Message on a sun-faded brochure in an abandoned and partly caved-in resort hotel:
“Sunsets so unbelievably beautiful you’ll swear you can see brushstrokes.”
Excerpt
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October 25, 2012
From “The Ephemera” by Melisa Avery Agen
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: brochure, fiction, resort hotel, story, sunsets |Leave a Comment
October 24, 2012
From “The Ebenezer Scrooge Festival” by Calgary Rochester III
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, story |Leave a Comment
The small town of Ebenezer (population 4223) had been named after Ebenezer Allen, the Revolutionary War hero from Vermont whose maternal grandnephew had been among the town’s founders. It wasn’t until five years later, in 1843, that the name became inexorably linked with Charles Dickens’ miser.
At first, the residents of Ebenezer–then a thriving logging community–paid the similarity little mind. A piece appeared in the Ebenezer Watch-Gazette around 1850 remarking on Dickens’ book and its anti-hero; the minutes of a council meeting from 1887 record the then-mayor raging against “that limey book” that had supplanted the patriot Ebenezer Allen in the public perception of his namesake burg.
Naturally, that was before the bottom fell out of the timber market in the early 1900s and Ebenezer began rusting as its local industries pulled up stakes. Before long, the lure of Dickens (conveniently in the public domain) was too great to resist. Beginning in 1977, the town organized an annual Ebenezer Scrooge Festival.
Highlights included a parade of Scrooges in scarves and top hats, coal-throwing contests, a haunted house, and of course a turkey cookoff. From modest attendance of 200 or so at the first event, by the 21st century the festival was regularly attracting thousands. The town even took the unprecedented step of establishing a “Scrooge in residence,” an actor who starred in continuous revivals of the stage version of A Christmas Carol and appeared in character on request.
The fact that Ebenezer was on the Gulf coast, and hadn’t seen a snowflake since a freak blizzard in 1902, didn’t dampen the town’s enthusiasm in the slightest.
October 23, 2012
From “The Stephens Island Wren” by Sandra Cooke Jameson
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: animals, cats, extinct, fiction, gulls, nature, New Zealand, Sandra Cooke Jameson, Stephens Island Wren, story, wrens |Leave a Comment
The black-billed gull bobbed its head nervously. “I see your children attempting to sneak up on me,” it squawked. “You know that the ancient and unwritten law both our kinds follow demands that a messenger not be accosted.”
A slight twitching of the matriarch’s ears and the younger cats withdrew into the bushes. “Speak, then, that we may satisfy the old ways and have our repast of you.”
“I come on behalf of the wrens,” the gull said. “They bade me speak to Tibbles, which I can only assume is you.”
“That is a name bestowed upon me unbidden,” the matriarch hissed. “You will not use it.”
“What am I to call you, then?”
“My true name is of our secret tongue and not for your ears,” the cat said. “You need not address me by name to deliver what paltry tidings you bring.”
“Very well.” The gull spread its wings. “My brothers, the wrens, have lived on this isle of Takapourewa from time immemorial. The rats chased their forefathers from Aotearoa after the arrival of man, and this is the last outpost of their kind. They are simple, trusting, and guileless, with no defense against those such as yourself as they cannot fly. They believe and practice total nonviolence against all but the insects they eat.”
“You tell me nothing I do not already know,” the matriarch cat said.
“The flightless wrens of Takapourewa have, in council, decided that their commitment to nonviolence overrides all, up to and including their lives and those of their children. They will not take steps to secure themselves against your predations.”
Purring the matriarch cat nodded in approval. “Then you bring us glad tidings! Thank you, messenger. You may depart this once with your life.”
“That is not the extent of my tidings, o cat,” the gull said. “The elder of the wrens bade me come, as one of a tribe who has known their kind for aeons and for whom flight offers a modicum of protection. They ask that you and your children cease your slaughter of their kind and allow them to live in peace.”
