Offspring, Forward, Tin

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was a simple bike. A red one with a single gear. She loved it. With the exception of a few flat tires, the bike never gave her problems. Not like her previous cycles with their rows of teeth continually biting into the chain and causing it to slip with every hill climb, slope or flat. The red bike simply went, not backward, always in the same direction.

When her mind wandered, she would allow the bike and her legs to carry her body wandering as well. When she felt the pressures of all that is external tightening her body, she would let the curves, slopes and speed of a ride loosen her up. When her heart ached, the two wheels and single frame were as sturdy a companion as any. Though at times she did feel, out of want and not necessity, that a companion would be nice.

She thought about someone with whom she could share her joys, fears, triumphs and failures. Not out of necessity but simply of want, a desire not to be lonely. Perhaps even one day to share the lessons the two of them would learn about their joys, fears, triumphs and failures with little versions of themselves. To create life would be yet another adventure.

Pedaling every day for the same reason yet spurred by different emotions, she thought about her past attempts at love. As she mulled each relationship over in her mind like beads on an abacus, she considered the weight of each person she had loved or nearly loved.  The sum total of which lead her to a question, are there any good men left?

Climbing up a hill, she leaned off the seat and pedaled with her head down. Some of those men had been thieves, stealing her time, attention and love by not completely sharing themselves. Or in some cases, sharing much but not exclusively.

At the peak of the hill, she sat back down and slowed her feet. She thought of the men who had tried to stifle her, to prevent her from being herself and only being for them. Those relationships were shorter.

At the crest of the hill, she stopped pedaling and let the physics of the slope and the wheels do the work. She thought of one more lover and friend. He was none of those things yet he could not take care of himself.

She coasted into her driveway and into the garage. Perhaps someday, he would be ready to come home. Until then, she would protect her heart, protected by dented tin, nevertheless protected.

Exemption, Marine, Slot

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was a losing combination but they met at cherry, grapes and seven. She was a marine, he was a truck driver. She was killing some time away from the barracks, not looking but maybe looking for something different. He was playing the slots like he was filling out paperwork for a 401K and life insurance policy all in one. Gripping the black stick he pulled it down, putting the machine into gear and starting its flashing lights, beeps, and boops.

She was adjusting her camo cap and looking at the roulette tables across the casino, to her right. She bumped into him. They looked at each other and then at the combo that stopped on the screen; cherry, grapes, seven. He chuckled to himself then stood up, “excuse me ma’am.” and gave a limp salute.

She smiled, “At ease, I bumped into you. Let me buy you a drink.”

“That isn’t necessary, ma’am. I’ve already got my security blanket here.” He twirled his glass so that the ice clinked.

“Well, if you change your mind I’ll be at the bar putting on my dancing shoes.” She smiled and looked him up and down.

He smirked and looked down at her tan boots. “I bet you could cut up a rug with those standard issue’s.”

“What’s your name, soldier?” she asked.

“Tom.”

“Staff Sergeant, Mary Maline.”

“Mary, it’s a pleasure to meet you. If your offer still stands, perhaps I’ll slip on some dancing shoes at the bar as well.”

The two made their way to the bar in silence, glancing at each other every so often. He looked down at his drink and around the flashing lights and sounds. She adjusted her cap and looked around at the flashing lights and sounds.

They reached the bar and she ordered. “Two Bulleit whiskey’s, neat.”

He raised his glass to her and finished off his drink, setting it on the bar with a clink.

“Where might two people move their legs and bodies around in a show of complete tom foolery?” he asked.

“I don’t believe the club is open, but there is music playing at the food court, if your up for dancing with complete exemption of social norms.” She answered.

The bar tender set their drinks on the bar. She paid. They toasted to warm casino nights. She grabbed his hand and they zig zagged through the smoke, illusions of grandeur, lights and sound of the casino toward the food court.

There was some contemporary pop playing, they rested their drinks on a deserted table with discarded Chinese food. Then they danced.

Peasant, Delay, Banquet

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

He’d been called it before, many times. This time, he stopped and thought about it; peasant. An antiquated word with almost no relevant meaning. He didn’t own a farm or small piece of land that he worked and paid taxes to the king. He lived in a small studio on the lower east side of Manhattan.

Of course he paid taxes, whether it were to kings or for the infrastructure of society was for political parties to debate. Which he hoped represented him.

He stopped at the mailboxes and turned back to look at the lady who had called him a peasant. She turned the corner, flicking her fur coat as she did. He smiled, thinking about all the movies, TV shows and books that told him women in fur coats were cunts. Was that true? Or was that only true in this instance?

Grabbing the mail he went into his building. Thumbing through the mail was a familiar activity. Bill, bill, garbage, bill, coupon, but what was this…

A banquet for one of his friends, that night. in 30 minutes. Shit. He sprinted up the stairs, not even bothering to wait for the elevator, which would have taken 15 of his 30 minutes. His front door lock was tricky, he had to pull the knob while twisted the key and then let go of the knob so that…something would work and the door could be opened. There was always a slight delay, he learned patience but this time he did it, first try, experience was key.

The sprint up the stairs made him sweat so he jumped in the shower. His friends apartment was a 10 minute taxi ride, 20 minute subway ride and 30 minute walk. He only had money for a walk, so he convinced himself to be comfortable with the idea of being fashionably late, even if his fashion was lacking.

Never mind, he thought, fuck this banquet. My friend is always celebrating stupid shit and rubbing in every little hickey he gets from lovers or extra chicken McNugget he gets from McDonald’s to all the people he knows. Fuck him.

So he stayed in the shower, rubbed one out and watched TV for the rest of the evening.

Why? What the fuck did you do last night?

Rugby, Hair, Hammer

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

A real bruiser, this guy. He had a head that looked like it had been pressed by vices, one smashing his chin and nose, another pressing against his ears. His neck was about as thick as his skull. The rest of his body looked like a sculpture in progress. A cube of marble with arms, a chest, stomach, legs and feet with none of the ripples and bumps of a completed piece. He was a block.

He was most comfortable and alive in the middle of a scrum. Locked arm and arm with two other bruisers, pushing against the entirety of his opponents. His team would always say that they swore he was doing all the work and that they were just along for moral support.

He was one of those guys that stayed in shape from 18 to 50 years old, no matter how much he ate, drank or otherwise consumed. Teeth might fall out of his mouth but the rest of him remained an absolute unit, as they would say on the sidelines.

He would have kept going, there was no signs of him slowing down. Except one day his picture appeared in the paper. His face was caved in by a hammer. It appeared that someone wanted to put a little more detail into his bulky features.

And so he was remembered, briefly, by family, friends and team mates but will be all but forgotten when they also pass on. Hopefully by less artistic means.

Patience, Large, Presidency

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

I’ve been giving brow furrowing thought to uprooting my life and changing it radically. Thoughts that slow my steps when I walk, strip away all that’s around me and humble me in the chest. What are the things I have? So fortunate am I to have them, when compared to the other. Yet, perhaps, they are not what I should have.

For this thought to manifest in any sort of tangible way requires patience. A sort of patience that I have not practiced in my 34 years of consciousness, of which the prospect of practicing looms large over head. A weight that pushes down on my and wrinkles my forehead. What are the things I want, if they are not the things I have? Is it as simple as wanting the things I have? Or is it a question of adventure, a simple matter of trying, failing, trying, failing, trying, failing, and defining success out of those efforts. That is the currency of patience.

The presidency is touted as one of the hardest jobs on the planet. but why is this question only whispered in underground places, is it even a job that should exist? Should there be a thing so unreasonable, so unsatisfying for all of us that it exists? Why can we not question the existence of something we once created?

And so I find myself, questioning my existence. What have I created? It’s not a question of regret or satisfaction, it’s a question that follows; having done this, am I still satisfied continuing to do the same? What do I want next? What is my next challenge?

That I write is not in question. However, what I write about always changes. And so likewise, I will be until I am dead, but I need not be doing the same things.

Such a radical change in existence is daunting. To move from the home I’ve created. To move from the job in which I found a voice. To move from a room where there is light and identifiable shapes into a room that is dark and filled mostly with shadows.

It’s not a question of purpose. To treat purpose like some treasure to be found with or without a map is to take away ones own intrinsic value. I believe, for me, it is a matter of finding what is next. What will be. What may be, if I simply try.

It comes down to a simple act, however, a simple act becomes difficult when the opposite of actions have become habit. To not do becomes more comfortable than to do. To be a passive observer of ones life. To consume. To applaud the achievements of others while allowing that recurring monologue in my mind to run like a ticker tape around my mind, reminding me that there is more in me than I have allowed myself to express.

I must also recognize the place I am in. To be kind to myself. To understand that I am not a machine, not a creation built by man but made from natural acts and self-created. To think otherwise is to undermine existence itself. The pressure I may feel to determine a future, my future, is wholly my own.

I have placed that looming prospect of patience and radical change over my head. And so I must recognize that that is okay. That I am not at the summit but at the base of a journey I am willing myself to take. A journey all at once formidable and exhilarating.

I am at the beginning of an end. Or perhaps it is the very beginning of a new beginning. Whatever this phase, this time, this place. I am open to the idea and an idea is the most natural creation of man.

Fantasy, Census, Mill

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

There was an explosion in his mind, a spectacular explosion of imagination. A world appeared out of thin air. It moved, breathed, projected light and shadows. Creatures moved in and out of the darkness and light. Buildings pocked the land from castles to shacks. It was a world of his own creation, built from scratch through memory and imagination. A world so vast and ever expanding it was impossible to keep a running record of all its inhabitants.

The walnut shaped mill in his head kept churning his thoughts into fantasy.

Everything was imagined from mythical beasts to majestic feasts. Yet he could not conjure her, even in his own memory. She would not appear in his imagined world.

The waiting room in which he had dozed had grown in occupants. Nearly every seat was filled with someone coughing, bleeding, clutching their chests, or nodding off to sleep. An EMT made her rounds through the room, checking vital signs and taking temperatures, just enough to ensure people were alive in that purgatory before a hospital bed.

He’d come in to the waiting room many times before. Sometimes for food from the vending machine, sometimes for warmth but mostly for a place to sit. He often waited a full day but it was still a nice reprieve from sitting by the highway or sleeping behind the rubble of an abandoned lot. Here he had to be seen, if not immediately, then eventually but he would be seen and heard and felt and spoken to.

