Nipple, Mustache, Sprinkler

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was pierced. Some sort of small barbell that ran the diameter of the aureola. A few tattoos; praying hands, rosary beads with a cross, some biblical texts and a bloody Jesus on the cross on his back. He had slicked back hair and a lady tickler that seemed to be frozen in a crawl up into his nose and down into his mouth. Though, this priest wasn’t tickling ladies with that mustache.

“Turn, bend over, spread your cheeks and cough.” He paused and looked at the other freshly imprisoned men complying. His clothes black with a strip of white, wadded up on the floor behind him.

He finally turned and overheard someone say, “he’s going to be in that position a lot.” He wasn’t sure who said it, could have been a guard or an inmate, but it didn’t matter. The truth in his head was verbalized.

They shuffled down the corridors being shown to their cells. He reached his and a man, small, bone thin and not a tattoo visible would be his celly.

“What you in for?”

The priest hesitated with his answer as his cell mate looked him up and down. Seeing he wasn’t going to answer, the cell mate continued.

“It’s probably better not to answer that question or make up a lie. I have the bottom bunk, you’re on top. Keep your shit until I’m not sleeping, I don’t want a rude awakening.”

The priest set his clothes and things on the top bunk. He looked around at the toilet, the desk, the bunk bed, the bars at the end of the cell and the cobwebbed sprinklers on the ceiling.

“I’m Henry.” He said, still gazing up at the sprinklers.

“Well, Henry, I’m willing to bet that your pregnant pause when I asked why you were here was something that really only God can deal with. And their ain’t no sprinklers in hell.”

Milkshake, Drawer, Dinosaur

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Did her milkshake bring all the boys to the yard? That’s what Milton wondered in his cell while two feet away from him, his celly took a shit. What was her milkshake? He knew, instinctively it was metaphorical language for the way she moved her ass while dancing. That invariably, those movements suggestive of animals presenting themselves for fornication would bring all the boys out to “play,” so to speak.

But why milkshake? Was it simply because of the word “shake” before that white silk that dripped from utters? Was the word yard to imply that the boys were in prison? So starved of female interactions that a simple shake would bring drooling “boys” from their cells to her side? Or was the emphasis on boys? That the yard was attached to a school and not a prison, making her statement more literal. That didn’t make sense, why use a word like milkshake to describe her dance, just to turn around and be literal about the school setting.

Milton scratched his nose, perhaps it was the waft of fecal matter, like the sudden chill of a ghost passing through the living, or perhaps he was reminding himself that he thought too much.

“Hey, you ever think about how dinosaur bones are gasoline?” Milton looked up at his celly, who often began think deeply while in his thinker pose.

“Um, no, I think about different shit.” Milton chose not to clarify that there was no pun intended. The pun being that shit referred to his milkshake conundrum rather than to the little brown bun coming out of his celly. And at that point, that little brown bun was making his nostrils scream.

“huh.” His celly began to wipe. Milton looked toward the bars of his cell. “It’s crazy how the death of some ancient creatures fuels so much of our lives.”

Milton thought his celly had a point but chose not to acknowledge it, they had plenty of time to build a deeper relationship.

“Hey, do you still drawer?” Milton winced at his celly’s pronunciation of draw. He pronounced it with an “R” rather than stop speaking after saying “draw”.

Milton turned back after the sound of the flush to answer.

“Yeah, I will once I get my pencils back.” Milton said, laying down in his bottom bunk, his head as far away from the toilet as possible.

His celly hopped up onto the top bunk.

“G’night, Milton.”

“Goodnight.”

Milton began drifting off, thinking about gigantic reptiles roaming the earth. Herds of triceratops, if they were called herds, keeping packs of Raptors at bay with their tri-horned faces. Stegosauruses whipping Tyrannosaurus Rex’s with their spiked tails. Woolly mammoths sinking in tar pits.

Milton’s celly pulled him out of the tar pit of sleep, one in which he was more than happy to sink. He was singing again, the same song as always.

“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
and they’re like, it’s better than yours
Damn right it’s better than yours
I can teach you, but I have to charge.”