His Blind Friend Daniel by G. Arthur Brown

My blind friend Daniel claws his way in the corners, as if in search of food, but he is just vetting the tile work.  I shouldn’t leave it to him; he’s blind and vetting is what I’m paid to do.  But I’ve got a jelly donut.  I didn’t tell Daniel that I had anything good to eat and he’s not exactly a blood hound.  I take a big bite and my lips smack.

Daniel’s head shoots up.  “What was that?  Are you eating?”

“No, Daniel.  I’m blowing kisses to the ghosts,” I say as I dust the confectioner’s sugar from my chin, as if he might see it, finding me out.  “Place is full of them.”

“I can feel them, too.”  He slides his greasy, gray finger tips along the grout.   An ecstatic expression squirms on his face, his hard-boiled egg eyes locked firmly on me.  “I know I am inside a ghost when I feel suddenly cooled, like an AC unit just kicked on. But it is also like you’ve been immersed in gelatin of some type.  You get the fear, like you’re going to drown.  But it happens so fast that you don’t have time to panic.  Sometimes, if you are lucky, they leave you a little bit wet.” 

“I know I am inside a ghost,” I kid him, “when I am at the nursing home.”

He nods gravely, pensively.  “Their tiles need much work.”  He brings a filthy pinky to his nose and sniffs. “A dead person ate fenugreek here.”  He utters this in such a way that I have no doubt he is correct.

It is then that I notice that the jelly is not jelly at all. It is a green fenugreek custard.  I can taste it now. It was never even sweet.  “Do old people get pudding?” I ask.

“Yes, of course they do. You know that.” He runs his fingers along the edges of the sheets, tucking me in.  It’s comforting to hear his voice.  It is so dark and cold here.

“Tell me a story.”

“You know all the stories. You invented the stories.”

“Tell me one that I have forgotten.”

He clucks his tongue.  “Do you remember the story about your blind friend Daniel?”

I shake my head.

He clears his throat. I imagine what his face must look like while he composes himself. He begins, “Your blind friend Daniel claws his way in the corners, as if in search of food, but he is just vetting the tile work.”

Copyright 2013 G. Arthur Brown
Artwork Remedios Varo

A Heartless Romance by John Edward Lawson

I closed my eyes and puckered my lips; my heart was doing the same. I never imagined my heart and I would go that far but we did, and it was unnervingly exciting. I wanted to whisper, “Don’t look.” Or, “Don’t tell me if my mouth tastes funny.” Or, “This hole in my chest is getting cold.” Instead we kissed long and hard, and the serenity that came over me only just barely countered the quickening of my breath, the mounting tension in my muscles. The kiss itself could not have lasted more than ten seconds but was as draining as a funeral service. When we finally drew apart my lips were dripping warmth--not a wetness induced by the passion of the moment, no; it is simply in a heart’s nature to be a bloody mess.
    We held back in wonder momentarily, laying there in the stark moonlight with the stiff grass complaining against our backs. Then we simply embraced. It pulsed sticky against my cheek, and yes I am not ashamed to admit that in that moment I took the liberty of fondling a ventricle. Rest assured there was no protest from my heart.
    “I…love you,” I said uneasily. It was the first time for that arrangement of syllables to pass the hurdle of my lips, but somehow they made it.
    “Don’t get carried away,” my heart said with it’s typical brashness. “You’ve got that attachment thing going on, don’t you? That co-dependancy thing. Seen it on the TV.”
    No, I wouldn’t let my heart spoil the moment’s worth, not after all we had been through. So after a short lull I looked over its quivering, bulbous exterior and said, “Check out those muscles. You’ve been working out again, haven’t you?”
    “Ah, well,” it chuckled, finally softening. “You noticed? Do I really look like all that?”
    “You know it,” I purred reassuringly.
    So I leaned back on my elbows and watched my heart strike some muscle poses, cranking out coronary-worthy pumps in the attempt to impress me. “How about that,” it huffed. “How you like me now?”
    “You’re the only heart for me.” Having said that I let my mind wander a bit, which brought on a surge of panic. “Oh no. Oh no, oh no. What are we going to do? Huh?”
    “Hey, we got away clean. Sure there was some gunfire, and sure some people got hurt, but we made it out of there okay. All’s we got to do now is stick to the plan and get moving. Head down Mexicali way and lay low for a while.”
    This settled my nerves enough that I was able to start gathering our get-away gear. “I love you. I really do.”
    My heart did not reply.
    “That man, the one at the desk? He had pretty good aim, huh?”
    “Good enough to tear your chest open pretty bad.”
    In that grove of trees it felt as though we were redefining enchantment with this criminal affair. Robbery, murder, arson, we did it all with a passion that had been lacking in every other moment of my life. My heart had me in its grip, I knew it then as surely as I do now, and maybe in the final analysis I would be no more than a pawn blinded by love in this game of rogue excess.
    “It’s time we got a move on. Remember, careful what you say to people. All’s we got to do is hook the first car what comes along, then we’re home free. Or we’re walkin’.” I followed my heart out of the woods. We took to the road and the ensuing reliance on my feet gave me a whole new appreciation for them. But that love quadrangle is another story altogether.
----

