Tag Archives: flash fiction

Mr. Bob Dobalina (flash fiction)

creative writing, fiction, flash fiction, short story, story telling, surreal, , , ,

I was listening to the excellent podcast “The History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” by Andrew Hickey when the idea to write something based on “Zilch” by The Monkees came to me. Before hearing the particular episode on The Monkees, I’d never heard “Zilch.” If you haven’t heard it either, it was meant to be a throw-away filler track, though it seems to have enjoyed more of a life than what was expected. You can see the lyrics, such as they are, here.

I downloaded the album Headquarters on which “Zilch” can be found, and then listened to the track a few times before sitting down and writing this odd this bit of flash fiction. It’s quite rough, so forgive any typos I may have missed.

He sat in the waiting room, his left leg bouncing up and down in place, a nervous habit he’d had since childhood. He remembered his mother placing her hand gently on his knee to stop the movement, which she claimed shook the whole dinner table. What would she say to him? Something about—

“Mr. Dobalina? Mr. Bob Dobalina?”

His leg kept its pace as he continued looking at the magazine without really seeing it. It was a magazine about sailing and ships, about which he knew nothing. Except…that wasn’t true, was it? His brother worked on a ship, didn’t he? The China Clipper. Where was it docked? Some place in California?

The intercom in the small waiting room crackled to life: “China Clipper calling Alemeda.”

That was it. Alemeda. But why would someone say that over the intercom in a doctor’s office?

“Mr. Dobalina? Mr. Bob Dobalina?”

He looked up and saw that the nurse at the reception desk was looking directly at him, as if he was Bob Dobalina. But that was ridiculous, not only because it wasn’t his name but because it was the beginning of a song by The Monkees called “Zilch.” A silly, throw-away track on their excellent album Headquarters that would get in his head and roll around.

The intercom repeated: ““China Clipper calling Alemeda.”

This time, he felt a chill overtake his body. What if something had happened to his brother? What if he was hurt or lost at sea? He jumped up and went to the desk, determined to ask the nurse if he could borrow the phone to make a long-distance call. He’d pay for it, of course. He had money. He was a lawyer, after all.

The nurse regarded him with a blank look and said again, “Mr. Dobalina? Mr. Bob Dobalina?”

He shook his head furiously. “Listen to me, I need your phone, it’s an emergency.” He reached over the desk and grabbed the phone. The nurse didn’t react. He brought the receiver to his ear and heard someone say, ““Mr. Dobalina? Mr. Bob Dobalina?”

“What the hell is going on?” he asked as he slammed the phone down. He didn’t have time for this. In fact, he had an upcoming case he should be working on. Why was he at the doctor’s office again?

“Never mind the furthermore, the plea is self defense.” Those words resonated with him.

As a lawyer, he knew all too well the importance of self-defense in a case. But he also knew how difficult it could be to prove. The line played over and over in his head, as he thought about his upcoming trial.

“It is of my opinion that the people are intending,” he muttered to himself, finally realizing what it meant. He had to win this case, not just for his client, but for the people. He had to show that justice would prevail, and that the innocent would be protected.

But what about his brother? What about his own health? The phone at the nurse’s station suddenly rang, but the nurse kept her blank stare and didn’t move. Cursing, he jerked the phone off its cradle and shouted. “Who is this?”

The voice on the other end said quietly, “Mr. Dobalina? Mr. Bob Dobalina?”

“Who are you?” he screamed.

The intercom crackled again, and he sank to his knees, sobbing, as the voice uttered the same report about the China Clipper. The phone line went dead as the nurse said once more, “Mr. Dobalina? Mr. Bob Dobalina?”

He stood, regained his composure, and nodded. The nurse’s face lit with a beatific smile, and she said, “The doctor will see you now.”

Bob Dobalina walked through the center door, not noticing how the door seemed to be disappearing as he passed through. He was walking forward. That was what he knew. “Never mind the furthermore, the plea is self defense. It is of my opinion that the people are intending,” he told himself, treating the words like a mantra instead of the nonsense he knew them to be.

Merry Christmas, Or Something (micro fiction)

creative writing, fiction, flash fiction, Uncategorized, , ,

I vaguely remember writing this short piece. I was looking through old work when I stumbled upon it and decided to make a few changes her and there. I may have posted it here before, but I’m too lazy to look.

