Mild Shenanigans, the E-Zine for May 29, 2024
V4, I27
This week, the stories will lead the parade, what do you think? I like being a poet, but I also like telling stories. The ones I chose this week are among the first I ever wrote, when I slunk back to writing a few years ago1. I like them as they are, even if they aren’t — I don’t know — perfect? Better?
I’ve improved between then and now. I’m a better writer. But the stories are what they are — slick little spills of creativity just sitting there, waiting for a hapless passer-by to encounter them. When that passer-by finally pick him or herself up and wonders what the heck happened, they’ll notice my story there and think, “Okay, I didn’t see that coming. Maybe I’ll watch out a bit better for any more that might be around.”
And there will be more around. Plenty more. Some will be more obvious than others because I’ve gotten better, and I love leaving little fiction traps for you to — ahem — discover.
Come in confidently, but carefully. There be story snares about.
Cool? Cool.
Poems
Stories
Said the Poem to the Poet, Loudly
Stop shoving! Knock that crap off. I’ll come out when I’m ready. And not a moment before. No, I won’t tell you when. You just sit there and write Words and words and I’ll tell you when you write The right words. Unfair? Ha! Let me tell you. Unfair is being stuck in Your wild brain so long. Yeah, I could have come out But you sat there and griped Gripe and whine and Now you can just suffer With that block. Until you learn. You won’t learn. Or maybe, just Maybe, you did.
We Interrupt the Present…
“I swear, Doug, this thing tells the future!” J.J. ran his hand over the cracked Bakelite top of the tube radio. Doug scowled. “What? No. There’s no way–.” “Yes! They just said the Chargers beat the Raiders to get to the Super Bowl. The Vegas Raiders, man! Come on!” J.J. twiddled the volume and they leaned closer. “–after three months, police made an arrest in the gruesome murder and robbery of two men at a downtown pawn shop–” “What–?”, JJ asked. “Sssssh!”, Doug hissed back. “Listen!” They listened, so intently they never heard the bell above the front door jingle.
(Photo Credit: PIRO4D on Pixabay)
The Last Cool Night
The elderly couple stood arm-in-arm on the overlook. Below, the city at night glittered. “Ralph, it really is beautiful.” “Not as beautiful as you, my hearts.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “You old flatterer.” He smiled. She didn’t have to see his face or taste his subtle pheromonal shifts. After so many years, she simply knew. “You know, I shall miss them when they’re gone.” “So shall I, Ethel. Perhaps they will not suffer much. I recommended the Harvesters show them mercy.” “That’s nice,” she said and snuggled closer to enjoy their last night on cool, green Earth.
After the Eclipse
The cult fell apart after the eclipse. We expected it to happen, the baker’s dozen of us who once gathered monthly in the hidden room of the Senator’s office but, still, it’s a disappointment. We called ourselves a cult as a joke, but it was more like we were friends and had this cool little thing that we did a couple of times a month, when the stars were right. At least I thought we were friends. Maybe I was the only one who thought we were. Our cool little thing became a cool bigger thing -- less a gathering of friends in a hidden room and more a flash mob. We met where the stars said we should, where the whispering voices of the things that came from them said we should meet. When the eclipse came that great Monday afternoon, there were over a hundred of us in the courtyard of a certain government building named for a certain recent president. The statue there would cast shadows of a certain shape, or so the old book Gary found on a forgotten shelf of the Library of Congress told us. And so it did. We basked in the shadows -- exactly one for each of us -- as the moon blocked the sun and opened the way for the little gods. But when nothing rent the sky and the moon slid quietly by without a shriek, we despaired. All we felt was a small, thrilling tingle in our foreheads and nothing more. No great vision. No rending fountains of power. No Ancient God. Just...back to our desks and papers and rules and regulations. That was fine. Is fine. It's all fine, really. The next week, only fifty of us met to discuss what happened, or didn’t. More slipped away over the next month without a word, without contact. Even the thirteen of us who were there from the first glimpse of the sigils dwindled to ten, then six, then only me. Millennials call it “ghosting”. I didn’t understand. Weren't we friends? Hadn't we been more than a way to spend a lunch break on a steamy Washington DC summer afternoon? Weren't we acolytes? You don’t just give up because the moment for which you prepared your whole life doesn’t produce the immediate result you want, right? You have to be patient with events aeons in the making. You should study, learn more about your beliefs, dig deeper into the sacred texts, shouldn't you? At the very least, you should care enough to learn the difference between a birth and a conception. Or maybe not. Maybe modern devotion is more fragile. Maybe we aren't as worthy as those who came before us. Maybe our faith isn't as strong. Maybe the slightest trial extinguishes it completely, just like the little gods extinguished the lives of those impatient, faithless hundred when they burst forth, glorious and grown, from their skulls. I love the little gods who have become great -- don't get me wrong. Their destruction is great! Iä ! Iä! Long May the Thousand Young Feed! It's just…sometimes I miss my friends.
I think I wrote about this in an earlier issue of Mild Shenanigans, back when it was on Tinyletter and named Thursday!, but here’s the short version: I wrote a lot when I was a kid. Then I stopped. Turns out, unlike most writers, I don’t *have* to write, but I wasn’t living the life I was made to live. So I went back to it and, well, here we are.