Entries Tagged as ‘vignettes’

October 9, 2009

One Man’s War

When the blood ran off his hands the war was over, and he turned his eyes to the vast, burning wasteland that marked his wake. He sighed and wiped the dead from his face, the gristle and blood falling inconsequentially onto the crimson soaked earth.
It was time to go home.
He stared at the horizon, a [...]

October 5, 2009

Tales of the Apocalypse: The Sergeant

“A-at least I made a difference…” The effort sends blood flecking the boy’s lips. His lungs are slowly filling with blood spilling into Sarge’s lap with every cough. No, you fucking didn’t, Sarge screams, you’re just another useless fucking casualty. But the boy doesn’t hear. His eyes have gone out like the night’s last embers.
Sarge [...]

September 27, 2009

Tales of the Apocalypse: Anna

Anna sank to her knees and brushed the dirt from a hidden plank. She put it aside and stared for a moment at the battered silver travelling case that nestled in the hand dug hole. She took it out, unslung the twine that had hung roughly around her neck for a long time, and fumbled [...]

August 26, 2009

My Death

I wish to be laid in a hollowed out tree, if decor requires it,  and lowered into a roughly dug pit, but would very much prefer to be buried with my skin to the dirt so the maggots can get to me and carve me apart in a thousand trajectories of life to build generations [...]

August 19, 2009

Warpaint

The arm handling the steering wheel of the Phantom VI streaking through the desert is covered with tattoos, serpentine and starred with blooms of color. The other arm, which terminates with a Ruger clenched in a tanned hand, is bare and catches the shafts of light thrown by the sunset. A cigarette dangles from a [...]

July 24, 2009

The Rifle

Miguel peered through the rifle’s scope, adjusted the magnification, adjusted for the wind. Locked in the crosshairs, the man, fat from the suffering of his people, sat at breakfast as his plump, laughing wife swept in coffee and scones. He poured syrup on his son’s waffles and cut his daughter’s cantaloupe. He kissed his wife. [...]

July 24, 2009

klowns

I am a writer in kamp klown kollege and I am in the midst of compiling my magnum opus in a chilled cabin filled with orb weavers and deceased recluses. This dissertation takes soul and a half to ream into a living cavalcade of klown kapers and takes no small cars to disappreciate. This is [...]

July 1, 2009

The Exile

As he watched the neon exhaust of the ruined jetbike recede into the darkness, dragging its mutilated, half-deceased occupant, Grendel knew the halcyon days were over. He turned and walked into his cave. He entered the river that burbled near its mouth, evaded  the defense system of electronic moray eels and fire barracudas—he was never [...]

June 29, 2009

Happiness Inc.

ARE YOU BORED WITH YOUR LIFE? HAS ENNUI ERADICATED YOUR ENTHUSIASM? DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING WITH THE DOLDRUMS? THEN YOU HAVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE! NASH RUDDIN HAS THE ANSWER TO YOUR PRAYERS!
Fat Mick nodded and his jeweled fingers stroked the mouse. He brushed his pyjama silks and gargled some Dom [...]

June 29, 2009

Milk Found on Side of Road

One morning during his constitutional  Nash Ruddin happened upon a  mailman bent against his truck bawling next to broken glass and a puddle of milk. “It’s no use crying over spilt milk, old chap,” said Nash as he leaned a shoulder on the truck. He took a pipe from his blazer and proceeded to tap [...]

June 29, 2009

Doggone A.M.

KETTLE: SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS— (silence)
LIVINGROOM: BARK! BARK! BARK!
POPPA: What the—
KETTLE: SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
The dogs, mortal enemies in more normal circumstances, engage in gleeful cooperation by proceeding to take in their jaws the ends of his pajama pants and thrashing their head about in multiple directions. POPPA is divided between good humor and indignation.
KETTLE: SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
POPPA: You fucking dogs!
PAJAMA PANTS: RRRRIP!
KETTLE: [...]

June 19, 2009

Knight Errant

“Varlet!” cried the rastaknight as he placed his hempen boot upon the sword boy’s proffered forehead and drew the enormous broadsword which wavered in moonlight like opalescent smoke. Its wielder reeled backwards under the sheer weight of its legend, his bones leaden with the burden of contending with the valorous knights of lore who carried [...]

June 19, 2009

Click It Or You’re a Dick

On a lark, Alf stepped into a tarot parlour, and emerged with a perplexing portent: heed the little messages of life for temporary pain followed by bounty, but to disregard is to invite extreme misfortune. Alf shrugged and hit the road.
“License and insurance, please, sir,” the police officer said as he approached the open driver’s [...]

June 17, 2009

Another Morning at the Diner

“Do you really taste like buttercrisps, Mister Melvin?”
The short order cook named Melvin Buttercrisps looked crisply at the redheaded girl with her freckled hands on the edge of the counter. He brought a hairy forearm to his mouth and gnawed. “Damned if I know. Tastes like rancid grease, but then the tastes of gods are [...]

June 16, 2009

A Japanese Radioactive Monster in the Land of Giants

The Japanese Radioactive Monster finds himself in the Land of Giants. Upon hearing this he pounds his tail and rubs his grimy claws together the best he could, exclaiming, “I do believe I will feel much at home here in the Land of Giants—ow!”
What was it that stung him, feeling very like the impacts of [...]

June 16, 2009

Late Morning at the Diner

The short order cook lounged with an elbow on the counter, idly smoking a cigarette while bacon fat congealed on a half eaten plate. A lisping little red haired girl with a pretty gapped smile whose name he could never remember came up to him with her freckled hands on the edge of the counter [...]

June 4, 2009

The Empty Coffee Pot

After clocking in I found my co-workers in the break room.
They were arranged around the coffee machine in a somber half-circle.
“It’s empty,” I said over their shoulders.
“For the first time in years.” That was Alison, daubing at red eyes with a tissue.
“Jim died last weekend,” said Louise.
“Who the fuck is Jim?” I wanted to know.
This [...]

June 4, 2009

New Spring

In the plain where mandrakes spring from the loam to dance in the burgeoning purple thunderheads of new spring, the crone huddled in her gourd shaped house, surrounded by rounded, organic things. A traveling bible salesman knocked at her door, his red galoshes trailing biting snakes fang trapped in deep rubber. Waggling a finger, [...]

June 3, 2009

Space Orgone

The blue klaxons sounded on the SS Voyeur and parents scrambled their children to robotic nannies before making their way to the sex chapel where a crowd was gathering under the orgone blue dome, voices calling out deviantions.
“Feetishists afoot!” “Leather and spandex devotees bunch here!” “Strokes for Masturbatin’ Voyeurs!” “Role-players (No geeks!)” “GILFS and DILFS [...]

May 15, 2009

How the Decadent Die

Fingering nervously the sentient buttons of his redingote the aristocrat of Beldam engages in banal conversation with Pomerannean princesses sprinkling the air with false, girlish laughter. Kreshniks and sultans and dukes and lords and tyrants and barmy barons and sons of black queens and the daughters of devil despots and  kuningas  and viscounts and chevaliers [...]