100 Words

[clutching_calliope]

What to Do With Dead Bodies

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[cherries_on_snow]

Force Fed

Smokers think they got it bad, being persecuted and such; at least they get to make their own choices. Nobody tricked them into it. Not so with unwitting carnivores. Candy, condiments, even vegetable soup has meat. Why can't they call it "meat" on the packaging? Not bonito or natural flavoring, just call it like it is: meat. The only meat I eat should be wiggling. If somebody's slipping meat in me, I'd like something more out of it than salt, fat, and calories. I'm thinking it should come with a baby in the belly, dinner or good conversation at least!

 

[clutching_calliope]

Dialogue Descriptors

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[clutching_calliope]

excerpt (hubris)

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[MsBug]

Sand Drifts

Every day, the hunched gardener sweeps sand from the walkways. A never ending struggle with Mother Nature for tidiness. Crinkling eyes and gleaming teeth flash a greeting in response to my wave, then the sweeping resumes.

I never see him tending the plants, only the flux of sand. I wonder if it litters his dreams? Filtering in through unseen cracks...teasing, taunting, or outright chasing him. Every minuscule grain drumming out a tiny, taiko heartbeat. A reminder of life's soft, fleeting kiss.

Maybe I'll invite the gardener and his wife to dinner. Get to know the man who shepherds sand.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Repetition (The Volvo is always yellow)

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[clutching_calliope]

Tobi

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[clutching_calliope]

Arguments I've Had With You When You're Somewhere Else

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[flyguy69]

When the day has had its fun, I think of you. I wonder what you may be doing in the quiet of night, if when I think of you, you are thinking of me, too. Such drivel, I know.

I’ve turned down any sense of pleasure offered to me this weekend and deferred it to others: new clothes, books, choicest pieces of meals, television preferences, comfortable seating. I am saving all the goodness due me in my pocket; planning to spend my niceties when I next see you.

This means you will owe me much. I hope you’re prepared, Mister.

gulp.




.......

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Such frustration the dean had watching the clumsy
stroke of hands unused to muses, that he pondered
how best to treat them. His mind ran to punishments
for he'd never been a teacher.

He thought of cutting off the hands, about hammering
their tender wrists to make them sorry
for their pawing, and then he thought of something
that he liked far better. He'd manicure them
cheerfully (sure that looked legal enough)
and cut them to the quick.

The muses only noticed fewer pilgrims attending
to their hems so they took vacations. After all, the practiced
didn't need them anyway.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Squatter's Rights

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[clutching_calliope]

In That Sometimes I Feel I Can Touch It

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[clutching_calliope]

Myrrh

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[clutching_calliope]

Improving the Sacrovertebral Angle

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[denis hale]

Sucking The Salted Shells With Jack Handey

"That's quite a tongue twister of a Title, there, Jack."

"Thank you."

"Actually, I prefer shucking the peanut shells--as opposed to sucking. Got any Deep Thoughts about that?"

"Yes... Peanuts leave a vaguely unsatisfying film on the palette. I prefer sucking them, only. When I feel a freshly shucked peanut sliding down my reluctant esophagus, I can't help but be reminded of death. Lonely Death, in some musty Shy Town hotel room-- with Harry Carey slurring like a stroke victim on some worthless transistor radio, as a pop fly is mishandled down the third base line, and Harry goes:

"Desultory!!.... So totally desultory, that busher has fucked the musket, and will be busking in the Megaphone Beer Garden with a backpack tray, by tomorrow or surely the next day!""

"Wow, Jack. I don't think I've ever thought of peanuts in quite that way."

"That's... okay. Not everyone can have Deep Thoughts."

"But Jack... People do like me."

"Suck another shell, you wispy bush league 12-step Philistine."

"Aight, Jack. Aight."

 

[clutching_calliope]

Fear of Flying

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[Sara Crewe]

It’s quiet but for the odd breadstick crunch and ‘Crazy Love’ playing in the background. Between bites, she wonders if she's as nice as she tells people or is she the mistress of semantics. “It’s not that I don’t forgive you. I just don’t like you anymore.”

She was sitting in the rain on a stony beach in the French Riviera the first time she heard this song and felt the questions poke her from inside while the weather camouflaged tears. Years later, she still plays Van Morrison to see that beach and remind herself that sadness has nothing to do with geography. It moves with you.

 

[champagne1982]

There was this cute nurse who must be getting by on friendliness or giggliness and I had her for one of my most critical post operative days. She was supposed to pretty up my wounds. She was supposed to help me move and breathe enough that my need for exterior drug and cardiac support would be as minimal as living could make them. She was supposed to.

She must have been ovulating and I had the misfortune of being hers.

I have three deep wounds that should have been sutured, they will take months to heal. I had extra insulin. I carried around a temporary pacemaker for two extra days.

She left my chart on the windowsill in my room.

I hope she's pregnant.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Zombie Talk

I'm done for. He's found out that I talk in my sleep if he prompts me and now I'll be completely defenseless. As it is I can't lie. Now I won't even be able to withold information. Luckily he's not the type to trespass. Instead he goes for laughs, getting me to talk about log cabins and zombies.

He cautions me that zombies must always be shot in the head. What will you do? he asks, prompting me to repeat him. Shoot inna head I reply, a little annoyed, as if I already knew that. Sheesh! I mutter about micromanagement.

 

[denis hale]

The Words To A Sting Song On Tip Of...

I was pouring applesauce on some leftover Ramen and water chestnuts--my cat looking up at me, strangely--when this pair of wasps gets into my Seahawks muscle shirt, through a little mesh slit.

Then they lit into my left tit, and armpit.

Like heated paper clips, peppering the pores. I swore, and swore. Ripped that shirt to shreds, and left it on the floor.

Next day is the real bitch. When the fuckers start to swell, and itch. I'll put the wet chestnuts, like tubular mandrake roots, on those wasp bites; but no more Ramen or applesauce for, like-- maybe a fortnight. Or whatever.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Everything in Life I Learned From Playing Monopoly

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[clutching_calliope]

excerpt (basest fears)

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[clutching_calliope]

excerpt (sleeping pills and dreams like wet sand)

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[Tzara]

Quantum Theory for Literature Majors

I was thinking about you and feeling moony again. My friend Victor the Physics Major was trying to cheer me up by telling me about the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics.

"So, whenever there's a choice point—some place or time where two or more viable options are possible—the universe splits into alternate realities, one for each choice. These worlds then continue independently of each other."

I didn't really understand that, but it was nice to think about the millions of worlds in which we were together and happy. I didn't think about the ones in which we fought.

 

[Tzara]

Vendeur, Tristesse

Paul fell in love with Sabine because of her voice. It was all he knew. She would call the help line once or twice a month. His good times were just after a new release when she might call every day, sometimes twice.

Sabine had a deep and throaty voice, but it was her accent that bound him. French—Parisienne, he thought. He didn't know, of course.

He listened to Berlitz on his way to work, so he could say, "Sabine, je t'aime" correctly, however American and flat.

Then Paul was downsized, out of work. Sabine went on to Matt.