[part of The Fixer series] I’ll come through later, sweep the scene clean. You’ll be safe in South America by the time they sound the alarm. That’s the professional service ethic to expect when you hire the Quicker Picker Upper. It’s the forest primeval out there. Society’s reverting to a brutal state of nature. So find your fortune, cash out, set up in a country that is skeptical […]
A society needs some workers busy digging ditches, while others are stuck screening would-be rock groupies for sufficient enthusiasm. Thanks, Obama! This is the wrong job for married people, that’s all that need be said. The hungrier bird gets the worm. They make damned sure they do. Some try to fight their way backstage. The drive can be fearsome to see. I won the employment lottery when they hired me […]
One person’s tiresome wedgie is the next one’s intentional camel-toe. Tastes vary. Like sands through lycra-spandex, these are beach days. The water’s right here. Sun worshippers drove hours to splay lakeside, sweating without submerging themselves. Those people wouldn’t quit their jobs if they won the lottery. We live so close, we walked. The legions are quietly hammered. Those coolers aren’t just to chill sandwiches. The sun’s going over to the […]
Before the public learned of the crime he ended up infamous for, he was known to form any animal from origami paper. A mostly-kind brother. A long distance runner, a wizard of electrical repair. Owner of a pickup truck who actually showed up when tree-hugging small-car friends moved house on short notice. The name’s now a synonym for monstrously unsavory behavior. It used to be simply another name. Years before […]
Sweetie turns up behind Stella’s Lounge, just when you, the Not-Broke Patron slide out the Ionia exit. She spins the Wheel of Sob Stories. You get the flash fiction you get, the lack of a drawn expression. You are offered Lack. You end up lighter one George Washington, a cheap bribe for a twitching conscience regaled by fables of deconstruction. Or hold back the handout, drop that simple, solid — […]
The noise a pair of high-heeled shoes make when dancing on the patio. The slow-flapping sound of uncompressed laughter, weightless. Citronella torches define the periphery, beyond their flickering watch your step. Skinny crescent moon above, more decorative than light-casting. Who controls the scenes we live? I’ll find out which clowns pull the strings here, make this joyful milieu possible, then blackmail them if bribery fails. Hope not to kneecap the […]
Dude X wept, confessing his egregious violation. A bold strategy, but Mrs. Dude X remained quite pissed off. He pled to a mistake, a momentary moral spasm. Oh, more evidence? Okay. He owned a series of mistakes. Don’t rip a human being in two over a straight edge to make a ragged seam. See? She turned on the consequence machine. It made one hell of a racket, sucked up half […]
Springtime, Ingenue, I want one more chance to weave you garlands out of vines that overgrew the garret windows. We’ll be home together for another power outage of tree-bending gales, lightning percussing when the season-changer pushes through. The domestic form’s perfectible. I’ll need an appeal. Ingenue, they’d listen to you sooner than they’d grant me clemency on my own virtuous record. Tell them what I‘d do with one more spring […]
Melancholy Hyperbole 