Virulent by John Edward Lawson

One day, while gathering plantains, I happened upon a fruit-bearing penis. The thing was roughly the size of an adult, with large fronds and fruit of every type. I at first considered tapping it for sap, but in the end let it be. To ensure that this discovery remained unnoticed I did my best to obscure the path I had followed.
    At night I took women from the village up to that desolate area on the farmland’s border. Darkness hid the nature of the “tree” under which we made love; I felt it prudent to take advantage of such abundant virility.
    Inevitably my scheme was discovered when the women began birthing various fruits. Despite--or perhaps because of--the fact that the fruit was quite tasty (or so I was told) the villagers became unsettled. Roused by such obvious heresy they stormed the farm and burned my prized fruit-bearing penis alive, all the way down to the ground. This in turn ignited the underbrush, and soon the blaze spread to all the farm.
    I have wandered penniless and alone ever since. To this day I cannot decipher whether the plant was a blessing or a curse.
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John Edward Lawson has published nine books, seven chapbooks, and over five hundred works in anthologies, magazines, and literary journals worldwide. He is a winner of the Fiction International Emerging Writers Competition, and has been a finalist for the Stoker Award and Wonderland Award. Other nominations include the Dwarf Stars Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Rhysling Award. As a freelance editor he worked for Raw Dog Screaming Press, Double Dragon Publishing, and National Lampoon, has edited seven anthologies, and served as editor-in-chief for The Dream People. Recently he became a columnist at IMJ, covering events in the publishing industry.





"Virulent" originally published at The New Absurdist
Copyright John Edward Lawson
Artwork by 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