Tag Archives: flash fiction

body-oddies, Flash Fiction, fragment

Why the Long Face?

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why-the-long-face-59-copy 

Last Wednesday a dude walked into the bar with a REALLY long face. The barkeep looked up and grinned.  I knew exactly what he was thinking.  He opened his mouth to say…..but thought better of it and simply asked, “What’ll ya have, pal?”  The horse, sitting at the end of the bar laughed hysterically.

***This is a rough sketch from what will be our 5th book, “Body-Oddies”…we’re hoping John will have the illustrations done by the first of the year, 2020, so we can have it out for sale by spring.  Find all our books at www.sallemander.com.   -Marsha

Book Exerpt, Flash Fiction, Sci-Fi

Worst Day of My Life

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“Worse day of my life…” began the hairy stranger at the bar, “…the day I lost my HEAD!” He stared at me oddly, chuckling. His words hung in the air for a while as I wondered who the heck he was and why he was chatting me up. There was something ‘off’ about him that I just couldn’t put my finger on, and he sounded absurd!  “What?!” I asked, a little annoyed. “Yeah!” he continued, “It just tumbled off and rolled away. I couldn’t find it for a YEAR!” ‘How ridiculous’ I thought – but then, I remembered hearing about that sort of thing happening more and more these days. “I found it conjoined with some other dude’s left hand like a circus freak-show exhibit …awkward!”

I reached for my beer glass but knocked it over with the empty stump of my wrist. The stranger grinned at me and chuckled again knowingly. It seems that both my hands had quietly popped off and were crawling down the bar toward the attractive woman in the breasty, low cut blouse at the end…the one I was too shy to approach earlier. I didn’t know what they planned but I could just imagine what MY brainless hands might like to do with HER. That’s when I noticed the stranger’s collar – bolted tightly ‘round his neck. It looked positively medieval but locked his wayward head soundly to his torso. ‘How clever?!’ I thought.

The barkeep wiped up my spilled beer with a lovely pair of shapely, ladies arms –which did NOT match the rest of his otherwise burly, tattooed frame. He caught me staring but shrugged and nodded me in the direction of my hands as they broke into a run…..while the woman’s breasts leapt out of her blouse and took off in opposite directions.

***This image and story is featured on page 38 in our new book, “A Short Burst” which is available soon.  To see (and buy) all our books, just follow the link above to www.sallemander.com.  -Marsha

Book Exerpt, Clowns, Flash Fiction

Clown Parts

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     Clowns Are Nuts and leave them in gooey, nasty, sacks everywhere they go.  Clowns shed nuts faster than toenails, which survive infancy more often than those spawned in poop, booger, zit, earwax, sweat, spit and severing.  The hardiest of the species seem to come from the squashy, croquet-ball-sized nut, laid like an egg by an infected gazelle.  People who find them often feel compelled to decorate them like fancy easter eggs.  Some folks mistake them for gob-stoppers.

Clowns who leave their severed parts lying about often discover an unexpected bundle of joy.  They know they can re-grow missing bits but forget that their parts can also regenerate.  Sometimes they grow to be identical twins……or worse.

I’m reminded of a secret experiment conducted by the government, about a decade ago in Yonkers, in which clown parts were surgically transplanted onto human subjects (volunteer convicts) to test their possible military applications.

It all went bad from the outset.  Each of the dissected clowns expired as soon as his various nose, hands or wiener was removed but worse, all thirteen human (victims) recipients went immediately bonkers, breaking out of their holding pens in a fiendish dancing frenzy.  Most didn’t survive the week, gorging themselves on fast food,

***These are the elements that comprise page 39 of our brilliant book, “Bludgeon the Clown.”  Everything in it is absolutely true and exhaustively researched.  All our books can be found (to buy) at www.sallemander.com.   -Marsha 

Book Exerpt, Flash Fiction, Sci-Fi

Can’t Take It With You

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We stood at the intersection looking down at my body, hit by a bus.  How ridiculous!  After all the times I stopped people on their phone gadgets from walking into traffic…and now this?  I must have been daydreaming.  What an idiot!

