“Drip, Drip, Drip…” – A Poem

The toilet has a leak.
It’s been nearly a week this toilet has had a leak.
The towel on the floor’s begun to reek,
and the future remains quite bleak,
but I will not retreat!

A clamp of the wrench, and the valve starts to creak-
SNAP!
Alas, the plastic cap was weak, perhaps my approach ought’ve been more meek.
So now it’s worse, the leak.

This vicious blood-rage is reaching its peak!
A solution to this goddamn toilet is all that I seek!
…what is this…?
Ah! An idea! Eureka!

A bird doesn’t need tools, it uses its beak!
I have two worthy hands, a mind that’s unique,
I’ll work with what I have, quit shouting at porcelain like some kind of freak.
Some tape on the threads, refit the flow valve’s seat…
Boom! Air-tight! Suck it, toilet, I won’t be beat!

At last, the drip is gone, the floor is dry, me- a heroic, fix-it geek.
Repair Skill: 100, “Jury Rig” perk, (as the kids say) on fleek!

I climb into bed, enjoying this first victory in a To-Do list winning streak.
Mandy walks by, bathroom door closes – *Flush!* – WIIIIIIRRRUUUURREEEK!

I bolt upright, my eyes shoot open at the toilet’s new, banshee-like screech.
The covers fly off, my knuckles crack. “Alright, toilet. Round two, bitch,” I heatedly speak.

END

The Take: So, among other things, that’s been my week. Rhyming sort of fell a part towards the end, but I was determined to make sure that, even though it was the freest of freestyle in format, I wanted to keep the same rhyming sound. But, like faces, there are only so many words that share similar sounds. That all said, I like it.

I pray that none of you ever need know the same struggle.

Enjoy your weekends.

What the Gosh-Dingle-Damn?!

Won’t lie, y’all, forgot what day it was. That goes for yesterday, too – which is why this is late. ALSO, I’m writing this from a potato pretending to be a phone, with a keyboard that doesn’t have a Return key. So in that spirit, today, I’m going to pose a question that we’re going to answer tomorrow: What was going through the mind of the guy who discovered cheese? (Scheduled post subject to change based on the author’s whimsy.)

Funeral for a Hamster: A Legacy

Whoa, hey guys. It’s been a minute, right? Like a real minute.

Been a helluva week, too. Work’s been nuts, some family stuff, friendly drama, took Honorable Mention in the semi-finals of a national fiction contest (#humblebrag), and my pet died.

It’s been a thing.

BUT, that’s not what we’re here to talk about (kind of). We’re here…to talk about Hammy.

That’s short for “Hamilton”, the hamster – it was my girlfriend’s idea, I didn’t vote for it; but grew to love the name and the little doofus in short order. Apparently, the average lifespan of a syrian dwarf hamster is about two years, and the Lil’ Hercules (name explained in a moment) made it twenty-nine months. We buried him out front, with neighbors and family, in the rain, and said some kind words while I played “My Guitar Gently Weeps” on my phone.

I hope I live the kind of life where I merit a funeral that’s half as cool.

So, in the spirit, I’d like to share a few tales about Hamilton’s legacy and why he was so awesome.

