Make a Better Brody by G. Arthur Brown

In this canoe, adrift at sea, I do not feel truly secure from the bites of sharks. The Ocean of Shame is just half a channel away.

"Open boats be damned!" Shaking your fist at the canoe doesn't help, I can tell you with more assurance than I have that I will not be eaten by sharks. For a moment I think I see a huge sausage just beneath the surface of the briny deep. It is just a dead manatee. I poke at it with my spear and it bursts open, oozing decay that bubbles up and forms a foul smelling pool. The sea here is incredibly calm. I grab the locket that hangs around my neck and hold it tightly in my fist. "Veronica! Why did I ever leave thee?" I pose the question in a deliberately melodramatic fashion. In my mind I see her Victorianesque visage, not bothering to open locket and look at the portrait that has been emblazoned on my mind's eye.

An albatross squeals overhead. I convince myself he's lamenting Veronica's distance from here. She should have been in this canoe. I fall in love with the oozing corpse of the sea creature now floating well behind me. I name the canoe Later. I pat the leg, that appears to be attached to me, and I say, "They just don't make canoes like they used to. I bet you a shark could snap this thing in two. I saw that movie. I think Paul Newman would have made a better Brody." The albatross squeals her agreement. I sample the fine wine that is the sea. Blurriness ensues.

Copyright G. Arthur Brown
Artwork by Salvador Dali

Day 4 at HackleCon by Douglas Hackle

One Saturday morning a man woke up in his bed just before dawn.  It’s too early for me to be up, the man thought as he lion-yawned and lion-stretched.  He sensed something was wrong.  At first he wondered if maybe an intruder was in the house, and he tensed up with fright.  But then he realized what the problem was.

The skin on the side of his upper right arm felt extra naked, that is, more naked than the skin covering the rest of his buck naked body.  The skin there somehow felt . . . empty.

He reached over and turned on the nightstand lamp, causing the room to explode with light.  The man looked down at his arm:  Sure enough, the tattoo he’d gotten there a couple weeks ago was gone!  The tattoo was of himself—fully naked, flexing his muscles in a side pose that showcased his ripped pecs and his ripped right arm, the profile of his limp junk dangling impressively between his ripped legs.  It was the only tattoo the man had ever gotten.  But now there was nothing but taut, unmarked, peach-colored skin where the tattoo had been.

‘The fuck?’ the man said.  That’s when he heard a light knocking coming from downstairs.

Groggy and confused, the man climbed out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and walked out into the hall.  He followed the knocking all the way downstairs to the front door of the house, at which point he flicked on the porch light and opened the door.  At first it appeared no one was out there.  Probably just the neighborhood kids messing around, he guessed.  But then he caught movement in his lower peripheral vision.  He looked down.

The man’s missing tattoo—the tattoo of himself naked—was standing there on the porch looking up at him, only now the tattoo was 3-D instead of 2-D.

‘The fuck?’ the man said. 

‘Sorry if I woke you,’ his tattoo said in a voice identical to his own.  ‘I went out to get a tattoo.  Check it out.  It’s us!’  The tattoo held out its ripped little arm to show the man its tattoo.  The man leaned down, squinted, and saw that the new tattoo was yet another identical tattoo of himself—naked and flexing—except the new one was proportionally smaller in order to fit on the arm of his tattoo.

‘Pretty fuckin’ metal, huh?’ the man’s tattoo said.  It leapt back onto the man’s arm and flattened itself out, settled back onto its rightful home.  Somewhat dumbfounded, the man stared down in wonder at his tattoo’s little tattoo, touched it with the tip of his index finger.

A few weeks later, something very similar happened to the man just before daybreak one Saturday morning.  The man woke to that unsettling feeling again, that weird emptiness-on-the-arm feeling, only this time the intensity of the feeling was a mere fraction of what he’d experienced the first time. 

The man reached over, turned on the light, looked down at his arm.  His tattoo was right where it was supposed to be, flexing its muscles on the canvas of his skin as douchily as ever.  But now the tattoo’s tattoo was gone!

He couldn’t actually hear the knocking coming from the front door downstairs (the sound was too faint to be heard by the human ear at that distance), but the man instinctually knew the sound was there.  He climbed out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and walked downstairs to open the front door.  On his way down, he wondered if he’d even be able to see the tiny new tattoo on the right arm of his tattoo’s tattoo.