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.








"A Heartless Romance" originally published at RedWritingHood.com
Copyright John Edward Lawson
Artwork Remedios Varo

Transsexual Meth Addicts with Marshmallow Eyes by G. Arthur Brown

On the fifth afternoon on Mars X we were attacked by three transsexual meth addicts with marshmallow eyes.  This was my tenth encounter with these bizarre creatures.  Glegman, our science officer, had struggled to explain why they had marshmallows for eyes.  But we had come to accept that, though there was probably an interesting back story there to make some sense of it all, we would probably never know. It was more important to identify their weaknesses.  They averaged 6.75 feet in height, 200 pounds, with astonishing strength for long term drug abusers. The marshmallow eyes seemed to function like an insectoid composite eye, gathering a wide spectrum of input, but not particularly good with fine details, so we were fairly sure they could not read our names printed on the top left of our shirts, above the Space Force insignia.  I felt our anonymity would remain to our advantage in this skirmish.

Jackson’s head was wrenched from his shoulders before I could say, “Holy Hell, Sergeant Thomas K. Jackson, that big transsexual meth addict with marshmallow eyes is coming right for you, probably to rip off your relatively normal-sized head!”

Jackson was the last one with a functional lazerzap.  The rest of us, in the off hours, had jammed our barrels full of dirt as we made sketches in the topsoil.  “Art is for fags,” Jackson had said, and even at the time I knew he was making a wise decision in not using his weapon as a drawing stick. On the other hand Leon had done a rather good likeness of Pope Lexander the Fabulous, the first openly gay man in the papacy.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy gazing at this work of art, save Jackson, who merely shook his head at the image and polished his long, hard gun.

Now, Jackson’s headless corpse heaped itself conscientiously well clear of the action. Out of other options, this left only Jarro’s ass bees.  While shitting in the woods a few weeks prior, a strain of alien rape bees had decided to make a nest in his ass. Luckily, Jarro was psychic, using his uncanny telepathy to communicate with the tiny bugs.  He learned to unleash them at will. But they were generally horribly pissed off about the whole matter.

Pulling down his trousers, a line of ass bees fled the man’s rectum like they were sick of being cooped up in his fleshy shit tube.  The largest transsexual meth addict, whom I presumed to be their queen, swatted at the bees with both nail-polished man-hands and her horse tail, causing his/her DDD breasts to bounce about uncontrollably, crushing Leon’s skull. And I had just warned him about standing too close to trannies earlier in the day.

The skinniest of the transsexual meth addicts with marshmallow eyes, using his/her incredible erection, hoisted Jarro into the sky and catapulted him in a massive arc. The body landed with a crunch, bouncing limply before coming to rest.  I wanted to cry out, but my voice had left me.  Then his body exploded in a giant ball of flaming, sentient robotic dicks, capable of fucking anyone--male, female or tranny--to death in a matter of seconds.

“I’d just like to take this moment to say that I always knew space exploration was a bad idea.  I suspected that I would wind up dead at the hands of horrible creatures, the likes of which are never seen on a sane and rational planet like Earth.  If only I would have had one last chance to kiss my mother,” I didn’t have time to say before I was swallowed into the queen’s glistening anal gape.

He/she was fucked to death in a matter of seconds by the flying mechanical fire dicks as I suffocated, vindicating me once and for all.