He Ate Fucking Metal and Lifted a Fucking Book
He had a pretty spacious cage to run around in with plenty of ‘floof’ to burrow through. But that wasn’t enough for Lil’ Hercules. At one point, Mandy thought it’d be a good idea to outfit his space with an old egg carton as a sort of makeshift ladder to climb on. Cool in theory, right? Problem was, now he could reach the metal mesh that was the top of the cage. No problem, right? Wrong. Problem. Very much problem, apparently.
I wake up in the middle of the night to some weird noises, but was exhausted enough to just ignore them. Come morning time, I get up for work, walk groggily to the kitchen, and while I’m making coffee, something scuttles over my feet. I look down, thinking I’m about to kill a rat, when I see the rat is orange.
I wrack my brains over how he got out. Did we leave the cage open? Did we leave it cracked? No, and no.
I go back to his cage with him scooped up, and see there’s a fat fucking hole in the mesh where the carton reaches. He chewed through (and presumably ate) aluminum screen in the name of freedom.
We spent the next week expecting him to leave a couple bloody turds, and then die painfully; but that never happened. Instead, we put a heavy-ass biology textbook to cover the hole and kept an eye on him.
Apparently, not a close-enough eye, because a couple nights later, there come more weird noises. I wake up, turn on the light, and spot him rummaging through our closet. I scold him (thoroughly expecting him to understand me), scoop him up yet again, and inspect his cage to see the – let it not be understated – heavy-ass biology textbook scooted off to the side.
That rodent was on ‘roids.
He Got Me to Kiss his Nuts Once
Not too much to delve into here, it’s pretty self-explanatory.
We, and most of our friends, made a fair amount of fun of Hammy’s balls. But that was only because they were ginormous! They genuinely, actually made it seem like they made it more difficult for him to walk.
That aside, when he’d gotten used to being handled and carried, it was a nice thing to be able to nuzzle him and kiss his back or his head. Problem was, he was quick.
So I’m holding him in the crook of my elbow, nuzzle him, and lean over to give him a kiss to the head, when he ‘Swoop!’ scuttles over my arm, and my lips brush right up against those kidney-bean-sized testicles.
I think that was the day I decided I loved him. I’ve never kissed a pair of testicles and not loved the…y’know what, never mind…
He Stared Death in the Face (kind of)
There’s a neighborhood cat around here that we’ve pseudo-adopted. Her name’s ‘Tiger,’ even though her owners named her ‘Kitten,’ but that’s dumb, so her name’s ‘Tiger.’
Anyway, Tiger loved to come over, hang out for warmth and scratches, and then jump up onto the bench where Hammy’s cage was and just…stare at him (We called her doing this “checking out Food Network”).
Part of what made his passing a bit more gentle was knowing that he lived a life in which he never knew pain or fear (except once when he fell off the bed, peed a little, then hopped right back to life). So when a giant monster that stared at him mere centimeters away, longing to eviscerate him, and play with his tiny intestines like Silly String, he just looked at her, smiled, shrugged, and peed in his corner.
I’m probably attributing courage for what was actually hilarious Darwinian ignorance, but I like to picture him as staring death in the face and shrugging. So, there.

He survived two of California’s wildfires with us, scaled a bathroom cabinet like a parkour athlete, and loudly ran into about eleven-hundred doors in his plastic ball, then died peacefully in his sleep at the ripe old age of two-and-a-half.

We should all be so lucky.

Love ya, Hammy. We’ll miss you.

Catch you guys Tuesday.

You are a Human Being

And isn’t that awesome? That should be awesome, and it is. You get to pilot a vehicle made of muscle and sinew and bone and skin, and use that biological mech-suit to walk around a gigantic ball of rock in an infinite plane of space. You get to use it to see trees and clouds and mountains and ocean waves. You can use it to listen to the whistling wind, barking squirrels, crunching leaves, and singing birds. You get to take big, deep breaths with it and smell cold morning air, salty sea breeze, autumn spices. You can bite through the tart skin of a plum to the sweet fruit underneath, chow down on fresh baked bread, hot cooked fish, or the spice of a pepper.

But probably best of all, with this awesome body, you can feel things. You can brush your hand over down grass, knead your fingers into fur, feel the warmth of sunshine against your cheek, or someone else’s skin against your own. You can feel the bubbly cauldron in your stomach that’s giddy joy, or the furnace that’s drive or rage. You can feel the warm knot of togetherness with a loved one, and the unbearable, chewing-on-tin-foil sensation of loss when they’re gone. You can feel disappointment, and triumph. Be wrapped up in a memory so warm, or lost in a regret so cold. You get to feel foolish at a mistake, or proud at an accomplishment.

On top of all that, you’re part of a big group of other humans. We’re kind and creative. Smart, talented, generous, caring, full of ingenuity, and also kind of dumb, sort of dicks sometimes, scared, scary, and selfish. Some of us have titles and positions, egos and attitudes, biases and histories. You don’t have to go out of your way to meet someone that reminds you of yourself in some way, or in a position you’ve been in, or could be, if the circumstances were right.

Someone made a dumb decision or mistake? Remember a time you did. Someone’s being pissy in traffic? There has to be a time you’ve wanted to be. Seeing someone being judgemental (especially online – like, damn)? We’ve all let our ego take the wheel a time or two.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know where I’m going with this other than to try and impress that we’re people, and there’s such a privilege in that. We have problems, imbalance, fucked up situations daily, sickness, scarcity, reasons to be scared, pissed, jealous, or otherwise. But there are so many more reasons to laugh, do a little jig, hug someone, let loose, be grateful, sing even if you positively suck at it, or wear those comfortable pants even if your girlfriend says they clash with your shirt or whatever.

