is very probable that human mouths open when we look up so aliens can insert a fishing hook much more simply

Wonder if there's an article about this in Cosmo? ....

Cindy had gone her whole life without her earlobes peeling. So when an alien emerged from underneath the skin it was her second biggest surprise of the day.

Junket……………. flash fiction

Time travel is possible. I know because it happened to me. The odd thing is I didn't climb into some fanciful contraption painstakingly sculpted from some hard to obtain metal, or stand on a fiendishly clever continuum slicing platform wringing my hands and laughing maniacally while my misshapen assistant pulled the lever to raise the lighting rod to the sky. I didn't do anything that a mad genius normally does to travel forward or backward in time.

I simply logged in to my email account. It opened, I read the first subject line and that's when I got sucked into a wormhole that landed me smack dab back into a place from my past. It was a place that I'd sworn never to return to, but, there I was, clad only in thin leopard print baby doll pajamas, back on a space ship orbiting Octothorpe Plasmatic, staring down into the lopsided eyes of Glycerin.

Glycerin, oh how I hated him. He had wooed me, called himself my patron, admired me for my art and arranged a spectacular inter-galactic tour of my show. About three weeks in, his admiration turned to lust and when I didn't acquiesce, he abandoned me. Left me on a Walmo forsaken asteroid with only a box of graham crackers and a harmonica to my name. And every damn fool knows that if you eat graham crackers and then play your harmonica it's goodbye harmonica. The bastard.

Well this time I wasn't going to let him get away with anything. He could tell the troopers his side of the story after I kicked three kinds of snot out of him and his bodyguards and went to the nearest Jada station to report my abduction. I took a breath to tell him to go to hell and was stopped cold by two little words.

"I'm sorry."

Glycerin had actually said he was sorry. I pinched myself to make sure I was awake and then twaddled my pinky in my ear. His big sad droopy jowls wobbled a bit and some orange tears ran out of his eyes. He leaned forward and put four of his tentacles on his desk:

"I really am sorry Jules, I should never have done what I did to you. Do you think you could find it in your heart to forgive me?"

Well, damn, this was a fine how do you do. I was all set to kick some ass and now I had all this adrenaline floating around in my system and nothing to spend it on. But wait a minute here, I stalked back and forth a couple of times in front of his desk and then snapped:

"You couldn't have sent me a card or something? You had to yank me out of my home and bring me here to you to tell me that you're sorry? Don't you see that what you just did is almost as bad as what you did the last time? Have you learned nothing about inter-personal relationships since we were together last?"

"As a matter of fact I've had some therapy. Dr. Gomdu helped me a lot toward finding out what causes me to treat other beings disrespectfully. And in our last session we were working together to help me to control the urges that cause me to demand instant gratification."

"And are you getting anywhere with this Dr. Gomdu?"

"I think we were making a lot of progress, yes."

"So where is this doctor now, I'd like to have a word with him."

"I'm sorry to say that I ate him."

"You ate him? YOU ATE HIM? You're telling me that you found a therapist and while you were working together YOU ATE HIM?"

"Yes, and I'm very sorry about it." He stood and signaled to his body guards:

"I'm even sorrier to say that I have room for dessert."

Luckily I still had enough adrenaline coursing through me to kick four kinds of snot out of Glycerin and his cohorts. Unfortunately, as it turned out after I wiped the floor with them and tossed them out of the air lock, I found out from the secretarial staff that Glycerin had eaten the man who had designed the time travel worm hole and no one knew how to get me back to Dominix within a hundred years of when I was snatched.

So now I'm heading up Glycerin's empire. All in all Glycerin needing to apologize hadn't been such a bad experience for me. If only I could get some mental windshield wipers to cleanse the image of Glycerin exploding as he hit open space from my mind. It was like watching a blender full of strawberries mixed with undercooked sausages rain on your windshield. Sometimes I still wake up screaming in the night.

 

Eugene Tallhammer, First mate extraordinaire flash fiction

An abandoned wallet on the sidewalk, drops of blood like a trail of bread crumbs leading away from it down to the mouth of an alley. After a few steps the drops turned to smears, but it was hard to tell if they were crawling smears or dragging smears.

Then I came across his shoe, and figured dragging.

I unsheathed my sword, silly I know to head into an alley with it still in its scabbard, but drawing undue attention to myself was not on the agenda tonight.

Someone dressed in a one piece fuchsia leotard, a polka dot cape, curly shoes and a floppy jingle hat was so very noticeable he was almost invisible at carnival time, but add a thrumming blue sword into the mix and you get some funny looks. I've always been fond of visiting Rombus 5, but some of the inhabitants, despite their open minded attitudes toward things like hallucinogens and orgies in the town square, were none too fond of crooks and scoundrels. Of which, I'm proud to say, I'm both. I'm also a narcoleptic vegetarian, but all they ever seem to care about is the "space pirate" portion of my resume. Citizens who have had their golden idols smuggled out in the dead of night tend to take matters into their own hands and hasten justice with a handy tree and some Vigilante brand rope once someone shouts "hey you!" in an authoritative sort of way. Although, if they're inexperienced hangmen, you could just end up with a sore neck and a really good view of the traditional after lynching celebratory orgy.

So I was sauntering along, projecting an air of saintly good citizenship while neatly concealing under my cloak a backpack full of stuff I had liberated from the royal treasury, when I recognized the shoe. Only my first mate, Eugene "stickyfingers" Tallhammer would be caught dead wearing an acid green high top tennis shoe with the initials ET emblazoned on the side in orange marker. As I got closer to the alley the blood spatters became blood puddles and I began hoping that when I got to him he hadn't been caught dead without it.