The End.

***

Still nervously holding onto the edges of the podium, Douglas Hackle concluded his reading of his original flash fiction effort “The Three Tattoos” and looked up from his sloppy, handwritten manuscript.  His eyes swept across the large conference room that he’d rented in downtown Cleveland.

Empty chairs as far as the eye could see. 

He’d spent a lot of money—money he didn’t have—to rent this room for the writers con that he’d named after himself.  But due to a combination of factors that included shyness, sleep deprivation, low blood sugar, and inborn stupidity, he’d neglected to invite anyone.  In fact, no one but Douglas knew of the event’s existence.

Well, no one but him and one other being.

For at the back of the room, in that last row of chairs, was a single occupied seat.

And in that seat sat none other than Terror Clown.

Terror Clown was not applauding.  Terror Clown was not smiling.

And just as the nameless protagonist in “The Three Tattoos” had been too far away to hear the knocking of his tattoo’s tattoo at the end of the story, so Douglas was too far away from Terror Clown to hear the demonic clown’s low, satanic growl.  Nevertheless, he knew the growl was there.

“Please don’t fucking kill me in the face, Terror Clown!” Douglas pleaded.

Terror Clown’s brow knitted in great annoyance and seething anger, feelings that had been brewing for four days now.  “That doesn’t even make any sense,” reprimanded the demonic clown.

                                        To (Not) Be Continued . . . .

----

Douglas Hackle writes lobsters that are bizarre, surreal, satirical, horrific, macabre, veiny, vainglorious, childish, moronic, or some combination of these qualities. His lobsters have seen publication in both online crabs and printed manatees. Douglas resides in Northeast Ohio with his wife and little boy, and he sincerely apologizes for using the phrase “lest you order seven fetal marionette pizzas” four times in the previous sentence when one time would have been just as sufficient.

Visit him at: http://douglashackle.wordpress.com/

Copyright Douglas Hackle
Artwork by Gustav-Adolf Mossa

Attila King by John Edward Lawson

Attila the Hun was sent to the grimy, smoky future: the 1990s. The mighty warrior king had not come to conquer. Instead, he sought only to observe the United States Postal Service in action. He hoped to bring great renown to his people by instituting an efficient parcel system of his own.
    “What wonders the future holds…such technology! Such advances! Primary care physicians and dentists under separate health plans!” He clucked his tongue in astonishment. “My land will benefit greatly from future knowledge.”
    While strolling the gritty pavement of Los Angeles, Attila was approached by five pale skinned police officers. “Excuse me sir,” the lead officer said. “Do you mind if we examine your clothes?”
    Attila's Mongolian ears did not comprehend; he wouldn't have let them inspect his furs and leathers regardless.
    Suspecting the furs to be from endangered species the officers grabbed him. “Do you have any sharp objects in your pockets, sir?” Two more police joined them.
    Attila offered the foreign dogs some choice archaic Mongolian profanity. After finding two concealed daggers on him they proceeded to give him the Rodney King treatment. Or, it would have been the Rodney King treatment, except…
    In ancient Mongolia Rodney was busy introducing polyester and margaritas to the nomadic warriors, profiting greatly from his knowledge of the future.


-----

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.


Attila King originally published by Bust Down the Doors and Eat All the Chickens.
Copyright John Edward Lawson
Artwork by Carlo Carra

The Green Room: 3rd Iteration of The Meta-fictional Juggling Troupe by R.A. Harris

The thing about virtuality is that it really isn't that different to normaluality. Oh sure, there's the dizzying array of lime green processes that have no meaning, and cut and slice and mate with and engulf one another in an attempt at, what they call, “affection”, but to any normalized observer it is clearly the murder and appropriation of energies that look a little tasty or might go well with the furniture in an alternative home. But aside from that slight divergence in superficial appearance, there really isn't much between the virtual processes that produce phenomena and the phenomena themselves, which is considerably less exciting news than many speculative theories on the nature of being and everything put forward in the past few centuries, but such is the nature of existence.

Tomlinson kicked a stone, only to discover it was a frog, and what's more, it was a frog that when placed just where it was prior to his kicking it, provided key structural support to the entirety of being. Red lights swam through murky water and yellow tape criss-crossed over every surface.