We have bodies. Art. Music. Food. Friends. Homes. Jokes. Cars. Sushi. Movies. Bonfires. Crayons. Flowers. Photography. Dancing. Booze. Secondhand puzzles that still somehow have all 500 pieces. That last bit of milk that’s just enough for that bowl of cereal. Serendipitous moments where a song comes on the radio and it’s your fucking anthem. A colorful history that’s awesome, terrible, miraculous, disgusting, and just as varied as people are, probably have always been, and will likely always be. We’re not perfect, but that’s cool. Sometimes we’re stronger than we think we are, and other times we need the help of others – and that’s the awesome thing: help is always there, even if it doesn’t look like it. Ask, reach out, go looking, or keep trying until it gets there.

I’m going to start the next sentence in a certain way, and I want you to know that it’s on purpose to emphasize its importance…

Bruh…the next time you feel like crying, no matter how horrible or however little the reason is, enjoy it.

Anyway, I think what started all this was my fervent holding that Thanksgiving is an viciously underappreciated holiday that gets skipped over for Christmas while the body of Halloween hasn’t even cooled yet. So this is my little rebellion. Everyone starts as a baby and gets their own story, cherish your own and cut others some slack. “What is the meaning of life?” is an overrated question because it doesn’t inheirantly have one, so you get to decide. And never say you’re bored when there’s so much to think about, try, and appreciate.

Or…I learned all this from the ghost of an ancient wise man and had to spend last week learning ancient Greek or whatever, so that’s why I didn’t post Thursday. Whichever you want to believe. The world’s your oyster.

Alright, that’s enough. Take it easy, everybody. Catch you Tuesday. Ciao.

Bees?

Happy Thursday, y’all. Treatin’ yourself right? Good.

This one came up between my mom and I recently, and I figured it would be a funny one to share with all of you.

I was probably fourteen or fifteen during the summer in question, and my mom had a couple of projects around the house she wanted help with. I love her, but these usually amounted to small things I didn’t see the point in putting the energy toward. That said, fuck it, she’s my mom, I’m her son – ya help ya mama out. That day, it was repainting the trim around the upstairs windows to clean them up a bit. Since my bedroom was up there, it was just a matter of climbing out the window onto the roof while she stood in the driveway to direct me.

From what I remember, it was hot that day, probably high 90’s. I’m out there on the roof, standing just under the top-level awning, painting these damn trims. From my bedroom, I have a little radio that’s playing whatever rock station I was into at the time, and all’s going well. I’m thinking I’ll get this done pretty quick and then be looking at going out for burgers or something.

Right after that thought, I’m sure, is when things got weird.

First, was the weird shadow. I go to reload my paintbrush (sounds kind of bad-ass put that way, but just amounts to dunking it again – I suck at painting) and on the rooftop is…well, it’s like a shadow. But it’s a shadow in the same way that heat distortion (the stuff mirages are made of) can sort of cast a shadow, or the way fumes can cast a shadow – it doesn’t really have a defined border, it’s loose, and it’s not even that there’s blocked light, just sort of a shimmering; kind of like an underwater light effect, just…without the water.

I see that and go, “Huh, that’s weird, but it is hot today,” and chalk it up to the aforementioned heat distortion.

Second, was the weird sound. As I’d said, I had my radio going in my room, when it suddenly starts to get all static-y, like getting cut with interference. No problem, it happens, but like with the shadow, it’s not quite static. It’s a tough sensation to put into words, but I guess imagine an audio engineer had to custom mix the sound of static (if that’s even a thing they do, I’m just going by the name – use your imagination!), but they wound up half-ass’ing it. That’s the best I got.

But again, I hear it and think, “Huh, that’s weird, but it is hot today,” as though the heat itself is interfering with the radio signal. (#dumbkidthoughts #thatsnotscience) Finally, I guess these things got strange enough for me to eventually look up, and what do I see?

AN ENORMOUS FUCK-OFF CLOUD OF BEES!!

And when I say “cloud,” I truly cannot emphasize that enough. A bit of YouTube diving sort of shows off what words fail to paint, but even that doesn’t compete with the live sensation (though I will say, the sound comes close).

Like the Persians’ arrows, these sum-bitches blotted out the goddamn sun.

So I dove through my window and slammed it closed behind me (if you’re picturing something Jason Statham would do, you’re correct). I looked down to the driveway to see my mom just standing there with her jaw on the ground. After the swarm passed, I went out to meet her, shouted something to the effect of, “What the fuck was that?” to which she responded, “Oh, yeah. I saw it coming and was just like, ‘whaaaat?'”