There’s nothing left for me here, but that doesn’t mean I’m leaving.

I’ve grown accustomed to the ache, the longing to be elsewhere, which is what I feel most days. Some days, it’s all I can think about. Me grabbing what I can cram in Mama’s pink and brown suitcase and shoving his old car in gear,  willing it to work at least across the state line. I don’t felt that way when he starts playing that old guitar, the one his father stole for him the Christmas he turned thirteen, that he doesn’t touch unless he’s been drinking. He coaxes such beautiful music from the instrument, it nearly makes up for his wreck of a voice, his hesitant delivery, the way he stumbles over words he should know.

“You don’t understand music,” he always tells me, but what he means is, “You know more that I do,” so I keep my mouth shut and listen to him. The music is like a lover, a more patient one than him, this would-be musician playing in our tiny, cramped living room 

The winter night lurks outside the windows, waiting to creep in when the lights are off and we’re in bed, clothes scattered through the place, his hands wandering across my body, re-staking his claim to make sure my dreams of leaving don’t come true for a little while longer.

Back on Planet Earth

creative writing, fiction, flash fiction, freewriting, short stories, short story, surreal, Uncategorized, writing, , , ,

I wrote this some time ago as a poem, but I think it works better as prose…maybe. I suspect it should be longer, but I don’t have it in me to produce long pieces, be they poems or prose. Once upon a time, yes, but those days are gone, and I suspect they won’t return.

“I ate a butterfly,” my son confessed late one night when the moon hid her face and the stars had twinkle-toed their way into the Great Beyond where giant creatures soared through interstellar space, a comforting prospect for me and my dutiful, sky-gazing, only child.

“I’ve heard worse,” I told him. “Hell, I’ve done worse, though butterfly eating isn’t the best thing in the world. You’re mom would have had a fit.”

I remember the time she cried in the backyard and I kissed her eyes until she stopped. She told me about memories she couldn’t have had, images of a past life she lived under violet clouds and three moons. We agreed that she was from another planet, and we acknowledged how terrible it was that she had to die on this one.

My son and I think that she must be one of the space creatures now, her cavernous mouth agape as she drifts in the cold darkness, lonely until she bumps until another creature she hopes is me or our son. Perhaps one day it will be, but for now she sighs an alien sigh and flaps her dark wings.

Back here on planet Earth, we struggle on. We etch our memories in sand, knowing they will fade with rushing water and wind. Some of us eat butterflies. The rest of us learn to forgive such things and try to smile.

Norm Reddick was from Nebraska…(freewriting)

Uncategorized, ,

I don’t write fiction much these days because it comes out as a garbled mess, as evidenced below:

Norm Reddick was from Nebraska but he died in South Carolina, where no one should die…or live, for that matter. 

It was July 5, 2019, about a year before corona-virus fucked us all over. Norm would have done fine with quarantine and isolation, because he was one seriously solitary dude. He died alone, in his kitchen, where by all accounts he was making mac and cheese and Vienna Sausages (a meal fit for a king, if you ask me, but no one asked me). When a neighbor noticed, three weeks later, an odd smell emanating from Norm’s place (in the middle of July, in South Carolina, where the mercury hovered at 98 degrees that entire week), she said to her friend Curly Cue Wilson, “It smells like that time my grandmother died and we drove up for a visit and the smell hit us as soon as we climbed out of the car. Lord Jesus.” She called 911, and they hauled Norm Reddick out on a gurney, covered by a sheet. The neighbor—Judith McLaren—shook her head and said to Curly Cue Wilson, “That’s a shame. Norm Reddick was halfway handsome. If he’d bothered to comb his hair once and while, he couldve been someone’s sweet dream.”

Curly Cue nodded but kept silent, and not just because she was a selective mute. She was thinking of Norm Reddick and how Judith was right. Even with his unkempt hair, Curly Cue thought Norm Reddick was a strikingly handsome man.He had been her sweet dream, and now he was gone. But had he lived, would he have ever noticed Curly Cue ?(real name of Ramona Piddle, but called Curly Cue on account of her pig-like nose and her affinity of all thing porcine, not including Norm Reddick who, if anything, had resembled a deformed whooping crane…but all things being equal, a deformed whooping crane that, even without minimal effort, met Curly’s definition of attractive).