Here in the waiting room, they were required to pay attention to him. To hear him out. Listen to him speak and speak back. Here he would be counted among the living, even if just before they died. There would be a record of him, no matter how menial the numbers of his blood pressure were.

He nibbled at the vending machine egg salad sandwich, savoring each bite. Here he was a person, waiting like all the rest to be seen.

Woman, Cellar, Cutting

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Her razor blade was still on the nightstand, dried brown with blood. There was water running, the shower, she must have turned it on to hide any sound. What sound, I didn’t know, but then again suicide is often uncharted territory if done correctly.

I put her clothes from the hospital in the hamper and sat on the bed. What were all those forms I needed to fill out? What were those phone numbers I had to call? Why did I put her clothes in the hamper?

I stood up, compelled by the only instinct, I knew. I headed down to the cellar and grabbed the first bottle of wine on the rack, not bothering to read the label. I suppose it wasn’t instinct, simply learned behavior.

I pulled off the label, twisted into the cork and popped it open. Red wine. Whiskey would be better but I was able to hide my learned behavior behind a hobby of wine collecting. Maybe that was one of the reasons that compelled her to leave. One of many, I guessed.

I went back to the room. No glass, just the bottle. I laid in bed. I need to fix that baseboard it’s loose. She had pointed it out. I never got around to it. Probably never would. Perhaps that was one of the last remaining forms of communication between us. A shared responsibility for the house. Without that, what was the house?

I turned and saw the razor blade still poised on the edge of the night stand. I imagined it had just been used and looked down to see the crowns of blood on the floor below it. What had that felt like? Sitting here, hiding from me, wanting to escape, not just this home but everything. There wasn’t a single place she would have rather gone, could have gone other than to that unknown place that hovers like a stick behind us. Or maybe in her case, like a carrot dangling in front of us.

A deep emptiness seemed to push all else out of my stomach. A pit so vast I couldn’t drink fast enough to fill it. The emptiness forced tears out of my eyes and shaking so violent I double over, gripping my pillow. It pulled my face in all directions, contorting my mouth into ugly cries. There was a deep hole and would not be filled again. Never.

What did it feel like to sit here, shower running and cut into the veins of the wrist? To cut so deeply that the blood rushed out like a crack in a dam. What sort of emptiness was that? Or was it exactly like my own. An agonizing look into nothingness.

I grabbed at the razor blade, spilling my wine. What sort of emptiness did she feel? That woman, that once called herself mine. My woman. A woman. What did it feel like?

Box, Swing, Touch

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Six sides, 8 corners, and hollow in the middle or sometimes the vessel of some great surprise. It’s potential, opportunity, pregnant with possibility. A box.

The stomach holds the great tangled nest of intestines, large and small. Like the patterned maze of the brain, the stomach holds all the feelings. The butterflies, the guilt, the shame, the regret, the excitement. It bares the burden of our most pivotal moments. It’s that spot in the dirt where heels dig in to turn directions and change course.

To rub Buddha’s belly is a sign of good luck, it will bring good fortune. It’s hard not to think of the Buddha being tickled by so much rubbing, with that big grin permanently etched into his golden face. To run a mindless finger around the belly button, to feel the grooves and smoothness of worn away stone or metal, is an act of meditation.

Momentum. The tick and tock of a clock. The up and down of the yo-yo. The yin and yang of life. The back and forth of the swing. The push of feet against concrete against the pull of gravity. To what end? Gravity always wins.

Box, swing, touch. Everything is connected.

Eye, Leader, Raccoon

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Through the peep hole, all I could see was that big blue window into her soul. I smiled and knocked again. She opened the door but the chain kept the door open just a crack. Maybe she didn’t recognize me. Maybe I had the wrong house. Then her head peaked through the crack.

I smiled a little wider this time.

“Hi, it’s me.”

She only stared. Not saying anything. I could hear the sounds of a house full of living. Pots, pans, yelling kids, a TV.

“Is this a bad time.”

“What are you doing here?”

Now the words caught in my throat. I folded my hands behind my back and cleared the uncertainty welling up.

“Well, I wanted to be the first to tell you that I got that movie made. It was purchased and now there’s some director looking for actors and…well, I just wanted to tell you. You were always so supportive of that.”

She looked at me. Then closed the door. I heard something scratching and then the door opened all the way. She stepped onto the porch, shutting the door behind her. It took every ounce of social conditioning and domestication that had been thrown my way to not instantly through my arms around her shoulders and pull her head into my chest.

She crossed her arms slowly and then looked up at me.

“You couldn’t have called or texted?”

My cheeks flushed. I knew she could see that.

“I’m sorry, you’re right, this isn’t fair of me.”

“No, look, I think it’s great. That’s what you’ve always wanted. It sounds like you’re on your way to something great.”

I knew she was just extending a guilty hand. I looked around the yard and spotted chains and a lock on the lids of their trash cans.

“So you keep a pretty tight lid on your trash now, huh?”

“What?” She looked where my gaze held then laughed. That sweet laugh. “Oh, yes, well we have some pretty tenacious little bandits that dig around and spread it out every night if we don’t.”

She uncrossed her arms but took a half step backward.

“I’m sorry, again, I should have called, I just thought it would be cool for you to know when the trailers came out and stuff. You’d see them on TV and know who made the movie.”

She looked at me for what seemed like a full moon cycle. It was only a few seconds before she spoke but I could see that familiar glint, somewhere buried back behind her new life.

“Well, it’s just that, it’s hard to see…”

Another pause. I knew what she was going to say, something to the effect of it’s hard to see me but it wouldn’t work, it never worked. Despite what I thought to the contrary.

“Alright, well it sounds like you’re busy in there with the little ones. I just wanted you to know and now you do. It was great to see you.”

“It was great to see you too.”

I turned to go down the steps. She turned to go back inside.

I thought about the most memorable people in history. The presidents, kings, bishops, popes, captains, outlaws, revolutionaries and wondered how their greatness was shaped. I wondered if they didn’t have their own broken hearts and so turned the world into their anvils, beating it into the shapes that suited their desires.

As I got to the gate, she yelled out to me.

“Hey, I’m gonna see your movie the day it comes out.”

I smiled and thought about an empty theater playing my movie with only her big beautiful eyes to watch it.

Failure, Clock, Wagon

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

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

He tapped it a couple more times. The hands stayed frozen at 3:15. AM or PM? He couldn’t remember the last time he looked at his watch. The old grandfather in the corner of the room struck snake eyes. The dings of the clock’s bells conjured up a memory. A train station, a whistle, some bags he hadn’t packed but carried for someone else. Someone he used to know.

She didn’t even look out of the window as the engine yanked the cars forward and away from him.

The grandfather stopped its whining. He check his watch out of habit one more time then slid it off his wrist. Another thing he thought he could count on gone.

Sitting in his chair, letting the momentum of its rock jostle up more thoughts, he looked at the wagon through a window. It was parked in front of the porch. The mare in his barn, really a shed, hadn’t been on a ride in a while.

Rocking the chair forward and pushing off his feet, he stood. Too quickly. Little stars danced around his head, just outside his vision. She’d asked him once if he was happy and the only thing he could say was that happiness were like fire flies in the eyes, you could only see them if you didn’t try.

Cinching up his belt, he grabbed the bit by the front door. The night was cool, bright with stars and the light of the moon. No breeze, just the world holding it’s breath. He took the three steps down to the yard one leg at a time, listening the groans of his tired knees. He’d learned to stop holding his breath a long time ago, she wasn’t coming back.

The latch to the barn door was cracking and splintering. He grabbed it carefully and lifted, swinging the big door open in the same motion. The mare pawed at the ground and snorted. He smiled.

“Atta girl.”

She trotted past him and out into the yard. He patted her back and fit the bit in her mouth. He hitched her to the wagon and pulled himself up onto the seat. Yes, a night ride always did him good. For fifty-some years, it was the only time he saw the stars.

With a click of his mouth and gentle tug of the reins, they moved toward the old dusty road, rutted from nightly rides. The wheels creaked and he bounced in his seat but with one hand gripping the reins and the other stroking his beard, he was content.

Content to think about his short comings. Maybe if he had wound it religiously. Maybe if he had carefully dusted its face. Maybe if he had taken it apart once a while for a good cleaning, the watch would still work. Maybe if he had just paid more attention to it, the hands would still be faithful to him.

Or maybe if he had paid more attention to her…

Beast, River, Turbulent

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It’s a gorgeous creature. I can see it from the burbling banks. I’m sitting behind a tree. The low leaves and uncut foliage provide enough cover for me, but not for… whatever I’m looking at.

The silky white skin pops out from the greens and browns of the forest. It approaches the water one step at a time, looking around with every gentle paw print.

Then the thunder clapped. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of lightening. I didn’t flinch, my gaze fixed on the creature. I forgot about my hunger. I forgot I about my thirst. Maybe I just ignored my basic needs. The creature moved so elegantly on the other side of Sacramento. In between us the sound of rushing water. I was able to ignore that too.

I stubbed out my cigarette. The smoke would be a signal. The burning cherry a red eye in the middle of the forest. Looking through the scope, the creature looked around one more time before bending over to lap up the river water.

The creatures pause gave me a chance to look at it through the cross hairs of the scope. An elegant white skin with bright orange dots all over. Something I’ve never seen before.

Long arms that bent like a bulldogs. Legs that rippled with muscle. Hair that ran from it’s head down to where I imagined some sort of sexual organ. I was attracted but not sure what sort of creature I was looking at.

My knees shook from sitting for so long. The rifle dipped and I gripped it with a “Click.” The creature looked up, seemingly straight at me, through the scope and into whatever part of me people call the soul.

I was terrified to breathe. What I had considered a burbling brook a few minutes ago seemed now like a turbulent vortex. It started to rain.

The creature looked up to the sky and roared.

I watched, now with my rifle lowered. Across the banks, I realized it was twice as big as me. It pawed at the dirt, backing up a few paces and began to charge the river bank. Just before touching the water, it leapt.

It seemed to hang in the air for an hour. I stayed in my position with the rifle’s barrel digging into the dirt. I was too enamored with the creature.

Just before it landed in front of me and roared I thought how I would do everything to make sure the creature would exist, forever.

Right in front of me, the creature opened it’s mouth, revealing yellow piles of teeth. Sharp and dripping with saliva.

Before the beast took its bite, I wiped away a bit of saliva so I could watch. It grabbed my throat and shook. I didn’t put up a fight.

