Fashion advice from the great beyond -- flash fiction

When I was five I met my grandfather for the first time. Since he'd been dead for seventeen years meeting him came as kind of a shock to say the least.

I was in Grandma's front yard rocking on and pretending to fly the giant pink flamingo that had pride of place in the flower border. Technically the bird was just for decoration, but it was big enough for me to ride and Grandma encouraged me to play on it. I think she may have been hoping that I'd break it since she wasn't a fan of kitsch and Uncle Bill seemed hell bent on regularly sending her tacky gifts instead of calling or visiting. I think he secretly knew that she secretly hated the things that he sent. But he kept sending them and she kept displaying them and sending him photos. They had been going on like this for years and at this point it was pretty much a stand off. To say that their relationship was complicated would be an understatement of gigantic proportions.

So there I was, happily soaring and swooping the flaming pink flamingo through the brilliant cerulean sky when out of nowhere a small pebble bounced off of my knee. I looked around for one of my cousins but didn't see anyone. I shrugged and went back to rocking and pretending to fly through the clouds hot on the trail of evil doers, only me and my bird up to the task of saving the planet from complete and utter annihilation when another pebble took me out of my imagination by grazing my shoulder. I brought the bird in for a landing and got off to go investigate.

The stones seemed to be coming up from the cellar stairs.

Grandma's cellar was built in two parts. Half of it was enclosed under the house and half of it was open to the air under the porch. I had been playing in a trunk that I'd found in the enclosed part of the cellar earlier in the day and Grandma had given me permission to wear a really cool hat that I'd found.

Curious about who was in the cellar pitching pebbles at me, I pushed the hat rakishly to one side like Bogart in a movie, cocked my finger gun and wandered over to the top of the cellar stairs to smoke them out. A stone flew up from the cellar and knocked the really cool hat right off of my head. I ducked around the corner and tried to see who was down there in the gloom throwing rocks at me.

It was a bright sunny day but the cellar looked murky. I could make out the shape of a person, but no details. The shape was too big to be any of my cousins. And no uncles were visiting. I knew it wasn't Grandma because I could hear her singing off key over the hum of her sewing machine going full bore in the sun room at the front of the house.

And besides, Grandma would never throw a rock.

Puzzled, I stood there and called out "I've got a gun, come out with your hands up or I'll shoot" just like I'd seen the cops do in all the gangster movies that Grandma and I watched when we snuggled together on her couch in the evenings.

There was no response.

I waited a bit and then cautiously retrieved the hat and stuck my handsomely haberdashed head back around the edge of the stairwell. No further rocks sailed up so I crept closer. When I got to the top of the stairs I saw a glowing form at the bottom of the stairs raise its right arm. I was yanked off my feet into the air of the stairwell and without touching a single stair somersaulted to a flat on my back bone jarring landing on the concrete at the bottom of the steps.

My right arm took the brunt of the fall and I heard it snap as I hit the floor. When I rolled my throbbing head to the side to look at it I could see the white bone sticking out at a funny angle.

I smelled pipe tobacco and cologne as a shadow leaned over me and plucked the hat off my head.

"Sorry about the arm kid, you need to learn to take a hint. You really don't look good in a hat."

This week's list of 57 stories at Mad Utopia

Fairy dust

I am starting to believe Linda's theory that my car is sprinkled with fairy dust or something. Mainly because it does seem like I see an awful lot of weird things while I'm driving. And they never cease to amuse me.

Yesterday I was driving along and stopped at a light not far from where I saw the lady with the monkey in my road construction story. I glanced in my rear view mirror and was delighted to see a lady who seemed to be fond of Chihuahuas. So much so that she had decorated her car with Chihuahuas. Lots of Chihuahuas. She had three Chihuahuas on the dash in varying sizes, one pink, one blue and one that was of course the ever popular tan fuzzy kind with the bobble head that the dollar store sells. She had a yellow one hanging on the rearview mirror and a bunch of transparent cling on Chihuahuas arranged artfully on her windows. But the one that really got me was the one hanging from her passenger side visor. It was about the size of an adult's fist and it was just a head. A head of a Chihuahua. I couldn't help but wonder if it was a warning to all of the other Chihuahuas…….

While I was thinking this thought and grinning, I came around the corner and saw a really beat up car that was held together by duct tape. Literally. He even had a sign. "This car is held together with duct tape, spit and the prayers of my mother." I was SO sad that traffic was moving cause boy did I want a picture of that. I'll be keeping an eye out for him again and with any luck his mom's prayers work long enough for me to get a photo to share with you guys.