“Well, that’s that,” Judith said and brushed her hands together as if ridding them of dirt. “Time to get back to our own miserable lives, eh, Curly?”

Curly nodded her assent, and later, dreamed that she and Norm were at Morrison’s cafeteria together, eating trout almondine and drinkng sweet tea. A waiter, who was missing an arm and had a spectacular gold tooth, approached them and ask, “Is everything to your liking?”

That was one clue she was dreaming; waiters never came to your table at Morrison’s or any other cafeteria. Curly wasn’t even sure why there waiters there, except they could carry the trays of the old people who couldn’t manage it. The other clue she was dreaming was that she talked freely and effortlessly. She often sounded like Lynn Redgrave in dreams, and that was okay with her.

“We’re fine, thanks,” Curly said in her dream.

The waiter smiled. Norm Reddick cleared his throat, and the waiter’s smile slipped. “Actually,” Norm Reddick said, “this fish is cold.”

“You’re eating it, sir,” the waiter said. “With gusto, I might add.”

“I’m also going to die soon,” Norm Reddick said, “so could you be a pal and heat it up again? Just nuke it, that’d be fine. You don’t need to fool with oven.”

“It would be my singular pleasure, sir,” the waiter said with a certain note in his voice that told Curly heating up Norm Reddick’s trout almondine woud actually not be a singular pleasure. And then Curly began to cry, because Norm Reddick said he was going to die…and her dream-self knew it.

When she woke up, she was still crying.

The Pattern (short fiction)

short story, Uncategorized, writing, ,

In the spirit of Joyce Carol Oates. Please pardon any typos I may have missed.

sidewalk cracks
image credit

 

The Pattern

If she looked closely, she could see a pattern, and she could see herself in the pattern. This didn’t happen every day, of course–she had to be in the right frame of mind and receptive to receiving the pattern and her place in it. Over the years since the accident, she estimated that she’d detected the pattern about fifty times. Of that fifty, she’d located herself in the pattern about twenty times.

She couldn’t talk about the pattern with anyone, not her husband, not her sisters, and certainly not her friends. But they weren’t really friends, were they? And as much as she loved her sisters and her husband, that weren’t of ultimate consequence. The accident had proven that she could live without them. She could live without anyone, or so the pattern indicated, and she believed the pattern over all things.

After the accident, she lay in a coma for three months, and that’s when the pattern had come to her. When she woke to her broken body, her torn and disfigured face, the pattern was burned into her mind. She remember the fiery way it came, like the tongues of flames that appeared above the apostles head on Pentecost, She’d known she was on the brink of death; that feeling permeated everything. In the coma, she had a series of dreams, all of which were lit by the fire of the pattern. It flickered over walls, highlighted the ground, filled the sky. Sometimes she dreamed she was a young girl, and other times she was a old woman. No matter the dream, no matter the non-sequiturs her mind strung together, the fire followed, and she felt peaceful.

Nearly a year of physical rehabilitation followed her waking, and she bore it with uncharacteristic stoicism. Her husband said she was remarkably brave, and she just nodded. He was afraid of her, afraid of her new-found strength and determination. Her doctors were skeptical that she would walk again, but she was walking after six months. She underwent two surgeries on her face but stopped short of cosmetic repair. The scars formed their own pattern, and she liked them. Her husband urged her to get the cosmetic surgery, but she wouldn’t be swayed.

When she was cleared to leave the rehab unit, she found her house stifling. It was no longer her home, she realized, and she convinced her husband to sell it. In the home’s place, they settled into a small apartment in a neighborhood that made the husband uncomfortable, but he found that he couldn’t tell his wife no. She had been returned to him, more or less whole, and every day was a gift, or so he told himself She wanted to move, and so they moved. He would grow accustomed to the neighborhood with its loud music and questionable young men who stood on the corner, laughing and smoking and hitting each other. He had been a young man once, but he had never acted like that.

