Thursday! The E-Zine for June 28, 2023
V3, I32
Welcome again, my friends and soon-to-be friends, to Thursday! , the only newsletter1 in which you will read the word “eyestalks” as many as six times2. I promise you I didn’t do that on purpose. On the other hand, I’m now slightly concerned about how often I use the word “eyestalks” in my stories3.
I’m glad you like the new zine-ness of the newsletter. I like putting these editions together quite a lot and hope to grow Thursday! into a marauding beast of poetry and prose that becomes something of an actual regular magazine. Okay, admittedly that’s a heck of a lofty distant dream, but with your support, why can’t it happen? I hope to earn a few shares from you regularly and even a paid subscription. I’ve set the amount at $6.50 a month, which isn’t a ton considering what we all pay for inferior streaming services that serve you up hot garbage and take away said garbage whenever they feel like it.
I know times are tough, which is why I don’t (and won’t) harp, but I do hope you’ll consider a subscription. If you’d like a jump in with a different amount, you can do that for sure but over on Patreon. Every subscription gets me closer to doing more of this more often. I think we’d all enjoy how that could turn out.
Enough of the pleading. On with the good stuff!
Poems
Stories
What My Friend is Not
I think my friend was quite happy
When I said she was not a clever mildew.
There had been some doubt.
Oh! Not about her cleverness! No, no!
She is quite clever — more clever
Than a large sack full of weasels.
Though she is not that either.
Anyhow, we quickly determined
She was not any kind of mildew.
Which made her quite happy.
At least that’s the message I got
From the contented way she
Opened her mouth into a broad grin
And emitted that cloud of spores.
Wednesday
Wednesday. Middle day.
No one looks forward to you.
We slide by you en passant,
Capture hours as we pass through.
Wednesday. The hump day.
Peak from which we launch ourselves
Toward a weekend au courant
With new baubles from the shelves.
The Morning Hunt
The tumbledown shed was not very sturdy but it made an excellent hunting blind. Jocelyn scooted farther back into the shadow of a half-hinged door with care, making sure the rocket launcher she held on her shoulder had ample room in front and behind. She peered through the scope and scanned the clearing down the hill, some 200 yards distant, woodline to woodline. This patch had once been a beautiful state park, Jocelyn thought, before the Invaders came. She had been on a hike with her brother and father on the day they dropped the creatures she knew only as Shoggoths by the thousand, masses of formless, tentacled flesh shrieking through the atmosphere to crash to ground only to rise from the impact, hungry. Her father and brother died two months later, in a desperate battle outside Potomac Heights. Three Shoggoths rampaged through the military defenses, faster than a tank but far more resistant to anything the defenders could throw against them, and feasted on Washington, DC. They feasted on many cities. Too many.
A low distant rumble pulled her attention back to the present. She could see the trees trembling through her scope. They groaned as something enormous shouldered past them, along the trail gouged in the forest by the passage of other Shoggoths. She grinned. We’re gonna eat well for a while! Unless… Without taking her eye from the scope, she nudged the volume of her earbud up a tick. Maybe the Shoggoth was big or maybe there was more than one. If more than one were on the way, her hunting partner a half-mile away, tucked in a small cave that overlooked the woods, would let her know. And she needed to know, because she couldn’t kill two Shoggoths. Not with one rocket. Not on the run. Not with their speed. Not with such a small target on such a large, gibbering, nightmare-inducing form.
Her partner didn’t call. Her earbud remained silent. The rumble, however, grew louder quickly as the monstrosity walked or stumbled into the clearing. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep calming breath. Don’t see too much, she thought. Remember what you saw. Calm. Calm. She opened the eye behind the scope and saw pale, glistening flesh. A moment’s scan revealed the hump behind what she thought of as its head, under which was the control bundle — the Shoggoth’s only vulnerability. She centered the aiming reticle on it and prayed it wouldn’t see her with one of its eight eyestalks. After a moment, a small red light flashed in the scope.
Now, Jocelyn thought and pulled the trigger. A small rocket chunked out of the tube, ignited, then streaked toward the gigantic mass. She winced, hoping the shed wouldn’t collapse around her, and prayed. A couple of seconds of flight and it struck — a flash of orange then a chest-thumping explosion that rattled the shed even harder. The old timbers creaked enough that Jocelyn nearly scrambled out of it, but she didn’t. The shed held and so did her nerve. When she looked back into the clearing, the Shoggoth lay still, a gaping, smoking ruin where its “head” had been.
