The Time Of The Month

 By Grant Wamack

Oh god, she thought with mounting dread, don’t tell me it’s that time of the month. 
    Janet Wallace wanted to close her eyes and drift across the waves of sleep. Yet, she knew that would never happen. Not with the sensation that rattled her mouth. She could put it off, it could wait. No. No this cannot wait she told herself.
    She got out of bed, picked up a pinstriped pillow off the floor and put it back on the bed. Once again she wondered why this was happening. And why exactly did it only happen to women. It was too much to deal with. I did not ask for this she thought.
    She walked into the bathroom and stared at her toes. I hate my feet she thought. I hate them almost as much as I hate this time of the month. Know what? I have had it up to here with complaining, its time to take some action.
    So she jogged back into her room, jumped on her chair and pulled up the internet. After a minute of searching around a variety of search engines she found what she was looking for. A site that found caring homes for your unwanted feet.
    Janet scrambled under her bed, feeling around in the darkness for the appropriate tool. First, her hands felt the old witch’s corpse which was decomposing into the carpet. It brought back fond memories of her youth, snapping broomsticks and murdering witches with her bare hands. She couldn’t remember the last time she choked a witch to death. I hate witches she thought.
    Finally, her hands closed around what she was searching for: her chainsaw.
    She pulled the cord and after a few tugs the chainsaw came to life. She raised it high and brought it down across her ankles. It ripped through the skin easily but she had to use considerable force to cut through the bone and muscle. Blood splattered the walls and furniture a vivid red. She relished the pain, savoring each sharp saber that shot up from her legs and spread to the rest of her body.
    After a while, she collapsed to the ground for she had no feet to support the rest of her body just bloody nubs. She shifted her weight to the chainsaw using it for support as she forced her body to become accustomed to being footless.
    Janet took her bloody feet and shoved them into an old shoebox. Then she pulled out an even bigger box and put the smaller box inside. She felt a tinge of remorse as she realized that she would never see her feet again. A lone tear fell down her cheek.
    With her head held down low, she headed towards the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror. Reluctantly, she opened her mouth wide. Dark shapes clanged to her teeth. Little sounds began to come from her mouth. It wasn’t her voice it was theirs.
    A black oily shape spoke in its oddly deep voice, “I speak for all of us. Please let my people go. We intend no harm great one but if you keep us here any longer we will be forced to take action.”
    Janet sighed, “What kind of action?”
    The dark shape shifted, “Legal action.”
    “You can afford lawyers? I didn’t know that, how exactly do you make cash, living inside my mouth?” she asked curiously.
    “We steal teeth from other mouths and under children’s pillows. Then we sell them to the tooth fairy. I personally hate the prick.” He said.
    “You steal from children? That’s horrible.”
    “We are sorry great one but our environment is a harsh one. We are forced to get by however we can even if that means stealing from children.”
    “I know all of you are sorry but your environment doesn’t give you an excuse to steal from children.”
    “So we should only steal from adults?”
    “No you shouldn’t steal at all you should get jobs. All of you.”
    The dark shapes in her mouth groaned in unison.
    “Don’t give me that. You just can’t sit inside my mouth for the rest of your lives.”
    “But great one you keep us here. We are slaves forever in your debt.”
    “You are not slaves. I don’t keep you here against your will. As a matter of fact I wish all of you would just leave. You have my permission.”
    “But all of us can’t leave. You need someone to worship you at all times so you won’t become forgotten. Gods aren’t meant to be forgotten.”
    “Well maybe I want to be forgotten.”
    The dark shapes took a sharp intake of breath. They were beyond shock. They were shell shocked.
    The dark shape took a second to form his words. “Why would you want to be forgotten? Even a lowly peasant like myself wishes to be remembered among my peers.”
    “Well let’s just say that’s a secret.”
    “So…you want us to leave.”
    “Yes. Leave. Please. I already have enough problems as it is.”
    The dark shapes made a sad face considering that dark shapes have sort of faces. Then one by one, the shapes slipped out of Janet’s mouth slung their bags over their shoulders and left in sorrow.
    “Good Riddance.”
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BIO: Grant Wamack writes weird fiction at night and works for the Navy during the day. He has been published at Flashes in the Dark, Everyday Fiction, and 365 Tomorrows among other places. If you would like your mind blown please visit him at http://www.grantwamack.wordpress.com

Bert Turns Into A Potato

 by Rick Claypool

Bert broke his tooth on a noodle. He was eating instant ramen when it happened. He spit in the kitchen sink and blood and little tooth bits came out. He put an ice cube in his mouth and curled up on the couch and put a bag of frozen corn on his face and passed out watching cartoons.