Copyright 2013 G. Arthur Brown
Artwork Remedios Varo

Bus to Blackridge by Alan Gardner

‘The fuckin’ cunt was just lookin’ at me, know wit a mean?’

I nodded, trying not to commit. In these situations it’s best to be blankly diplomatic.

‘Aye, so then as wiz like “the fuck’s he lookin’ at me fur, eh?’

He lit a fag and pocketed my lighter. I saw the driver glance at us in the mirror. He said nothing. Why invite more aggro into your life?

‘Blackridge cunts like me dinnae take shite aff nae cunt.’

He laughed and coughed up a little green globule of phlegm onto his sleeve. He wiped it away and continued.

‘So the cunt’s no getting’ away wae that. Wid you let some cunt pure stare at ye like that, wae yer fuckin’ burd right there anaw, mate?’

‘Probably no, mate.’ I laughed, as if I understood the code, and had taught it to more than one.

‘Aye, see, you know the fuckin’ score, this cunt didnae, but. Ah wiz like, “fuck the cunt!”, eh?’

There was a creeping tension, the other passengers, mostly old folk, and another guy who had had the sense to keep clear, who were trying hard to appear deaf or somewhere else, were transmitting that tension. Or perhaps I was sending it to them and they were then condensing it and sending it back. Maybe it was just my heightened sense of awareness, animal instinct. You know these situations can turn. I said just enough, and responded where necessary, trying hard to be very pro neutral.

‘Wit would you dae if you were me, mate?’

‘It depends…’

‘On wit?’

It could turn here, I thought. ‘Depends if the cunt wiz bigger than me ur no, eh?’ I laughed.

He laughed too. ‘Yer no wrang. Still, widnae matter a fuck tae me. Ah’d jist fuckin’ plant wan on um. That’s wit Ah fuckin’ did tae. BANG! Right on the cunt’s fuckin’ jaw!’

He was getting more and more worked up. He was spinning out to a thread that could snap at any moment.

‘Ah’m a schizophrenic by the way.’

Think. ‘My uncle was in Bangour with something like that…’

‘Fuckin’ Bangour, Ah wiz there fur two year. Fuckin’ slashed wan ay they cunts anaw.’

Do not ask me his name.

‘Yer uncle, aye? Ah’d probably ken the cunt, kent aw they cunts up there. Wit wuz e’s name?’

‘John Henderson…’

‘Auld John? Aye, Ah ken the cunt. Fuckin’ raped a wee lassie that cunt!’

‘Must be a different John Henderson…’

‘Gie’s a light again, pal, eh?’

I feigned a quick pocket search along with surprise and a smile. ‘I think you’ve still got my lighter.’

‘Oh, sorry, pal, so Ah huv tae! Aye, cannae put fuck all past you, eh?’

‘Just keep it, mate. I’m getting off soon, plenty lighters lyin’ aboot in the hoose.’

‘Getting aff in Whitburn?’

‘Aye.’

‘Fuckin’ slashed a cunt fae there anaw. Right on the Cross, cunts never got me fur that either. But that’s a different fuckin’ story. The cunt thit wiz lookin’ it me, Ah punched um right in the pus. Fuckin’ doon he goes. Ken wit Ah did then?’

‘What happened?’

‘Fuckin’ pished aw ower the cunt! Wiz fuckin’ burstin’ tae! Funny hing is Ah’d shagged e’s burd the week afore, maybe that’s how the cunt was giein’ me the fuckin’ daggers. Fuck um though, eh? Wee soft cunts like that deserve tae get thur burds shagged oot fae under thum!’

‘Hope you have a good weekend anyway…’

‘Ah ALWAYS huv a good weekend! Ah’m away hame tae get pished an’ shag the burd!’

I got off and watched the bus to Blackridge splutter up the hill, hoping that the slasher’s next victim would be the other guy who’d had the sense not to give him a light.

---
Alan Gardner lives in Scotland, where he does many things.  You may remember him as Bad Albert, if you happened to stumble across his Youtube channel back in the day. 