She held herself quiet and listened for the moaning call of any other Shoggoth that might have heard the explosion. After a slow thirty count, she keyed the microphone and said, “Hunter Alpha to Cleaning Crew: Bingo.” She got two clicks in response, then two more that meant twenty minutes for the jeeps and trucks from the village to arrive. They’d carve up the Shoggoth and take it back to the village. Today’s harvest was huge, enough to feed the 215 people who lived in her village plus more that they could trade for the things they needed and even a couple wants. Maybe that generator over in Hughesville she had spotted the last time they had visited. She smiled. A generator would let them run the water pump they had found but couldn’t use. No more hauling water. No more sitting baths in the river. A shower, maybe. A hot shower, maybe.
Jocelyn stepped out of the shed, into the sunlight, and did a little dance.
(Photo Credit: Antranias on Pixabay)
The Cookout from Another World
Glagznorp IV, Supreme Commander of the Visconian Advance Force glowered at the festively-decorated suburban back yard. Around him, a score of elite Visconian scouts waited, their gelatinous forms quivering in the summer breeze. Most of them longed to dash into the soothing spray of the misting fans just yards away, but they dared not move lest they attract the attention of their furious Lord.
“WHERE ARE OUR GUESTS?!” Glagznorp IV gurgle-boomed in a powerful baritone voice. He turned his eyestalks to a single Visconian, who winced noticeably. “You! Supply your designation!”
“I…I am Blifnar, O Glistening One.”
“Blifnar! Has all been prepared?”
“Of a certainty!”
“Are the mutilated cattle patties properly browned?”
“To the exact specifications given by the Earthling female Stewart! And all the vegetable matter has been arranged pleasingly to serve as additional flavor enhancers!”
“What of the potato and egg emulsification mixture! Were delicious pickles added? And paprika?”
“Truly, Your Mucilaginous Glory! All is ready! We have excluded no pleasure, no comfort! The only guest not invited this day is the evil villain the Earthlings call Gluten!”
“Then how can it be that no one has arrived? Was this planet conquered yesterday? Were we dormant while July 4 passed us by?”
“N...no! such things are not possible!”
“THEN EXPLAIN WHY WE HAVE NO GUESTS!”
Blifnar nearly withered under Glagznorp’s gaze. The early July sun beat down on him and he could feel his glistening skin tighten. He wrung his tentacles together in what he hoped was an acceptable display of subservience.
“It is our neighbor John Harrah, Your Greasy Eminence. He has procured–” His voice faded to a squeak. “–a bouncy house.”
“WHAT?!” The enormous green Visconian flailed his tentacles skyward in frustration. “Such structures are forbidden by the Ordinances! Were we not forced to destroy our Great Mucous Projector only one lunar revolution ago?”
“Yes! The Earth Enforcers demanded it! And yet Greasy Eminence, young Earthlings bounce unceasingly while their…parents…consume organic material clearly inferior to ours!” Blifnar grew bold in his righteous outrage. He flailed his tentacles toward only other cookout on Happy Harbor Drive. “Behold! Behold the merriment he has stolen from us”, he wailed.
Glagznorp beheld and his minions trembled in the silence. In the distance, he watched the neighbor John Harrah smile, surrounded by this fellow Earthlings who laughed and consumed his inferior organic materials. Glagznorp supposed he had procured them from the massive nearby market instead of seeking out the very best cattle meat from Whole Foods as he had done. At last, he encircled a bowl of potato salad from the table with a tentacle, drew it to him, and began to scoop it into one of his mouths.
“Very well”, he said. “John Harrah has triumphed today. But he will know defeat even if I must crack this puny world into piece–by the twin suns of Cra’lazor, this is delicious! Who assembled this?”
Blifnar beamed with pride. If Glagznorp loved the potato salad, wait until he absorbed the cupcakes!
Fancy more stories and poetry? Read all you want at JimmieWrites.
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I admit, I’ve not exactly combed the tens of thousands of newsletters for Eyestalks Quarterly or anything like that. There may well be a newsletter devoted to eyes on stalks. If so, subscribe and let me know if those bestalked peepers belong to Shoggoths or Visconians.
The number keeps increasing, the more I talk about eyestalks. I’ll stop now. Six is enough, at least for us.
Heh. No I’m not.
Only Eyestalks
Here for the eyestalks 👀👀👀