Then….and I know it's Halloween time and all….I was gobsmacked to see Death standing on the side of the road holding a sign. I've altered the sign since what Death had to say would have scared ya'all……and I just want you to know……I remained calm, even when he waved at me. [shudder]

Two Sundays, no waiting

In the fall here in Ohio when the sun comes streaming through the woods and the golden trees look like they're lit from inside it takes my breath away. And operating a vehicle without oxygen to your brain isn't a good way to drive, so I stopped my car and took this picture.

Last Sunday I pretty much had to elbow my way through the park because there were so many photographers out capturing wood ducks.

Male wood ducks don't look real to me. They look like painted toys.

Female wood ducks are much more sensibly dressed.

I didn't even notice the robin in the background while I was taking this picture because I was blown away by the contrast of the pale tree bark highlighted by the red leaves.

I love the fall…..I always have…… it's a magical time for me. It's a magical time partly because of the colors on the trees, partly because my birthday is in the fall, and partly because of pumpkin pie. Well ok, mostly because of pumpkin pie. But the other two things are pretty high on the list as well.

Remembered kisses -- flash fiction

She looked so innocent. But he knew that she had betrayed him. How? Don't ask. But still, those lips, those luscious, luscious lips. So soft, so firm, so kissable. He could never get by without them.

He gazed a final time at her, basking for a moment in the recollection of her warm sweet kisses, her loving promises. Then he said a last goodbye, his thumb gently stroking her lips as they parted.

He turned away secure in the knowledge that even though the relationship had ended her lips would always be his.

They would always be his to stroke, his to kiss.......his forever.... since they now lay lovingly nestled inside his warm but rather bloody jacket pocket.

The link to this week's 52 fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia

Prepare to be shocked

If I'm flipping through the channels and I see a giant radioactive ant, I'm laying the remote down.

There's a siren like call that hits my brain when I see an opportunity to see a really bad B movie.

Especially if it's in black and white.

With really bad special effects.

And has guys in suits with matching hats and women who run away from danger in heels, and then swoon and let the monster carry them away to its evil lair.

Or to its space ship.

Case in point? Patricia Neal in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Patricia swoons JUST as Gort gets to her.

Gort comes at her…. his giant robot plodding steps slowly…oh so slowly bringing him nearer…. he gets bigger and bigger in her field of vision…the tension mounts…..he gets closer and closer……until finally she is backed to the edge of a metal barrier….topples a chair, screams and swoons.

Classic.

Now, to be clear I am NOT saying that The Day the Earth Stood Still is a bad movie. Or even a B movie.

Not the original one anyway.

It's an amazing movie.

And it really speaks for its time.

Which was 1951.

And in 1951 Michael Rennie was hot.

Swirl together Rennie's great English cheek bones, a swooning heroine, a giant robot, really fake looking visual effects and sound effects that anybody swinging a piece of a hot wheel track in circles over their head could recreate in their living room and you couldn't pry me out of my chair.

To sum up?

The only thing that could have made the original The Day the Earth Stood Still a better movie would have been a giant radioactive ant.

Maybe they should have put one in the "remake" with Keanu.

Two or three more folks might have gone to see Keanu's version if it had featured a giant radioactive ant.

He’s a really fungi

My friend Bill is a lot of fun to talk to. He has timing and delivery like a younger version of Letterman and his story telling skills are awe inspiring. We talk about a myriad of subjects and often travel tangents that take us in circular conversations that make us both laugh our butts off.

He told me probably the best story I ever heard one day last winter and I was still laughing four hours later picturing it.

So the really funny thing is he told me a story via email earlier this week. Since it was just text there was no timing, no delivery, no arm waving, it was just plain text and it was the shortest email he ever sent me but it concerned probably the most bizarre thing that I've ever heard.

One of the things that Bill does for the park system is catalog specimens of fungus.

It's an ethereal process and the timing is crucial because a fungus doesn't have much of a shelf life.

So the most recent sighting of a rare slime mold happened in the wee hours of the morning and Bill went to off to catalog it after emailing me saying he was excited about it and he'd tell me all about it later. To give me some background on the mold he told me to picture a big bowl of tapioca pudding, but one that could move.

Yes, this particular mold can travel.

I thought that was the best part of the story until I read the next part.

You know the movie The Blob?

Well, the movie was based on a HUGE sighting of this weird slime mold stuff. The residents in Texas where it was discovered called in the authorities because they thought that it must be something from outer space.

The scary thing?

Bill hasn't emailed me since……..

Towel.....

The first time
I saw him

He was
dripping with
sweat

I wanted
to lay him
down in the
grass

And
lick him dry

Get your money for nothing and your Chipmunks for free

Ok, I really don't have a reason to post this photo other than it cracks me up. I was in the park on Saturday and I heard this little guy yelling so I went over and took a photo of him.

When I got home and looked at the picture on my computer I just laughed at his facial expression.

I didn't see whatever was making him look so gobsmacked….but my working theory is since Halloween is approaching…. maybe what he's thinking is….