Copyright Alan Gardner
Artwork Remedios Varo

Tesla’s Brigade by John Edward Lawson

Twelve children were sent to the future to communicate a desperate message on behalf of their era. Future humans will phase out hearing altogether due to noise pollution. Tesla knew such a predicament would arise so he instructed the children in the ways of sign language.
    “Why have they sent you to us?” the future humans will ask.
    “Keyser Wilhelm needs to borrow some milk.”
    This statement will lead to solemn deliberation amongst future governments. Wild gesticulation will rule the day.
    The decision: “We can’t see how one ‘borrows’ a cup of milk. After usage the milk is incapable of being returned.”
    Saddened by the rampant stinginess they encountered, the envoy returned to the early twentieth century. Tesla administered a sound spanking to them. Meanwhile, Keyser Wilhelm was unable to bake a proper cake for receiving foreign dignitaries, leading to World War I and the popularity of Veganism.

-----

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.

"Tesla's Brigade" originally published in Idiot's Manifesto
Copyright John Edward Lawson 
Artwork Remedios Varo

The Story of Geordio's Rooster Flock by G. Arthur Brown

Geordio had a whole flock of roosters. This is not something you find all the time. You can find whole flocks of hens.  Mostly in the trees, which is where they sleep. Easier to find when they are sleeping. Craftier than you might think in the day time.  Seems crazy. Foxes and raccoons are out at night. 

“Fuck our eggs!”  squawked one rooster!
“We don’t even have any fucking eggs!” squawked two roosters!

Geordio, as I said, had a whole flock of roosters.  This was because he was a homophile.  He couldn’t relate to women, even chicken women.  He even got rid of a poinsettia that he thought might be a girl.

I totally told him it wasn’t a girl.  He still gave it to a homeless man, who was very happy about it, until he realized it wasn’t cannabis sativa. 

But the point is, you see a group of chickens, you assume that most are hens.  This was not the case when you came around Geordio’s place.  First of all, he just had them inside, like dogs or cats.  There were nearly twenty of them.  And the shit was caked into his carpet, which wasn’t good to begin with, so that I wouldn’t wear my nice shoes in his house for fear of fucking them up. 

I was at his place one night. 
“Fuck our eggs!” a rooster squawked.

And yeah, roosters can’t lay eggs, but they were laying something that was sort of like golf balls.  If you boiled them down, and then crushed up the residue and snorted it, it got you super fucking high.  We even gave some to that disappointed homeless guy.  He could fly after that.  I’m not sure if he could fly before that, but he did have large wings.  

Copyright 2013 G. Arthur Brown
Artwork Remedios Varo

Dahlia's Lullaby by Jason Wayne Allen

I was thirteen years old on the summer night Dahlia came to my window and I may be confined bodily in this asylum, but I assure you my soul rides on the night skies grasping tight to my beloved Dahlia, until the time comes once again, when she returns and all of you will know I am not insane but free when you hear her lullaby, and see her scalloped wings silhouetted by the moon.

            That summer night I tongued the split lip given to me by a bully named Matthew Moore. My mother had acquired yet another boyfriend who moved us into a new neighborhood. I was a frail boy, with an awkward disposition, introverted with acne and glasses. While walking the new neighborhood I came to a football field where Matthew and other boys were playing a rough game with no pads or helmets. During a brief intermission I was spotted where I was approached by Matthew and three others.

            "Three dollars to watch," said Matthew. 

            "I'm sorry…I don't have any money," I said.

            "Pull out your pockets." As I reflect on my first meeting with Matthew Moore, there is not a fiber of me that regrets what I eventually did to the boy.

            I pulled the pockets out of my blue jeans showing him I didn't have any money, and felt a sudden jolt from behind as I was pushed forward into Matthew, who threw me to the ground, pinned my shoulders with his knees and commenced bashing my face with his fists. I left to the sounds of laughter and returned home. My mother tended to my bruised face and mended my glasses with electrical tape.

            That night my blackened eye pulsed and I fantasized about handling the situation more bravely. Eventually, I dozed, but was startled awake by a knock and three rhythmic scratches at my bedroom window.  I was thirteen years old, no longer a child, and thought myself silly to be afraid. This was simply some kind of animal, but still I was frozen scared and prayed the knock, scratch, scratch would go away, and eventually it did, replaced by a lullaby so beautiful, as if sang by a seraphim. The melody held me in thrall, and drunk from the influence of the song I stumbled over to open my bedroom window.

