DEALING WITH THE HAND YOU WERE DEALT

"DEALING WITH THE HAND YOU WERE DEALT" is a fast fiction which is all about high fidelity, low infidelity and all the middle tones in between.

Once again my visual inspiration comes from the exceptionally talented Eduardo Recife. Check out his site for a great selection of cool fonts and rad images.

Enjoy

DEALING WITH THE HAND YOU WERE DEALT

He figures that he lies with her based on his lies to her concerning his travels to India and his knowledge of the Karma Sutra. He read about these sexual gymnastics in a book he came across in the castle's lost and found. Not being much of a reader, he struggled through the print with the help of the pictures in the hopes that the book would get him some tail.

Understatement of the 16th Century.

The Queen doesn't really believe a word that's coming out of his mouth but she's interested in how the lies shape his lips into new formations.

"Yes and then I came across a strange beast that had two heads, four horns and tongues coming out from all it's orifices. What a sight," he moans as he fucks her in an exotically round about way.

The King has stumbled across the scene but simply watches silently with a broken heart.

Someday - hundreds of years in the future - a poker hand will be named after them.

NON-EXPLICIT FLOWERS OF FUCK

"NON-EXPLICIT FLOWERS OF FUCK" is a fast fiction based on this painting by Kerry Vaughn Erickson. What I like most about his paintings is the way he balances realism with splashes of colors.

Enjoy

NON-EXPLICIT FLOWERS OF FUCK

She only likes it in a kinky way which makes way for all sorts of filth in his mind but every so often he resolves to clean up his act.

"I want you to chew up these flowers and spit out the mash into my mouth. Or better yet just stick 'em where the sun don't shine," she laughs.

"I was thinking we could just... talk tonight." His handsome smile is lit with warmth and a return to innocence.

She stares at him in disbelief.

"Jelly Bean, I talk all day with people at the salon who do nothing but talk and talk and talk. These words that we are using now are work words. I don't care what kind sweet or clever combinations you put them into. I just need my vacation in the Land of Fuck." As she explains the unwritten rules of her bedroom, she presses the flowers between her hands which slide together in prayer.

"Yeah, you know... it's just I have these Catholic pangs of guilt every so often and..."

Once again she shuts him up with her wayward moves. This time a mouthful of flowers sealed with a leather gag and he's happy to have lost the argument.

A FOOTHOLD IN HIS FACE

"A FOOTHOLD IN HIS FACE" is a fast fiction that aspires to the summits of man's imagination while also providing tips on a quick escape from a throttling by a bastardly boss.

Today's inspiration comes from Roberto Goring, an 18-year old artist whose work smashes together color, characters and action into a crime scene that you'll want to slow down to stare at as you pass by.


Enjoy...

A FOOTHOLD IN HIS FACE

"To call you useless is to insult all of the things in this world which are truly deserving of the term 'useless'. Umbrellas in a tsunami, water-wings in a desert, a fucking shovel thrown at a drowning man. These are useless things. You are less than these things. You are sub-garbage !!" His screaming builds to a crescendo of rage.

I can muster nothing more than a blink in response to this barrage of abuse.

"No to call you 'sub-garbage' is to insult anything that might ever fit in that catagory. You are a rotting piece of turd used by school children as a target for their loogy-hawking contest." He settles down to a simmer.

I fight the urge to fall to the ground in a faint. I imagine myself as a tiny rock-climber trying to find a foothold in the rocky edges of his face. Trying to climb my way up from the ground below. Find a way to hold onto the moment.

"Never again," I mutter.

"That's right never again. What the hell do you think this is a girl scout camp for retards!! When I say I need something, that means I need it !!"

Yes that's right. Two sugars in his coffee. Two sugars. I hold on for dear life.

DISHES MAKE GRAVES

"DISHES MAKE GRAVES" is a fast fiction based on this amazing painting by Maciej Ceglowski, an artist from New York whose site is a great big bite of the big apple.

One of the most refreshing things about his site is the wealth of intelligence that goes into any subject that he tackles. You can see how the detail that he puts into his paintings is akin to the smarts he infuses into his observations of the world around him.

Enjoy...

DISHES MAKE GRAVES

When he heard the news of her death, he was up to his elbows in a bouquet of soap bubbles big and small. The radio blared out the news that the founder of the world famous Aerobics Grief Therapy Technique had been the sole death in a five-car pileup on the interstate involving a dump truck, a cement mixer, an ice-cream truck, an "art car" coated in tiny match box cars and a Pinto. Next news at 4:30, were the words that triggered tears.

Now he stays sedentary in his home. Eating. Crying. Dirtying dishes.

He has fifty-two awkward messages of condolence on his answering machine. People trying to patch all the absurdities together into a couple gentle words.

Flies fly above the sinkful of dirty dishes.

BURIED IN THE PRINT

"BURIED IN THE PRINT" is a fast fiction that you should print out onto your finest paper and then use as wrapping paper to cover the least favorite gift you've ever been given. Finally bury the whole shebang in your backyard. Read the short-short story and all will become clear.

Once again my writing takes it inspiration from the very talented Pieter Frank de Jong.

Enjoy...

BURIED IN THE PRINT

In the sky clouds gang up around a weak sun that can no long warm the cold hands of Zack Tuckerman. He looks up to curse the grey clouds.