"I see dead people"

 

Take Cat Connor viral…part two

Miscellaneous Yammering is happy to announce that the killerbyte video hit the 300 mark over the weekend. The terrorbyte video is currently at 162. Thanks to all of you who are still clicking and tweeting and facebooking and Skywriting the links. Keep the word of mouth going so we can hopefully reach 500 hits on both videos before the one week deadline is up. If you missed this the first time around here's what started all the hoopla: The butterfly effect [original post]

This is a grass roots effort to try to take two unknown book trailer videos viral via a social networking extravaganza.

And here's the best part...... I have it on good authority that you'll get brownie points in whatever heaven you believe exists for clicking on the links. [honest!]

We'll be closing out The Big Experiment on Wednesday 10/14. I'll come back with an update then.

Thanks so much to all of you for your cheerful participation in this effort to take the Cat Connor book trailers viral.

You guys rock!

terrorbyte ending count 308
killerbyte ending count 488

A routine night at Roonies -- flash fiction

Bullets ricocheted around the bar.

Some bounced off the floor where the hapless recruit jerked around in a terror addled bebop, her face a rictus of horror.

"Dance gratchech, dance!"

Christ, I hated it when he got like this. It happened every time the Dresden Commander had a second cup of piping hot glub. He just couldn't hold his liquor. He'd start waving his gun around and shooting at whatever was in his field of vision.

Luckily he was like a two year old when he was drunk and would lose interest in whatever he was doing as soon as he was distracted by something shiny. As expected, the bullets stopped after a couple of minutes. I doubt he could see much of what he was doing now anyway.

Most of his eyes were drooping and he looked pretty out of it.

After he stopped shooting he went back to loudly and drunkenly arguing about who was the best Catwoman ever, with one of the other patrons.

The thankfully unshot recruit made her trembling way over to the bar where I gave her some sorbet laced heavily with brandy. A glass smashed at her elbow and she jumped about a foot. Happily I had put all of my nicer things away before the Commander and his crew came in to bust up my place again.

A crew was only as good as their leader, and these guys had a fine example. Some of his idiots were breaking chairs with their zrimbyts, some were smashing plates into the fireplace. I stood there and watched the stupidity around me while wiping glasses until they were mostly clean. I ducked occasionally if something came really close to my heads.

The Commander caught my eye and gestured blearily for another round.

I put on my masks and gloves and carried another hot pitcher of fizzing glub to his table. I was going to give him another few minutes to either pass out or squelch his way out of the front door.

If neither of those options seemed likely I'd just have to take a salt shaker and "accidentally" sprinkle a little onto one of his tentacles so that he would sober up and get out before too much more damage was done.

Or before a fight broke out.

These Dresdens had shoe size IQ's and if there was no one else to fight after a few drinks they would fight one another. Then the fight would spill out into the street. Then they would be called in by the ministry to break up the riot.

I often wondered if the heads of the ministry also had shoe sized IQ's.

I didn't like the idea of Roonies going up in a blaze like the bonfire that the Dresdens had set last month in Oldtown. Apparently there was some misunderstanding about overcharging for day old intestines, and when troops arrived to break up the riot the Commander ordered the place flamed with the beleaguered butcher inside.

In a matter of minutes the whole block went up in smoke. The Commander and his crew even hung around for a bit to roast weenies.

But I did hear that the butcher's pet Goldfinch was lovingly carried outside before the fire was set and given to a kindly neighbor. I heard that she was delighted to have him. The nice lady was very concerned that the little birdie would lose his appetite after being separated so abruptly from his owner.

All the rest of the week she fed him and watered him and generally pampered and spoiled him until he was so fat he could hardly move from his perch.

Then on Sunday……

She served him with a nice dark gravy.

The list of 62 fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia

Penis envy [a random thought]

Today while brainstorming money making ideas the random thought that flitted through my brain was "hmmmmm, if I was a guy I could sell my sperm."

I get a lot of mail about the random thoughts that I post in the sidebar directly under the "about me" section.

So I thought I'd put up a post where people could read through all of my random thoughts and then comment on their favorites.

[this is it ……just in case that part wasn't clear]

To kick things off, here are a few of my personal favorites:

One of the advantages of living in this day and age is that you can get after factory parts at fairly reasonable prices. I recently had an anti-blurt button installed. First dates and interviews go a LOT smoother now......

I do have a dark side. A deep down, dark, bloody clawed, dribbly fanged dark side. I keep it locked in my sock drawer.

The other day I was bored. I'm NEVER bored. I was pretty sure it was the first sign of the apocalypse......

My dream is to be welcomed with open arms by people who love and accept me for who I really am.
Maybe I'll join the circus......