If I could nourish such a magnificent creature, then I was doing the lord’s work, as grandpa would say.

Flow, Irrigation, Plumbs

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

God’s coming she’s just tying her shoe laces and once she gets her kicks on she’s gonna kick some ass. At least that’s what grandpa told me. He assured me, on multiple occasions that every mother fucker would get their comeuppance. Not exactly in those words but something like that.

Grandpa also said that if I kept up my hustle the money would flow in. That seemed like more pertinent, relevant advice than anything about god. If I had to wait for god to tie her shoes, then I might as well lace up mine and get out there to kill some time.

Grandpa and god. Two figures that let me down, albeit unintentionally. Grandpa let me down, not with his words but with his actions and god can’t let me down or lift me up, if you catch my drift. Grandpa could fix a car, build a house or make water flow in any direction through pipes. What grandpa couldn’t do was make himself better.

I remember the things he said about god and shit. He pointed at the stars and told me which constellation Jesus would return from, where heaven is, where I told grandpa he would be when I held his hand right before his last breath. I remember the way grandpa smelled after working on his cars. He washed his hands with a cavernous bar of soap and when he hugged me the smell of motor oil and grease was overwhelming. I wish he’d told me more about fixing cars, pipes and houses than he did about god. I can fix a car, I can’t do anything with the other information.

I remember the way he used to say orange, “oyenge.” I loved it. For a few years I made myself pronounce the color and fruit like that. Right up until he turned on the car, hooked up a hose from the exhaust pipe to the driver’s side window and closed the garage. He might have met god that day had grandma not opened the garage door and found him.

Like a plumb in my memory is grandpa. The skin is bitter and I have to get past it to get to the sweetness in the middle. I loved him. As for that other figure, what’s there to say?

Rope, Blind, Sword

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

I step outside and look around at all the legs and torsos around me. I can’t see too far because of the fog around my head. Everything is monochrome, it’s always been monochrome but I have a feeling that I’m missing color. It’s a dull ache and I suspect that the heads of those around me, attached to the necks, torsos, and legs of those passing me in the fog, poke through the clouds above. Others breath fresh air, they see colors above the fog, they feel and express those feelings.

I stand on my toes and crane my neck, willing my head past the clouds to something else. I never seem to be able to reach it. I’ve stacked crates, books, climbed ladders, but I can never get high enough to see past the monochrome.

Sometimes, I’ll go to a bar and some old man will push a glass full of gold with bubbles in my direction. I drink it and I catch glimpses of brightness, take deep breaths and feel something in my chest, rattling at my rib cage. Some moments there’s a tiger biting at the bars and other moments there’s a mouse passing freely throughout the world of my body. The bubbles in my glass fizz and pop but my head is tilted toward the sky.

There must be a reason young men look up at the sky and shake their fists while old men stare at the ground and rub their tired hands. I was born to die but while I wait I wave my hand in a long, slow goodbye. My eyes see but I think I’m blind. Ropes are for tying down and swords are for cutting but love is for those still waving goodbye.

Tacos, Hair, Crema

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

And so these tacos…they have what in them?

Hair.

And…okay, but you eat them?

Yes, with plenty of Crema.

Okay, now I know you’re just talking about something else.

Yeah, tacos.

The dirty kind of taco, like slang for…well, you know what I’m talking about.

No.

Let’s say you’re actually talking about tacos–

–I am.

Fine. How do you eat a mouthful of hair?

You just–

–Follow up question, who’s hair is it? What kind of hair is it? Is it washed? Where does it come from?

From the bowl in the kitchen.

Come on man, we’re not talking about the beloved Mexican food, are we?

Yes with a twist.

The twist is it has hair instead of meat or beans or rice or fajitas.

Yes, and plenty of Crema.

So where does the hair come from before it gets to the bowl in the kitchen?

I don’t know.

You never asked?

No, a truck just pulled up and on the side in old English style red lettering it said Tacos, Hair, Crema and that’s all they serve.

No questions?

Just the hottest new eats on wheels in town.

Who is eating them.

All the cool kids. The ones with wide brimmed hats, long dresses and heels. Others with mustaches, tweed jackets with patches and spectacles with no prescription lenses.

Oh, okay, you’re saying that ironically.

No, they are cool and I know that because of all the effort that goes into finding those clothes.

See, when you say it like that it sounds like your making fun of them or being passive aggressive.

I’m saying exactly what I think.

Okay…Okay, so tacos, hair, crema. Back to my first question, and I still have so many, how do you eat all that hair?

Well, that’s what the crema is for, you kinda stick a finger into the taco and move it around until all the hair has mixed into the crema, then it kind of just slides down your tongue and down your throat.

Sounds so appetizing when you say it like that.

Exactly! I knew you’d get it.

No, I was being sarcastic. And again you made it sound sexual.

Sexual?

Come on ‘stick your finger in,’ slides down tongue’?

They’re open today if you want to try it.

I don’t.

Where is your adventurous spirit. I have all kinds of photos showing everyone my adventurous spirit. You know in some parts of the world they eat bugs, other parts they eat dogs, in the U.S. we eat cows but in other parts of the world it’s taboo to eat beef.

Yes, but hair, come on. There is a line somewhere and it’s been crossed.

Yes, eating meat is barbaric.

Your point is well taken but eating hair is a stupidity that has to be on the moronic end of the stupidity spectrum.

No, I eat them.

Yeah.

Excessive, Revolution, Pomegranate

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Seduced by the plump arils offered up in the hands of Hades. Those tempting seeds spilling through his fingers and falling over the edges of his hands, stained red. Twelve devils surrounded the king of the underworld each a different shape, size, color and vice. They whooped, coughed, choked, laughed, cried, screamed, roared, cut themselves, masturbated, penetrated their orifices with objects that stretched their cavities. They pointed their chipped fingernails at me with one hand and spread blood, oozing from their self-inflicted cuts, over their skin and hair. Macabre wrestlers making their bodies slick with blood instead of olive oil.

A scene designed by the lord of the underworld to make his outstretched hands appear the most enticing choice. To grab those seeds and feast in the face of excessive debauchery would be a triumph.

The revolution, however, is only won by turning to a demon, lathering myself with the blood from my own wounds and wrestling until each one in the circle is bested. I feel the gash in my stomach, poke two fingers inside and slowly wipe them over my face. I feel the cuts along my legs from the thorns they pushed aside and wipe them around my neck, shoulders and arms. I wipe the blood dripping from my forehead, and rub it all over my chest and legs. I take my pointer finger and push it into the deepest cut in my chest. I slather it over my waist and buttocks. I rub my hand over the open wound in my chest and put it to my lips.

I can taste the iron.

Project, Farm, Worship

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Behold the great sheep, humble and woolly, providing cotton for all of us. Let us raise our hands and lower them to gently sweep the grasses on which the sheep graze. We shall write songs of its soothing bleats, its gently spirit and that wool that keeps us warm when the god of ice exacts his wrath.

Let us erect a statue in the image of the sheep, a ram and a ewe. The pair representing the balance between protection, violence and calm, gentleness. We shall conduct the lambing as a sacred rite. A new lamb represents the Spring, life, growth, harvest. Let us cut the grasses as gently as we sheer the wool, for us the wool, for the sheep, the grasses.

We shall project our needs and desires onto the careless bleating of the sheep. We shall make our most important decisions upon which direction the flock chooses to graze. Let us not take responsibility for our actions but place the burden of our actions on the paths our flocks choose to tread. Through bad harvest and good, all blame and credit will be given to the sheep.

Why? Because we need the wool to stay warm in the Winter’s, to maintain our temperatures during the winds of Fall. We need not take responsibility when we can hoist our burdens onto the sheep. All praise the sheep!

Let us remove our shoes and walk upon their dung to feel the earthly wisdom that is excreted from their nether regions. Let us hold golden goblets to their golden showers and drink of their peace.

Nothing is our fault. We are blameless. We are humble servants of the sheep as the sheep humbly provide their wisdom through their very nature.

Let us sacrifice our children if the sheep suffer from illness or disease. Let us kill one another when there is dispute over the treatment of the sheep. We shall not bother with our own doubt. Let us ignore them as the sheep ignore the sandy earth. Let us dismiss the questions that forever run through our minds of whether the sheep belong to us or whether we belong to the sheep.

Let us remember that when one sheep dies, we must kill one of our own to make up for the loss.

Let us never forget that we belong to the sheep!

Let us write down our decrees and thinking at this moment and forever follow them blindly, as the flock follows their ram. No matter what changes befall us, no matter what discoveries we make, let us never forsake the wool and the wisdom of the sheep.

Let us raise our goblets of sheep urine and drink to the wool and the wisdom of sheep, never to think for ourselves but only to remain faithful to the sheep.

Amen!

Feather, Sing, Cave

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

“Check it out, dude. I found this fuckin’ sweet ass feather over here in this cave.”

“Why are you talking like that?”

“Like what?”

“Sweet ass feather?”

“It is a sweet ass feather.”

“Yeah, but in meetings your vocabulary is quite different. Your explaining the demographics and opportunities within the European market. Now your saying stuff like ‘fuckin’ sweet as feather.'”

“I’m not at work. Look forget that bullshit, man. That’s just the 9-to-5, you know?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just weird is all.”

“Anyway, I was venturing out into the wilds of Canada one day and happened upon the opportunity for a spelunking adventure. So I told myself, Martin, you deserve a break from the rat race, treat yourself to exploration.”

“What is happening, now your talking like the beginning of a novel from the 1920’s. You’re all over the place.”

“You’re missing the forest for the trees, my dude–“

“–My dude.”

“Just listen. I took out my cellular phone–“

“–Cellular?”

“I TOOK OUT MY CELLULAR PHONE and turned on the flash light. The first few feet into the cave I noticed a sharp turn to the right, it was hella dark.”

“Okay, you’ve never said hella in your life…”

“It was hecka dark in there, but like I mentioned earlier, I had turned on my flashlight. So I ventured to the right, following the natural slope downwards and twist of the rock.”

“Okay.”

“Nothing special, just rocks, dirt and a few mice bones. Then I heard it, some sound. At first I thought it was wind but as I walked forward, I realized it was singing–oh hold on, I’m getting a call. Hello? Yes, um, well I already have a phone plan but what’s your offer?”

“Dude.”