Rose found him like that. She poked his face with the remote control. She replaced the frozen corn with frozen peas and stuffed a wad of paper napkins in his mouth to stop the bleeding.

Weeks later, Bert was putting on his work shirt when his right arm broke off.

He’d thought the shirt had felt too tight and he yanked it hard over his head, and then snap. The arm twitched on the floor, then stopped moving. It looked like something for sale in a Halloween store. There was blood but not as much blood as you would think.

Rose put the arm in a cooler with some cold pop cans and drove Bert to the hospital. In the waiting room she helped him hold a magazine. They read it together, drinking pop.

The doctor failed to save the arm. In the recovery room, she told Bert and Rose the diagnosis. “Root vegetable,” the doctor said. “Maybe yam. Maybe potato. Too early to tell.”

For almost a year before losing his arm, Bert sold lotto tickets and cigarettes behind the counter at a gas station. After losing the arm he didn’t show up at work for weeks.

The day before he was supposed to start work again, a truck hit Bert.

He lost both legs and the other arm. There wasn’t any blood at all. His wounds were starchy and white. He swelled up and the swelling never went away.

Rose provided water and soil for Bert. Some mornings she trimmed the roots that sprouted from his eyes.

*

There’s this other guy Ned who was Rose’s manager at the grocery store.

Ned was secretly in love with Rose. She knew. He wasn’t weird or creepy about it, so she didn’t mind.

One night Rose met Ned at a bar. They drank beer and complained about working at the grocery store.

Ned invited Rose to come with him to the beach for a few days. He was leaving the next day.

Rose told Ned she needed help digging a hole.

Rose and Ned left the bar and dug a person-sized hole in the courtyard of the apartment complex where Rose and Bert lived.

*

In the morning, Ned and Rose drove to the beach. They arrived in the afternoon.

They sat under oversized umbrellas and played in the sand. They walked barefoot in the hot sand, then cooled their feet in the ocean.

In the evening, they decided to stay forever.

They found jobs selling brightly colored frozen treats out of wheeled carts they pushed along the boardwalk.

*

After one bright long day in the sun, Ned’s face was scorched.

That night it was pink like a flower. The next day, it was red like raw beef. After a week, it was purple.

Rose took Ned to the hospital.

In the hospital waiting room, Ned’s face sloughed off. The surface underneath was smooth and purple.

The doctor examined Ned. “Eggplant,” he said.

*

Bert meanwhile had reached a little green sprout up and out of the soil in the apartment complex courtyard.

The sun was shining on that hot summer day and he could feel it.

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BIO: Rick Claypool is a writer and digital rabble rouser living in Pittsburgh. He has a super hero / dystopian novel in the works. For more about Rick, follow @weirdstrug and visit www.rickclaypool.org.

Jane Fonda Needs to Get Her Eyes Checked

By Kyle Hemmings

I bring her six to eight plastic flowers after her bodyguard quits, take her Peruvian hairless terrier for circular walks that causes pedestrian traumas, order five to seven chilli dogs with the works & this is the thanks I get. She says THANK YOU, LITTLE BOY, DID YOU BRING MAMA ANY TWISTERS? Or LITTLE BOY, COULD YOU RUN OUT FOR MAMMA & GET SOME TOILET PAPER, THE ROSE COLORED KIND? Jane Fonda is losing her vision & I can't count. So maybe it evens out. I keep telling her to stop calling me little boy. Soon, I'll be older than her.

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BIO: Kyle Hemmings is a what? A moon cake. A subvervise astronaut. A mama's boy

 with claws. Kyle Hemmings is who you want him to be. He has been published

elsewhere.

I chose this song, but not my dissent

By Saul Jennings

                                                              (for A.L.)

It is Monday and I am sitting in a bar. I have a cold beer in my hand which is helping take the edge off the day. I am perched on stool at the end of the bar with a newspaper folded out. I am reading an article on an Alvin Lucier retrospective. I decided I will probably go and make a note in my diary. On the jukebox a song about a song of love is playing. I have not chosen this song but it is not to my displeasure. I have a long week ahead of me; tomorrow I must travel to Berlin.