I know what you’re thinking, and to this day, I also don’t know why the-scrambled-eggs-on-fuck-toast she didn’t say anything to warn me.

Anyway, love y’all. Smash “Follow.” See ya Tuesday.

Ciao.

A Moment of Rambling Reflection…and then some Nonsense (feat. Ron Perlman)

Happy Thursday, everyone! What’s good? What’s new?

I’ve managed to make it a little more than a year since leaving my full-time job. Would likely have been longer, but life never goes as planned and that’s alright. But over the past twelve months, I was able to sell two whole stories, start this lovable pet project, treat my better half to a memorable anniversary, and handle (mostly) the maelstrom that was my mother’s sickness – got her house sold and she moves in a few weeks.

So, while certainly different from the Hakuna Matata, coffee house Bohemia I’d imagined, it’s been several times more rewarding; especially when I think of where things might be if they happened after my year was up. It is funny to think, though, that after 163 submissions to date, two have landed (of course not counting those which are still pending; full of my hopes, dreams, and sweet kisses). But from what I’ve been told, that’s a more common story than one might think. One might think, as I have, rightly so, I’d imagine, that if you attempted something 163 times and only succeeded twice – swung at bat, shot a basketball, threw a pass, baked a pie – you pretty objectively suck at baseball, basketball, football, baking, whatever. But that’s just…not quite the case with writing. In fact, two hits inside those first hundred attempts is a deceptively fast start; especially when done independently, outside of any organizations, clubs, or associations.
It…can be hard to keep that in view, however.
In the same way, in the day and age of Instagram or Twitter followers only ever mattering when counting by the million, every time I punch a key (like right now), I imagine the sizable crowd of 40 brave souls that clicked the Follow button on this humble blog out in my front yard.
I’ll bring the sappiness to an end by saying that you guys make me feel like a king.

So thank you for listening to a poor sap ramble and spin stories about made up things.

…

So…the other night, I had a dream that Ron Perlman beat up my problems for me.

It was great. Not like I just went around town pointing at things I didn’t like and The Ron would strafe over and hit it with a straight right. We were in a Coliseum like the Roman times, dressed in modern day attired and without weapons. The gates lifted and out walked these monsters, all shadowy and black, but with labels in white lettering on their chests.

One, a hulking minotaur-looking thing with wriggly squid arms, runs up and tries to th’wack me. It’s labeled ‘Credit-Card-Debt,’ and Ron Perlman dives out of nowhere and plants his boots on its cheek, putting it in the dirt. Next up comes ‘Phone-Calls-from-the-Hospital,’ and it resembles a sumo wrestler with a jackal’s head. It charges, but doesn’t get very far before The Ron gives it a step-in elbow followed by an uppercut that puts it in the stands. “Ron! Help!” I shout, as ‘Check-Engine-Light-that’s-been-on-Forever’ grabs me around the neck. In a flash, Ron Perlman is by my side and he flying-armbar’s the sonuvabitch.

Soon, after dozens more heel hooks, tornado kicks, and left crosses, the army of shadowy demons lie defeated, squirming, and for some reason steaming in the dust of the arena. Then The Ron and I do a ~~freeze-frame high five~~ sweet custom handshake and I rouse to consciousness.

The point is, life will get tough if you live it, and that’s the point. If there’s something you want to do or need to do (sometimes they’re the same thing), then do it. You’ll have to persevere, stick with it, and endure, even if it doesn’t always seem promising. But stick with it long enough, there’s a success story in it somewhere.

Find your Subconscious Ron Perlman.

A Sad Story

I had a pivotal moment growing up when, at the age of seventeen, I found out a classmate of mine couldn’t tie his shoes (we’ll call him Alessio, because this happened in our senior Italian class).

The funny thing is that there wasn’t a big wind-up to the news, either. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about in the lead up, just shooting the breeze near the back of the room while class was on break or something and boom, “Alessio can’t tie his shoes.”

A swell of mixed emotions probably came next. Here was someone my age, no physical or evident mental impairments that would keep him from it, just “wasn’t raised that way.”

Naturally, the first thing I do is put on my deer-stalker cap, puff my pipe, and look down to see he is, in fact, wearing laced shoes which are, in fact, tied.

“How’d you tie those, then?” say I, skeptically.

Alessio hangs his head and quietly whispers, “My mom ties them for me, okay?”

