MANAYUNK (a haiku)
Rancid wad of phlegm,
dribbling down a slick rock face.
Let’s name our town that!
Manayunk
Tag Archives: tattoos
Labyrinth
His dreams were frantic. She was always just-out-of-reach and each time he caught a glimpse, she was further away than before as he chased her through the labyrinth of his anxiety. He KNEW he was only dreaming… he KNEW she lay right next to him, asleep…but he could neither escape any more than catch up to her. And as his heart broke apart and crumbled to pieces for the one he had loved unconditionally, he realized that these pathetic dreams were better than his reality. This was all he had left, so he relished in the chase each night…..for just one more night…and tried to remember all the good things they’d had for a few precious moments more…before she faded completely, leaving him alone in the labyrinth.
***Our poor friend Balthazar lost his cat recently…well, she’s not missing – we’re not out searching or anything – I mean, he had a falling out with his precious Miss Fuzzy Britches a few weeks ago and hasn’t been able to patch things up. I wrote this little piece for them…though I don’t hold out much hope. This image was originally published in Analog Magazine, then revised and published again in two books including my latest, “A Short Burst” with a version of this short Flash-Fiction story. Meanwhile, Our new book is nearly out. Its beautiful and awful and will be available to buy soon. -Marsha
Constant Craving
“Constant gravy!!…or did he say constant craving!?” but everyone was already writing and the professor’s response was garbled…sure, okay, constant gravy seemed right. I was feeling pretty woozy since I cut myself shaving earlier and couldn’t make it stop bleeding. It just gushed, thick and goopy…yeah, constant gravy…coool!
What began as a simple nick under my nose, got worse a few minutes later when blood started running down my cheek. An hour later, it was dripping copiously. In two hours it was a steady flow and by lunchtime I was squirting all over the place, soaking my clothes, the furniture and painting the walls. It was impossible to concentrate as the room kept spinning faster and faster…..
I must have spaced out for a while because when I woke, the stuff leaking out was no longer red. Thankfully it was just cheese wizz leaking from the push nozzle on my head. What?!…don’t you have a nozzle?…and what’s so weird about that? Best of all, the harder I pumped the thicker it flowed…aaaaah, pretty…..
I must have spaced out for a while…..what was I saying?…
***This really happened. Its lucky that John got a good sketch of this guy at the writing workshop before things went sideways. This post is a shortened version of the story…but we didn’t want to give away all the best parts before we publish it in our BODY-ODDIES book. -Marsha
Eyes in the Back of Her HEAD
Mom always said she had eyes in the back of her head. I always thought she was joking, but still, I never could get away with anything behind her back. It was uncanny. She was just really clever, right? She KNEW me so well she could always tell what I was up to…..right? WRONG!!
Yesterday she pulled me aside, angry that I tracked mud through her kitchen right behind her back and blamed my little sister for it. She parted the neat bun of hair and curlers behind her ears to reveal a creepy set of eyes. Wow! (did NOT see that coming) My knees gave out and I sat down hard in the puddle of mud on the floor. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I saw a hairy nose there too…but when a bearded mouth opened wide and berated me with the colorful expletives of a drunken sailor at the volume of a drill sergeant on parade…well, let’s just say that I suddenly had more to mop off the floor than a muddy set of footprints. (True story.)
***Another excerpt from our latest book (our 4th book), “A Short Burst”…a collection of short, intense, flash science fiction. Find (and buy) all our books at our Etsy shop. Follow the links at www.sallemander.com or search EEWbooks at www.etsy.com. -Marsha
There Must Be Some Mistake
The atmosphere in the ballroom went positively rancid the moment I walked in. People stopped dancing mid-step. The band struck a sour chord and shambled into silence. Drinks spilled. A waiter dropped a tray of dishes with a loud, lingering clatter. A woman fainted, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
Everyone in the place turned to look at me as if I had two heads. Something was ‘off’ about these people; I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
The groom, looking quite put out, detached himself from his bride and strolled elegantly toward me, the tails of his tuxedo brushing the onlookers as they parted to let him through. He handed me a scrap of paper with the neatly written words: “There must be some mistake” and gestured to a banner over the dais which read: “Congratulations to Headless Charlie and Sue the Body!”
That’s when I realized that it wasn’t my two heads that disturbed them…it was that I was the only freak in the room who had any head at all.
How embarrassing!
***Our latest book – our 4th book – is, “A Short Burst” a collection of flash science fiction. This story and image come from page 12. Most of what you find in this blog is a light dusting of what you’ll find in our books. Follow the links to www.sallemander.com and our Etsy shop or search EEWbooks at www.etsy.com to buy them. -Marsha
Bear Assed
When the bear suddenly reared up on it’s hind legs by the campfire – it’s roar piercing my very soul – I was only briefly distracted by the warm, wet sensation spreading in my trousers. The funniest thought went through my head as I regained my senses, leapt up, and took off through the woods, howling like an injured bagpipe…I thought about the extra ten pounds I packed on last winter and what a porky, middle-aged schlubb I had become. But then I remembered how much fatter and stupider all my camping buddies had gotten…and how much more drunk they were right now…and that I really didn’t have to outrun the BEAR…..and my desperate howl simmered down to a pathetic sobbing squeal…with an ironic snark every 5th gasp or so, which I cannot explain.
***Yet another pair that probably won’t be in the new “Body-Oddies” book, at least not the way you see them. This version of the image is good and I like it, but the original version fits the theme of the spread much better. The written bit was eliminated from the project a while ago, before it went to the publisher. I decided to save it for something else…like a blog post. And now I can share it here. We’re still waiting on a print and release date, but as the plague abates, so the publishing and selling frenzy nears. -Marsha
Linguine
Eye Sores
***There is no clever poem or flash-fiction story for this one. I tried…but everything I wrote, sucked. It’s just one of those images that I was extremely happy with, as an image – alone. In fact, it happens quite a lot, and it’s rather amazing when a single image says everything I want it to say. Despite everything I wrote for the “Body-Oddies” book project, it seems better, overall, as an art book, uncluttered with written elements. And that’s cool with me. -John
Tongue in Cheek
Benjamin Young almost never appeared,
though his stand-up routines were revered.
The tongue in his cheek
made him seem like a freak,
and that was a little too weird.
***Two final versions of this sketch were done for use in our new book, “Body-Oddies,” one is the cover. This one, however, is only a clean-up of the original rough sketch and was not used in the book, and the publisher won’t let us post the good ones on social media, so we’re stuck posting rough sketches and shitty rejects. Only the BEST work goes into all our books. Find our first four books at our Etsy shop. Go to www.etsy.com and search EEWbooks. -Marsha
Game Face
Go sports! Go sports! Rah–rah–rah!
Kick the bishop in the shorts, sis–boom–bah!
***This was the original rough sketch for an illustration in our “Body-Oddies” project. I keep coming back to some roughs like this, even after I’ve already done a new, fully rendered version, because I simply like them better. The raw work just hits the mark sometimes. -John