Richard Lizzie Lisa Norval Joe Serendipidy Tom Planet Z The next topic is Zombie LISA A Tale as Old as Time Tonight was Deborah’s creative writing class, her husband, Dave, called it freak show night but it was her night to be her. She enjoyed crafting new worlds at her evening class. The lesson that week was ‘a letter that you’ll never send’; a chance to be open and honest with no fear of recrimination. She wrote to Dave. The message was clear. Exactly how she felt. Others dropped their letters in the bin, filed them for reference. Debs bought a stamp, posted hers to him and checked in to a hotel while she looked for a new place to live. LIZZIE Poetry, a freakshow in the making. Add a postage stamp, someone yelled. He continued. Something about his pancreas. She felt sleepy. He spoke louder. She stood, right there, in the front row, but she felt sleepy. She must’ve fallen asleep standing, because when she opened her eyes, the room was empty. The stage was empty. Where’s the freakshow? Where is he and his pancreas? As she started toward the door, a piece of paper fluttered to her. It said “Violets are red, roses are blue, my pancreas will burst, and so will you.” It must be love then. She smiled. RICHARD Getaway I’ll be honest, my getaway plan was severely lacking in detail. So lacking, you could easily have written it out in full on the back of a postage stamp in thick magic marker. It was basically, one single word: ‘Run!’ But, that was more easily said than done. I mumbled I needed the bathroom, with any luck it would have a window I could crawl through to freedom. On the way, I peeked into the bedroom, and immediately wished I hadn’t! ‘What is this freakshow?’ I murmured to myself. ‘You’ll find out, soon enough’, came her voice over my shoulder. SERENDIPIDY Poetry in motion. With a single, fluid sweep, my knife cut deep, slicing through his stomach and pancreas, with a slick, smooth follow through, up behind the rib cage, cutting deeply into his left lung. Theatrically, I swung myself in a wide arc away from his body, withdrawing the knife and flicking a spatter of blood across the wall and ceiling. It was beautiful, almost balletic in execution. Slowly, and dramatically he slumped to the floor, life ebbing away. He’d been my high school drama teacher. I crouched and whispered in his ear… “Not a clumsy kid any more, right?” TOM Too Much Time On My Hands If silence is gold; noise is lead. Splitting the difference a gentle hum of reality is copper. Should every level of sound have a corresponding metal? Can there be negative sound sucked out of your brain stem. You most likely need a mess of dark matter for that. Manufacturing dark-metals would be process intensive, cost a lot gold coin to do. And you bet it would be hecka louder than a data center. Which sure would be the opposite of silence, which does meet metaphoric standards. Will infinite silence collapse to a negative waveform in the present of dark matter? 1066 It was a total freak-show. First, we are fighting the god dam north men. Slog-fest. Then we got march across the whole fucken island to kick Norman ass. We are all dead tired but we put up a good fight. Then this stupid hunk of wood kills the king. The stuff of poetry, I’d say. Bet they will be singing about for the next 1000s years. Pain in the Pancreas if you ask me. When I get home my misses is going to be major piss-off. Never got over that roman leaving town thing. What next the house of orange? NORVAL JOE A large manila envelope waited for them on the stone porch of the Weinerheimer home. No post mark identified the origin of the letter and a postage stamp with Cyrillic writing made it even more mysterious. Inside, they found a small book of poetry, five tickets to the Sonoma Raceway, and a note. The note simply read, “Read the book and meet me at the race.” “That’s perfect,” Billbert said. “Mom. You and Dad can drive the three of us to the race next weekend.” Sabrina wiped the tears from her eyes. “I thought we were taking Bobbi, not Mandi?” PLANET Z Every few years, there was a new variety of pepper that the news would call the world‘s hottest. It would have some crazy name and hot sauce makers would ship out bottles with skull and crossbones or flames or other crazy labels. Are they put warning labels on them with tongue and cheek advisories. Joe never fell for that trend. He liked a little bit of a kick, but he was into flavor, not pain. What was the sense of eating chicken wings if you couldn’t enjoy them? The waitress whose hits you’re staring at, isn’t impressed at all, bro.
