Warts and All

Photo by Alex Makarov on Unsplash

by Patrick Siniscalchi

As quickly as Kayla opened her eyes, the disturbing dreams fled her memory, yet the sense of unease remained. To comfort herself, she reached under the covers across the king-size bed to touch her husband. She reeled her hand back when, rather than the warmth of Nathan’s skin, she felt something cool, damp, and bumpy. Her body sprang into an upright seated position, and she yanked the covers off. Kayla let loose a scream and then stifled it with her hand, for where her husband of ten years should have been sat a large toad.

The greenish-brown amphibian regarded her, his eyes protruding like two half spheres. He took one hop closer and said, “Ribbit.” Her heart raced nearly as fast as his pulsating throat.

Kayla’s eyes went wide as she called out for her husband, who typically woke well after her, “Nathan. Nathan!” With each shout, the toad jumped closer, causing her to retreat and stumble off the bed. She hesitantly poked her head up above the edge of the mattress to find the toad had ventured to her side.

Keeping her stare fixed on this early morning intruder, she called toward the open bedroom door, “Nathan.” The house returned silence as the toad leaped nearer.

With their eyes level, he said, “Ribbit.”

Kayla tilted her head like a confused puppy. “Nathan?”

“Ribbit.”

“What the Hell?” Kayla had long wanted her husband to change back to the man she had married, the driven man who would run four miles before most rose from bed, who did considerate things without being asked, who didn’t hide in his man-cave most evenings—the man she fell in love with. She shook her head at her toad-husband. “This is not the change I wanted.” Kayla held his amphibious gaze. “Nathan, what happened?”

“Ribbit.”

“Great, it was bad enough when you stopped having meaningful discussions with me. Now I won’t even experience your trivial chats.”

As daylight swept into the bedroom, she searched her brain for the cause of this transformation. After a few moments, she said, “Maybe it was that Sylvia down the street. She always wears a witch costume at the Halloween block party.” Kayla chuckled. “The other women and I maintain it was one of her normal outfits, that she has a closet full of them. Several times, I caught her flirting with you.” Her tone grew soft, yet serious. “Nathan, did Sylvia do this to you?”

“Ribbit.”

“I knew it! That bitch, I mean witch!” He took a short hop backward. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Kayla reached out her hand, palm up, sliding up to his bulging belly. He hopped on, but since one rear leg dangled off, she brought her other hand under to support him. Gently, she stroked his side with her thumb. “There’s got to be a way to change you back.” Kayla fuzzily recalled a fairy tale from long ago about a toad turning back into a prince with a kiss. “I guess a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

Kayla brought him up to her nose, closed her eyes, and pressed her lips to his cool mouth.

“Ribbit.”

“Oh, you want more. Okay.” She repeated the kiss over and over until she heard her husband’s voice.

“Hey Hon, I decided to get back into running this morning and ran at the park. Then I picked up bagels on the way home. Um, why are you kissing that frog?"

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Patrick Siniscalchi is a former electrical engineer living in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife and scruffy dog. His work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, The Sunlight Press, Great Smokies Review, Suddenly And Without Warning, and others.

 

The Kiss

Photo by brittany sawyer on Unsplash

By Jim Harrington

“I ain’t gonna kiss no pig on the lips.” Thomas straightened to his full six feet and glared down at his wife.

“But we really need the money,” Bobbie Jo said.

“Then you kiss it.”

“That wouldn’t be very ladylike.” Bobbie Jo squinted at the platform where the pig, wearing a pink tutu and dark glasses, waited. She crinkled her nose and continued. “Besides, it’s a girl pig.” Bobbie Jo grabbed his arm when he started to stomp away and pressed her body against his.

“Pleeease? We really, really–”

“I know. We need the money.” Thomas stared at the pig and felt his resolve melt until it was as soft as his wife’s breasts. Without another word, he plodded toward the stage, ignoring the laughs and hoots from the crowd, and climbed the three steps to the top of the platform.

He followed the carnival barker’s instructions and got on all fours. The animal raised its snout, like it knew what was about to happen.

Thomas touched his lips to the pig’s and held the kiss three seconds longer than the required five.

“We have a winner!” the barker announced and handed Thomas five one hundred dollar bills. Thomas bounded off the stage without acknowledging the roar of the crowd and headed straight to Bobbie Jo.

“Here’s your money,” he said, then turned and trod off.