She went for long walks, even though it was painful. She walked with a limp and would for the rest of her life, or so the doctors said. That was all right, she decided. Her new neighbors stared openly at her, disturbing by her ruined face. That was all right, too.

She couldn’t have explained the pattern to anyone, even if she felt they could be trusted. The pattern defied description, and it could be apprehended by her alone. It made her sad sometimes that she couldn’t locate herself always in the pattern, but ultimately she decided that was the nature of life and, indeed, the nature of the universe. The universe didn’t have to include you in its plans, but it was wonderful when it did.

As much as she could determine from the pattern, she had only to follow it when prompted. The first indication had been to leave her house, which she had done. The next part had been to walk through her neighborhood as much as she could, mentally mapping the terrain, and she did that.

She hadn’t worked since the accident. She found she hated her job and work in general, and she was relieved when she discovered her company had terminated her. What a horrible thing, work, she realized. Her husband was an investment banker and made more than enough money to support them both, but he wondered if she wanted to perhaps get a part-time job or maybe volunteer. She shook her head no. It’s not that there wasn’t time for such things, for there was, even with the promise of the pattern. But she had no desire to do anything unrelated to the pattern.

Her husband was more patient than most men, and he felt overwhelming guilt whenever he allowed himself to wonder What’s wrong with her? She’s healed physically, but it’s like the rest of her is just…elsewhere. She would have agreed with that sentiment, had the husband shared it. She was certainly elsewhere in her mind, her spirit. She was seeking the pattern, having seen it enough times to crave more. But she was not in control of that. She simply had to remain open.

The woman’s sisters and friends slowly separated from her, and they shared worried whispers about her less and less. Eventually, her husband took a job and Seattle and said he would return to move her there with him, but he never did. She didn’t mind. He still supported her. Her bank account was alway full and never need replenishing. She had more than enough money for food and the occasional item of clothing she bought.

All the while, she continued her treks through the neighborhood. As time went on, people developed stories about the strange woman who limped up and down the streets, her eyes scanning back and forth, sometimes talking to herself. The stories ranged from true, that she’d been in a terrible accident that affected her mind as well as her body, to patently false, that she was a cold-blooded murderer who had done away with her husband. Most people felt sympathy for her, but some hated her for no reason other than she was different. One day, some kids in a car threw rocks at her, one large enough to leave a jagged gash in her forehead. She fell to her knees.

“Crazy bitch!” one of the kids sang out from the open car window as it sped away.

She stared at the concrete, tracing its web of cracks with her fingers. “The pattern,” she whispered, knowing everything–the accident, her sisters and husband abandoning her, the cruelty of the world–was worth it.

The Watcher (flash fiction)

Uncategorized, , , ,

I’m slowly crawling out of the funk of a long-lasting, unexplained fever…and regaining my equilibrium in others ways after a difficult past few months. Writing hasn’t been much of a priority. Today, I feel well enough to return to the keyboard, so I’m taking advantage of that.

I’ve been reading a lot of Joyce Carol Oates lately, and I see her influence on the following piece.

the watcher
image credit

The Watcher

It wasn’t enough that he could see her, he wanted to be close to her. He wanted to lean in, take a deep breath near her neck, and luxuriate in her scent; he wanted to meld his flesh with hers and disappear into the darkness forever.

Daniel slowly lowered the binoculars and squinted at her form, so far away. From this distance, she could be anyone. She was just another person sitting at the outside cafe, drinking a coffee. He couldn’t see her delicate features, the gentle slant of her nose, the spark of her eyes. He couldn’t see her lips curl in a secret smile or her brow furrow in worry.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Daniel turned at the voice, a flutter of panic in his stomach. The police officer wore a smile, but it was forced. The smile said, I’m trained to look like this when I approach people, even shifty-looking sons of bitches like you.

“Yes, officer?” Daniel said automatically. The binoculars suddenly felt awkward and heavy in his hands.

“May I ask what you’re doing?” the office said. Even though he was in full uniform, including what looked like Kevlar under his short, his face was free from perspiration, and it was at least 90 degrees outside. Daniel had been sweating ever since he stepped out of his apartment, but that wouldn’t deter him from his purpose.

