MANAYUNK (a haiku)
Rancid wad of phlegm,
dribbling down a slick rock face.
Let’s name our town that!
Manayunk
Tag Archives: bodyart
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
Worst Day of My Life
“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 latest book, “A Short Burst” which is available for sale at our Etsy shop. To see (and buy) all our books, just follow the link above to 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
Disarmament
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 with us were euthanized for safety.
***This is a short, flash-fiction story with a new image for our latest book, “A Short Burst.” It is on sale now. As well, you can find my first 3 books at our Etsy shop. Find the link at www.sallemander.com or search EEWbooks at etsy.com. -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
Smelly Toes
My sister said I had smelly toes.
What did she mean by that?
Did SHE smell them…or did THEY have a nose?
Oh never mind, she’s a brat!
***This image was close, but not quite the version we’re using in the “Body-Oddies” book. And so far, we’re not using any of the written shorts and rhymes. It’s okay, people don’t read much any more anyway. We’re still waiting for a release date from the publisher…we’ll keep you posted. -Marsha
Upset Stomach
Last year I gave her my heart,
the year before that, my liver.
I don’t think it’s making her happy.
I’ve little else left to give her.
I knew I’d be losing my balls,
I never did have any guts,
but when she demanded my kidneys and lungs,
frankly, I thought she was nuts.
The day I gave her my fingers and toes
my stomach was very upset.
But she took that too, along with my nose,
and how much worse could it get?
When she left me, a shell of my former self,
I was glad she was gone. She was mean!
And although I felt sad and lonely,
at least I still had my spleen.
***This time it’s not the rough sketch I want to highlight, but the poem. It is one of our favorites and we still have no idea if any of the poetry will be used in the new “Body-Oddies” book. -Marsha
Linguine