Cars were still swishing through the scene while a small crowd of cynical bystanders gathered to make snarky comments in hushed voices.  The police arrived to push the crowd away and redirect traffic.  One of them walked right through me…ugh!  Weird!!  I shuddered. My companion grinned.

I felt regret.  It was a good body.  I’d kept it fit and healthy, not too bad looking either, but now it was mangled and broken.  There were scattered bits of gristle and a thick dark liquid splashed across the asphalt.  One of my eyes hung down my cheek by a thread and my skull was split wide open like a busted watermelon.  Hmmm, I always wondered what my own brains looked like.  Eeeeeew!!!

My companion stepped over to me with a ‘we should go soon’ nudge.  I must say, for a scythe wielding hippie weirdo in a medieval bathrobe, he seemed like a decent chap.  He was kind enough to give me time to adjust.  Finally, with a friendly clap on the shoulder he hissed, “Come along, son.  You can’t take it with you.”  We turned away and began walking off into the ether.

“Hey Grim!” I said, “You think I’ll come back as a sea slug or a tapeworm?  I hope not…maybe I could be a hockey puck!  Yeah!  That’s where all the action is…”  He shook his head and rolled his eye sockets.  “Hey, can you introduce me to Jesus?  No…ELVIS!!! Yeaaaah!”

***This combination of spot-image and story is featured on page 6 of our new book, “A Short Burst.”  It is flash science fiction, which makes it very short and intense for people who have very little time, and is quite satisfying.  It will be available to buy very soon at www.sallemander.com.  Meanwhile, feel free to check out our first 3 books: www.sallemander.com.   -Marsha 

 

Book Exerpt, Flash Fiction, Sci-Fi

Disarmament

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The disarmament was epic.  Everyone embraced the idea…until it was over.  Then there was no way to…embrace.  The last ones needed to be pretty clever to get it done, but by then, starvation and disease was already setting in.  People really hadn’t thought it through.  It was bad enough that they could no longer feed themselves or drive…or text, but reality finally dawned when they started to defecate in their trousers.  They certainly couldn’t embrace anything, or each other, without arms.  And all those millions of disembodied arms lying about, decomposing in piles everywhere, led to all sorts of nasty airborne and waterborne illness.  What a disaster!

When the aliens landed to study our dead culture a few years later, the sheer stupidity of it shocked them into insanity.  They evacuated immediately, nuked the Earth from space, and made sure to purge it’s existence from galactic memory, lest it infect others. And all who came into contact were euthanized for safety.

***This is a new story with a new image for our new book, “A Short Burst.”  I should have advance copies to sell soon, meanwhile, you can find my first 3 books at www.sallemander.com or search EEWbooks at etsy.com.   -Marsha

Book Exerpt, Flash Fiction, Sci-Fi

There Must Be Some Mistake

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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 new book – our 4th book – is nearly done.  It is literally being printed now.  The title 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 above to www.sallemander.com to buy them.   -Marsha

Book Exerpt, Clowns

Gob the Clown

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Gob the Clown-49Spartacus Spittle woke up the moment he hit the wall.  What should have hurt like hell, only exhilarated him as he gasped his first breath and his first gooey thought shat through his brain bubbles.  His brand new eyes popped open in time to spot his birth father tromping away in floppy, over-sized shoes, a bright orange wig and a baggy, polka dotted jumpsuit.  Spartacus felt a wave of affection wash down his still unformed leg jizzle.

The impact with the wall spattered most of his foamy mass of phlegm in an impressive spread, but he was already retracting elastically into a sloppy infant form.  Just below him, however, was the spittoon that his father was aiming for as he made his glorious journey; rumbling up from the lungs and simultaneously snorking down from the sinuses,  commingling on the birth canal tongue…to be fired out of his silly painted gob with a convulsive “HORK!!”

As Spartacus clung to the wall for dear life – lest he fall into the spittoon and die – he felt confident that if he’d inherited his father’s bad aim he would probably miss the pot anyway.