In that moment, I was his confidant. I’d been let on his secret that only the four of us in that corner of the room which was our Italian class knew about, and so I would guard his secret…

Until the following week, whereupon we got into some sort of banter – again, don’t remember the decade-old exchange, but I trust it was witty – and I used my newfound ammunition.

“[Evan], you can’t put maple syrup on pizza,” I assume he said to me.

“Yeah, Alessio? Well, you can’t tie your shoes, so you don’t get a vote,” I retort.

Of course I wasn’t quiet, so the others at the lunch table heard and there followed a storm of questions. Alessio hung his head, and I had my hands ‘pon my hips, triumphant.

After all, I’d won.

I used that ace a couple more times, if I remember right. Each time the same thing: an embarrassed smile from Alessio, an explanation, some chuckles, another medal for old Evan.

We were back in Italian class, just after lunch, and we get into it again. As had become pretty routine, I fall back on my zinger. With an enormous roll of his eyes, another part of the group, Ed, threw his hands up. “Dude! Alessio can tie his shoes!”

I sh’narfed and dismissed the peasant for speaking out of hand. Looking to Alessio, I said, “Is that what you’ve been telling him?” And I laughed. “Alessio, tell this guy you can’t tie your shoes.”

Ed looked me in the eye with a cold stare, and held that gaze as he reached over and undid Alessio’s laces. With the shoes loose and undone, Ed then looked to Alessio and solemnly nodded his head as if to say, It’s time.

There was a brief moment where Alessio looked back and forth between us like a child being called by two divorced parents. He turned a face like he’d made up his mind and just said, “I’m sorry, man.” Then he bent over and tied his shoes…

…perfectly.

I was stunned into stuttering silence as I realized that I’d spent the better part of the past few months proclaiming to my peers what was now a gobbsmackingly (it’s a word) obvious lie. I was a fish that had taken the hook, the line, the sinker, better part of the pole, and most of the goddamn boat.

To…to clarify, in case this isn’t sinking in: I was almost a legal adult, and believed someone who was going to be headed off to college soon telling me he couldn’t tie his shoes…for months! And was confident enough to tell a bunch of people about it!

If there’s a lesson to be gained from any of this, let one be to obviously not believe everything you fucking hear, but also to reserve an ounce of sympathy for anyone that makes what you find to be stupendously dumb proclamations; because odds are that one day they’ll realize they’ve been had, and hang onto the experience in such a way they write about it publicly ten years down the road.

Ciao.

In Case You Missed It: “Lessons from the Deep”

(Quick re-post, cause this got put up a little later yesterday. Enjoy, y’all!)

Whaaaaat’s up everybody? Happy-

…

…Tuesday! (Sorry, I actually had to scratch my chin to remember what day it was and wanted to reflect that here.)

Wanted to get this out earlier today, but the hectic nature of trying to sell the house now that it’s good and flipped, well, you get it. Now that we’re here, so cues the part where I tell you the passing thought that just cartwheeled around the yard, wispily threaded its way through the window, and slipped through my ear to the top of my head:

If you’ve never been to a speak-easy, like, a “real” one that adheres to its theme, you owe it to yourself. On a recent trip to L.A. for my friends’ wedding, my girlfriend Amanda and I found (okay, really, she found it and I just went) a Speak-Easy the night before the wedding, and y’all, it was AWESOME. I’m talking had to spot the bouncer out front looking inconspicuous out front of the inconspicuous building, get the night’s password out of him, go down a back alley (where Mandy swung my hand all giddy-like while I thought we were gonna get dirked), make a turn where we found a red light, knock on the door where a man on the other side pulled a curtain and asked for the password – the Whole Nine. If you find yourself in Pasadena and in the very specific, nameless speak-easy I’m talking about, get the Mama’s Poison – it’s tops, daddio.

Anyway, in the name of flipping (two paragraphs ago – poor segue), we’re going to go through our little flip book again (like we did last week).

Here’s how it’s gonna go: I’m gonna stop typing to briefly flip through randomly for a prompt, probably sit with my mouth agape for a moment or two while observing what it comes up with, then decide whether or not to tell you before or after to tell y’all what the parameters were.

Ready?

Cool.

-flippy flips-

…

Heh heh heh, I love this thing.

Alright, so this time, we got the following:

Following a disastrous job interview,
a big-time weather reporter
wakes up in a strange house

Same as last time, we’re taking this nice and gently, not rushing and stressing the shit out of it like on previous fan/friend submitted prompts – even though those turn out awesome and we’ll get back to them soon.

