Saturday, January 8, 2011

It Sucks in Space

Stardate 3214.26.

Dear Reba,

I HATE FUCKING SPACE!!! It's beautiful and all, but let me tell you; in space there ain't NO fucking space. It's cramped. It stinks. The food sucks. And farts last for days. I'm still gaggin' on an ass apple Eddy laid over a week ago, for Chrissakes!

It's fucking boring, too. Everybody just mopes around with sourpuss looks on their mugs. Smartassness is our entertainment. Like "Hey Eddy! It's startin' to smell good around here. Ya think you could grace us with another one of those paint peelers? Huh?"

I gotta say; the captain is a real class-A prick. I'm usually out of his way, but whenever he shows up it's all like "What are the latest Kleindienst readings, Avery?" Or "Bring me those reports by next week, Avery, or there'll be hell to pay." He's a prick. But I guess he's alright.

So me and Eddy are prolly gonna play a game of Canasta later on, but right now I'm gonna duck in the john and flog the dolphin for a while. Nothin' better to do.

Love to you and the kids,
Milton

Storyscape

Storyscape Journal is an online journal that publishes twice per year. It's currently accepting submissions for online publication.

Here's what it has to say about itself:

Once Upon a Time There Was a Story. Everyone has a story. Maybe everything is a story.
Storyscape breaks it down to:
You may swear every word really happened, but we still call it a story. 

This journal has really awesome cover art and is host to some really sassy, fresh, short work.

Submit here.

The Bellingham Review

The Bellingham Review is Western Washington University's once-yearly literary magazine. Despite its slightly odd tagline ("Literature of Palpable Quality"), the Review has published some decent fiction, creative nonfiction, and memoir.

Here's what it has to say for itself:

Literature of palpable quality: poems, stories, and essays so beguiling they invite us to touch their essence. The Bellingham Review hungers for a kind of writing that nudges the limits of form, or executes traditional forms exquisitely.

Submit flash fiction (for online publication only) here.
Enter their 2011 contests in poetry, fiction and memoir here.

Maile

Loose brown fur-skin draped over her floppy ears, the spindly youngling tests out the world with her teeth. Her razor-sharp, tiny teeth. "Ouch!" you yell in genuine frustration, only to melt like butter with one gaze from her perfectly innocent eyes - which happen to be the color of your favorite blue crayon. Her little white third eye rests like a crown jewel atop the chestnut hill of her snout and forehead, almost as if the great exterior designer wanted a tasteful accent to match her snowy oversize paws and tail-tip. Her attention span is as small as her bladder, both of which seem to release before you can blink. This newborn thing has flopped her way into your heart, and you didn't even fight it.

Early Bird

You see him coming from across the street, thick finger like a knockwurst jabbing at the sky, mouth yawning black and round like an inkspot on a white balloon. "Early bird!" he bellows, and the shout comes from his heels for he lifts them up and leans back on a current of air like a stockbroker sitting on his coattails. He steps on the bus as it sighs up to the curb. "Early bird! Early bird! FFFFFUCK yewww!" He swings his briefcase before him and shouts wildly at the bus driver, jacket flying. His shouts go tinny as the doors hiss shut. When you look up, his eyes like wind-worn glass are turned to you, the mouth a thin seam in the puff-blown face.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Duron's Dashiki

The bright orange and camo dashiki seemed as appropriate on Duron's white skin as a bastard child might seem at a family reunion. However, on this day, this time, he was marrying a 120 year old African princess for her money and, despite her budding decrepitude, would wear whatever pleased her.

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The minister waxing poetic about the beauty of timed relationships and the importance of binding arbitration. He glanced down as a lizard skittered across the man’s shoe and disappeared under a mossy rock. Looking up at the Jumbotron he saw himself in his detachment. What do I care, he thought. Five years isn't such a long time when one could live to be 150 or more, and rich.

At 90 years old and still in his prime he inwardly praised all scientific advances and outwardly said -- for the thirteenth time in his life -- I do.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

his wormhole

Whoa, the feeling that comes with remembering her has caught him again. Now and then he gets close enough to be pulled. It's not so remarkable…it is in him, but its workings are way beyond him. Still, the thought of mending fences dangles before him, keeping his eyes defocused and resting on fuzzy colors. In a moment he has gone a great distance toward the place where her words I'll never forgive you collapsed.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Write a portrait of someone in fewer than 10 sentences.

An enormous man dressed in an oilcloth slicker had entered the tent and removed his hat. He was bald as a stone and he had no trace of beard and he had no brows to his eyes nor lashes to them. He was close on to seven feet in height and he stood smoking a cigar even in this nomadic house of God and he seemed to have removed his hat only to chase the rain from it for now he put it on again. 

--Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian 
 

This week, describe someone--someone you love or hate, someone you know or have never met--vividly and completely, in 10 sentences or fewer.

Write with guts!

HERKIMER