I'm not going to riff on Jesus....I like Jesus...and Buddha...he's cool. In fact, I like to think that had the two met they would have sat down for a nice chat and some pie.....lots of pie.

I love having a skeleton. I tried going without, but I didn't like just puddling on the ground.

It's nice when a friend cares enough about you to be petty on your behalf. Not necessarily good karma for them, but nice for you all the same.

And finally:

I like to go through life leaving a little sparkly trail of joy.....like tinkerbell.

 

[waves her tiny tinkerbell wand and goes off to do something sparkly…..]

 

The butterfly effect

There was a commercial here in the states three decades or so ago where they showed someone talking about a product and the actress turns to the camera and says and I told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on and so on.

Until the tv screen was full of people talking about the product.

I'd like to try the same kind of ripple effect for something completely different and see if we can make the world's biggest game of pass it on by ourselves with just the help of electronic impulses sent racing through cyberspace.

What am I talking about?

[cue the dramatic music]

I'd like to take my friend Cat Connor viral.

Not actually Cat, but the videos for her books. She has two and it would be so much fun to see the hit counters go wild just because we tried this little experiment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lldJaJpWm2o killerbyte by Cat Connor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ex7bLjE8b8 terrorbyte by Cat Connor

Both of the videos are filled with blood, knives, head wounds, bodies and body parts in bags…. You know just the stuff you want to see on an empty stomach or while eating your breakfast.

So here's what I'm asking:

What I'd like you to do is click on the videos [watch them through your fingers if you must] and pick out your favorite parts and report back.

My personal favorite part is the smiling dead body in the bathtub in the killerbyte video.

And "Mac" is a standout in both the killerbyte and terrorbyte videos. In killerbyte he has a scene where he's trying to negotiate reading a roadmap, and in terrorbyte he has a scene where he's stumbling around after regaining consciousness on a riverbank.

In both scenes he could be reciting the phone book for all you'll care. [you'll see why]

So what's in it for you besides doing a good karmic deed and knowing that what goes around comes around?

Here comes the part where I throw down the gauntlet:

You guys keep touting the benefits of social networking.

Do you think that by using twitter, facebook, email, the phone, our blogs, a can with a string tied to another can with a string…..that we can take these two videos viral?

I'd like to see it in action.

And if we can get the videos up to say 500 hits each?

[brace yourself]

I'll get a twitter account.

I know [get the lady in the back some smelling salts, will ya?]

For anyone new to the blog this is why that would be a big freakin deal.

But it would be worth it to see if we can actually do this thing.

So warm up your typing fingers, send out mass tweets, email everybody in your address book, tell your postman, tell the lady at the grocery store in line next to you, call your long lost cousin, buttonhole your minister or rabbi [that just sounds wrong].

Lets get this thing done.

And the best part?

You don't even have to endorse the books [which are AWESOME by the way] just pass along the idea that this is a grass roots movement to take two unknown videos viral.

I'll post results here in a week.

And I'll keep a running tab on the # of hits in the comment thread.

I think that this will be such a cool thing to do…..and hey, I might check to see if there's a Guinness Book of World's records for speed of taking a video viral……

You never know…..

One of these days I might be able to say that I hold more than just the record for hanging the longest from the chin up bar in gym class.

And if it works you'll all get to see me tweet a random thought now and then…..but I'll still wear my tinfoil hat while I do it.
[don't want Vader to have FULL access]

 

 

For all you tweeters out there:

#takecatviral http://tiny.cc/qf6rJ killerbyte

#takecatviral http://tiny.cc/aMOLI terrorbyte

Turn, turn, turn

Let yourself be open and life will be easier - Buddha

I've been on a journey for the last two years toward regaining balance in my life between health, happiness, creative fulfillment and satisfying the basic needs of the body.

The BIGGEST thing that I have learned is that you create your own experiences. Loving yourself and surrounding yourself with love and only loving positive people is the only way to live a healthy life. Meditation, prayer, exercise, being hugged and laughing are daily needs, not something that you do if you get around to it when everything else is done.

Parents especially often leave themselves last in the list of people to nurture.

So today I'm reminding everybody to nurture themselves first, it's not selfish, it's just good common sense.

Fall is a great time to explore new things. To let old habits die off with the leaves falling from the trees, to take winter as a restorative time for the soul and to look forward to the renewal of spring.

He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise - Lao-Tzu

Take time to know yourself and be happy.

Namaste

Seeds

Words on a page
words on a phone

Frequent words
needed words
gentle words

*surprising*

Words that
almost
feel like
love

*how*

Without touch
without smell

Without tongues
tasting skin

How
could love
be growing

*but*

It almost
feels like

*love*

Seeds of love
searching for purchase
in newly

*found*

fertile ground

Seeds is now in the poemblog at voxpoetica. Thanks again to the lovely Annmarie Lockhart for publishing it.