It's Tuesday, and I'm sitting in a bar. I have a cold beer in your hand that will help take the tip of the day. I'm perched on a stool at the folded end of the bar with a newspaper. I read an article on a retrospective of Alvin Lucier. I decided I will probably go and. A note in my diary A song on the jukebox plays a song of love. I have not chosen this song, but it's not to my displeasure. I have a long week ahead of me, tomorrow I have to travel to Athens.

It's Wednesday, and I'm sitting at a bar. I have a cold beer in your hand that will help you take the edge off the day. I'm perched on a stool at the folded end of the bar with a newspaper. I read an article about a retrospective of Alvin Lucier. I decided I would rather go well. A note in my diary for a song the jukebox plays a song of love. I have chosen this song, but not about my dissatisfaction. I have a big week ahead of me, tomorrow I have to travel to Beijing.

Is Thursday, I was sitting in a bar. I have a beer cold in your hand, it will help you day edge. I sat on the stool in the end of the newspaper folded. I read an article, a retrospective of Alvin Lucier. I decided I'd rather go good. Precautions love song jukebox play a song in my diary. I chose this song, but not my dissatisfaction. I have a big week ahead of me, I'll go to New Delhi.

Friday, I was sitting in a bar. I have a beer in your hand is cold, it will help you gain the day. I sat on the stool at the end of the folded paper. I have an article, a retrospective of Alvin Lucier read. I decided that I'd rather be good. Precautions love song jukebox play a song in my diary. I chose this song, but not my dissent. I have a big week ahead of me, I will go to Seoul.

Was sitting at the bar on Saturday. Is a cold beer in your hand, you would be helpful to get a day. I am at the end of the folded paper, I sat in the chair, Alvin Lucier read articles Retrospective features. Rather good. Decided that NOTICE love song jukebox play a song in my diary. This song, but my dissent. I moved to Paris a week ago or larger.

Was sitting at the bar on Sunday. Is a cold beer in your hand, you would be useful one day. I'm at the end of the folded paper, I sat in the chair, Alvin Lucier read the characteristics of historical pieces. Good enough. NOTICE song jukebox decided that love to play a song in my journal. This song, but I disagree. I moved to the house a week ago or more.
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BIO: (Saul was nice enough to send his bio as a Cut-UP):
Saul that he start. He has things "with computers". Weird Fiction Greece and turns Weird. money throughout Europe either writes that Dark or Dark Erosion and Bartleby Fiction that He hopes Snopes. Linguistic to finish in in Lives in earns one day the undefinable be published turns manner or will doing.

The Golden Buffalo Makes Your Dreams Come True

By Daniel Vlasaty


You try your luck when you meet a golden buffalo named Sanchez. “Rub my belly,” he tells you. “Everyone’s a winner.” You rub his belly. Nothing happens. “Hold on,” he says. He burps a few times, wet-hot burps, to release some of the built up pressure in his stomach. “Rub my belly,” he says again. “Everyone’s a winner.” You rub his belly. The golden buffalo starts to shake. His body rumbles. A giant legless grasshopper slides out of his golden asshole. The grasshopper cries when it sees you. “Mommy,” it wails in a tiny voice. “Everyone’s a winner,” Sanchez says. Scaly wings grow out of his back. He flaps them to get warmed up. “What am I supposed to do with this?” you ask him but he is already gone. The legless grasshopper wiggles on the ground, covered in gold placenta. “Mommy,” it says to you, and you know this is what you’ve always wanted.

_____________________________________________
 Bio: Daniel Vlasaty will stab you in the fucking face...probably.

see-through baby

By Kyle Hemmings

the baby was born with a window in his belly. the surgeon from toledo scratched his head, said words like hinged or unhinged, vista or without. he said he needed more time. in our baby's window we saw rivers & boats, cities & birds, we saw ourselves looking out helplessly. my mother-in-law spread ground glass & ammonia in our bed sheets. she said it would make us strong. sometimes we heard a distant knocking, the laughter of young children. our baby had fake tears. my wife cried while breast feeding. sometimes we dreamt of something crashing, a rock through a window. a specialist from cincinnati offered a cure. he placed a flap where the window was. the baby grew up blind & we moved into a smaller house.

 __________________________________________________________________________

BIO: Kyle Hemmings is a what? A moon cake. A subvervise astronaut. A mama's boy with claws. Kyle Hemmings is who you want him to be. He has been published elsewhere.

[Insert Discarded Story Title Here]

 By Bob Carlton

The narrative has wandered away from the course of events, each sentence a deletion from some other story. The nested birds cluck and tweet with delight at their mother's regurgitations. It is a source of wonder and strange fascinations that we do not. Truer tales cannot be imagined.