“Hold on. Well, I have a pretty good plan now and I don’t want to deal with the hassle of switching over, thank you for calling and have a lovely day. Okay man, where was I?”

“You heard singing.”

“Right. It was singing but it was the combination of a chortling bird and an opera singer. Like Andrea Bocelli Gargling mouthwash or Placido Domingo trying to belt out ‘O sole mio while being water boarded. It was bizarre.”

“Yeah.”

“So I kept going down and saw some light at the end. Then I saw them. These giant birds, about as big as a bulldog standing on it’s hind legs, like crows but with the heads of humans. Like those 16th/17th century paintings of strange birds with human heads, just like that.”

“No way.”

“They were hopping around, like birds do when they’re excited in a cage, just doing that chortling/singing thing.”

“What did their heads look like?”

“They all looked exactly like Dolph Lundgren, you know boxers nose, block chin, and blond feathers.”

“Good thing you had your phone out.”

“Yes, it is, because with the light of the flashlight I was able to pick up one of the feathers that had fallen.”

“You didn’t take a picture?”

“Well, I was grabbing the feather, see?”

“It just looks like a feather. That could be from any bird.”

“Well, even so, how many times to come across a fuckin’ sweet ass feather?”

Tree, Fork, Boat

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

The tree was dripping with honey. She looked down at her shoulder and dabbed at the drip of bee juice spreading over her freckles. The taste was too irresistible to worry about the bees. She hiked up her skirt above her knees and gripped a knot in the old oak. Pulling herself up closer to the humming of the drones orbiting the nearest honeycomb. From her purse she pulled out a fork. She pressed the tines down into the comb just the way father had taught her to press into a boiled potato before mashing it.

She watched the viscous gold ooze out of each pore and drip onto the ground, down the tines of the fork and onto her hand. The sensation of the collapsing comb beneath her hands force was satisfying. Like popping packing bubbles or pressing a gigantic pimple before it popped.

The honey kept coming and the bees kept buzzing, louder, angrier. The nectar began dripping from more and more areas of the comb as the fork went deeper, and her hand nearly swallowed by the beeswax warehouse. Honey oozed onto her arm, dripped into her hair, stuck to her white dress and splattered onto her bare legs.

The fork hit something hard, the bark of the tree. Already straining to lift her arm to reach, she pushed up from the know in the oak to lift up the honey comb and bring down to earth. Straining, she lifted up her arm just enough to loosen the rare treat. With that move, she lost her grip and fell down to the ground, the honeycomb smashing next to her.

Getting to her knees, she bent over the honey, beginning to mix in the sand, making sweet mud. She licked the fork, her hands, her arms. She squeezed the honey into her hair and tussled it all into a wild nest of red tufts.

She ate her fill of honey, leaving it all over her face. In the sun, she could feel the stickiness pulling at her cheeks when she smiled. Looking down, she saw her dress was above her waist, leaving her black panties exposed. Feeling satisfied from the honeycomb that came from above, she began to work her fingers to feel that satisfaction that came from within.

As the sound of the birds singing and bees humming crescendo-ed so did that sweet feeling inside. At the moment of clim–

–“Hey, babe! babe! I got the boat. The guy gave me a pretty sweet deal too! It just needs a new motor and some paint but we can still go out and float a little bit tonight, have that adventure you were talking about.”

She stopped, sat up and walked past her husband. He wouldn’t know adventure if it stuck to his hair, face, arms and legs.

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.”

Reservoir, Material, Crack

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was the last of the water supply. A large artificial lake and there was a crack. The only materials left to patch it would contaminate the water.

But one dude was like, I can fix it. And then he shot himself in the head, just above the crack. His plan, I can only guess, was to use his body to stop the leak. The problem, in the long term, was that his body would eventually begin to rot and therefore contaminate the water supply anyway. The problem, in the short term, was that he hadn’t accounted for the steep curve of the wall. So his body rag-dolled down the slope, not even close to the crack. Ironically, he had landed where the water was pooling so that nobody else could at least enjoy the runoff.

Then some other chick said she could fix it. She cut off her hair until it was just above her ears. she wadded up the mess of hair and began stuffing it into the crack. Not a bad idea, except that she had to cut her locks into smaller pieces to be able to fit. So people were constantly sticking out their tongues and grabbing small hairs for weeks after. Eventually the hairs either rolled outside of the reservoir or drifted into the water supply.

Then some priest was like, I’ll pray about it. For all we know he’s still doing that.

Then some politician was like, I’ll fix the crack. What I’ll do is collect a small percentage of all your money and with that I will be able to find the appropriate solution. The money was raised quickly, the first time. He took it and then declared, well first, we must have a building dedicated to researching a solution for the crack. So the money went into the building.

Then again, the same politician told the people that for a small percentage of money he would expand on the research. He could update the facilities, which he also called home on the top floor. This update would allow them to hire the best scientists and equipment which would this time guarantee a solution for the crack.

More money was raised, this time a bit less. but the raising of money continued and more buildings were erected.

Now a female priest came along and said that the prayers of the other priest were incorrect. So she went on the opposite side of the reservoir and began her version of prayer, which to the rest of us looked very similar to the first guys. Anyway, she’s still there and water is still leaking from the crack.

The rest of us figured we’d just go for a swim while there was still enough water to do so. While down there, one of us got too close to the crack and the small part of their back received a small hickey from temporarily getting stuck in the crack.

One of the kids smiled wide and grabbed an old sheep bladder. He swam down to the crack and place the bladder just in front of the crack, watching as it seemed to grab onto the wall. From the other side arose a cheer, the leak had stopped.

At this the priests, both of them, leaped into the air and said, I told you my god would deliver. At the same moment, the politician appeared in his window and said, I told you the schools and research buildings I built would solve the problem.

We told them to fuck off.

Leftovers, Spin, Commission

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

She wiped it off her chin. He wiped with a towel. The crew struck the set. The director took the footage to the editor. The talent got dressed and drove off in separate vehicles.

The footage was edited. The file uploaded and the views started coming in. The director got his percentages, the editor got his cut and the cast and crew were paid up front.

The video went viral. It was talked about in whispers at work and communicated through smirks and smiles at friendly gatherings. Talk show hosts feigned tongue-in-cheek jokes for the sake of not embarrassing the wholesome American public.

Journalists tracked down the director and location. Documentaries were made. The male talent jawed and grinned in front of interviews. The female talent declined to speak.

Fathers exaggerated their anger towards the video. Sons stayed silent. Mothers slacked their jaws but kept their eyes open. Daughters wondered. All of them hid their authentic private thoughts.

Preachers ensured congregations that they had watched the video so the rest of their souls would be spared. Politicians ensured constituents that the tapes had been reviewed to ensure good, hard-working Americans wouldn’t need to be subjected to such smut.

They made their meals spinning their stories to strengthen their commissions, burying the leftovers with the truth about themselves.

Steak, Charm, Shelf

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

He touched the fleshy part of his palm, just below his thumb.

“Well done, okay, and for you ma’am?” The waiter wasn’t faced by the man’s silence or his stare.

“I’ll have a chicken salad, please, with dressing on the side.”

“We’ll have that right out for you. More wine?”

He put his hand over his glass. No.

The waiter left and the two at the table stared at each other. Their eyes looked all over each other’s faces for understanding.

The woman’s charm was in her eyes. She would narrow them at him and smile. Words were unnecessary at this point in their relationship. After 60 years, words mostly got in the way.

They looked around the room, and look back at each other. Remembering and knowing what the other would say. An ongoing conversation, never placed on the top shelf, always going back to where they were.

They communicated like this for 20 minutes before the waiter returned with their food. The steak let off wavy streams of heat. The salad nearly spilled out of it’s bowl. They looked at the salad and both began to laugh.

The man pushed the tines of his fork into the base of the T in his steak. The woman scooped out a piece of chicken with her hands, dipping it into her dressing before taking the whole bit in her mouth.

They ate, paid the check, left a 20% tip and left. All without a word. The waiter came and cleared the table. A younger man and woman took their place. Laughing and jawing at all the things they wanted to share but barely looking each other in the eyes.

Vein, Ghost, Decoration

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

She tapped at median cubital vein, slapped at it. The skin turned red and eventually the vein bulged. Squeezing her wrist, she pushed the tiniest drop from her syringe. The blood she drew into the syringe, wrapped itself into the hero, grabbing it’s hands and pulling him into her body.

The sensation was of wallflowers. Becoming a part of the scenery, the background, a decoration that’s been hanging for so long it’s lost all meaning. A ghost viewing life but not able to live. She leaned back, her mouth open, her eyes only slits. The needle stayed in her vein.

This was what life was supposed to be like, this feeling. The feeling that kids have when their minds are not filled with worry. When everything is a surprise and the smallest pain feels the worst because there are no other comparisons. Their minds aren’t in control, only their hearts.

These were the sorts of Hallmark card thoughts that passed through her mind. The price of this feeling of what life should be like was to miss out on the life she otherwise knew. Her addiction was a dance with what ought to be and the ache of ruining what was.

Addictions, once progressing, have a limited shelf life. They lead always to change. Only to change. The battle is between who and what will be in control of that change. The what has the advantage because the who needs light to make moves and there is mostly darkness in a battle with addiction.

Once down and clear and back in the life she knew, that familiar ache rocked her back to a sitting position. She couldn’t know it now, but that ache was really feeling. Pain of losing a bit of life and feeling that loss immediately after each tiny death. Pain is what separates the decorations from main attractions, the ghosts from the living.

She remembered something, maybe from a tv show or movie, “to feel pain is to know you are alive.” So she pulled out the needle, tears in her eyes and gritting her teeth, knowing that she was still alive.

Ethnic, Glide, Return

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

They walked through the sandy valleys and climbed the rocks that made up the natural border between the lives they knew and uncertainty. Wearing goggles to keep out the sand and long red robes, wrapped around their bodies to protect them from the sun, they walked.

Smoan had made the trip hundreds of times. From the satellites shining in the sky, the group made their way through the terrain in a smooth, continuous movement.

Looking back at his tired companions, Smoan hoped they would not have to make a return trip. Those he preferred to make alone. Though long, he was able to make his way swiftly home while thinking about the lives of those he guided, having found the land where they would make their new starts.

They reached the final hill before the bounty hunters, dogs and flood lights. The most dangerous 2000 yards.