After a moment or two everything simply vanished.

Then it re-appeared as it was, with just a subtle difference, everything was now a slightly lighter green, even bordering on yellow in parts.

The parasitic logicians were gorging themselves on the logical foundation of the virtual reality support system. Beeps from hidden speakers and oscillators showing a fading heartbeat signaled that the world's heart was still kicking, or punching - it couldn't be certain given that it only had ghost limbs, and wasn't sure which way its up was. To what end, and exactly what kind of fluid, this heart still pumped was up for debate.

Tomlinson and the troupe must've twisted and folded into at least twelve thousand different species of Ideas, their limbs rotating and splitting and bending through hidden dimensions, before settling on their current forms. They still felt like jugglers, though more amateur than before. Tomlinson even had a badge on that said as much. Gavin had goat legs but instead of hooves he had waffles for feet. Eric didn't have any legs at all, but as he was particularly lazy this was not an issue and was in fact a rather moot point to bring up.

Tomlinson was a professional at heart (even though that was where the amateur badge had stuck) and so began a new routine by throwing the dragon and the two young souls in a conceptual manner towards Eric. Eric sat in a boiling tub of water, screaming about how he wasn't a witch, Eric was the witch. Then the bath was in Eric. Then Eric was in the bath again.

Still, the dragon and the two souls were in a flight that could have rivaled Jesus' ascension to Heaven it looked so darn good, heading towards Eric, who was ranting and raving in the bath full of now luke-warm water, now frozen solid, now evaporated, when Gavin, being blind as he was, walked right into the path of these mythic projectiles. They struck him on the forehead, bowling him over. He folded into origami pseudo-dimensions until he was one-dimensional, which was an achievement considering there were no dimensions for his one dimension to exist in.

Tomlinson became Gavin. It wasn't a choice on his part, but given the circumstance, he wasn't about to complain. Gavin had a far better body anyway. The new combined being felt like his name was Tomgavlinson.

The three juggled objects became one, became a soccer ball, became a hot potato, became Tomgavlinson's own stupid sense of self. He bicycled kicked the conceptual iteration of his own stupid sense of self over his head towards and away from Eric in an impossible movement. It spread into a triptych piece of art that critics would refer to as “a shoddy use of imagination” and then unanimously slam as a feeble attempt at “weird for the sake of... well it's not even apparent what the point is, but the green is giving me a headache”. Thankfully, the shitty art then de-materialised just as Eric reached to catch it. His hands had become black-holes again.

“Eric,” Tomgavlinson mumbled through a mouth hidden somewhere under a roll of fat that grew around his face like a bubbling tumor, “Didn't I tell you to get that checked out?”

Eric blushed a deep blue. Then he started screaming about which witch would eat his sandwich. Tomgavlinson squashed a logician beneath an Idea of a toaster and a smattering of logic  caused him to diverge into Tomgav and Lininson. At least there were two of them again, they both thought, though not in unison, that would just be daft.



----

R. A. Harris still 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 

Artwork Giorgio de Chirico 

Funereal Disease by G. Arthur Brown

I felt embarrassed to be at my own funeral. Time travel created these sorts of faux pas. I had trimmed my beard earlier in the day, from my reference point, or many years in the past. But I still felt out of place.

The mortician, his three strands of hair plastered to his scalp, gazed at the body in the open casket, shaking his head. “I can’t get the bones to stay in,” he kept saying by way of apology to everyone gathered. Most people ignored him, pushing forward to flamingo pink chairs. No one wanted to stand the whole time. If the awkward flapping of the carrion birds wasn’t enough, there were low parlor ceilings to contend with.

So they all huddled in, crouching if they could not find a seat. A man was forced to remove his ten gallon hat and a woman to undo her beehive hairdo. I noticed a crunching under my feet, as if someone had dropped pretzels everywhere, but the lighting was too dim to see. I regretted attending; time travel wasn’t cheap. Deliberately I crushed something under my heel. “Chicken bones,” said the homely lady in furs next to me with a wince.

