fiction
Law and Order: Violent Mimes Unit
BEN DAGGERS
The last thing Laurent Laureaux remembered from the annual Mime Association Gala was a chalky taste in his virgin piña colada. He awoke from the blackout in full costume and makeup with a pounding headache, a sweat-soaked pillow, and a dead stripper in his hotel room.
Now, an hour later, a homicide detective towered above him in the interrogation room.
“You killed her, didn’t you?”
Laurent shook his head.
“Not much of a talker, eh?” The cop glared at the outline of a teardrop on Laurent’s cheek. “And that sob story isn’t fooling anyone, sicko. Tell me what happened.”
Pierre Petit was behind this, no doubt. Laurent would’ve gladly grassed up his jealous mime nemesis, but artistic integrity wouldn’t allow him to make so much as a peep. Trapped, Laurent instinctively pushed his palms against the side of the invisible box.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The detective cracked his knuckles on the desk. “Are you saying you were trying to cop a feel?”
Laurent leaned against an imaginary pillar while he considered his next move. This Philistine was clearly ignorant of the subtleties of the Decroux school of miming. Laurent descended a non-existent staircase as he prepared to stoop to a more literal level.
The policeman pounced on him. “Trying to make a run for it, are we? This looks like an open and shut case. You’re under arrest for murder.”
The cop paused for dramatic effect. “You have the right to remain silent.”
Red thumb
MEGAN DIEDERICKS
I can grow grass in the middle of a drought and, as my father liked to joke, sell said grass to people with allergic rhinitis (which was just a fancy way to say ‘hay fever’.)
It started when I was ten; it was an accidental discovery. Inside a pot she had me and my younger brother decorate with sloppy strokes of stiff paintbrushes, my mother planted white roses she bought from the local nursery.
My parents struggled with our lawn that year, but at least the roses made the drab, dusty brown terrain look less like a graveyard—or perhaps more like one (I suppose that is a matter of perspective.)
I was outside one day, buzzing with bees and literally stopping to smell the roses, when a thorn pricked me. My blood fell like a raindrop into the dirt, and naturally—being an over-dramatic child—I ran to my mother, sobbing.
The following day there was a patch of the thickest, greenest grass you could ever imagine. I do not suppose I need to spell out the reason.
I am an adult now, and I have moved into my parents’ old place. I forgot how it was. I forgot how I hung up missing posters for our dog as a teenager, knowing very well where I had bled old Spot dry. The garden keeps demanding more. My brother is visiting tomorrow, and I doubt he will see the likes of his own backyard again.
Your body a garden
LENA NG
The gardeners opened his torso and emptied it of organs. In its centre, they planted tulip bulbs. On his skull, green chia grass grew. His mouth spilled vines like vegetative tentacles. Where his eyes were, daisies sprouted. His legs grew roots and insects squirmed over the skin. Worms crawled in moist ear canals. Friends came for afternoon tea and to admire the blossoming garden.
Hose-hand twins
CHRISTY HARTMAN
Sandy shuffled to his parents’ trashcan after work, releasing the day’s sawdust collection from his hose-hand.
“Hey Suck-O-Matic 3000! Finished cleaning Home Depot’s bathrooms?” his twin, Ash, taunted from the stove, filling the pasta pot with his hose-hand.
Sandy dreaded family dinners, his parents beaming over Ash’s talents. As a child, he’d doused the neighbourhood kids on hot days, while Sandy vacuumed the stairs. Ash was destined for firefighting greatness, extinguishing blazes with his 300-psi arm.
Dad popped a meatball into his mouth mid-snicker, tickled by Ash’s taunts. Dustbin Bieber, Lightning McClean, Meryl Sweep—each drawing a bigger laugh.
Dad flailed, eyes bulging. Ash prattled on about puppies and old ladies, oblivious to the distress. Sandy deftly placed his suction-cuff over his dad’s mouth—activating the highest setting. The meatball dislodged, dad gulped air, grateful.
Sandy slapped his dad’s back. “I guess it’s better to suck than be a blow hard.”
Table Talk
MIKE MURPHY
I was sitting at Nicole’s kitchen table when I heard the first of the voices. Male. Definitely not her. “Fuck you!” it said angrily. My old ears perked up. Before my good friend returned to the table with the kettle, two other guys uttered “Screw you” and “Up yours.” I glanced out the open window, expecting to see some foul-mouthed gents passing by.
No one.
Nicole must have noticed my surprise. She spoke as she poured the boiling water into my teacup. “Sorry, Helen,” she began, gesturing at the full sink behind her. “It’s the dishes,” she explained. “They’re dirty.”
Volition
LENNY MORGAN
You’re welcomed by the dark as you’re dragged into a deep slumber. You can’t feel your limbs anymore, nor can you see your own face in the mirror. You must have finally collapsed under the weight of reality. But now there’s nothing. Only the flashing lights and the pulsing headache remain to accompany you. You’re falling, and if you don’t wake up soon, you’re gonna fall so far down it’ll get hard to climb back out again. Climb back out of what, you may ask? This tiny chasm you’ve dug in the pits of your heart. You don’t know when you made this hole but it’s yours and it fits you. But you don’t belong there, no one does. So no matter how comforting it looks, don’t fall any deeper. There’s nothing for you down there, nothing that won’t give you pain for remembering the past. You must be wondering now, why would I go back? Well, you've got a point. The world out there is equally as bad, but it needs your presence, it needs your mistakes and your failures. Without it, it's empty and dull. They never said living is easy, but think about how far you've come. That's important.
So get up, you’re not done yet. You've still got a lot more people to disappoint, but it's going to be marvelous.
Promise of death
CATHERINE CHAPPELL
Death had always scared me.
It came to me as a child, moments after entering the world, umbilical cord around neck, starved for oxygen.
"We can be together," it offered.
I would not have remembered if it had not made the offer again and again in my dreams, drowning me. Burying me. Choking me of life. Promising me it would be there when I was ready. I'd wake up, heart racing, gasping for air and lie awake for hours to prevent another reunion.
It wasn't until high school I realized the relief of its promise. I held my grandma’s hand as she stared out the window. She was beautiful and lost. Far, in a way we could not reach. Years before, she had scolded her children for reviving her. It was one of her few lucid moments. Life had taken strength from her bones, memories from her head, and voice from her tongue. It was then I realized that life could strip you from yourself, and, in desire to remain, we would still cling to that which has taken everything.
I held her hand, and death held mine, and it promised it would be there when she was ready.
She claimed it a month later.
I felt guilt for holding her hand with death's, and relief because it was life that had killed her and death that had promised her more.
Fumes
MARIO SENZALE
The contractor who was supposed to install my kitchen hood died.
He shouldn't be resting in peace; he should be installing my hood.