Tax, Silence, Sailor

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

She could hear only the wind and the waves. Standing at the lighthouse, she looked out as the light behind her flashed a silhouette of her figure to all watching sailors. Tonight there was no storm.

When she closed the glass door of the lighthouse, for a moment, there was only silence. Silence and the spinning light.

For months she watched and waited. The rocky dirt all around the small island undisturbed but for a patch about six feet long and three feet wide. She missed her husband but not his drunken behavior. Perhaps a sailor would come ashore and give her the attention she required, though she wasn’t eager to pay the heavy tax of a relationship. A tryst was all she longed for.

Sun or moon. Fog or rain. She kept the light shining. The work, however taxing, still left plenty of time for her mind to be pulled to her husband. A strange mix of righteous indignation and guilt. The men of the sea seemed never to suspect that a woman could be anything but warm respite from waves, rain, splinters and scurvy. She would do better with the next man, guilt has a queer way of turning one into a saint.

As the sun dipped into the ocean, she noticed the lights of a ship approaching from the dark side of the sky. Ahead, in a dingy, rowed a sailor approaching her rocky haven. She clutched her knitting needle and thought, I will no longer accept a drunk fist but I’ll welcome a gentle caress.

Preference, Suffer, Acquaintance

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

The drums beat a steady rhythm like a soldiers march, like a heartbeat like the rhythms of men and women making life and love. The wailing song that emerged was born of terror, rage and sadness from the men lured into the ocean by mermaids.

Fishermen and hunters, beards long, skin rough and muscles taught, they would wander too close to the crags jutting like teeth from the mouth of the bay. Mermaids would sing their sweet songs and bare their full bosoms. The men didn’t stand a chance. As they waded in the water, eyes fixed to the breasts above them, they didn’t see or feel the mermaids pulling them below the surface. No suffering, just a gurgled sigh as they drowned in delight.

The women, looking for their men would kneel in front of the waters edge and submerge their heads under the waves. This is where they heard the steady beat of their loved ones hearts.

The Mermaids of since gone. Living deep below the waves as men became more beastly and developed tools that helped them get what they want without the sacrifice of death. After the ages of machines and convenience, the mermaids traded souls for legs of their own.

Sometimes, when men wander by themselves, walking along the beach, pier or harbor, they meet a mysterious woman with an ancient familiarity, an acquaintance to the DNA swimming around in all men. They’ll fall on their knees and beg to be held, their beards hitting the ground. The mermaids, mute, place their own hands on top of the kneeling men, smothering them in between their bosoms, stomachs or thighs.

No screams or tortured cries, just a soft sigh as the men pass from this world with awe and delight. A much preferred death to the violence of battle, tangles with machinery and the 1000 little cuts other women sometimes inflict on their victims without the pleasure.

Stick your head beneath the waves and you’ll hear Poseidon’s hymn, the heartbeats of satisfied men, tortured by delight.

Guitar, Waiter, Poetry

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was Flamenco night. Some black haired, olive oil skinned man was grating his finger tips on the guitar. A woman whipped her skirt around her legs with one hand while clacking castanets in the other. A spot light illuminated the two on stage, the only other light coming from the candles at each table.

“More sangria, sir?” the waiter hovered his pitcher over my glass. I nodded. He poured. I chugged.

I chewed on a bit of apple that made its way through my teeth and watched the Spaniards sweat on stage. The woman began to sing. A haunting wail that sounded like the agony of regrets. She twirled and sang words that sounded like the poetry of the dead or the drunk.

It was my fourth Sangria. My eyes began to water and tear splashed on the table. Maybe it was the music or maybe it’s because mixed drinks are hard to judge.

I looked around the room. A woman with white hair and spectacles clapped her hands. A man with a bald spot threw his shoulders back and forth to the rhythm. A young couple was making out in the corner. The waiters danced with their trays between our tables.

I looked at the empty seat across from me but didn’t feel regret. I couldn’t place the feeling.

I flagged down the waiter for another Sangria and sat, trying to figure it out. All this raw emotion and rush of feelings but I was alone. In younger days it was easier to identify my feelings. This is happiness. This is regret. This is anger. As I grew older, the feelings tied themselves to memories and experiences, making it harder to untangle one emotion from another.

And so this is it. A moment. The moment. It leads into the next and swallows whole each moment until you find yourself alone. It wasn’t pity I felt for myself, just a reminder that when life is around you, it must be grabbed, touched, caressed, held, laughed at, cried with, struggled with…

To feel it all, all at once and acknowledge that I was feeling. That’s all that was necessary.

The waiter filled my glass. I took a sip before setting it down to enjoy the rest of the show.

Terrify, Characteristic, Throat

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

She danced on the burning edge of a match. Flames lapping at her legs. Her skirt twisting with the into the reds and oranges. A little spot of white in the center of destruction.

She danced and opened up her throat to scream. Her hair tangled in the flames being pulled by the stars. Fingers moving like tentacles, waving and sticking to her body as she swayed with the wind.

I held up a hand to shield the match from the violence of the wind. The fire would eat, but it would have to taste the wood of the match all the way into my fingers before it sent up its smoke.

The fuel of the green lungs all over the world fueled the dance between my fingers. Those forests of lungs all in a singular breath from the Amazon to the Black Forest, creating a hollow breath through the tunnel of the world.

I watched her dance and ignored the insatiable appetite of the flames biting into my finger tips. An emptiness hit me, a tunnel opening up inside my chest, terror. Then the flame spit up its victory smoke and I was left with the memory of her dance.

My blistered fingers fumbled for another glimpse at the woman who danced on the burning edge of the match.

Until my fingers black and nerve endings shriveled, I would strike, and shield, and watch the women dancing in the flames.

Consensus, Map, Musical

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

In a dream I heard the words whispered, “Her essence is so old it no longer recognizes the shadows of life.” I don’t know what it meant but the voice was musical in my sleep but I woke up with a familiar pain. One for which I no longer have a name.

It was the ache of having lived a life uncharted, with no direction, no map. The aimless wandering of a fool searching for any glint of recognition in human or animal. Wild animals are becoming more familiar, trapped in their loneliness, distrustful of anything outside their instincts. My base desires becoming needs.

I no longer live like the others. I understand those mysterious untimely deaths. They are of habits known only to the deceased, leaving everyone living to wonder why. Close relatives believing what danger surrounded their loved one is something that used to be not knowing that the danger is. Always.

Can it be contagious? Does it become an itch to which their is only one scratch?

Field, Carrot, Clock

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Immediately, he thought about Alice in Wonderland. The white rabbit frantically leaping into the air at every glance at his oversized pocket watch.

He snapped off the end of his carrot and kept thinking. More than a cup of coffee, chewing woke him up in the mornings. This morning, however, his mind seemed to be stuck in that fog between dreams and the reality of the world that his eyes took in.

He stared at the clock, hoping against hope that a story would come to him. Something resembling a beginning middle or end, but no matter how much he chewed or looked around the room, he stayed in his daze. A story was unable to develop, he was only able to fish out words, sentences but nothing that connected into an overarching narrative.

SNAP! He was getting closer to the end of his carrot but still no more alert than when his alarm had gone off. This morning, writing felt like dipping an oversized spoon into a bowl of alphabet soup. He was unable to be as precise as he’d liked and so meandered along, tapping away at the keys like a jazz pianist.

Tossing the end of his root vegetable in the trash, he turned to look out the window. His eyes finally registered something that pulled him into the land of the awake. A figure maybe 200 yards away, stood in the empty field near his house. As soon as he looked, the figure begin walking towards him. He turned back to his keyboard and typed:

A figure protruded from the weeds in the empty lot.

It was a good start, and further than he had written that morning. He looked back outside. The figure was still walking towards his window. A small mouse, crawled up his leg and bit his left calve.

Flinching from the pain, he reached down and touched the area. The mouse chomped down on his finger and hung, dangling with each of his movements.

Looking out the window, he could see the figure, now across the street, biting the air, holding out his hands to secure an invisible cob. The mouse crawled up his arm and reached his shoulder, biting down on the skin inside the clavicle. Right up against the outside of his window, the figure was smiling and licking at the invisible cob, furiously whipping his tongue side to side and shaking his head along it’s length.

He jumped up from his desk, flung the mouse from his hand and crawled back into his bed. Maybe sleep was better.

Feminine, Dramatic, Solution

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

He kicked the dust and shoved his hands into his jeans. She slammed the hood of the car down and dabbed at sweat on her forehead. Pulling a cigarette from a pack, she let it hang from her lips and crossed her arms on top of her head.

“Shit.” He kicked the dirt again, sending another cloud of dust toward her.

“It’s not the oil, she’s just an old car. We’ll wait for someone to drive by and hitch a ride. Relax.” She lit her cigarette and put her arms back on her head, her hands dangling on either side of her face.

He stared at the hair coming out of her armpits and curled up his nose. She caught his look of disgust and laughed.

“Bitch, what’s your problem?” She flicked the cigarette at him and pulled out a gun. He stepped back. She walked around the car, stopping at each tire to shoot a bullet into the rubber. The car sat lower now and the sun was getting higher.

“There’s two left in here.” She tapped the gun. “I’m not going to use one, so why don’t you shoot yourself twice and end your insecure, sniveling misery.” She tossed him the gun and turned around, grabbing her purse from the car.

He watched her walk down the road. Not a car passed until her image started shimmering and wavering with the heat coming off the asphalt.

A Peterbilt blew past him and the gun, stopping just after her image on the horizon.

“Fuck it.” he said.

Just before she shut the passenger side door of the Model 567, she heard two gun shots. She hoped for his sake he had not missed the second time.

“Did you hear that?” the trucker spat out his dip and pulled his cap lower. “Sounded like gunshots.”

“Nothing that dramatic, probably just some loser on the side of the highway putting an end to his misery.” She rolled down the window and rested her hand on the ledge.

“Where to?” the trucker shifted the rig into gear.

“Do you ever get engine troubles in this thing?” She pulled out another cigarette and pressed her red lips around the filter. She lit it and slipped the butt in between his lips.

“Sure, sometimes it can be a bitch.”

“Well, what about a ride along mechanic?”

Back, Extreme, Thirsty

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Uncle Acid drove his dead beat nephews, nieces, sons and daughters to the circus. He’d arrive with the gang and leave with some money. The kids would learn a lesson today.

