the metallic eyes it has grown. Driven by what can only be called instinct (or an otherworldly GPS), the aluminum can follows the path of the man wearing the green shirt who had discarded Mr. BS on the sidewalk.
    Green Shirt isn't difficult to find. He's at the front door of a white house with a tiny, trimmed lawn which is a clone of every other house on the block. Before the man can pull his keys from his pants pocket, Mr. BS launches onto the back of his head and chomps through his skull with its newly acquired set of razor-like, metal teeth. The second bite takes the brain. Green shirt is dead before he has a chance to bleed. Mr. BS opens and shuts its mouth rhythmically, pulling in the remainder of the deceased litterbug bite by bite, along with the bottom step of the porch. Since it does not have taste buds and only vaguely notices a change in the resistance and sound reverberations of this new material being crushed between its teeth, the soda can continues to consume the porch, front door, walls, and roof.
    Now, passersby notice Mr. BS as its feast of flesh and building materials causes its aluminum body to stretch upward and outwards, metallic pops and crinkles sounding throughout the suburb. The can now stands at five-and-a-half feet, give or take a smidge. The passersby really can't ignore the sudden absence of the house on lot #3, either. Since human brains aren't prepared to process what these particular humans have just witnessed, they simply stare dumbly at the man-sized, purple soda can as its mouth wrenches open to the size of its body and begins to vacuum up the sidewalk, inhaling concrete and several neighbors. Soon, the entire street is cycloning through the air and into Mr. BS's giant maw. The can has another growth spurt and shoots up to 15 feet tall.
    It leaves the nothing that it has created and arrives at a small commercial district, greeted by screams and screeching tires. Mr. BS takes hold of a white Ford Focus and swallows it whole and then flings an Acura into a convenience store. Mr. BS grows larger with every car, bus bench and person that it devours. The sidewalks that it slurps up add feet to its height and girth and soon a 20-story aluminum behemoth stands amidst nothing. It starts to walk, each step shaking the Earth.
    Mr. BS destroys building after building, city after city and continent after continent until there is nothing. Nothing but the sea and the sand. Still driven, Mr. BS points its mouth downward and begins to suck, drawing into its body the planet itself.


-----

Sarah Shaw lives in the middle of Alaska where she thinks up stuff and writes it down.

Copyright 2013 Sarah Shaw

Grape Will Be Fine by G. Arthur Brown

 My father had already been slipping into the murky mire of senility even before my mother’s death sixth months ago. As I went through a gray pantomime of motions to keep him, and myself, alive and, more or less, clean, I ignored most of his advice. Why would I take heed, especially at a time like this?

“You need to find yourself a strong woman, Clark. Like a horse,” he tells me. He sits with a bowl of lentil soup in front of a muted television, screening a clips episode of Designing Women, 5^th season.

I’m preparing a soufflé by my mother’s recipe, wishing I had paid more attention to everything she told me about cooking. The simple instructions on the note cards do not convey the intricacies that are needed to appropriately cultivate something as refined and French as a cheese soufflé.

“Those waffles smell delicious. Been a long time since I ate a cheese waffle.”

“It’s a soufflé, Dad.” I begin to cry into the dish, torrents of tears and mucus. This doesn’t look like my mother’s soufflé, even less so now that I’ve waterlogged it. Waterlogged, like my life.

“I ruined the soufflé, Dad.” I wipe my face and yank myself back together.

“What are you going to do now, Clark?”

I have no idea what I’m going to do. My last hopes of getting my life back on track sits gloopily in front of me, mocking me with its inedibility. Defeated by food. But I need to say something, so: “I’m going to buy more cheese, I guess.”

He shuffles into the kitchen with a mostly empty soup bowl that he tucks into a sink brimming with dishes. With a hand on my shoulder, he says, “Oh, Clark. Sometimes cheese isn’t the answer.”

For a minute, I listen. Perhaps he’s got a point. My life is not as simple as a ruined soufflé.

I ask, “Do you think there is an answer?”

He wanders over to the stove. “If you are going to the store for cheese,” he says, as if he didn’t hear my last question, “can you pick me up some Pepsi?”

My heart slouches a little. “Sure, any particular kind of Pepsi you’d like?”

He arranges some dirty dish towels on the handle of the oven. He smacks his lips and says, “Grape will be fine.” 

Copyright 2013 G. Arthur Brown

Painting by Carlo Carra