Without further adieu…

The Dark Below Pepperdine Circle

The man in the suit clapped his hand on the desk as he laughed. He had thick fingers and a heavy ring that knocked against the wood. It was here Greg also noticed the two metal teeth on the man’s bottom row, as well as the thickness of his sideburns. He would’ve said something, but he hadn’t exactly had the power in the conversation thus far as it was.

“I love it!” the man boomed. “Oh, I love it, I tell ya! You go ahead and keep that, and you’ll hear from us within the week!” Greg took the item in question from the man in the suit as he resumed laughing. He laughed unceasingly while he held the door open for Greg, during the entire escort to the parking lot, and laughed still as the front door of the office building closed to officiate their parting. Greg walked out to his car, threw his briefcase in the back, and drove around to the other side of the lot, where he parked again, and let his head fall onto the horn for a good long while.

This was the seventh interview that had pushed daisies in the last four days. He looked to the bobble-head James had given him. It was a small figure of Greg, with the usual over-sized head, but an expression of bewildered discomfort and a cartoon-like, green gas cloud erupting from his bottom. “Come on,” his wife had said. “John and Stacey have been inviting us over for weeks. They want to do fish tacos and play some games. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Karen,” Future Greg would say. “Maybe John and Stacey don’t know a spatula from an flattened duck foot. Maybe that rank-ass fish ruins my gut live on air and gets me fired. Maybe I come home that day to bitch about it, and find John bending you over my billiard table. Maybe I move out and live on Curtis’s couch for three months. Maybe, when I’m finally ready to start job hunting again, I find out I’m a new goddamn meme format. So, no, Karen. Fuck their tacos.”

He took his head off the horn and got out of his car, whereupon he hurled the bobble-head over the curve of the nearest building’s wall and started kicking the hell out of his tires. When his tirade finally calmed, he looked up to see an older man staring at him from the sidewalk. He wore a beanie, weathered jacket, finger-less gloves, and sat in a wheelchair. “What the fuck do you want?” Greg screamed, red in the face.

His flat expression unchanged, the homeless man held out a hand with a tab of acid suspended between two fingers. Greg’s heavy breathing slowly returned to normal under the weight of his confusion at first, but then began instead weighing the consequences.

Thus began a series of poor choices.

Greg woke up to a splash of water going up his nose. His burning sinuses and coughing fit immediately roused him to consciousness, but he found he was in utter darkness. His eyes opened wide in the black, that they might drink in any wayward light, but to no avail. He could tell he was lying on his stomach in water that was maybe two inches deep, and his fingers were against something soft, like wet fur under the water. He scrambled away at first, imagining he was on the back of a sleeping aquatic bear or wildebeest. When he didn’t hear a roar or the crunching of his own bones, he sopped his way to his knees and listened. Beyond his own heavy breathing, he heard the very soft lapping of water somewhere, distant in the void. And something like…the crunching of gift wrap?

He fumbled about in his pocket for his phone and its flashlight, but when he tried to touch the screen, nothing. Damn, he thought. Soaked.

He began feeling his way around in the dark, sloshing around in the the toe-height chill of the water. After a few, stumbling steps, he knocked something over in the dark. Was that…a chair? He felt around some more. There were chairs and a table. Meaning the fur under the water was actually…carpet? Was he…was he in a house?

He fumbled around until he had roughly mapped out in his mind’s eye what must be the dining room and kitchen, then felt around from there for some sort of hallway where one might keep a flashlight or emergency supplies, all the while eerily confident that a giant, monstrous crab was going to snatch him out of the dark. Finally, he grasped what felt like the handle to a closet door and in a stroke of luck, found a flashlight.

After his eyes adjusted, he looked around and had one thought: “This looks just like my grandma’s house.”

And it did. Pink wallpaper, pastry plates in display shelves (all curiously shifted to one side), and spoons on the walls (all slightly tilted in their angle). Besides the water and the strange arrangement gravity had seemed to have taken on the objects in the room, the only oddity was that it was completely black. No light came even from the windows.

He walked over to one and saw that, besides the utter dark, there was a curious, milky whiteness on the other side of the glass. He pressed his face close to it in some vain hope of seeing beyond the veil when the light caught against the large round eye of a fish. He screeched a leapt back. Now he was certain that he was in some kind of sick Lovecraftian nightmare.