“No, no. Bones of the deceased, I’m afraid,” the mortician said. “Just so many and so small, I couldn’t keep them all in the cada—the body. I’ll give everyone five dollars back at the door as you exit. I’m just so sorry.” But none of the guests seemed to care. I hunched over, grabbing for a bone. The one I snatched did look like a chicken bone with some dried up meat left on, though it was distinctly greenish.

“Our bones are green on the inside,” said a rugged gentleman in front of me. He handed me his business card, reading: In the Business of Crying. It listed twelve different email addresses. “Are you the deceased’s grandson?”

I’ll be forty-three years older when I pass. The attendants assumed I was a relative, but no one seemed to realize I had time traveled from the past, despite my name tag giving my true and full name. I did not answer, so he simply nodded with a sad smile, adding: “Glad we could both be inside him here, with the bones.”

I was very upset with the whole affair, and I hadn’t yet been to pay my own respects to myself. “I’ll travel back and get myself a better funeral,” I fumed.

The woman in furs turned to me and said, “Don’t waste your time. It won’t work.” Then I noticed the woman was actually me, a few years older, in disguise. It was not the look I was meant to sport.

“Instead, I shall simply die right now to save myself the embarrassment.” So I marched up front, pulled the future me from the casket and lay down in it. Everyone clapped as I forced myself to die there. Some of them were me, so they knew how much it meant to us.

Copyright 2010 G. Arthur Brown

THE TRUTH OR DARE CHAMPION by Justin Grimbol

Earl woke up to someone pounding on his door.

“Who is it?” he yelled.

The door opened. Light seeped into his room. Pussy Bear stuck her massive bear head into his room. She was drunk.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I’m bored,” she said.

“It’s five in the morning. You’re supposed to be bored. You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“I don’t want to sleep. Come on, let’s hang out?”

“And do what?”

“We could play Truth or Dare.”

Pussy Bear loved to play Truth or Dare. She was a pro at truthing and daring. Once she dared a girl named Lila to stick a super powered flash light up her butt. It made both the girls ass cheeks glow. It was the best time ever. Earl was a nerd. He didn’t get to see cool stuff like that very often.

Truth or Dare could also get very awkward though. Pussy Bear loved to dare Earl to sit in her lap and touch her. She loved to make him uncomfortable.
 
Once, she dared Lila to kiss him. Lila refused. “He smells,” she said.

Earl looked like he was about to cry. This made Pussy Bear furious.

She started verbally abusing the girl. She called her a skank. She told her she was ugly. “You look like fucking Mrs. Potato Head!” Pussy Bear told her. Lila eventually ran out of the house crying.

It had been months since the incident with the Lila. Still, he was apprehensive about playing Truth or Dare. What if she got him all horny and they ended up boinking? He didn’t want to lose his virginity to a drunk Bear.

“Who else is awake?” Earl asked.

“Just me.”

“You can’t play Truth or Dare with only two people.”

“Sure you can.”

“It would be boring.”

Earl sighed. Pussy Bear was his first roommate. He thought it would easier to live with someone who was older. It wasn’t. He had been living with this big titted bear for almost a year and he hadn’t gotten used to it. She was belligerent and sex crazed and she never did the dishes. He heard that before she got the surgery she was just a normal woman and that she was pretty.  People told him that the surgery had changed her, that it didn’t just make her look like a bear, that it also made her act like one.

“Listen Pussy Bear, I’m eighteen now. I’m way too old to be playing Truth or Dare.”

“Age doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m old as hell and I still love playing Truth or Dare. It’s the best.”

“I just don’t want to play, OK? I got to get some sleep. I got to go to work tomorrow.”

“OK. I understand.”

Pussy Bear closed the door. Earl lay in bed and listened to her stomp around their apartment. He could hear her rifling through the refrigerator. He could hear her dropping food onto the floor and then drunkenly cleaning it up. Pussy Bear got hungry at night. Especially when she was feeling rejected.

At one point he heard Pussy Bear talking to herself. She was playing Truth or Dare. Alone.  “Truth or Dare?” she asked herself. “Truth,” She said. “Don’t chose truth. Only wimps chose truth. Truth is boring.” She said. “Fine I’ll chose dare. OK. I dare you to stay up all night, eat all the food in the refrigerator and then to take a nice long piss as you watch the sun rise.”