“Who stole all my books?” asked the Archbishop.

“We have seen the glory of your worship,” I said, “and do not believe our sacrifices have been worth the return on investment. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us a pizza.”

The wild surmises of disenfranchised peasants led to uprisings surging with elation and ignorance. The mark of ten thousand lashes sprang up with a bloody ardor matched only by longevity. This story cannot be told in words alone.

“I have pictures,” she said coldly, ignoring his imploring eyes, the restless fiddling with a wedding band of flaking platinum.

“Perhaps we should talk.”

“There is nothing to talk about.”

“There is always something not to talk about.”

His failed experiments, supported by a half century of junk science and slipshod methodology, gathered about Dr. ----, clutching at his lab coat with the desperate need for recognition and validation, longings which even the angels of compassion could not, in good conscience, entertain.

“Is that a yes or no question?”

“Is the answer ever 'no'?”

“No.”

“You cherry-picked the data, Roger. You cherry-picked the god damned data!”

With the wreckage of past expeditions crunching beneath our feet, we came to it at last. We have come to it finally. The end? Yes, the end. The very one. That is to say, the forces of entropy have rushed in, trashed the kitchen, broken into the liquor cabinet, and are passing out on every stick of furniture in the place. 

________________________________________________

it hurts whenever i think about 1958

by Kyle Hemmings

under a hand-me down moon, she cooed, then went frigid. she told me how she discarded the memory of her father, how it became so light, flying up, then turning solid. it did an about face, became an asteroid, hit the earth & part of it lodged inside her, just missing the heart. for weeks, i tried pulling it out of her. She said Please stop, daddy, it hurts. when i finally removed the piece of rock-father, she said she felt nothing for me, that our love was dead. on the phone, she hummed while I was talking, made little noises like crackles, then hung up. sometime later, an astronomer who just lost his wife, claimed mars went missing. at the drive-in, i watched a james dean movie, some broken glass in the seat next to me. it was from the window I didn't bother to replace, the one she threw a rock through just to prove that I was still a part of her.

____________________________________________________

BIO: Kyle Hemmings is a what? A moon cake. A subvervise astronaut. A mama's boy with claws. Kyle Hemmings is who you want him to be. He has been published elsewhere.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Saying Goodbye

By Ben Arzate

 

         The news hit us pretty hard. We knew what it probably was, but we hoped we were wrong. We knew for certain now. Our house had cancer.

         It started when my son fell down the stairs. Thankfully, he was fine besides a few bruises. He said he tripped over a lump in the carpet. I went up the stairs and saw the lump. There were several more on the railing. I told my wife that this could be serious and we called an inspector.

        The inspector came over while my wife and I were at work and our son at school. When we all got back, the inspector was waiting for us out front. He gave us the bad news.

        He said it looked like the tumors had probably started up in the attic. Had we found it then, it might have been treatable. But it had spread too much at that point.

        I still can't help but blame myself. A house that old was very prone to disease. I should have had him checked on regular basis.

       The only thing we could do now was have him put down.

       We found a two bedroom apartment near downtown. It was much smaller but it would fit our needs. We moved as fast as we could. We didn't want our old house to suffer too long.

        I scheduled the demolition. It would be a quick and painless implosion. On the day the crew came to do it, we went to say goodbye.

       Our son was probably hit the hardest. After all, he lived there since he was born. We sat in the empty living room. My wife and I reminisced on when we first moved in after we got married.

      The crew told us that everything was rigged and it was time to leave. We got in the car. My son was bawling. My wife had tears running down her cheeks. I kept having to wipe my eyes as I started the car.

      As we drove off, we heard the loud rumbling. Then the sound of debris falling. Then nothing.

_____________

BIO: Ben Arzate lives in Des Moines, Iowa. He writes and he lives life. Sometimes he forgets to do the latter. His work has been published in Sketch and at Keep This Bag Away From Children. He can be found at dripdropdripdropdripdrop.blogspot.com.

Jizz

By Justin Grimbol

He faced his congregation and took out his wiener. It was a massive wiener. It was the most massive wiener the world had ever seen.

Each man from the congregation walked up to their minister and fucked his gaping pee hole. No one lasted very long. Merely the idea of fucking a massive cock was so arousing they came as soon as they put it in his slimy hole.

Once the massive wiener was filled with his congregations semen, the reverend walked to the alter and lied down. The congregation sat around him and sang old campfire songs and watches as the reverend masturbated.