I cleared the alley mouth and was greeted with the shapely blue derriere of a very pissed off female cat creature. She was breathing hard and her hackles stood on end down all twelve feet of her spine. Her fury was an impressive sight, but when you added in that she was clothed solely in a green gee string and nine sparkly pasties, it was hard to also focus on the fact that she was holding Eugene down with her right cat's paw while seemingly deciding if he was worth the amount of blood spatter likely to come from ripping out his jugular. She swung her huge head at me and hissed.

I bowed, sheathed my sword, showed her my open palms and reached to open my amusingly oversized codpiece. I dangled the prize from my left hand while remaining steadfastly still. Her nostrils flared, she turned toward me, pasties jettisoning from six of her nine suddenly erect nipples.

She snatched the necklace from me, the diamonds gleaming in the moonlight as she wrapped it around her wrist. It fit her perfectly as a tennis bracelet. She simpered and then frowned down at her state of dishabille. I gallantly swept my cape from my back and proffered it. She did one of those complicated female movements that turn a bit of cloth into a stunning frock and slinked out of the alley at speed with about fifteen thousand credits worth of diamonds on her arm.

"Sorry boss, I was in the middle of negotiations when something broke down, you got a hankie or something? My nose is gushing like a mother."

I reached into my backpack and handed Eugene a hankie then ran a #6 medstick over my bleeding ear, a casualty of one of the flying pasties, and over Eugene's broken nose, very probably a casualty of getting too close to one of the pasties while still attached to the gigantic catdancer. I've known Eugene long enough not to even ask. He has a hard enough time passing up two breasts when they're attached to a fully clothed female, I could easily work out how this situation transpired without any assistance whatsoever.

I pulled a second cape from my backpack, secured my codpiece and helped Eugene to his feet. We repaired to the street to recover his lost shoe and wallet. Now all we had to do was wait here at the rendezvous point a few more minutes and we were home free.

That's when we saw them. Ten big cat women bearing down on us at a full gallop. My narcolepsy kicked in at that second and the next thing I knew I was on the ship pressed into my bunk with enough g force to make my vertebrae snap crackle and pop. Davis came over the intercom and said: "Sorry boss, we grabbed you both, but Eugene sobbed so much that I dropped him back into the thick of things once he explained what was what."

My vid screen lit up and I was treated to a very graphic twenty seconds of Eugene in the town square frolicking naked in a milk fountain with ten giant cat women.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. It's not that I begrudge Eugene the shore leave; I was just a bit worried because he's not as young as he used to be. I shut off the vid feed and took a moment to send out a plea to any gods who might hear me that Eugene's heart would be strong enough to see him through fifteen thousand credits worth of negotiations.

Alien in my tea, parts one and two -flash fiction

Otherworldly Company

This morning there was an alien in my tea. I was startled to say the least. He looked friendly, so I didn't have the heart to pour him down the drain. I scooped him gently out with a spoon, placed him into a glass bowl so he could see the world around him and left him to his own devices.

My toaster objected.

He said, "None of those in here, missy, you'll be sorry."

But I told him to mind his own business. I rule my kitchen.

Brebax 679 told me so.

Photo copyright Karen Schindler

Stiletto Regret

Aliens are cute. There's just something about the big eyes. Like Bambi. But unlike Bambi they'll disembowel you in a wink.

Aliens are cute. Right up until the second they're not. Then you're not…. well, you, anymore. You're just a mass of wriggling entrails, spilling onto the floor wondering (a) why the hell you wore heels during a chase scene, and (b) why the hell you didn't think to plunge three inches of pointy stiletto into one of those big cute alien eyes.

Mid to moderate skill level -- flash fiction

He studied one of the creatures that he had received in his Build your own zoo kit with a magnifying lens and all six of his very alert eyes. It was hideous. All pink and smooth with two large masses in the center of its upper torso. It had two puny eyes on either side of what he assumed was a nose, but he didn't see how it could possibly use such a useless appendage to bring sustenance to the slash below the nose that he assumed was a mouth.

The second creature was dark and hairy like a shrimba. It had no lumps on its upper torso but sported a strange appendage in its lower region that may have been a deformed fifth limb or a small trunk of some sort. Jalri didn't see how it could use such an appendage to reach leaves from the trees he had planted in the enclosure per the instructions that he had received ages ago. You have to let the enclosure acclimate or your specimens die right away. This was Jalri's third attempt and he was determined to get it right this time. The instructions said that the creatures were omnivores, but one of the tips in the back of the catalog hinted that you could make them more docile by feeding them only plant matter.

Jalri was heartened by the jabbering cheeps and chirps that came from the enclosure while he was getting ready for bed. This morning he had seen the creatures cooperating in building a hut from the cut up limbs and string that he had left laying around for them to find. You had to give them something to do or they sickened and died. This current set seemed to be thriving. He had high hopes of breeding them and sharing the litter with his friends.

The breeding instructions cost extra and you didn't get them until your specimens had survived for a month. Jalri glanced at his calendar and realized that his instructions would be arriving the day after tomorrow. He was really looking forward to breeding his specimens.

Jalri was awakened by grunting and moaning coming from the enclosure. He turned on the light and saw the creatures wrapped in mortal combat devouring one another's faces. He looked away sickened. He opened his top drawer and found the cyanide tablet, broke it in half and dropped it into the enclosure.

His mother snapped on the overhead light to his bedchamber. "Jalri, why are you up so late? Are you ill?"

"No mama, I'm fine but my creatures were killing each other again. I've taken care of it, poor little things. These humans are just too hard to care for. I think that I'll try something else from the blue planet catalog next time. Maybe something from the beginner skill level. I saw these things called 'sea monkeys' that looked quite interesting."

This week's list of 48 stories at Mad Utopia

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