“Where’re you goin’?”

“Away.”

Bobbie Jo stood with her feet apart and her hands on her hips. “You ain’t leavin me cause I made you kiss a pig, are you?”

“Nope,” Thomas said over his shoulder. “I’m leavin you cause the pig’s a better kisser.”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Credit: First published on October 27, 2008 in Every Day Fiction

Jim Harrington lives in Huntersville, NC, with his wife and two dogs. His stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Flash Phantoms, The Yard, Free Flash Fiction, Short-Story.me, and others. More of his works can be found at https://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

 

Interview With the Genie

Photo by Katerina Niuman on Unsplash

by R.K. West

There are three things that nearly everyone asks for. The first is money. They used to ask for a million dollars. At some point, that became ten million; now it has jumped to a billion.

The second request is beauty/youth. The old want to be young again, and the young want to stay that way. Everybody wants to be better looking: taller, thinner, with a more conventional nose and smoother skin. Bald guys want hair, and those with hair want it thicker, shinier, and not so much on the arms.

In third place is love/sex. Many don’t bother to ask, because they assume that if they have the first two, the third will follow naturally. I wish them luck.

No one remembers to ask for health, unless they're already sick.

Sometimes they want vengeance on their enemies, through misfortune or death. I don’t do death, at least not directly. I can inflict unemployment, lost love, intractable itching, public humiliation, sprained ankles, and acne. But I usually remind the aggrieved that living well is the best revenge, and it makes more sense to spend a wish on enhancing one’s own life, rather than to fritter it away on something that offers no real personal benefit.

Now and then, I meet a noble soul who just wants world peace. I have to explain that it’s outside my purview, because it involves too many people and places. It would take a power much greater than mine to change geography, alter weather patterns, redistribute resources, stifle religion, and probably kill a few thousand politicians and businessmen along the way. Sorry.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
R.K. West is a former travel blogger who sold everything, spent two years on the road, and now lives next to the mighty Columbia River.

 

A Monument to Adam

creative nonfiction
by Mark Twain

Just for fun, we occasionally publish vintage pieces from historic authors.

Some one has revealed to the TRIBUNE that I once suggested to Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, New York, that we get up a monument to Adam, and that Mr. Beecher favored the project. There is more to it than that. The matter started as a joke, but it came somewhat near to materializing.

It is long ago--thirty years. Mr. Darwin's DESCENT OF MAN had been in print five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised by it was still raging in pulpits and periodicals. In tracing the genesis of the human race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had left Adam out altogether. We had monkeys, and "missing links," and plenty of other kinds of ancestors, but no Adam. Jesting with Mr. Beecher and other friends in Elmira, I said there seemed to be a likelihood that the world would discard Adam and accept the monkey, and that in the course of time Adam's very name would be forgotten in the earth; therefore this calamity ought to be averted; a monument would accomplish this, and Elmira ought not to waste this honorable opportunity to do Adam a favor and herself a credit.

Then the unexpected happened. Two bankers came forward and took hold of the matter--not for fun, not for sentiment, but because they saw in the monument certain commercial advantages for the town. The project had seemed gently humorous before--it was more than that now, with this stern business gravity injected into it. The bankers discussed the monument with me. We met several times. They proposed an indestructible memorial, to cost twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a monument set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the hills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira to the ends of the earth-- and draw custom. It would be the only monument on the planet to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could never have a rival until somebody should set up a monument to the Milky Way.

People would come from every corner of the globe and stop off to look at it, no tour of the world would be complete that left out Adam's monument. Elmira would be a Mecca; there would be pilgrim ships at pilgrim rates, pilgrim specials on the continent's railways; libraries would be written about the monument, every tourist would kodak it, models of it would be for sale everywhere in the earth, its form would become as familiar as the figure of Napoleon.

One of the bankers subscribed five thousand dollars, and I think the other one subscribed half as much, but I do not remember with certainty now whether that was the figure or not. We got designs made-- some of them came from Paris.

In the beginning--as a detail of the project when it was yet a joke-- I had framed a humble and beseeching and perfervid petition to Congress begging the government to built the monument, as a testimony of the Great Republic's gratitude to the Father of the Human Race and as a token of her loyalty to him in this dark day of humiliation when his older children were doubting and deserting him. It seemed to me that this petition ought to be presented, now--it would be widely and feelingly abused and ridiculed and cursed, and would advertise our scheme and make our ground-floor stock go off briskly. So I sent it to General Joseph R. Hawley, who was then in the House, and he said he would present it. But he did not do it. I think he explained that when he came to read it he was afraid of it: it was too serious, to gushy, too sentimental--the House might take it for earnest.

We ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could have managed it without any great difficulty, and Elmira would now be the most celebrated town in the universe.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 – 1910), often characterized as the greatest American humorist. In addition to innumerable stories and essays, he is remembered for his novels, including Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

 

When Pickles Fly

by William P. Adams

Play was interrupted when several large dill pickles suddenly flew onto the Pickleball court at Gherkin Acres Country Club. On the other side of the wall, Heinz Vlasic, recently fired GACC kitchen helper, relished the moment and said to himself, “That’ll teach ‘em to take away my bread and butter!”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
William P. Adams writes stories.

 

The Cruise

by David Sydney

So far there had been 20 days and 20 nights of non-stop, torrential, pitiless rain. Stuffed to the gills with animals two-by-two, the Ark wasn't a pleasant place.
“This has got to be your stupidest idea yet. How long did you say we have to keep this up?”
Did Noah have to hear that again?
What would his wife be like on day 28? Or 39?
“I told you. We're just following orders.”

They glared at one another in the limited, dank space available with so many animals.

“Orders? You had an order to float around with two rhinos?”
She had a point. Rhinoceroses are terribly large, ungainly, and far from pleasant passengers. They are provoked by the slightest insult.
“Hippos are even worse.”
Another good point. And Hippos take up even more space than rhinos.

“Noah, did you know there'd be 40 days and nights of this? I mean, before you agreed to become captain of this… This…”
What was the word?
“Do you mean Ark?”
“No, I don't mean Ark.”
“How about ship?”
“No, I don't mean ship either.”

It was more like a floating garbage barge.

Everyone enjoys a pleasant voyage, maybe a day at most. At that time, boats were wooden and flat-bottomed. The Ark was, well, in her opinion, ridiculous. “Do you realize we have weasels here, Noah? Who wants to be shoulder-to-shoulder with weasels?”

His defense, again, was following orders. From Noah's point of view it was simple. If you hear a booming voice from out of nowhere – seemingly from out of a whirlwind – shaking you to your very foundations, commanding you to do something, you do it.

“Suppose it told you to sacrifice one of the children? I suppose you'd do that?”
“Who'd ever ask for anything like that?”
She asked out of frustration. It's difficult to clean up from rhinos.

After the third day, she turned a green color from seasickness.
By the end of the first week, she gave up on any idea of having a night of restful sleep.
Now into the 20th day afloat, she disliked all creatures great and small. “Noah, I thought that there'd always be some relief, no matter how bad it got, when you talked about the Ark.”
Her face might've been a bowl of split pea soup, that shade of green, if soup could have so many lines of irritation.
“Look… I'm just following directions.”
“Yeah… But I never thought it would get so I didn't like platypuses.”
They are adorable creatures. Everyone likes them.
“But try to sleep when they're squirming and growling all night.”
Platypuses are nocturnal creatures. When one of them lays an egg right by you, that egg takes up added space. There's only so much room you can give up – that is, little – when you're pressed next to a rhino. Next to a hippo… It's even worse…

She looked at her wet, bearded husband.
At the so-called "captain".
“Alright, Captain Noah, from now on when it comes to cleaning up, you take care of the hippos…”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
David Sydney is a physician who writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).

 

Claustrophobia

by James C. Clar

It was Danielle who mentioned it first. “Is it me, or does the hallway seem narrower to you?” she asked one evening as she paused on her way into the kitchen.

David laughed. “We’ve lived here a month now and it seems the same to me.” Danielle made a face and kept walking. Still the impression clung to her like a burdock.

A few days later, she broached the topic again. They were having wine before dinner. “I can’t explain it, but the rooms seem… smaller to me somehow.”

“Listen, honey,” David said with characteristic patience, “you’ve been under a lot of stress. Moving, getting acclimated to a new job. You’re tired and on edge.” David swirled the wine in his glass. He enjoyed watching the ‘legs’ cling to the sides and dissipate.

“I’m not imagining it!” Her voice had a plaintive quality, as though she wanted to be reassured further.

By the following week, David swore he had to turn sideways to walk between their sofa and the coffee table. He never had to do that before. He made a mental note to ask Danielle if she had moved the furniture.

