Stuffed Between My Ears

Over at the Geek Syndicate, Phil Ambler and Dion Winton-Polak of Scrolls host Lily Childs, where they discuss all things flash fiction and read from a number of works that appeared at Lily's Friday Prediction. Included is "One Night," my piece of myth and horror, at about the 8:00 minute mark. Also included are pieces by John Xero, Sandra Davies and other familiar pens. Listen!

The whole thing is wonderfully fun to listen to, and I must say that the readings really bring to life those tiny tales, with all the drama and intrigue. Well done!

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I missed a deadline that I really wanted not to miss. I'm kicking myself, but sometimes, I don't honestly know where the time goes. I seem to remember when I had more time, but maybe that was just a dream. At any rate, the story I wrote was indeed finished last night before the midnight deadline, but I was not happy with the last few paragraphs. This morning, I'm glad I didn't submit since I want to change them, and not minor changes, either. I'll just have to find another market that wants an origin story/warped Red Riding Hood (not really)/fantasy piece.

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Daydreams occupy a lot of my time. Right now, I'm obsessed with Imagine Dragons, and in my mind, I have developed an entire fan video of Sack Boy from Little Big Planet waking up and exploring his new world to the Imagine Dragons song, "Radioactive." I've got every scene, every move he makes, the world (apocalyptic, of course), all of it planned out. But I'm not an animator! I can draw you a horse heading left, if you allow for a great deal of artistic license and just trust me that it's a horse. Anyway. Here's the song:

Music for a Summer's Eve Apocalypse; Zombie flash fic

The zombie apocalypse should have its own soundtrack.

My Official Zombie Apocalypse Playlist (via an iPod on shuffle) at Bizarro Central. The Chipmunks? Yes.

bon appetit by heile

*

There were no signs, no one who remembered what the street had been. A number, a name, General So-and-So highway. Route 6, A Historic Scenic Parkway. It stretched anonymous and flat into the distance, a crumbling blue arrow pointing to the setting sun. West. 

Marv watched his shadow, always afraid it would rise up and take him. I turned him by the shoulders. 

W'ere going this way, I told him. He nodded. Shaggy black curls, thick with dust, fell around his face. 

They watched from the last house, faces peering from second-story windows. When it got dark enough, they'd come out. 

It was almost dark enough. 

Marv's shadow trailed us, growing smaller. Asphalt cooled beneath our shoes. I prayed to the unknown road to take us somewhere safe, somewhere there were others like us, someplace with walls. Somewhere my brother's shadow couldn't hurt him. 

He took my hand, and I whispered it would be all right. Just keep walking. That's all. Keep walking.

Owls, Please

Blogger seems kind of quiet lately. And I'm itching to read some short fiction. Why don't you write something so I can read it? With owls? Yes. There you go. Owls. Teeny fic. Please. Look, I'll get you all started:

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He could turn his head all the way around on his neck, like an owl. His eyes were bright yellow. He swore he wasn't the devil's son, but who could tell anymore? I took his proffered feathers and tucked them beneath my breasts, and in the night when he sat outside in the one hundred year old oak, I pretended he was an owl. A few dead mice on the back porch, minus their heads, and I knew he was mine. My own owl-boy, screeching curses at the shadows, keeping the demons at bay, while I tossed and turned under snow white sheets.

*

Okay, that's terrible. You can all clearly do better. Owl fic!

via Fanpop

Poem: Rapunzel, age 80; and then something about my new kitty

Do all sea creatures have gills?
           wondered Rapunzel
         with hair falling down like
                  broken anemones and white capped waves
 She'd heard the babbling brook, dipped a toe
      in the silent witches' pool
   But of course that was long ago and
                salt water was foreign to her and
                       she didn't know what mermaids were
When her hands showed lacing blue veins and crackling skin
      she knew no prince would come
     who ever would've thought, no prince!
And so she hoped the flood would come instead, rise to her window
         pour inside, pour inside
                                        her
    running in rivulets then an inch on the floor
She imagined slogging through it, dragging her dress
             while it rose to her knees
                 to her thighs
                       past her waist (remember when her hair only hung to her waist?)
                            encircling her neck
And bringing all sorts of fish and sea monsters with teeth like pearls
So each day, she scratched her chest, just above
                 those sunken breasts
           hoping to carve gills out of her skin
                hoping to swim away with a sea monster so fierce it
                       could devour any prince that came along
She would ride the flood, ride it free,
      and there were no towers beneath the sea that couldn't be swum out of
  -- but this morning, the air didn't smell like salt, or even a possible storm
           not yet
      And she looked out the window and scratched at her chest
         with old yellow nails that only a sea monster could love