“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream…”

They prayed for their mighty leader to reach orgasm. They had done this every Sunday for two years. The reverend had never been able to reach orgasm. It was as if his dick was constipated.

“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream…”

This day was different.

“What’s that noise?” one of the men asked.

The reverend's penis made a strange rumbling. It sounded as if a train was charging forward, carrying cargo from the deepest part of his soul.

Could the prophecies be true? They wondered.

     “This is going to be gross,” another man said.

     “Should we tell him to stop?”

For years they had prayed for this day to come, but now that the promised day was upon them they were filled with terror. They enjoyed their little routine. They enjoyed fucking the reverend's mighty cock hole. They enjoyed singing and watching him masturbate endlessly.  

“Don’t do it!” one man yelled to the reverend.

“I’m sorry!” the reverend responded.

They watched as a mushroom cloud of jizz erupted from his cock. It had been a sunny day, but now the sky grew thick with jizz clouds.

They stared up at the gooey clouds in awe.

The rumbling sound no longer came from the reverend's cock. It came from above them.

“Dear lord have mercy!” a man yelled.   

The jizz poured from the sky.

“ICKY!” one man yelled. “It’s so icky!”

 It didn’t soak into the ground like normal rain. Soon it was up to their knees.

“To the boat!” another member the congregation yelled.

They ran through the sticky jizz toward the boat they had been living in for years. It was intended to be an arc. It was supposed to save them when the prophecies came true and the jizz tsunami covered the Earth. For the past ten years they had been treating it like it was nothing more than an apartment building and they were not sure if it could actually function as a boat, the way they had initially intended it to.

By the time they got there, the jizz was up to their chests.

“It’s locked,” one man said as he tugged on the door knob.

They looked up and saw their wives standing at the windows. One of the women opened her window. It was the lead wifey.

“You are no longer needed,” she called out to them. “Go be with your savior.”

The men begged her to have mercy. The lead wife shook her head and walked away from their windows.

Jizz gathered. Soon they were floating in stormy sea of their own man juice.

The boat was also floating in the jizz.  Its motor started. The massive arc sped away.  

“Come back!” they begged.

They tried to swim after it. But it moved too quickly. They were soon engulfed in the milky white waves.

_______________________________________________________________________

Justin Grimbol is author of THE CRUD MASTERS and the editor of BUTT SHARK UNIVERSITY. He currently lives in Portland Maine. 

http://buttsharkuniversity.blogspot.com/

http://thehomesickminivan.blogspot.com/

The Loon

By James Bambury

I was the reckoning in 1952. I whispered into the ear of Pete Cusimano that the only logical way to celebrate the Red Wings' Cup victory would be to throw a boiled octopus onto the ice. He and his brother obliged and saved the world. The B-52 Stratofortress made its maiden flight that same day.

A decade later I hissed in the ear of a drowsy bus driver and waking him in time to swerve around a pothole on the Highway 400. The young Paul Henderson on that bus would later save the world in his own fashion in 1972.

A month after the near bus accident, the first B-52 would be shot down over Viet Nam.

I have existed to give and take, to maintain the tide.

Fifty years after Detroit I have tendered my resignation. I have failed in this new century. I can no longer find the means to attend to the delicate balances of the world. Therefore, I have allowed myself to be imprisoned and banished from tinkering with the reckoning. The world and its mostly deserving people will have to find their own way.

_________________________________________
BIO:  James Bambury writes from Brampton, Ontario. He writes stuff that sometimes appears online and blogs about it at http://jamesbambury.blogspot.com

An Evening Not Unlike the Others

By Jon Wesik   

   The night they killed the dogs I finished a twenty-two-hour shift at the Army Crabgrass Warfare Station in Suitland, Maryland. I’ve always believed idleness is the devil’s lunch pail, so I foreswore snacking on furious cookies and sharpened all the mechanical pencils under the grand portrait of Ho Chi Minh, whose wispy beard hung like a MiG-17 contrail from his chin. Before starting the bleary ride home I snuck a Samantabhadra from the chocolate-covered Buddha and bodhisattva assortment and parade marched with my coworkers through the decontamination station.