A couple of days later, he was brushing his teeth. He saw Danielle in the mirror. “The bathroom seems cramped,” she remarked as she put a clean towel on the rack.

David dried his hands. “The bathroom is small. We knew that when we bought the place.”

From then on, the thought seemed to haunt them. Danielle noticed things she felt certain had moved. The rug under the dining table seemed to take up more space. A framed picture on the wall appeared closer to the mantle.

David began to suspect Danielle was surreptitiously rearranging things to prove her suspicions. He found her once in the middle of the night in the living room, standing with her palm flat against the wall.

“Danielle, what are you doing?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied.

A few nights later, they argued about the whole thing. David accused her of becoming obsessed. Danielle said she felt ‘dismissed’. Once peace was restored, David noticed he could no longer stand between his dresser and the window as he often did when dressing.

Next day, David bought a tape measure. He measured the living room. Danielle watched from the doorway. The numbers matched the listing the realtor had given them.

Danielle stared at the tape measure, then at the paper in David’s hand. “I don’t believe it,” she said, turning away.

Soon, the couple remarked on how often they bumped into each other in the kitchen. Drawers seemed to take up more space when opened. Ceiling fans looked lower.

Eventually, they stopped inviting people over. They worked from home whenever possible. The thought of leaving the house for long seemed too ‘risky’.

A month later, they had enough. They checked into an extended-stay hotel. Neither went back to the house except to get clothes or necessities.

Finally, they put the house on the market. In a few weeks it sold. David and Danielle began searching for a new home. The hotel was an expense, but they enjoyed its open, airy floor plan; a feature they asked their realtor to look for.

One evening, after getting a call that their offer on a house had been accepted, they celebrated with a second bottle of wine.

This time it was David who brought it up first.

As he was drying the dishes, he said, “Danielle, did you do something to the light over the sink? It seems lower than it was. I almost bumped my head…”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar divides his time between Upstate New York and Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, his work has also appeared in The Blotter Magazine, MetaStellar Magazine, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Magazine of Literary Fantasy and Freedom Fiction Journal.

 

The Experimental Writer

by Robert Runté

I mostly get “not for us”, because these editors aren't up for something really fresh. Or comments about “craft”, as if there were "rules" for writing. They're all so old-fashioned. One even wrote they couldn’t make out what I was trying to say. I was astounded by that frank admission.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Robert Runté is Senior Editor with EssentialEdits.ca and freelances at SFeditor.ca. A former professor, he has won three Aurora Awards for his literary criticism and currently reviews for the Ottawa Review of Books. His own fiction has been published over 125 times

 

The Options

by David Sydney

In a clearing in Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood pondered what to do. He was a man of action but a little weak on pondering. So, it would be a group decision as to how the newly-formed Merry Men should proceed. As Friar Tuck, before lapsing off in an inebriated state, put it – what would be their "modus operandi"? With his bow, Robin drew the option lines in the dirt at his feet while Little John and Will Scarlet looked on. His heart was not fully in it yet, since Maid Marion hadn't arrived.

“As I see it, these are the choices.” He pointed to the four scratches as Little John counted on his fingers. “We can rob from the rich and give to the poor.” That was one. “We can rob from the poor and give to the rich. We can rob from the rich and just keep it. Or, we could rob from the poor and keep it.” As he came to his fourth finger, Little John mentioned that the rich wouldn't like it if they were robbed. He had experience with the rich. Will added that the poor wouldn't like it either. He knew them only too well.

The Friar stirred, mumbling that he too "grasped the gist of the conundrum". Little John didn't bother to ask what that meant. He folded his fingers into a fist.

Will turned a little, well, red, embarrassed that he couldn't keep up with the Friar's vocabulary, honed from Tuck's studies at the Friary in his adolescence. “How about we rob from the middle class?”

What the hell? Will and Little John had no idea what to say. It was as though they were struck dumb by another of the Friar's "cogitations"’. Robin grimaced. How many extra frown lines could he add to his face? “What are you talking about, Friar?”

Tuck wiped his mouth while shrugging his shoulders. He was the kind of person who could walk and chew at the same time. Had he been dreaming or hallucinating as Robin pondered? Didn't he realize he was dealing with a soon-to-be legendary figure of late 12th-century England? And Maid Marion, if she ever arrived, would be a second legendary figure, and a very attractive one. Yes, it was the 12th-century. Maybe the early 13th. He was apologetic. It must've been the elderberry wine that pickled his mind. "Middle class"? Who'd ever heard of such a ridiculous thing in England?