“Does our elder brother the lion live in peace with the gazelle? Does the wolf live in peace with the cat? That is not the way of our kind nor of any other kind.” The matriarch bent to casually lick her paw. “Your friends ask the impossible and we have no power to grant their request.”
The gull bobbed its head. “The wrens feared as much. They bade me tell you that, if your numbers continue to explode with the slaughter of wrens, when their kind is gone, your children will starve.”
“The weak ones, perhaps, but the strong and worthy will find other prey.”
“They foresaw that answer as well. The wrens bade me say one thing more. They have noticed that the humans have become interestied in them, in their rarity as the last of their kind. Even now they collect wrens as curiosities for display, and humans the world over ask for wrens of their own that they might study them.” The gull cocked its head. “If you exterminate them, the humans will be angry. You more than anyone must know what that anger can mean.”
Its last statement gave the matriarch pause. Her ears flattened for a moment before resuming their erect posture. “It is a risk we will assume,” she said at length.
“I am saddened to hear so, but I will bear your reply to the wrens,” the gull said. It launched itself into the air before the hidden cats nearby could pounce.
October 21, 2012
From “The Unwanted Combo” by Sharolyn Greene Washington
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, food, humor, Mentos, soda pop, story |Leave a Comment
It was late and I was hungry after a 14-hour flight back to flyover country from the west coast. It was close to 2am, though, so all the restaurants were closed and the only option was a cold sandwich or rotisserie horror from one of the gas stations. I wouldn’t have bothered, but it was a further 90-minute drive from the airport to home. The joys of working at a relatively rural magnet school, I suppose: you can afford to go to conferences but pay a price in fatigue.
I pulled into the least seedy-looking station, one of the Gas n’ Guzzle chain. The clerk didn’t acknowledge me, being behind bulletproof glass and with a bleeping iPhone besides. The cold sandwiches all looked like they had been manufactured during the Truman administration, but there were some appetizing-looking hot pockets and pizza slices under the klieg lights. I grabbed a hot pocket that was in an easy-eat cardboard sleeve (figuring that the calories would mostly be burned off by the stress of late-night driving) and a bag of chips; I still had half a Diet Coke in the car, so there was no need for a drink (the Coke had been purchased at the extortionate airport price of $4, so I was determined to see it to the last drop.
The clerk, looking bored, rang up the purchases on my debit card without a word. I signed the receipt she thrust at me and was about to leave when she thumped down a big paper fountain drink cup.
“What’s that?” I said.
“For your drink.” All this time, the clerk hadn’t looked up from her iPhone, doing everything else by rote.
“I didn’t order a drink.”
“It’s part of the combo meal, ma’am.” Still not looking up, the clerk tapped a sign.
I looked at the receipt and did a little quick mental arithmetic–I am a math/science teacher after all. The combo meal was a good deal if you got a loaded hot dog or pizza slice, but for the hot pocket–half the price–and potato chips–50 cent offbranders–the extra cost same to nearly five dollars. “I didn’t order a combo meal,” I said, feeling the sting of another sugarwater ripoff.
“Yes you did.”
“No, I didn’t!” I cried. “How could I have ordered the combo meal? You and I didn’t say a single word until a second ago!”
“You asked for the combo meal and I gave it to you.” Eyes still riveted on the iPhone.
“No I didn’t. I have a drink in the car and I don’t need another.” I thrust my debit card at the clerk. “Take it off.”
Those iPhone-engrossed eyes, still downward cast. “Sorry, ma’am. I can’t do refunds without a manager.”
“Get a manager, then. I’ll wait.”
“No manager here after 2am. They don’t come in until 7.”
I could feel a vein in my forehead beginning to throb. “Just give me the difference in cash from the register,” I said.
“Can’t open the register unless you make a purchase, and if I take money out the total will be wrong and I’ll get written up.”
I squeezed my potato chips so hard that the bag popped and hissed out all the air. “What am I supposed to do then?”
