fiction
Tombstone, April 2020
LEAH MUELLER
You walk down the wooden sidewalk with your husband. His steps are slow, hesitant. Boards creak underfoot. When you round the corner, a woman springs out of a restaurant. “We’re open!” She sounds hopeful, yet desperate.
She means takeout, since it’s illegal to dine in a restaurant. The iconic bars sport heavy padlocks. Big Nose Kate’s. Doc Holliday’s. The Four Deuces Saloon. Closed indefinitely, until owners get the all-clear.
The main street is empty, except for a photographer with a fancy setup. He’s standing in the middle, snapping away. His apparatus looks like a mechanical praying mantis.
You think of old Warner Brothers cartoons. Tumbleweeds roll down the street like spiked bowling balls. The desert is a harsh and unrelenting place, but roadrunners always rise again.
Usually, Tombstone’s streets overflow with gunslinging cowboys, searching for tourist dollars. “Goin’ to the gunfight today?” they snarl.
If you say “no”, they follow you down the street. “You sure?” Insistent, like they might shoot if you say no. “Two PM. Watch them fall like they did in 1881.”
Death isn’t a kitschy joke anymore. It’s a real possibility. Everyone’s huddled indoors like the cavalry might appear at any moment. You take a deep breath of the dusty air and snap a cellphone photo of an overhead sign. “Ghosts and Legends.” Ominous shadows stretch into the distance.
Your husband’s cancer treatment begins tomorrow. Still, you feel oddly peaceful. Tombstone has never been so quiet. You clasp your husband’s hand and keep walking.
Leah Mueller is everywhere and nowhere. Her work is published across the internet and in print.
Leisure Suit Yourself
LEE HAMMERSCHMIDT
“My God, Shade,” Minx McCambridge said, letting out a heavy audible sigh. “Is that what you’re wearing on our date?”
“Pretty spiffy, huh?” I said, tugging on the lapels of my vintage 1974, powder blue, leisure suit.
Minx let out the sigh again.
“You know we’re going to Molalla Estates for a wine tasting, right?”
“Yep. I never touch wine, so the jacket’s huge inside pockets come in handy.”
I opened the coat to reveal the PBR tallboys stuffed inside.
Minx sighed again, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all,” she said. “When you got the proof of Mario’s infidelity, getting me my huge divorce settlement, I thought a little celebration would be in order. You are kind of attractive in a rugged, gothic sort of way. But it turns out you’re crass and uncouth, with no sense of style or decorum.”
Another sigh.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “This wouldn’t be much of a date. You’re just gasping at flaws.”
Lee Hammerschmidt is a Visual Artist/Writer/Troubadour. He is the author of nine collections of short stories and illustrations. Check out his hit parade on YouTube!
The Monster
CORRIE HALDANE
Mother’s voice forever echoes in my head: When I was your age, I’d already caused eight psychotic breaks and scared three people to death. You’re an embarrassment, Gary.
She never lets me forget she was first in her class at Spooky School, or that she broke every record in the Scare-O-Lympics.
That she’s the best.
I study my reflection in the bathroom mirror, try for a Frightening Face. Fail miserably. Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a Monster.
You’re an embarrassment, Gary.
“You can do this,” I tell my reflection. “Don’t let Mother down. Not this time.”
I melt into the floor, then worm my way through the house. When I reach The Boy’s room, I ooze through a crack in the floorboards and re-form beneath his bed.
Then I wait for him to turn out the light.
The Man stomps into the room, growls, “I told you to get some sleep. You’ve got tryouts tomorrow… Don’t embarrass me. I was state champ three years running. Being the best isn’t optional in this family.”
He flips off the light and exits without even saying goodnight, leaving The Boy alone in the dark.
With me.
The Boy sniffles back tears. My own eyes prickle in sympathy.
You’re an embarrassment, Gary.
They’re Mother’s words, but I hear them spoken in The Man’s voice.
Fire ignites in my chest. A monstrous rage blooms at last. I slip into the floor, creep towards The Man’s room.
Mother will be so proud.
Corrie finds inspiration in nature, bubble baths, and carefully curated playlists. Find her online: www.corriehaldane.com.
Strong Minds Discuss Ideas, Average Minds Discuss Events, and Weak Minds Discuss People
Rachel Rodman
After the Symposium, we recline on the balcony in our togas. Below us, in the shopping district, Athens’ lesser inhabitants bustle. They exchange gossip and sports statistics. They take satisfaction in things.
What limited brains!
What limited lives!
“Weak,” we spit.
“Average,” we sneer.
Our analysis is, however, only preliminary; with our strong minds, we rigorously extend it. Our ideas are immense and intricate, provocative and paradigm-defying, and we are confident that they comprise the rudiments of a new theory.
But our standards our high (we are great philosophers, after all) and we recognize that our work remains at an early stage. Additional—and exquisitely specific—proofs of these contemptible individuals’ behavioral inferiority will be essential in refining it.
See her, doing that?
(Remember her?)
See him, wearing that?
Is he actually wearing that?
We discuss.
Rachel Rodman is the author of three collections of short fiction.
Constants and darkness
T.M. BOONE
You got drunk last night when I took you out for your birthday. It was just you and me out for a drink until you took up talking pilsners with the bartender and ordered pints until pissed.
“Did you know gravity propagates at the speed of light?” you blurted on the drive home. “The constant! The universal speed limit!”
I thought we were more Newtonian. Equals and opposites.
“If the sun disappeared right now, we wouldn’t stop orbiting it for eight some-odd minutes, until everything goes dark.”
Your talk of constants and darkness reminded me of Joni Mitchell, the song you sang in the shower the morning after we first slept together. I reached the second verse in my head before I realized you were still talking.
“Always thought we’d fly off on a tangent line.”
“If something followed a star around for years after the light went out,” I interrupted, “how far apart would that make them?”
“Not sure the example is sound, but light-years, I suppose.”
In bed, you snored the way you always do when you drink too much.
Downstairs before dawn, today, the bathroom mirror reflects the gravity of heavy years: striations across my surface, bulges at the equator, dark rings under the orbits of eyes; while upstairs, the corporeal impression stamped on my side of the mattress performs a bittersweet progression of simple harmonic motion, calculating the residual weight of the forgotten body to derive the exact moment you will know I am gone.
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.