Against his better judgement, he ran to what he surmised to be the front door and flung it open. A huge, white belly forced its way into the door, translucent against the light and writhing with undersea grass and swishing tails. Right when he was sure he was moments from an eldritch, cosmic death, the whole house began to shake and shift. He felt gravity sway and pull him down the hallway as the floor moved beneath him. Seemingly pulled by unseen forces, the hallway felt less like that and more like an esophagus leading to Cthulu’s stomach.

Right when he was about to scream obscenities to God and his aunt Maggie (long story), the scene changed. He heard a rush of water, light poured through the windows, the belly in the doorway deflated of a sudden, and there were…voices? More than voices, it was the sound of heavy machinery.

When the seismic motions finally stopped, he cautiously approached the front door, beyond which he heard voices. The skin of the belly, he now saw, had writing on it, and up close it read: “Tyvek.”

Plastic wrap? Greg thought. What the hell is…

No sooner had he thought the question than a utility knife thrust through the industrial plastic and Greg was face-to-face with a mustachio’d man in a tow-truck company jumpsuit. The both of them squealed at each other, and the next moment Greg was surrounded by a gaggle of uniformed officers who, in perfect stereo, all shouted, “Freeze!”

“Jesus, Greg,” sighed his friend Curtis. “You’ve outdone yourself this time.”

Curtis sat with Greg on the back ramp of an ambulance rig, a heat blanket draped over his shoulders and Starbucks in both their hands. They just been shown security footage from the dockside cabin of Greg, at 2:30 in the morning, backing up an enormous flatbed truck carrying a mobile home to the edge of the water, climbing on the to roof while screaming something about “ferrying the Great Turtle Charon,” and falling through a skylight. At approximately 3:14, the truck’s brakes gave out rolled out into the lake, sinking the house just up the edge of the roof.

“I think a homeless man gave me acid,” said Greg.

“No,” said Curtis, “you accepted acid from a homeless man. And probably more than just that. Jesus.”

Greg hung his head.

“But hey,” continued Curtis, “at least we still have this. Turns out the lady who’s house you dunked was a fan.” And he handed Greg one of his own bobble-heads.

Greg looked at the bobble-head, back to Curtis, then back to the bobble-head.

And through it in the lake.

END

The Take: Sorry, sort of rushed it there at the end, but I like the Hangover-style adventure that came of this one. Hope it was coherent enough for y’all. See you Thursday!

Ciao.

Lessons from the Deep

Whaaaaat’s up everybody? Happy-

…

…Tuesday! (Sorry, I actually had to scratch my chin to remember what day it was and wanted to reflect that here.)

Anyway, in the name of flipping (two paragraphs ago – poor segue), we’re going to go through our little flip book again (like we did last week).

Ready?

Cool.

-flippy flips-

…

Heh heh heh, I love this thing.

Alright, so this time, we got the following:

Following a disastrous job interview,
a big-time weather reporter
wakes up in a strange house

Without further adieu…

The Dark Below Pepperdine Circle

Thus began a series of poor choices.

He fumbled about in his pocket for his phone and its flashlight, but when he tried to touch the screen, nothing. Damn, he thought. Soaked.

After his eyes adjusted, he looked around and had one thought: “This looks just like my grandma’s house.”

Plastic wrap? Greg thought. What the hell is…

“Jesus, Greg,” sighed his friend Curtis. “You’ve outdone yourself this time.”

“I think a homeless man gave me acid,” said Greg.

“No,” said Curtis, “you accepted acid from a homeless man. And probably more than just that. Jesus.”

Greg hung his head.

“But hey,” continued Curtis, “at least we still have this. Turns out the lady who’s house you dunked was a fan.” And he handed Greg one of his own bobble-heads.

Greg looked at the bobble-head, back to Curtis, then back to the bobble-head.

And through it in the lake.

END

The Take: Sorry, sort of rushed it there at the end, but I like the Hangover-style adventure that came of this one. Hope it was coherent enough for y’all. See you Thursday!

Ciao.

Some Good News and a Lil’ Diddy

What. Is. Up. Everybody? Happy Thursday!

I know I’ve mentioned at least half a dozen times how hard flooring is lately, but that’s all done now! Spent the better part of a couple weeks on my hands and knees (sh’narf, giggle, chuckle) doing that and other house projects, but today marks the first foot coming down on the finish line. -cue applause-

But that’s not the good news. I’ve also mentioned the NYC Midnight fiction contests I take part in every so often (actually, every year since finding out about them…totaling…two, actually) and the entries I put in towards them. In the standard manner of submitting to fiction markets, I just sort of floated my entry out there without any expectation of success.