"Middle Class"? It was certainly no "socio-economic term" that the Friar ever heard at the Friary.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
David Sydney is a physician. He has had pieces in Little Old Lady Comedy, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday, 50 Give or Take, Friday Flash Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Disturb the Universe, R U Joking, Every Writer Magazine, Hotch Potch, Mad Swirl, Sip Cup, Literary Revelations Journal, and Rue Scribe.

College of Philosophy

by Derek McMillan

The College of Philosophy were holding their annual general meeting in Scoresdale Village. We did not anticipate any trouble from a group of philosophers, not compared to punk rockers for example.

Among other things they were selling a handkerchief which appeared to have one pattern when folded and a different pattern when opened out. It "represented the complexity of life" apparently. At £5 each it also represented the cost of living.

‘Have you seen this?’

Constable Burgos always read the Daily Star after putting up with all that banter about him being illiterate.

He read deliberately.

‘Underwater slavery. ‘

‘Women have been lured by romantic weddings including some underwater ceremonies. The weddings, mostly involving the same groom, are fake but the domestic slavery is all too real.’

‘A woman dubbed ‘the masked avenger’ (the mask was scuba gear, he explained) put a spanner in the works by cutting the air pipe of the groom which led to his doom.’

‘That’s a mixed metaphor,’ he said proudly. ‘Groom and doom rhyme,’ he added.

In a cafe in Scoresdale, one of the small dramas which were a feature of the AGM of the College of Philosophy.

The philosopher nominated as "murderee" Doctor Amanda Scrace was sitting having a meal in a popular local restaurant. Leading celebrities of the College were in attendance.

So were we. We had an anonymous tip off that Doctor Scrace was in fact the soi-disant "masked avenger". Constable Burgos was just looking around at the celebrities around him with awe and I had to keep reminding him to keep his mind on the job.

The nominated "murderer" entered the restaurant to applause. He stalked up to the murderee and said dramatically, ‘I have come to kill you’

In accordance with tradition, Doctor Scrace responded, ‘Obviously you are not or you would have done it by now. Will you talk me to death?" ‘ Her companions applauded.

The gun went off and the guest of honour sank gracefully to the floor. By tradition she would then get up and make a meandering speech about the futility of existence.

Not this time. She was very dead. The College had two medical doctors (in fact it had five). Two certified the death as a heart attack.

By tradition the College applied to the authorities for what they called a Viking funeral.

The shrouded victim was put into a long boat which was set afire at a safe distance from shore. Members of the college thronged the shore and unanimously confirmed they had seen Amanda’s soul leave her body. She gave the College a tedious benediction which was well received.

A Scoresdale local saw Amanda rising from the remains of the shroud and yelling ‘YOU BASTARDS!’ but the resident knew better than to say anything. The underwater slave trade resumed after a decent interval. No link to the College of Philosophy was established. In addition to doctors, they also had some very expensive barristers.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Derek McMillan is the author of the cheerily entitled "Murder from Beyond the Grave" which is available on eBay.

 

The English Teacher

by Brenda Watnik

I drag my wheeled book tote to the front of the room and write my name on the whiteboard. “Let's introduce ourselves," I say. "I'll start. My name is Brenda Watnik. I have a Master's degree in Creative Writing from Cal State Long Beach. I've been a teacher for ten years, and this is my third year at this college."

Like all good lies, my biography contains a kernel of truth. I did attend Cal State Long Beach in my youth, although my major was Art History, and I didn't graduate. I really have been at Something College three years, but this is my first teaching job. I was hired at a frantic time when enrollment was exceptionally high and experienced teachers were in short supply; my resume was not fact-checked.

"Now it's your turn," I say. "Tell me about yourselves." I have discovered that pretending to be interested in the students boosts my evaluation scores, almost as much as my generous grading policies. Something College values those scores. Highly-rated teachers make the school look good. In return for my success at charming the class, I was offered first chance at what the administration inexplicably considers the most desirable assignment in the department, "Introduction to Creative Writing." In a way, creative writing is my specialty. ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Brenda Watnik is an instructor at a small college in Southern California, and swears that this story is not autobiographical.