The morning was moist and the empty lot was soft underfoot, clinging to all the hand-me-down shoes of the young troupe. They made their way, shortest to tallest, toward the striped tent. Cotton candy, kettle corn, funnel cakes, fried chicken wafted into their hungry noses. Not a single kid, however, turned his gaze toward the vendors.

“Straight for the tent.” Uncle Acid had said. He didn’t speak much but he underlined his points with beatings, so talking wasn’t necessary.

Uncle Acid, following a few feet behind, stopped at the beer cart. Something about today was making him extra thirsty, but water wouldn’t cut it. Never did. A pain was slithering up from his gut to his chest. A familiar pain. The same pain when he left his sister at the foster home as a kid. The same pain as when he took the money from his partner and skipped town. These were not the first beers to reduce the pain and they would not be the last.

Holding both beers in his hand, Uncle Acid reached a wrist through the tent flap and pushed it aside. Entering the tent, he looked around for the clown in red coat tails. The sooner he found him, the sooner he could get his money, and more beer.

In the center of the arena, he saw the kids standing in a semi-circle around the clown he was meeting. Uncle Acid watched by the entrance.

The clown was blowing up a long balloon. It shot out like a sausage casing being filled with meat. It grew and grew, longer and longer. Uncle Acid frowned. The balloon kept growing. With each exhale from the clown, the balloon grew. It was curling around the pole leading up to the trapeze artist’s perch.

The kids, their backs to Uncle Acid, slowly turned around to face him. They all looked at him, holding his two beers. The clown kept blowing, now the balloon was reaching out across the wire to the other side of the arena.

Uncle Acid gulped down one beer and dropped the empty cup. He pulled a cigarette tucked behind his ear and lit it. Looking up at the balloon, he couldn’t see the end of it anymore. The clown still blew, so it must still be growing.

The kids started walking on the balloon, they followed it’s curling path around the pole and across the tightrope. As they did, they seemed to shrink.

Uncle Acid felt a tap on his shoulder, it was the end of the balloon. The clown stopped blowing and tied up the end.

“HA HA HA HA HER HER HA HA HE HE…” the clown laughed. Uncle Acid turned back to see the end of the balloon. The kids, now the size of cigarette butts, hopped onto his shoulder and began climbing into his ear. Just as the last kid climbed in, Uncle Acid touched the cherry of his cig to the balloon. It popped, along with the clown, the tent, and the muddy lot.

Uncle Acid had another flashback. When he came out of it, he told us all to hop in the car, we’re going to the circus.

Chauvinist, Television, Attention

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Little Johnny stacked his potato chips on the TV tray. His eyes were glued to the salted yellow starch disks while Wally and the Beaver “gee whizzed” and “golly’d” all around their picket fence neighborhood. So concentrated on balancing his Lay’s, Johnny didn’t hear his daddy come home.

Daddy walked past little Johnny, into the kitchen where Johnny’s sister was. Little Suzy was drying the dishes.

“Where is your mother, Suzy?” Johnny heard his father ask.

“She’s outside.”

Johnny heard the sliding glass door leading to their backyard open and shut. Though the sound was muffled, he could hear the familiar conversation.

“Madge, you’re out here smoking reefer again while the kids are inside taking care of everything. Johnny can help with the house stuff. Instead you have him stacking potato chips on his tray like a retard in front of the God Damn Television. Suzy’s working her ass off in the kitchen. What the fuck are you doing? Practicing for a Coca-Cola commercial that no one will ever see?”

Johnny heard the clatter of a ceramic pot breaking. It was the sound of his mother’s favorite response. He knew that later, Suzy would be the one to pick up the broken pieces. Once, she had cut herself and her mother had screamed at her to be more careful because she was getting blood on the white shag carpet.

“Raymond, go fuck yourself. You’re not a man. You can’t talk to me that way. As a matter of fact no man can talk to me that way.” Johnny’s mother lisped.

“Madge, I’m talking to you as the father of my children. I go to work so we can have a lot of these things. You’re welcome to get a job. Or do some of the housework. But you can’t have the kids be doing the work. They need to be kids.” Johnny’s father pleaded.

“Gee Whiz Wally, do you think mom will let us keep the dog?” Johnny looked up to see how Wallie would respond to the Beav.

“Golly Beaver, I just don’t know. We’ll–“

“–Fuck the mailman or even the milkman. I was this close to sending the kids down to the liquor store for some groceries so I would have 20 minutes of fooling around.” Johnny’s mom pulled his attention away from the show and into a realm of adulthood that made Johnny quiet and still.

“Is that what you want Madge?” Johnny’s father was barely audible, but Johnny recognized the pattern and now knew the words by heart. This time, however, there was genuine fear coming from his father.

“Madge, what are you doing? Hey, be careful, you’ll cut yourself. Ouch! hey. Stop! Fuck! Ow–”

“Gee whiz mom, can we keep him, huh, please, can we keep him?” Johnny turned his attention back to the TV.

The sliding glass door opened and Johnny’s mother through heavy breaths called his sister. “Suzy, bring me those rags and shut your eyes. Johnny, leave your tray on the sofa and go down to the corner store for some bubblegum, there’s a nickel on your father’s dresser.”

Johnny blew a big, fat bubble as he walked back up his driveway. POP! Wiping the gum from his face, he saw a rag soaked red hanging from the trashcan outside. Suzy must have cut herself again. Gee whiz.

Smile, Miracle, Painter

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It crept up the corners of her mouth and stuck like the bend in a banana. She stared at the splashes and splotches of oil-based chunks daubed on her canvas. This was truly majestic. An act that defied nature, more miraculous then that J.C. born of a sexless act. The textures, colors, shapes and composition from which she could not tear her gaze were indescribable beyond the basic elements of a painting.

She dropped her brush. The desert’s grit clung to the paint stuck to the brushes toe. The once indigo splash was now a textured nib of yellows, oranges and browns from the Mojave’s sands.

Tears began pouring from her eyes, as a memory flashed in her mind. Her father calling her by her name, Lucy. The image she had plucked from the fringes of the intangible was now reinforcing the meaning of her name; light.

Lucy’s name had meaning now beyond that crass coat hangar of a word that pulled her neck to look in the direction of anyone who called it. Lucy. This was her name, all in an image. All in the ethereal. The painting seemed to twist and bend, a galaxy of exploding stars, planets created and worlds extinguished.

Lucy. Light. See.

She could not move. Her being had found root in that moment. Presence. This was her purpose, meaning, the yin to her yang. She belonged here, in front of this painting, as audience and creator. An infinite loop of admiration, disgust, praise and critique, darkness and light. All equal parts of the whole.

The sun was disappearing behind the molars of the San Gabriel mountains. In the mouth of the valley she was left standing as a sigh of relief whipped up the desert sands. The paint, not yet dry, made for the perfect trap and in a single gust of wind, the painting was erased by the desert.

Lucy, shaken out of her trance, picked up her 12-oz. Fresca, wiped the sand from the rim and took a sip. Then she kicked over her easel and walked to the car.

Multimedia, Bite, Eagle

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It used to be a symbol of freedom and strength, bald though it was called. There were statues in official buildings and statuettes on the tops of flag poles. It was tattooed on the soldiers, officers and citizens with overwhelming pride. The eagle.

Now the laser shows had taken over. Lights pointing in all directions, splayed in all sorts of colors. Dots on walls, shapes bouncing off flat surfaces.

At first there were lasers only in the hands of civilians. At sporting events and theaters, jokesters would point single, red lasers into the eyes and crotches of athletes and actors. The more responsible among us used the lasers in academic settings, pointing at important points within lectures. Then video went viral and seemed to spark the consciousness of all mankind onto one laser beam.

A young girl, taking her parents lasers and adding some of her own, taped all of them together and stuck them on the weather vain of her roof. As she stepped back to admire the lasers whipping in all directions the wind would blow, she fell off the roof and never was the same, but neither was the world.

An explosion of tributes made to the girl, Lucy, became know has Lucy’s laser’s. People were putting together lasers with everything, on lawn mowers, through cereal boxes, on car windshield wipers, their dogs tails. They started adding other media to the mix, lasers playing out the scenes of movies to music and interpretive dancing. Soon, there wasn’t a time of day or night, or a direction in which you could look when a laser beam could not be seen.

This was the end of the eagle. So fickle were the people of the country, that they blamed the eagles weak eyes on the biblical downing of great birds. Almost like a plague, the baldies fell from the sky. Chomping their beaks and grasping with their talons on the way down, seemingly hoping to clutch a branch or telephone wire.

“The laser and its beams are what make us strong now. We were wrong to follow that stupid bird.” And so at every official gathering, public event, statue and statuette, the eagles were slowly replaced with lasers, light shows and multimedia extravaganzas.

This was the way the country found something they could control.

Extraterrestrial, Prisoner, Distance

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Dust. So much swirling in the air that it became mud in the eyes and chewed up cake in the mouth. Their ears built dams of wax and stone. Their noses reduced to only to hold up glasses, unable to pass air in or out from the mucus and wet clay caking its opening.

This was where we sent our poorly behaved, even badly behaved of society. Those who lost their cool or nerve or patience and acted. They were not banished to a cage, safe and warm and well fed. They were sent to the far end of the western United States, on the outskirts of Bakersfield, California. Once the heartland, now simply a vast swirl of dust from the beaches all the way to middle of the eastern country.

To resume their lives and learn from their mistakes, they’d have to find the lines of wire that ran from West to East, leading them home. Or die. There were checkpoints with food and water but they would have to be found. Often times they were lost in the dust storms. Missing a check point meant starvation and none of the safe houses along the way were evenly spaced out. There were no calculations to be made along the way. No planning or rationing, just pulling oneself along the wire to the next symbol of hope.

It might take months, or years. Never less than months to make it back to the livable Eastern United States.

When the prisoners arrived, they would be so fundamentally changed, that the states called each survivor a “remarkable recovery.” Under their breaths, however, officials were more terrified of the blank stares, lean muscle and wild hair.

These men and women crawled their way back to what, at the beginning of their journey’s, they called home. Upon arrival, however, there was nothing comforting or homely about it. For the rest of their lives, their minds would be trapped in the swirls of dust. Their bodies would wander through their former lives like cosmonauts on an unfamiliar planet. Aliens to all those around them and to themselves, living in an alien world.

Rugby, Shy, Shine

Flat-nosed. Ears like used tinfoil. Arms, legs and a neck like chiseled stone from a sculpture still in progress.