            Words trivialize Dahlia's beauty. She towered over me; I estimate seven feet, nude, her skin shockingly pale, her breasts enormous with flat, pink hypnotic nipples, her hair fiery red, and flowing down her back like The River of Styx. Instantly identifiable as female but with modifications, such as the folded membranous wings behind her back, the white fangs behind rose lips and her eyes amethyst-purple.

            A painful erection pulsed beneath my pajamas, she continued to sing as she gently pushed me to the bed, and exposed my sex. She glided a relaxing tickle with long, pointed fingernails down my exposed torso, and she sat on my erection sheathing me inside her. I came immediately. When she lifted herself off, she had taken with her my penis and scrotum. She stopped singing and whispered into my ear. “When you become a man, you can have these back.”

The melody returned and she left the same as she had entered. I went to the window and saw her spread wings silhouetted by the moon.

When she took my genitalia there was no pain. There were no scars, smooth, I was sexless. You may ask how I went to the restroom, sufficient to say, sitting down.

Summer passed, school started, and Dahlia hadn't returned. My time at this new school was short lived after my second meeting with Matthew Moore. In the boys' restroom, I was confronted, much the same as before but more brutally. Matthew and the same three others took turns pummeling me, and ended the beating with humiliation as they stood in a semi-circle and urinated on me.

That night, I heard Dahlia's rhythmic knock and scratches. Then euphoria filled me, as Dahlia's lullaby filled my bedroom. She opened the window and entered.

"Where have you been?"

She squatted and produced my genitalia. Perfectly intact she displayed my penis and scrotum in the palm of her hand. "I told you when you become a man, you may have these back!"

"How?"

"Ask the man who humiliated you," she said. "I need a man tonight. Maybe I should visit your tormenter."

            She put my genitals back inside of her and left. That night I didn't sleep. The next day, I didn't hesitate and ran up to Matthew Moore screaming, "Did you touch her!" I remember the puzzled look on the boy’s face, straddling his chest, pushing my thumbs into his eye sockets, the bulbs of his eyeballs breaking, and I remember wanting to feel the back of his skull.

            That night Dahlia escorted me to bed and I made love to her with every fiber of my being. I racked her body with orgasms, and when I came I laid exhausted beside her. As she was leaving I begged her not to go. She motioned for a kiss.

Her mouth extended revealing eight tentacles that grasped my head.  I was pulled into her mouth and into oblivion.

             I awoke years later with my genitals intact. I had acquired a wife named Sarah, a daughter named Lillian, I was an accountant, and we lived in a two story house in the suburbs.

Memories of Dahlia flooded back. I decided a sacrifice was to be made to summon her.

Sarah found me in the fetal position, bleeding to death, blood gushing from my crotch, and screaming in agony.

My mutilated genitalia lay on an inverted star, constructed with electrical tape on the linoleum floor of our bathroom.

            When one night, this asylum is pregnant with the melody of Dahlia's lullaby, you will all know…you will all know. I'll soon be a free man.

-------

Jason Wayne Allen is a writer, specializing in the Horror and Bizarro genres. He enjoys coffee, books, comics, guitars, metal and punk rock music, and Horror and B-movies, like Troma. When he's not reading or writing you can usually find him zombified at some silly Clock In, Clock Out job.
Jason Wayne Allen is southern by the grace of some dark god, but currently resides in Methtown, Missouri, also referred to as Saint Joseph: Where We Accept EBT.  You can buy his stuff here.

Copyright 2013 Jason Wayne Allen

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.

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

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

Houdini Gut Punch! by R.A. Harris

“Houdini gut punch!”

Gavin's soul's clenched fist thrust through the sac of fermenting fish flesh Eric had become. He over-extended though, and clipped a buzzard flying overhead. As it fell to the ground like a feathered brick, it became clear that it was actually a glass trinket designed to look like a weeping logician.

“Another needless casualty,” Gavin was heard to remark as his face, smeared with the telltale pink taint of libido, emerged from the hole his fist had created in Eric's bloated belly.

Eric slurred some words back at him, but to all intents and purposes their meaning was lost. Jets of photo-voltaic foam spit from his wide open maw arced in strange patterns, criss-crossing and blending into each other as they danced in the potential gradient, before softly tumbling to the ground like feathers in a vortex. Or maybe a million feathered logicians made of irreal glass, massless and almost symbolic more than anything.