“Bird watching,” Daniel replied. He’d practiced this, of course. He care nothing about birds, but he’d memorized the local birds by studying various Internet sites. He could ramble off facts about cardinals and blue birds and even the migration patterns of geese.

“This doesn’t seem like an ideal place for bird watching,” the officer said, pleasantly enough. The radio on his shoulder squawked to life, and he reached out and turned down the volume. “I mean, standing here on the sidewalk downtown.”

“You’d be surprised how many different species are here,” Daniel said.

“Be that as it may, I’m going ask you to move along. The park isn’t far from here.”

Daniel gripped the binoculars. If he left, he could lose track of her, and who knows how long it would be before he tracked her down again? Lately, the girl had been changing her routine, and it frustrated (and tantalized) Daniel to no end.

“Sir?” the office prompted. His smile was gone now, and his voice carried a slight edge. “It’s time to move on.”

“Of course,” Daniel said. “I wasn’t trying to bother anyone. I just spotted a scarlet tanager and got excited.”

“Where?”

“What?”

“Where was this bird?”

Daniel smiled. He brought the binoculars back up to his eyes and focused on her. “Right over there,” he murmured.

The Dark Woman (surreal flash fiction)

creative writing, fiction, surreal, Uncategorized, writing

Dark women and Jedi…story of my life. 

I would like to present myself as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, I thought, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards for today. Or any day, for that matter. I was as mindful of my thoughts, as good as any Jedi.

The dark woman who rented out umbilical cords shook her head. “God doesn’t like the Jedi, you idiot,” she said.

I stopped sewing myself back together. I didn’t know the dark woman could read my thoughts. Troubling. I shielded my brainwaves by placing a metal colander on my head.

“That only works with the aliens,” the dark woman said. “And not for all of them, either. Don’t you know anything?”

I know I hate you, I thought, making the words in my mind burn like fire.

The dark woman smiled. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” she said, smiling.

Glinda and Charley (a scene)

characters, freewriting, story telling, surreal, Uncategorized, , ,

I’ve given up trying to write traditional stories (at least, for now). Instead, I’m just letting the words do what they want. In this case, the words made me say, “What the hell?” Incidentally, the picture has nothing to do with the story. I just typed “weird” in the Flickr Creative Commons search bar and clicked on the one that made me laugh.

weird
image credit

“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” Glinda asked. She wasn’t the Good Witch, or a witch at all. She was just Glinda, and she didn’t know how to dress herself despite being thirty-three. She had a maid help her. The maid’s name was Fuzzy. She was a cat, but a really smart one with a keen fashion sense and a remarkable vocabulary.

“Like the moon?” Charley suggested. He was fond of the moon and its wild temperature swings. He was also rather partial to radiation.

“The moon’s too far,” Glinda lamented.

“It’s not that far if you travel with your imagination.”

“Like Mr. Roger’s?”

“Sure, if Mr. Roger’s was a kick-ass space explorer.”

“Mr. Roger’s is plenty kick-ass without adding ‘space explorer’ to his already impressive resume,” Glinda said. Her hair dragged the floor, and she suffered from excessive optimism, the kind that made Charley nervous.

“Whatever,” Charley said. “Are we going to the moon or not?”

“Not. What I have to say can be said here. It’s private enough.”

“The bugs are listening.”

“I’m not worried what a few bugs think, if they think anything at all.” Glinda took a deep breath. “Ok, here it is. I’m worried you might not be real.”

Charley rubbed his chin. The thought had occurred to him, too. It was troubling notion, that he might not be real. Glinda’s realness was never in question. Was that strange or is that how things were supposed to go?

“Does it matter if I’m real or not?” Charley asked. “We still like each other.”

“We do?” Glinda felt warm inside. She thought Charley kind of hated her.

“Well, we tolerate each other.”

Glinda felt her insides clam up. She would never be the apple of Charley’s eye, or of anyone’s. The only creature that loved her was Fuzzy…maybe. Or maybe Fuzzy was just doing her job?

“Now that we’ve settled that, I’m off to check out the moon,” Charley said. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“Yes,” Glinda whispered.

“Toodle-oo,” Charley said and blinked out of sight.

Glinda settled onto the floor and tried to cry, but she’d forgotten how. Or maybe she’d never learned in the first place.