***As much as I’d love to expound on all the fascinating data we’ve compiled on Clown reproduction and birth in our book, ‘Bludgeon the Clown’, I’m even more excited about our ‘Creepy Clown Coloring Book’, which is where this week’s image comes from.  Even better, we have an Etsy shop where you can find all our books and merch by searching “EEWbooks”…or just use the www.sallemander.com link above.                       -Marsha  

Book Exerpt, Flash Fiction, Sci-Fi

Not Again…

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Hans-talking-bear-82

“Oh man…not again.” said Francis under his breath, as Martin, his room-mate, stood over him, drooling.

His attack was so swift that Francis barely had time to flinch before being stuffed forcibly into Martin’s toothy maw and swallowed whole.

Francis knew he had a little time to think before the digestive process of Martin, who was a fully grown polar bear, kicked into gear, pushed him along it’s hour-long journey, and shat him out again.  And really, what had begun as a quiet time for meditation was slowly turning sour as he wondered, more and more, if this little trip was really worth it.

He acknowledged that this WAS in his rental agreement, but seriously!  When would Martin develop some self control with his munchies and go make himself a peanut butter sandwich or something?  Everybody knew how bad the housing market was, and it was only getting worse, but this ‘fantastic journey’ through the body of a giant circus performer, twice a week, was really not worth affordable rent.  He’d had some horrible roommate’s before, but this one was starting to take the cake…uh oh…here we go…..  “Yeaaahhhhgh!!!” PFLOOP!  “Oooooh, yuck!

***This illustration was originally commissioned for a story in Analog Magazine back in 2008.  It was slated to be republished in our Bludgeon the Clown book with a cool (disgusting) poem, but the publisher cut it…it was good stuff, but not for THAT project.  Now, along with a new short flash-fiction story (inspired by the art), it is ready for our new book, A Short Burst, which will finally be published in a matter of months.   -Marsha

Book Exerpt, Clowns

Class War

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Excerpt from “Bludgeon the Clown”, chapter 5, page 79.

Class War

“Tipping points are what clowns really look forward to.” said Zig-Zag the Clown, who was thrilled to offer his comments on a painting featuring his old friend, Thorgrind the Giant, beheading a sleazy medieval aristocrat;  “In history’s rich pageant, tipping points are the main event…the height of entertainment…and the tipping point in our broken culture is inevitable.”  He went on to say that; “Class war brings inequality and instability, which leads to revolution and transformation.  It can take decades, even centuries for the oppressed to fester and pop, but they eventually rise up; they always have and they always will.  The best we can hope for is that it happens with as little violence as possible.”  I can agree with that.

Note: Since the Dark Ages, clown culture has consistently identified the giant as the embodiment of the population as a whole (the disenfranchised proletariat), while the knight represents the aristocracy.  We found epic clown ditties documenting the tipping points of long-lost civilizations stretching back for eons.

***Another all-new, never before posted image from our latest book, “Bludgeon the Clown”.  Why do I bother? …because I know that if you buy this book, it will poke you in the eye, kick your ass and completely diddle your whimsy.  Buy it at www.sallemander.com or search EEWbooks at etsy .com.   -Marsha

body-oddies, Flash Fiction

Belly Button

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belly-button-22

Toby had a belly button…a freakish big red one right in the center, and he was threatening to use it, too.  He showed up at the White House during a political fundraiser demanding an audience and got laughed out of the place.  The cable news outlets picked up on the incident and made a giant “News Alert” stink, convincing the entire dull eyed, drooling American television audience that he was legit – and that he’d press the button and unleash the demons of nuclear hell (or whatever) if they didn’t do what he said.

Well, that was it.  The world ended as we knew it (and it really backfired on the media who figured he was their puppet).  Toby brought an end to all wars and banned usury (which pretty much ruined capitalism).  He stopped fossil fuel use and forced everybody to respect the environment…and that was just for starters.  Every time he rested his pudgy finger on that big red button, the world went into a panic.  He managed to bully everybody on Earth into being….. better…OR ELSE!!!

Huh!…I wish I had thought of that.

***Is Toby a terrorist?  Sure!  Why not?  Is he a “bad guy”?  Well, not within two paragraphs…but power goes hand in hand with corruption and tyranny, so he’ll get there eventually…always will.  This is a piece from our 5th book, “Body-Oddies” which will not be published until 2020.  On the upside, you can buy our first 3 books at www.sallemander.com or by searching EEWbooks at etsy.com.   -Marsha