WELL THAT CHANGES TODAY!

Got an email this very morning showing I ranked #6 in the top fifteen of Round One. I know it’s not a walk-off Home Run or taking the championship trophy or anything, but it’s pretty cool to me, so, endure my raving- YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

Ahem.

So my back is sore, my knees and hips are sore, the muscles in my feet, weirdly, are sore, but my heart is full. Anyway, that was the good news, on to the diddy aforementioned as “lil”.

Sort of like the prompt challenges we cranked out for a while, I want to do a brief free-write. It’ll be the same concept as racing the clock to get the story done, but less stressful. We’re gonna be cool, breezy, groovy, laid back, and most chill, brah. At a library event (SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARIES) a little while ago, I got a fun little flip-book that supplies writing prompts in three components: a setting, a character, and a basic “quest” (for lack of a better word, and I feel “quest” underappreciated and underutilized).

So we’ll flip through, see what comes up, and get goin’ with a time “limit” of, oh, fifteen short-ass minutes. Excuse me while I flippy flippy.

-flippy flips-

Oh…oh Lord…

Okay, listen. I will never lie to you guys. Even if you have no way of verifying that, it wouldn’t feel right, so I’ll always be honest with you.

I think I fucked up.

I flipped the pages. I proceeded to then flop the pages. After which, I fanned more pages. And this is what we got:

With only a week to live,
a licensed cat-hair stylist
creates a family of robots.

Hmm…, right. Sort of makes a quick right turn there at number three, dun’nit? Well, what the heck, let’s dive on in…

Nine Lives

Stacy lied on her back, watching the ceiling fan slowly spin and draw circles on the white in shadow. Her eyes were dry, but stiff with the salt of recent tears.

Seven days isn’t a lot of time.

She’d spent a childhood in pageants, like she was told to. She’d been the valedictorian of her high school graduating class, like she was supposed to. Then she went to school and got her undergrad in robotics engineering, like she was expected to. There’d never been time for dating, much of a social circle who knew her without her last name, she’d never even been drunk before. It had taken her until her 36th birthday to shuck the yolk of responsibility that’d been foisted on her by her parents and finally pursue a the dream she’d drawn about when she was little, to take charge of her own, adult life.

And now, two months later, here she was going to die.

She wanted to see Paris as more than a postcard. She wanted to go sky diving, with her cheeks blown aside in that funny way they did in videos. But, most immediately, she wanted to get utterly annihilated at a bar somewhere.

A soft ‘meow’ sounded from the foot of her bed along with the jingle of a tiny bell. The meow sprang on to the bed, walked along her leg like a balance beam, and stared at her, inches from her nose.

“Heya, Jethro,” Stacy said, sniffling.

The black, green-eyed cat, sporting a tall, pink-tipped mohawk fade and a curly-q’d mustache of whiskers sat purring on her chest otherwise silently for several moments. Then, a back leg shot out over Stacy’s forehead and the gruff scratches of feline grooming rhythmically commenced.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Stacy sighed. “Waste all those years just taking orders and instructions, to then spend more years sitting in design meetings and looking at someone else’s concept work-up’s – I wouldn’t be surprised if they caused the tumor, y’know – and what do I have to show for it?

Meow.

“Well yeah, you, but you’re hardly a legacy, sorry to say. Don’t worry, Tommy’ll take care of you once it’s all said and done. Just, don’t let him let your fade grow out, okay? It looks good on you.”

Mao.

“Good.” She went back to watching the fan and lingered on that word, “legacy,” for a minute longer. Something that lives after you’re gone. Then, in that moment, either the tumor kicked like a baby in utero, or she had an epiphany.

“Up, Jethro, we gotta go. I have an idea.”

Meow?

“Yeah, we have to hit Radio Shack.”

END

The Take: So, relied a little on the reader knowing the context there, but this one was supposed to be cute and laid back. And even if one wanted to moan, “Ugh, Evan, but she didn’t even wind up building the robots IN the story, you doof,” I would rightly respond, “Yeah, well that pretty quickly took a back seat once there was a cat with a mohawk, didn’t it?” (Hahaha, also just realized we could have called it a “meow-hawk,” but that might have seemed too easy, in retrospect.)
Anyway, hope that landed some chuckles. See you guys Tuesday, and may Jethro be with you.

Ciao.