Ashley stood on the sideline of his final game, waiting for the coach to put him in. His knees and spine had only enough thread for 3 or 4 more scrums. Only the adrenaline from the roar of the crowd and the knowledge that millions of viewers around the world were watching at home. He just waited for the clock to stop before entering the game.

In an interview the day before, the reporter had asked why Ashley had not opted for the Rejuv. Procedures. Athletes at the age of retirement were extending their careers, and their 7 figure contracts, by the 10’s, 20’s and 30’s. Why had Ashley decided against it.

Whistles blew and the clock stopped. The coach twirled his hands around indicating a switch, when the line referee lifted up the placard with his number, the stadium came alive. They chanted his name and stomped their feet.

“Ashley, Ashley, Ashley…”

Ashley put up a hand, waving as he approached the young teammate whom he was replacing. They hugged and Ashley tussled his hair, playing up his image of the older player.

The whistle blew again, but the crowd still chanted his name. Ashley barely realized that he had already locked into the pile of the scrum. His muscles taking over for memory, they began pushing the pile toward the goal line. The rock came loose and the younger players ran, lateraled and jumped until the next scrum.

Ashley’s neck was sending images to his brain. Images of frayed wires barely connected, a rope swinging in the middle of an old, rickety mine shaft, scissors hovering over the last wire connecting a bomb. Before the impact, Ashley knew this would be the last hit his body would withstand.

As a kid watching his idols play on TV, Ashley realized all his favorites eventually had to stop playing. his eyes would shine with sadness but there was the anticipation of new players with different styles and personalities.

Then Ashely started playing professionally and many of his idols had returned, thanks to the Rejuv. procedures. New players were rarer everyday, until the league was filled with players able to continue their careers. But Ashley noticed that no one player really stood out anymore.

Ashley blinked. His eyes watered and his nose curled. Smelling salts.

This was it. He couldn’t move, yet, his legs tingled, his back ached and the crowd was silent. He had earned this without enhancement and would be forever remembered because of it. This was an ending.

Juicy, Cynical, Spit

The little bitch whined all night. A heavy sigh with a whimpering high c-note at the end. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had just quite smoking, the dog would still be alive. That incessant whimpering crawled into my ears, clamped down into my brain and roared into the area that inspires rage. You might call what happened next cynical.

“STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Spit flew all over the kitchen. My vocal cords vibrated, and squeezed together, forcing me to cough. For two, maybe three seconds the dog lay quiet. Then started its whine again. With each breath a whimper, so soft and pathetic but each one built up a wave that lapped at my sub-consciousness. Until I whipped around and stood up, lifting my chair above my head and slamming it down next to the sad beast.

Now it shivered. I shivered as well, holding two splintered legs of my only kitchen table chair. I was blind with anger.

The fucking dog kept whining. I picked it up and shoved it outside, into the snow. Then I grabbed the lighter and began touching the flame to everything that would catch. All around the house, I danced and paused, kissing the lighter to the corners of paintings, books, magazines, towels, jackets, shirts, anything reaching out its pursed lips to make out with my lighter.

I no longer shivered as the house glowed with oranges and reds. I tossed the lighter into the dirty clothes hamper and grabbed an un-kissed jacket from my bedroom chair. I threw it on and went outside to keep my dog company. It’s whimpering no longer affecting my mood but reflecting them. Its whimpering echoing the same hopeless sadness and anger I felt every waking moment of my life.

Now that life was burning 10 feet from where I stood in the snow, keeping me warm and melting the billions of frozen flakes around my feet.

I patted the dog on the head, who seemed to stop whining when I joined it outside, and watched that little bitch of a life filled with empty things burn. I patted my dog and we stayed warm.

Through the sliding glass door, I heard something hiss and gush, something that sounded juicy. Then I heard a shriek, followed by a pop. Shit, I forgot about the cat.

Voice, Dock, Hushed

It only takes a moment for our animal instincts to take over us. A hushed whisper of a thought becomes the booming voice of vice.

I live in the Pyrenees. Away from the middle of anything, where lonely figures get noticed. Anyone visiting the Pyrenees or any mountain setting are nagged by the thought to return home.

In a small cabin tucked away behind a cluster of pine trees, I kill the rest of my time. Only the birds get wind of my existence when the smoke from my stove floating like ribbons in the wind up into the sky.

I leave my boots, muddy from the river banks, by the front door. The fish make a slapping sound on my cutting board/dining table. An urge hits me when I hear the slap. From my brain, a messenger couriers quickly through my blood stream heading south for the waste and procreation department. In its mailbag it carries a million years of evolutionary instinct. Pushing past letters of food and shelter, it grabs an envelope marked longevity and delivers it, creating a bulge with its contents.

The fish is best when gutted and cleaned as soon as possible after being caught. That ship had sailed and it was time to find a place at which to dock my intentions for the newly received message.

With the feeling of having controlled my instincts, I went back to the fish. There would be more slapping before dinner was finished.

Nonstop, Shine, Beggar

He was back again at the dinner table. His mother, father and sister were sitting around him, eating. The sound of the TV in the other room droning at a low volume. Looking at the faces of his family around him, he reached for a bowl of mashed potatoes but they were just out of his grasp. Then his mother turned to him and said, “Look at this mother fucker, just shining.”

His eyes popped open. A few yards from him, walking away, two people looked back at him, one of them laughing. He sat up, pushing himself against the stone entryway of Citizens bank downtown. The same dream, still haunting him nonstop. No matter what he did to his mind or body, that dream always came back.

He grabbed his bag and threw on a jacket before wandering to his spot where he’d hold out a cup and shake it for spare change. In the tourist spots, he always made enough to at least buy a sandwich from McDonalds but he was out of his potions and elixirs that helped him forget. Not even a beer in his possession.

“Look at this mother fucker, just shining.” The comment played back in his mind. Someone returning home from a long night of partying must have seen the print on his shirt. A black t-shirt with silver glittery print that read Shine. It was just a shirt. He grabbed it from a donated bag of clothes behind the Salvation Army store. He never liked going into the store because it was usually filled with kids in their teens and twenties laughing and trying on old clothes for fun.

Elderly, Party, Month

Looking up at the stars, Henry got the impression of being in a box. Like breathing holes in cardboard, the little pokes of light taunted him. Later that morning, when the sun covered up the sky, he would be at a meeting of his entire company. At some point, he would be asked to present the progress of his project: a review of competitors and their presence in the marketplace compared to the company for which he worked.

More than the presentation he had to give, Henry dreaded the party that would come after. A forced affair in which those at the top would goad those under them to drink. Those in the middle, feeling the tension of normal workplace decor become loosened, would oblige. Those who left were usually not at the company the next month.

Thinking about these things, he wondered what his thoughts about the stars being breathing holes had to do with anything at his job. Perhaps he felt trapped, but that seemed obvious, something that his star analogy didn’t need to explain. Perhaps he was wondering if he had reached his peak. The highest level of success in the workplace of which he was capable, and from that level you could see the light poking through the holes in the whole thing.

Henry snuffed out his cigarette in the little square patch of dirt in his backyard and went inside. He patted his cat on the head and got ready for the day, laying out his suit and tie before showering.

…

Henry groaned as he got out of bed. His back popping and snapping as he stretched. It was still dark out. He grabbed a cigarette from the night stand and went to his back patio. The dew from the grass and the absence of sun sent a cold shiver through his body.

Ever since retiring, Henry had woken up before dawn with no alarm. As a young man he’d imagined all of the creative projects on which he would have time to work. Lighting his cigarette, he thought about all the energy of youth he had spent on getting to this point and now, with all the time in the world, he found his energy depleted.

Looking up at the stars, Henry got the impression of being in a box. Like breathing holes in cardboard, the little pokes of light taunted him.

Swim, Cap, Elated

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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With the amount of swim lessons I’ve had I should be the next Michael Phelps. At most, I’m the Phelps of the doggie paddle: No swimming cap required.

My father, who had never actually seen me swim, enrolled me in some sort of race. He assumed I was achieving at the same level of his hopes, dreams and expectations. I was not. He would not be elated, though he never was.

Once I had set the dinner table without asking because for once I was going to have dinner with my father. The maid told him my 6-year-old contribution and the most I got out of him was a raise of the eyebrows and a downturn of his cheeks.

When he shows up the race and watches me splash around between floating plastic ropes, the most he’ll do is look around and then leave. Because he more than likely expects nothing of me so my poor performance will have met his expectations but not exceeded his dreams for me.

Nappy, Riddle, Mammoth

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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The mosquito used to be a miniature nightmare, hated by all but those precious few who studied them. Now, they have evolved to mammoth proportions.

Weekend skeet shooters use them for practice, the mosquito’s blood engorged torsos exploding in red across green lawns.

However, that is the lighter side of the issue. Where once it was thought that smells caused disease, as in the miasma theory, now we know disease can be carried through the water. It was not the smell of baby’s dirty nappy, it was the fact that mama or dada threw it into the sewer where it seeped into the water supply. A riddle solved by the use of mapping and a willingness to admit they didn’t know everything.

Now we find ourselves with mosquitos the size of crows, hunting us. No longer does their bite cause a minor bump and in some areas carry disease. To be bitten by a mosquito now could be to get stabbed by a dagger, deep in the heart or to become paralyzed if probed in the spine.

Imagine a metal straw impaling you at any given location from 1 to 3 inches deep. To smack a mosquito straight down is to push the dagger deeper.

Best practice now is to grab the mosquito and attempt to understand the consequences of pulling or removing it.

In the femoral artery, at the leg, one could bleed out. A hole could be poked in a lung. A hole could be poked in the cheek, sometimes stabbing through to the tongue.

There are fewer mosquitos, because each encounter now is, potentially, everyone’s last. A mosquito full of blood flies low and slow, ripe for cars, skeet shooters and children with tennis rackets.

A person could contract a disease, accelerated by the amount of blood transfused or die of being stabbed directly in the heart, which for the mosquito would be a bulls eye.

Push, Capture, Underwear

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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And then, we’ll run their underwears up the flag pole. I’ll be demoralizing. They’ll be huddled in a corner, fully clothed, but wearing no underwear. The shame of their capture won’t be enough, they’ll be forced to stare at their brown-streaked chonies flapping in the wind.

Are there any questions?

Sir, I have a question, sir.

What is it?

Well sir, who is going to remove their underwear? Also, sir, how do we know we can capture them alive? Won’t they be shooting at us sir?