Image via

*

...and then she wrote some bad poetry about an old Rapunzel.

Word to the wise: the search term "old woman" on DA brings up an astounding amount of Wonder Woman art. And a lot of it is really, really disturbing. Things I cannot un-see. Though I desperately wish to un-see them.


Also, I have a kitten! Why did the link go on the word "Also"! I do not know! Why are you not clicking to see my adorable little guy!

That is all.

Beautiful

Unquestionably, he is beautiful. But I am sick of beauty and crave to let my eyes rest on sleeping cats, fat and clean on a pile of newspapers that fell on the floor. Mundane things, like address plaques with chipped numbers. A poplar split in two to accommodate a power line. There's a wishbone in the kitchen, hanging on a curtain rod. When it's dry, I don't mean to wish anything with him. He knows it's there; normally, we would have broken it by now, laughing, poking the winner to admit their wish. But he's very careful with his words. He almost says nothing. I'm sick of his beauty and sick of his morose silence.

It's like when someone dies that you have loved: If you are old enough, you know to wait, that another night will ease the pain just a tiny stitch. Enough stitches and someday, you'll realize you haven't thought about them in days. When weeks go by, you feel guilty. For not having thought of the person you said you loved. To their face, you said it. But you forgot them, for a while, and you feel guilty. And one day, you won't feel guilty.

There are only a few stitches, holding my guts in. I haven't got to the point where I want to tear them out and start again, but it's close. When I do, I'll look instead at the basil, yellowing in its pot on the patio. At the white lantern with the dead wasp curled inside. At the things that remind me that the universe sometimes neglects things, too, and I shouldn't be afraid to let some things go. Maybe even the beautiful things.

Bound

He is bound in rope but not restrained. He could undo my knots at anytime. He chooses not to.

All of my passwords are on his arm, wrist to shoulder, in languages foreign to us both. I sometimes suppose he has translated them, but won't make the attempt to match passwords to bank accounts, email... It's rash to think this way, but the line of his stomach just now as he stretches backward tells me he has no interest in passwords.

When I'm finished with the coffee, the strawberries in yogurt, the sun having moved beyond the top of the windowsill to creep along the south wall, I whisper that I'll probably untie him when I come home.

The tattoo artist who speaks seven languages is coming over tonight. Another word -- but where to place it? In the veiled castle of his throat to clavicle, I see what silk scarves could hide: the word he has yet to use, to bother speaking.

On my knees, I put a mirror in front of him. His breath fogs it. With a finger, I trace the spot such a lengthy word in flowing script could be centered in, a spot of pulsing, warm skin. As tender as the flesh on the underside of his arm? We shall see, we shall learn.

I leave a bite, to remind us both. He trembles and says nothing. When I come home, the sun will have left him entirely in shadow, and he will be shivering, naked but for my ropes. I savor the image, and kiss him goodbye.

The word he has never said echoes in my mind, and I wonder: what if it were tattooed upon me?

What if I were marked with his silence?

The sun continues to spill inside our little apartment, and I shut the door, carefully, gently.

Husbands and Writers

I am married to a woodcutter and a tree thief. With the shaving and splinters they bring home, I make words that turn to sawdust, and then pulp in my hands with each night's tears. The weight of the paper wraps my heart in poetry, broken lines that evolve into a new work, until I am ready to bear their promises and grins (the thief) and bristly-bearded kisses (the woodcutter) again every morning. Whatever money exists to buy this place, let it come now: for I am tired of being the author of a barren kingdom.

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