Gavin's soul felt itself disintegrating into tangents as it unwound from Eric's being. Apparently a soul can't exist without some kind of binding to the world. Gavin didn't mind, he would rather un-exist than stay bound to a rotten fish pile.

Eric murmured that it was the man with the gun what did the thing that made that other thing that he did to Gavin happen. The last twist of fabric that constituted Gavin's soul was able to form a final thought, “Damn it, I should have known... zombie bullets,” before a wave of Cartesian logic excrement pulsed across the room like a single strobe light. He didn't think, therefore, he didn’t was.

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

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 

 

Puking Tears by Edmund Colell

Owen opens his burning, restless eyelids and rolls on his side, finding 7:30 glaring red from his alarm clock. He curls up, pauses, and rolls out of bed. The chill pushes him back, the tile shocks his feet, and a headache grows. As he yanks the clock’s cord out, sounds buzz in his skull. The noise deepens until he crawls back into bed and buries himself in his blankets. It returns a minute later, louder, a random chorus of familiar voices scorning him for laziness. He shoots back out of bed and cools his face with his hands. His own voice breaks through his thoughts. Get ready for work.

The thought punches his gut. I’m sick.

Take a pill and slam some coffee, pussy.

He stumbles into his bathroom, flips the light switch, and flinches. A dry, white glob bulges over his medicine cabinet mirror. A tape recorder crowns its center. Who’s here? Owen snatches a razor from the sink, brandishing it at the open-curtained shower before slamming and locking the door. With the buzz gone from his brain, only his breath and pulse stir the silence. No intruders. Breathing deep, he loses the adrenaline high, but a little fear lingers for the recorder. He strokes the buttons, each one mushy but dry. He presses Play, and it crumbles.

The tape chuckles. A man’s voice joins it, light with youth but raspy with age. It says, “Good job! You pushed a button and not pulled a trigger.”

Owen cringes. He taps Stop, then pushes it, then jabs, this one hard button cracking his knuckle. 

“Remember me? Need a hint?”

Owen sucks on his swelling finger. The pain distracts him from the tape’s message, but he throws a response: “Fuck off.”

“I caused everything bad in your life, I abuse you every day, and I slept with all of your exes.”

The hints snuff his pain and sink deep. In the tape’s dead air, he reviews every enemy he ever made. Only one of them has stuck around since middle school, but the voice and the cheer don’t match. “You’re not m –”

“Time’s up, me. Stop thinking so slow.” In the stunned silence, the tape continues: “If you’re listening, then the therapy and pills didn’t do shit. I have new medicine for you.” The glob shifts, pulling the medicine cabinet open. A dark amber bottle sits on the other side, label-less and filled to the neck. “I took the liberty of distilling your memories and goals. Drink fast and put it back. It can’t be exposed to light for too long.” The tape stops.

Owen reaches first for the door, but a thick force coaxes his hand off the knob. The bottle’s promises draw him closer. Help me. The bottle warms his thin hand. Its mouth kisses him, and he kisses back. Its tongue slips through his teeth and down his throat. He tips the bottle up and chugs. Plastic and meaty flavors bathe his tongue. The taste buds catch sweet hopes, salty relationships, spicy mood swings, sour failures, and bitter ends. He drains the bottle to its last thought. It warms in his belly. Then it burns.

Owen burps a cold, acrid gas. His skin itches while red patches spread over his hands and lips. Pulling off his tank top and boxers, he finds the patches growing on his chest and groin as well. He scratches them, leaking mucus over his nails. The itch crawls down his throat. All the while, the vicious buzz erupts and screams through his brain.

The tape starts again. “I hope you didn’t drink all of it. This stuff only needs a sip.”

Owen holds his head and smashes his forehead against the recorder. Its gummy body re-inflates after every hit while his buzzes deepen. They drown all sound and overflow into his gut. Nausea hits. He curls over the open toilet. Gushing out, the vomit tastes salty. The buzzes clarify into shouted insults, each one stabbing him. Another wave of puke rises up his throat, and tears flush down his face. They taste the same.