        Outside a very long satellite skewered stars that glittered like spilled sugar on the velvet tablecloth of night. Pausing in the parking lot I said a brief prayer for the cosmonaut trapped inside with only vodka and blood sausage. Through my surplus night-vision goggles I located the infrared reflection from my Toyota Raptor’s radar-absorbing finish. The ground crew had stenciled a small wheelchair below the driver’s side window with the others, even though CENTCOM had yet to confirm the kill. After arming the heat-seeking missiles and cracking the breeder valve to start the flow of nitrous oxide, I fired up the Pratt and Whitney hybrid turbofans and set the throttle for supercruise. By stabbing the big red button that fired the Gatling gun until my index finger grew blisters, I kept my path clear of slow-moving vehicles. Within minutes I roared through the Coopertown speed trap before my sonic boom alerted Sheriff Johnson by shattering his contact lenses and sending his wide-brimmed hat tumbling into the sugarcane.

           As usual the parishioners at St. John the Blasphemer were lashing the Catamite priest to the rack with bicycle chains and Kryptonite locks. They raised their torches and pitchforks in salute after my tracer rounds mowed down the Sunday school class and set fire to the big cross. I turned left on Elm and pulled into my driveway, where the drag chute stopped my car within millimeters of the garage door. From the cockpit I heard wind chimes sing psalms to the god of upright demons as I disarmed the missiles. I’d become more conscientious with the heavy firepower since my homeowner’s insurance had stopped paying. I climbed out of the car and skipped toward the front porch. Violent petunias brandished M-16s and swung machetes at my ankles, as I made my way through the thicket of botanical experiments gone horribly wrong.

       Wearing a sweater that clung like plastic wrap, my Filipina mail-order bride met me inside the front door, where I inspected her post-office box for signs of illegal entry. It wouldn’t be the first time. Her thighs had been known to bankrupt captains of industry and lead KGB agents to their doom. Before I could take clay impressions of the scratches on the lock, the jeweler’s loupe fell from my eye and she dragged me to the dining room, where a macaroni-and-trees casserole sprouted from the white-pine table. At least I wouldn’t need a toothpick after dinner.

          “Umm, the salad tastes like a briefcase of hundred-dollar bills,” I said, reasoning that flattery could prove the key to her chastity belt.

        “An old friend left me the recipe.” She dialed the combination on the wall safe. “Care for some more?”

         “It’s a little rich for me. How about some cheesecake?”

        “I had to use tofu.” She removed the dessert from the Norge. “Wombats ate the gorgonzola again.”

        Wombats! Our kitchen was infested with them. I could deal with the platypus in the bathtub and the bandicoots in the toaster, but the wombats strained my patience like an enlarged prostate. The monthly bills for their imported grass and chocolate biscuits ran to over three hundred dollars. Resolving to remedy the situation I fed my uneaten salad to the koala in the garbage disposal and retired to the living room.

        A volume of Julio Cotisol’s stories lay unread on the coffee table, but the Argentine writer always left me feeling stressed. Fortunately, the public TV station was showing the Mercury Players’ adaptation of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. When Orson Welles began his monologue on the a priori knowledge of space and time, I heard the unmistakable drone of a C-130 flying overhead.  Moments later the first schnauzer landed on the corrugated roof. I snatched a nuclear umbrella from the elephant foot and dashed outside into the rain of Pembroke Corgis, Rottweilers, and Yorkshire Terriers. A Newfoundland thudded like a hamburger-filled Hefty bag onto the driveway and coated the concrete with pet dander. Its dying lips curled to reveal fangs that had yellowed as if he’d been fed an exclusive diet of coffee and tobacco.

            The petunias fired assault rifles wildly into the air making the scene resemble Desert Storm Baghdad without the domes and minarets. A lucky round caught the C-130 in a starboard engine, and the big plane crashed into the neighbors’ duplex taking out the tree house, swing set, and sugar refinery in the process. Snarls and gunshots came from the cargo hold, as the captives fought the flight veterinarian in a desperate struggle for survival. Within minutes the victorious canines descended the cargo ramp and scratched at the Andersons’ picture window in hopes of Purina Dog Chow, Topol Smoker’s Tooth Polish, and cozy spots on the living room carpet.

        The satellite passed overhead again, this time resembling a fish hook caught in the ear of an unsuspecting moon. I yawned and stretched. It was only 9:00 but with so little excitement, I went to bed.

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BIO: Jon Wesik has this to say about himself: I host of San Diego’s Gelato Poetry Series and am an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. I’ve published over two hundred poems in journals such as The New Orphic Review, Pearl, Pudding, and Slipstream. I’ve also published over forty short stories in journals such as Space and Time, Zahir, and Tales of the Talisman. I have a Ph.D. in physics and am a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts. One of my poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest. Another had a link on the Car Talk website.