Earl laughed when he heard her say this. She was so determined. She was like the Rocky Balboa of Truth or Dare. Part of him wanted to join her. An even bigger part didn’t want to get molested by a giant bear.

He couldn’t sleep. His thoughts were racing. He kept thinking about Pussy Bear. All that fur. Those giant breasts. Her musky odor. Then he thought about Lila. He thought about her ass and how it shined like Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer.

Hours passed. The sun rose. Birds began chirping.

Earl heard Pussy Bear walked outside. He heard her pissing. She pissed for what seemed like a small eternity. Earl loved the way it sounded. It was the sound of triumph. She had succeeded. She had played Truth or Dare by herself. And she had won.

-------

Justin Grimbol went to some college for a million years and he has a beard, but you should totally buy his books:  Drinking Until Morning and  The Crud Masters.


Copyright Justin Grimbol
Artwort Giorgio de Chirico

James Brown Saves Christmas by Andrew Wayne Adams

“Get up!”

“Get on up?”

“Get up!” shouts James Brown again, “it’s Christmas!”

“Holy shit!” I say, and jump out of bed, throwing off the covers and rising straight up like Nosferatu. “Christmas!”

We run downstairs, James Brown in the lead. His face is all sweaty. He screams, “Stay on the scene!”

And by “the scene,” he means: Christmas morning!

We each have one present under the tree. From each other. He opens his first, ripping away the paper to reveal: me!

“So good,” he shouts, “so good; I got you!”

I open mine next. It’s: James Brown! He doesn’t wait for me to finish unwrapping him before he gets up and dances, flinging off the last bit of paper himself as he does the Mashed Potato.

Dad comes in—we haven’t seen him in years—and unwraps his present (that he got for himself) to reveal: a snakeskin purse!

James Brown screams, “Papa’s got a brand new bag!”

Then Dad leaves again for several more years.

We both fall silent, looking inward. I sink to the floor. The Christmas tree wilts. From the fireplace comes, not Santa Claus, but carbon monoxide.

Then James Brown does the Twist, and he looks at me and screams, “Get up!”

“Get on up?”

“Get up!” he shouts, and I do, and we both run to the kitchen and fling open the cupboards and fridge and grab flour and sugar and eggs and butter and PCP and start to make Christmas cookies!

Once the dough is ready, James Brown rolls it flat by dancing on it. Sweat drips from his face and mixes with the dough.

I feel good.

We cut shapes from the dough. We bake the shapes. We decorate the baked shapes and put them on a plate. We make hundreds of cookies of every kind. I feel nice.

James Brown picks up a gingerbread man and says, “This is a man’s world!” Then he eats the gingerbread man.

We eat hundreds of cookies.

The overload of sugar and PCP turns James Brown into a monster. A vampire, to be specific. He grows fangs and dons a cape.

He attacks me. I grab a cookie shaped like a crucifix and try to ward him off. He hisses. I back him into a corner. He does the splits and wraps himself in his cape. I stand over him, holding him in place with the cookie.

A saxophonist sneaks up behind me and honks his instrument in my ear. It startles me, and while I’m distracted, James Brown bites me on the arm.

The saxophonist bows to James Brown, calls him “Master,” then turns into fog and disappears into the exhaust fan over the stove.

I look at the bite on my arm. I look at James Brown.

James Brown screams, “I got you!”

Indeed; and soon I will be like him: undead!

I cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I drop to my knees. James Brown drapes a cape over me.

I die.

James Brown puts me in the oven and rolls a large rock in front of it. I bake at room temperature for three days/months. Then:

“Get up...”

“Get on up?”

“Get up...” James Brown croons into my mind through vampiric telepathy; “it’s Easter!”

“Holy shit!” I say, and burst out of the oven, rising from my tomb like Nosferatu. “Easter!”

We run outside and hunt for eggs and drink the blood of humans. The humans call me “Master.” They are my flock. I feel good.

I knew that I would.

-------

Andrew Wayne Adams is a total jerk from somewhere in the Midwest or something.  He wrote a book called Janitor of Planet Anilingus.  He stole G. Arthur Brown's Kitten and he won't give it back. He now lives in Portland where he is happy and successful (and licking butts).

Copyright Andrew Wayne Adams
Artwork by Leonora Carrington