"Fuckin' guys !!"

He slowly lowers his gaze back down to earth to pat the soil below him into solid ground and thinks of the first time that his ex-wife sent him an unexpected package from Europe. "Basically, I want you to know that this is the opposite of a care package. This is an I don't care package. Yes that's right there's nothing in it !!!" she had written in angry strokes of black ink on the makeshift newspaper wrapping. The paper was L'Monde. Zack doesn't know any French.

He stands up and looks out over his back yard which is landmined with brown patches of soil. A patch for each package.

"Fuckin' guys !!"

He rubs his cold hands onto his pants leaving brown streaks of soil. The crumples of dirt roll away and leave his hands a mix of brown and black. The black coming from smudges of the newspaper which inked up his fingertips.

Before she left him they had been arguing over a children's story that she had written for a magazine. It was about a race between a greyhound and a rabbit. The greyhound was fast but dumb and simply raced straight ahead like a bullet. The rabbit, on the other hand, was cute and cunning. They were in a race but... Christ, he can't remember the story. If the rabbit manipulated the greyhound during the race or if for some reason the rabbit was faster because of steroids of something...

"Fuckin' guys."

All he remembers is that his wife argued the need for cunning as a constant companion in life and that he disagreed and lost his fierce temper on her for the last time in their relationship.

Now she's punishing his simplicity.

Someday when the packages stop coming, he expects she'll be the next thing that he buries in his back yard.

WHY YOU STILL WANT ME, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT I'M A LAZY, GOOD FOR NOTHING DO-NOTHINGER

"WHY YOU STILL WANT ME, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT I'M A LAZY, GOOD FOR NOTHING DO-NOTHINGER" is a fast fiction especially designed to be quaffed back like a cup of espresso for your Monday morning get up routine. It is based on a photo of this blimey bloke sent to me by Brenda:
Brenda has a slew of great photos up at flickr.
Enjoy...

WHY YOU STILL WANT ME, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT I'M A LAZY, GOOD FOR NOTHING DO-NOTHINGER

While I might not seem like much in my current form, I am in fact the reincarnation of royalty. Louis the 14th or Henry the something. I forget the deets, but I do remember that he was massively famous for eatting only caviar. Is that rad or what ?

I can touch my tongue to my nose and sing every single Pink Floyd song ever made complete with fancy sound effects.

I can burp out a list of 23 synonyms for burp, several of which are in a foreign tongue.

I'm a full on human being and can love you with all my heart, liver, appendix (yes I still have one), mind and all the other relevant organs.

If you consider all the mistakes that I've made before and how I will have to make up for them you're basically looking at a decade of riding the gravy train of pay back. I'm man enough to admit that. Can you believe the deal that I'm holding out to you ?!?!

I love you, babe.

HANGOVER LEFTOVERS

"HANGOVER LEFTOVERS" is a cocktail of a fast fiction that mixes 2 oz. of fatherly advice about hard alcohol with 4 oz of literary tomfoolery and finally 3 oz. of this wonderful photo by Thomas Turley who came across Fast Fictions by way of flickr.

Enjoy...

HANGOVER LEFTOVERS

"Hello 9-1-1. Police, fire truck or ambulance ?" An unexpected gentleness graces her voice.

Silence.

"Hello 9-1-1. Police, fire truck or ambulance ?" She repeats in her more official tone.

Too late.

"Yeah I've got a real... Oh god I can't help... Oh Christ have I ever got a hangover. It's killing me. I think it is really killing me. Literally killing me." The voice is strained and earnest and maybe coming from a 200 pound asian man named Charles who spent the previous three days binge drinking himself blind yet somehow managing to balance empty glasses and bottles of alcohol on his head. Or at least this is what she tells herself. Fiction sometimes keeps them at a distance.

"Oh just splitting me right down the middle of my brains. My brains are broken. My brains are literally broken."

"Sir do you need an ambulance ?" She wants to keep him at arms length as a collection of character quirks but she can hear something very real in his voice. Something very wrong.

"My brains just feel shattered. I was drinking so many... Oh Christ I can't even remember what I poured down my throat. Everything. I drank everything in the world. People are angry with me because I drank everything in the world. There's the guy that drank every last drop of alcohol. That's what they'll say but I won't be able to answer because I've got a hangover and my brains are fucked !!"

She doesn't know why the world brings these people to her but she knows what to say:
"Okay I want you to first of all calm down okay ? And listen to me. Are you listening to me ?"

"Yes." He listens.

"Okay I want you to close your eyes and imagine what I'm about to tell you. It will be hard but it will help. Are you with me ?"

"Yes." He's with her.

"Okay I want you to imagine that you are an innocent 13 year old girl in the back yard of her house You are 13 years old and you are meditating. You are floating a foot about the grass. Make the picture as detailed as possible. Imagine something written on the shirt. Do you see that in your mind ?"

"Yes." He sees that in his mind.

He's cured.

Along with a host of other mental problems, he suffers from vivid memories of a horrible hangover that he just can't shake, he explains to her. He was haunted by a hangover but now he feels a lot better.

She says goodbye and waits for another warning from her boss.

But in a week, she's once again looking for a new job.

Her voice stays sweet.