Mr. Mouth’s Debatable Heritage (Surreal Flash Fiction)

creative writing, fiction, surreal, Uncategorized,

Erm….

mouth
image credit

 

Mr. Mouth’s Debatable Heritage

“Don’t be put off by my innate hotness, or Cuban-ness,” Mr. Mouth said. He dripped commas. It was unsightly and messy. The custodian, Gomez, would have to clean up later.

“You’re not Cuban,” said a recording. It came from a computer in an outhouse three miles away, piped in through a ragged sound system that had seen better days. “You’re from Snellville, Georgia.”

“I’m from Brooklyn, you hypocrite!” shrieked Mr. Mouth. “My parents are from Cuba. Therefore, I am Cuban!”

“#sadlittleman,” the recording said.

Meanwhile, a year ago, a jiggly cat named Sandra gave birth to an idea. It was wet and couldn’t walk, this idea, and it died before it could spread. Sandra shrugged and moved on.

In an ocean of memory, mermaids braided the hair of people who drowned. Mr. Mouth rejoiced he was not among them.

The recording stopped. Mr. Mouth took a tentative breath. More commas fell. Gomez chewed a breath mint, grabbed his broom, and walked in.

Trees Exploding into Bloom (a scene)

characters, creative writing, short story, Uncategorized, , ,

This is Beverly, a cranky woman in her late sixties who had a bit to say during a freewriting session. I’m not sure what’s going on with the tree at the beginning. 

I haven’t made grits since my niece Laura was two years old, and on that day, my pear tree decided to bloom the fuck out and scared me half to death. One second it was all scrawny-looking, and then wham! Full fucking bloom, right outside the kitchen window! I mean, it was like God was playing a joke. Or the Devil was. It sounds like something that mean old bastard would do. Then again, God’s been known to throw folks a curveball from time to time, too, so I’m not sure. All I know is the whole episode made my Laura pee her pants, and that just about ruined our breakfast Who could concentrate on eating after that? I sure as hell couldn’t, and Laura was screaming like someone had pressed a hot iron to her face.

Aside from trees exploding into bloom, it was a pretty average day. Creepy Joseph Carrera dropped by and asked me to water his plants while he took a two week vacation to Akron, Ohio. “Who the hell goes to Akron for two weeks?” I wanted to know. “Isn’t your life shitty enough?”

Joseph coughed into his arm (which I appreciated because I catch colds like nobody’s business) and said in that puny little voice of his, “Akron is where Alcoholics Anonymous started.”

“And? What’s that got to do with a wheelbarrow of orangutans?”

Joseph went on to tell me that Akron was where Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob put their drunk heads together and came up with the idea for AA. He also said he’d been sober for nearly a year and wanted to go see the home of Dr. Bob for his sober anniversary.

“That’s all well and good,” I said, not wanting to get bogged down in hearing how Joseph got sober. I’ve heard enough testimonials from former drunks to last a fucking last time. My first husband’s a recovering alcoholic H got sober about a year before he left me for a hot little twenty-five-old accountant. I didn’t care so much that he split, but for a twenty-five-year old? And he was nearly fifty? Jesus wept.

“But what the hell else do you plan to do?” I asked. “Akron’s not exactly a hotbed of fun and frivolity. In fact, it’s kind of fucking dump.

Joseph grinned his crazy grin, which he always does when he’s uncomfortable, and my cursing caused him no end of discomfort. But it’s not like I was going to watch my Ps and Qs around him, of all people. Joseph Carrera was as weird as they came. I wouldn’t have surprised me if the police arrested them and then searched his place and found people cut up and hidden in freezer bags down in his basement.

Joseph babbled about going to see the Cuyahoga River and the Akron Zoo (be still, my beating heart) so I rushed him out and said I water his damn plants. He told me he’d put the spare key under the weird little statue of a scantily-clad boy he keeps on on his porch. It’s supposed to be Peter Pan, but it looks like a ugly-ass kid playing dress-up. Not that a statue of Peter Pan looking like Peter Pan would have been better, you know?

Once Joseph left, I shooed Laura out to play and told her if she sees any crazy shit with my trees to come and get me. I needed a nap.