Good questions, private. They will be firing live ammunition at us. I understand that the enemy is also aware that live ammunition has the potential to maim and/or kill us. Which is why we must capture them alive and remind them who is boss.

With the underwear thing, sir?

Yes, private, with the underwear thing.

Okay, sir, wouldn’t it be easier to kill them sir?

Easier physically perhaps, maybe even less dangerous but how will we really show them that we don’t want to kill them, we just want them to behave? We run their underwear up the flag pole.

Sir? In the event we are able to somehow get past their live ammo and grab them, wouldn’t it be more embarrasing for them if we made them stand around naked?

Johnson! I’m surprised at you. We’re already pushing the envelope by doing the underwear thing. That’s pushing too far if they stand naked. Also, I don’t want to look at that.

Sir, let me see if I understand your plan. You want us to run up the hill to their hideout, all 120 of us, with no live ammunition. You do want us to carry our weapons which are air soft guns painted black so no one will know the difference between a real and a fake gun. Then, somehow, you want us to push through their ranks and capture them alive, take off their underwear but keep their clothes on and then make them watch as we fun their underwear up the flag pole.

Affirmative!

Sir, is there someway we can make our intention known? Perhaps if they knew we weren’t going to kill them, they wouldn’t shoot at us and then we wouldn’t die.

Private! if they knew all that, then they’d never be captured.

Sir, we won’t capture them if we’re all dead.

Private! That’s what you signed up for, now get your things ready, you charge the hill at dawn.

You, sir?

Yes, I have to stay back and observe so I can see if my plan will work. Trust me, if there were any other way…but there isn’t, Standard procedure.

Sir?

Mash, Irate, Light

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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it was a rerun. The episode where radar does something or other but that’s not the point. What really stands out was the person trying to open my hotel room door multiple times throughout the night.

His feet disrupted the clean line of yellow light that bordered the bottom of the room door.

In Spanish, I asked who it was and what they needed. No reply. Then I tried in English. This time a nervous, out-of-breath voice said, “Your alarm sir.”

He spoke as if scrambling to figure out what to say. He had a thick Italian accent. He never answered my question.

Maybe 15 minutes later, I could hear someone trying to open my door. I pictured my knife on the bedside table, over 1,000 miles away. Searching the room for some sort of weapon, I settled for the desk lamp. Unplugging it from the wall, I held it over my head and asked again who it was.

This time I saw the shadows of the feet disappear but the sound of his presence lingered a couple of feet outside my room. As if he wanted me to open the door in order to find out.

“I’ll bash you head in.” I said. Now I was thinking of my wife lying in the bed behind me, with nothing but a solid wall behind her. Trapped.

I tried to drown my fear by working myself into a frenzy of anger. Why was this man trying to come in? What fucking alarm? Why couldn’t I bring a knife with me?

Now I was irate.

“What do you want?”

He shuffled his feet. I wanted to throw open the door to see a tired worker raise his arms with fright and me lower the lamp in relief. We could laugh at the misunderstanding.

The other part of me wanted to keep the door shut.

He eventually left.

It’s been two hours and I’m terrified to leave the room. I have the desk lamp. We can order room service. I’ve seen pictures of Italy, I get the idea.

Survive, Laughable, Sacrifice

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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19 minutes left to decide. Do I smoke this J and risk getting caught? or do I risk my sanity by delivering another mind numbing sermon?

The danger in the latter is that I may really let them know how I feel. That I became a priest because it’s a cushy job with plenty of time to myself. Because everyone looks up to and reveres the collar.

Today is Easter Sunday. I won’t survive, however, if I can’t do this high or a little drunk. One of the two days out of the year in which the church is full. A fact about the faith so laughable I find I cry myself to sleep at the thought.

So I will eat this cupcake full of THC and if it’s the lords will that I expose myself for an unbelieving fraud, then so be it.

If I deliver my sermon as normal, then I’ll have to go through all this mental, emotional, and spiritual torture next Sunday.

For now, I’ll have a cup of wine while the cupcake digests, then maybe have an Easter wank.

Douglas, the little 9-year-old isn’t due in for another hour, so I’ve got time.

What if i talked about the devil as a loving, caring entity who is only misunderstood? That would be too far left to be funny.

If I touted the benefits to marijuana and tied it to the creation story, would that go over well? They would definitely know I was high.

Now I’m beginning to get the giggles.

What if I preached only the parts of the bible which have lists? The lists of ancestors going on and on about who begat whom. Or the lists of supplies and resources. What if I tied it to a ludicrous message that god wants his children to make lists, then read through all the lists and say something like “make lists and think of god because the devil is in the details.”

The infuriating part is that no one would question the sermon. Even those that thought it strange would simply leave and move on with their days. THAT above all things is the most frustrating part of being a priest, lack of accountability.

The members of the church believe the clergy answer only to god but the clergy really only answer to themselves.

There is no accountability from god, or those cunt-priests touching kids would have been fried by lightening by now instead of moved around.

Maybe I’ll just go out and talk about love. If I quit now, some asshole will spew hell fire and brimstone

Point, Convict, Ground

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

He kept his head phones and pushed up his glasses. Flakes of skin drifted into the table next to his stack of fantasy and science fiction books, as he scratched the patch of eczema on his elbow.

A motorcycle roared up to the front of the coffee shop. The rider revved the engine a few times before hopping off. Taking off the helmet, he revealed a face full of tattoos.

Easy rider took out a cigarette, lit it and after two puffs without inhaling dropped it to the ground and ground it into the concrete with the heel of his boot.

Headphones and eczema watched, hearing a young couple at the table next to his say something about a “convict” or “ex-con.”

Easy rider walked into the coffee shop and came out with a very pale coffee drink to which he was adding many packets of sweet-n-low.

Looking over at eczema, easy rider pointed right at him.

“What are you listening to?”

“The sound of silence.”

“Simon and Garf–“

“–No,” interrupted headphones, “I’m listening only to the sounds of silence or the muffled sound of the noises you all make.”

Easy rider looked away and took a sip of his coffee. Suddenly, the hot beverage was all over his face and dripping down his leather jacket. He turned just in time to catch eczema swing a mug of hot, black coffee right at his face. There was nothing for him after that.

Eczema looked up at the young couple and pointed down at easy rider.

“Convict.” He said, as if explaining away a minor, slightly embarrassing problem to curious strangers in a public space.

Nifty, Manage, Call

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

There’s this nifty little device I have that manages all my calls. It’s a little 3D rectangle with a green light up screen that shows my messages. I can hook it to my belt and check my incoming calls.

It’ll beep whenever someone wishes to get a hold of me and then, if I recognize the number, I’ll call back to see what they want.

Sometimes I already know what the message is by looking at the phone number. I know what they want, how much they want, where I should meet them and what time I need to meet them.

When I’m in the park and it’s lunch time, I like to make a big show of being contacted. I’ll tilt the little sucker attached to my belt up at the angle of my face. I know I can simply look down and see it, but then no one would notice that I’m making it that I’m doing quite well.

Sometimes I’ll pull the thing off my belt and hold it up at eye level, not to admire it, but to make a big show that the message is bothersome. This is really impressive because it looks like having the device is no big deal to me, like a necessary evil in my line of work, “If I could get away with not carrying one of these things around (shaking head) trust me.”

You know, that sort of thing.

In my line of work, if done well, only my customers know who I am. They’ll never know anything else, not where I’m from, who I associate with, where I get the products, not anything.

That’s why this little chirping birdie on my belt is perfect. I can only contact others, they shoot messages into the dark.

And, I just remembered, I can turn off the beeps and it will vibrate. On occasion that silence is necessary. The people of this great community and their elected officials aren’t as open minded about the products I sell. So the ability to lay low–I won’t say hide–is occasionally necessary.

I never pass this feeling onto my clients. That’s bad customer service. I don’t ever want them to leave me feeling nervous. They should walk or drive away feeling empowered by their decisions.

Oh, excuse me, I’m getting someone now. See how people are looking over here? I’m a man to be respected, like a doctor or surgeon. I help people get better too.

Somber, Punish, Word

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

No. That’s the word that terrifies Henry. In his mind, a “no” is meant only to punish. Hearing one directed at him puts him in a somber mood.

The first time he heard no was outside of the walls of his families estate.

Taking his Pinarello bicycle down the road, he stopped at a 7-11. This was also the first time he had left home on his own.

Walking into the gas station, he noted the red vest the attendant was wearing. The kid in the vest was about his age.

“Can I have a Redbull, some gum, a bag of Cheetos and some Gatorade?” asked Henry.

“Sure,” said red vest.

“Great.”

Henry stood there and waited. Red vest read his magazine.

“Are you gonna get my stuff?” Asked Henry.

“No, but I’ll ring you up.”

Ponder, Equal, Found

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

In his hands was the Voynich Manuscript. A 240 page document from the 15th century with illustrations and text. Most interesting was the text; it could not be traced to any known language.

The illustrations themselves were also quite interesting. The first half filled with renderings of plants, unfamiliar to the planet. The second half filled with drawings of human forms sliding through tubes, being dismembered, and arranged in some sort of sack.

The manuscript had been found in the early 1900’s and now it was in my hands. An impulse vibrated through me to stuff the book in my shirt and walk out of the rare books section of one of Yale’s libraries.

Instead, I stared into the pages, past the ink, as if something would crawl out of the microscopic fibers. I pondered what this would mean but not for long. A couple of dots over one of the strange letters began to grow. The Umlauts twisted around each other growing but remaining equal to each other in size.

On the page in front of me was now a rendering of a mobile phone with a cracked screen. The text accompanying the previous illustration now changed as well.

I was still unable to read it but the entire page had reformatted itself.

On its own, the page turned and the swirling dots turned the existing illustration into a new one. This time it looked like a bowl holding parts of some sort of machine. The text changed and the Umlauts moved to the next page.

I was in awe. If I could learn the language of the Voynich Manuscript, I would come up with words to better describe my feelings. I can’t so I was in awe of the book rewriting itself while I held it. Each page the dots move faster and faster until the last few pages were a rush of wind before the book shut.

I nearly dropped the book, which pulled me back to reality.

Now I thought about what it looked like to be given the opportunity to hold the original Voynich Manuscript and return a completely different book. I was amazed how the mundane world of social pressure was a stronger pull than the wonder and magic I had just witnessed.

I set the book down and walked out of the library.