Owen rests his arms on the toilet seat and holds his face between them. Drool hangs from his lips. More spurts of tears flow out his mouth. Every time he tries to rise, another barf pulls him down. Stop. I don’t have time.

“Feel a little better now? Just take another sip when this happens. Good luck at the office, me.”

As Owen pushes up to glare at the recorder, the tape slot pops open and the tape vaporizes. The white glob swallows the recorder and soaks back into the mirror. Owen falls back to the toilet and dry-heaves. Nothing more, but the sickness lingers. Picking himself off the floor, the mucus on his hands trails to the seat. It can’t break. More mucus sweats through his red patches, spreading over his body.

He stumbles into the shower and cranks the hot water. The first cold blast rattles his skin and hardens the slime. More scum bubbles beneath, breaking through the crusts and making them grow. His hands and arms become too paralyzed to scrub it off. He thinks of the clock again, of his boss writing “Fire his useless ass” on a sticky note and calling in someone reliable, and a new red patch sprouts on his scalp to bleed slime over his head. As a disgusting helmet hardens, Owen sees pictures in the slime. Each picture shows shameful moments of his life in third-person, with him as a scummy statue instead of a human. Hundreds of them appear before his eyes alone, and he shudders to think of the millions forming the shell around him. He stops fighting.

Even when I help myself, I fuck it up.

The shell traps and clogs the new scum beneath. It backs into his body. A fever boils through him. Can I die this way? The thought brings an image of police breaking in to find the juiciest and grossest corpse of their careers. He pictures the funeral where his few loved ones pretend respect for a man who poisoned himself with his own gunk. The last speaker is the tape recorder, talking from its gloppy white pile on the podium. “I tried. Making myself sicker should have helped me to purge, not wallow. Maybe I really am the piece of shit I always knew I was.”

A hatred for his distant self burns hotter than his fever. He tenses the muscles around the patches, forcing the gunk out. He strains harder with every breath, but rips his skin instead of the shell. With every pulse, he forces his blood and slime against the shell until it cracks through. Owen thrashes until he falls over, splitting the rest open. The shower’s hot water cooks his opened wounds. But as he stands up and the last of the mucus drains from his body, taking the patches with it, he feels lighter by half of his weight. His shell lies crumbling on the shower floor. No buzzes rise to his mind.

Owen dries his blood off. He opens the medicine cabinet again and sees a bag of gauze, roll of tape, and bottle of rubbing alcohol. He packs and patches his wounds, then checks his clock again. 8:15.

He knots his tie with a smile.

-------------------
Edmund Colell's work has appeared in, or will be appearing in Verbicide, Legumeman, New Flesh, Christmas on Crack, Amazing Stories of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Bizarro Central, and Screaming Orgasms of Bizarro Love.

Copyright 2013 Edmund Colell

What's New May 1st, 2010

So, I've got a new official header picture featuring "Creation of Birds" by Remedios Varo (thanks to Kilby). I find her style fits right into The Strange Edge. Can't believe I didn't know about her paintings until a few weeks ago.

Anyway...


Movie Recommendation
Just saw Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Terry Gilliam's latest film and Heath Ledger's last film (RIP), now available on DVD. The best fantasy film of the last few years, sure, but still flawed in the same way as The Brothers Grimm (minus the Matt Damon effect). Overly elaborate plot and settings overshadow the viewer's ability to truly relate to the characters and understand them as anything more than participants in the already mentioned overly elaborate plot. Sure, Tom Waits as the Devil is a nice touch. Sure, Christopher Plummer makes a great old, disillusioned drunk. Sure, Gilliam manages to substitute Colin Farrell for Ledger at the appropriate time--right when the character shows himself to be just as unlikable as Colin Farrell. Vern Troyer should have been kept in a non-speaking role, because unfortunately he's not an actor proper, but the role he plays is interesting even while hampered by his acting deficiencies. Yeah, and Jude Law and Johnny Depp are predictably adequate in their brief appearances, as well. While both are good actors, they spend their time mimicking what Ledger has already set-up, so neither has the opportunity to shine. The FX are amazing, even if deliberately anti-real (read as: MirrorMask with a bigger budget). The ending is a little unfulfilling, and almost every piece of the film is recycled from some of Gilliam's earlier work, but if you love Gilliam like I do, then it is still worth watching. Rent it for a buck from RedBox.