The clerk–who had not made eye contact with me and appeared dead-set on never doing so–tapped the paper cup she’d set out. “Get a fountain drink.”
That was it. I hate to be the customer from hell, but sometimes one has no other option. I snatched the cup, filled it with Coke, and dug in my purse. There was no need for a lid or straw.
I returned to the counter, with the clerk iPhoning safe and smug behind the glass, with only a small depression just big enough for a paper cup underneath for unwanted combo drinks and the exchange of money. Crinkling the cup into a rough pitcher, I poured the contents into that trough.
“Hey…!” The clerk was trying to make eye contact with me now, wasn’t she? But I wasn’t done. I produced the mints that I always keep in my purse–half a roll of Mentos–and tossed them into the newly-formed soda moat. I left before the sputtering soda pop explosion had fully engulfed the counter in a sticky mess.
And that, children, is why science and math teachers are not to be trifled with.
October 20, 2012
From “A Pro-Ninja Rebuttal” by Felisa Lloyd Matsumura-Tamaribuchi
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, freedom flotilla, humor, ninjas, okinotori, pirates, pirates vs. ninjas, politics, senkaku islands, story |Leave a Comment
This piece was contributed by Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi as a rebuttal to “Black Bill” Cubbins’ article which appeared last week. We neither endorse nor condemn the views expressed therein, which remain solely those of the author. A noted pro-ninja activist, Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi has written extensively on the topic and participated in several demonstrations, including the controversial Takeshima Freedom Flotilla intended to break the pirate “blockade of the pirate-occupied territories.” The wife of the late Sensei Takeharu Matsumura-Tamaribuchi of the Black Shadow Clan, Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska.
-The Editors
It’s indicative of the pro-pirate media bias that exists in the West, with its pirate-owned and pirate-operated news and entertainment media outlets, that “Black Bill” Cubbins’ recent article has gone unchallenged for over a week at this point. I would like to specifically rebut his claims by framing them within the context of the larger ninja freedom struggle, in which I am a long-term participant.
Cubbins’ note that “ninja” is an appropriate Halloween costume cuts to the crux of the long ninja freedom struggle, in which the so-called pirates have long sought to minimize ninjas, deny our existence as a distinct group, and legitimize their occupation as “free ports” of many traditional ninja lands. If children are allowed to dress as ninjas but discouraged by pro-pirate activists from dressing as pirates, the inequity that is so often expressed in the media is ossified and ninjas find themselves further marginalized, disenfranchised, and demonized by the racist pirate policies.
In a larger sense, the issue is directly tied to the continuing, illegal, racist, fascist, and tooth-decay-promoting pirate occupation of the Takeshima, Okinotori, and Senkaku islands. You will note that I refuse as a matter of principle to use the so-called pirate names for the occupied territories (Plunder Harbor, Jolly Roger Cove, and Dead Man’s Cay). What does it matter what the children dress as for Halloween when the entire existence of the holiday indicates a monstrous indifference toward the plight of ninjas living in pirate-occupied lands? Even a child dressed as a pumpkin should be appalled that they are receiving food and clothing when so many ninjas oppressed by prates lack even basic niceties such as honed katanas and richly embroidered gis?
This Halloween, readers, discourage your children from dressing as a ninja. Discourage them from dressing as anything at all, or receiving any candy. Turn off your heat, your water, your air, your gravity. For only in lacking those most basic amenities can you (and they) understand what ninjas in pirate-occupied lands suffer every nanosecond of every day and be moved to radical political action to remedy the situation. Black Bill Cubbins used the right words, but he could have been speaking them into a mirror, for every one applies to his deceitful, wealthy, and irredeemable piratekind.
October 19, 2012
From “The 13th Scoop” by Newton T. Kirby
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: chocolate ice cream, fiction, food, humor, story |Leave a Comment
October 17, 2012
From “Record Store of Destiny” by Sal Theron II
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, humor, story |1 Comment
Ever since I found a copy of Neon Nightlife II with the first edition cover in the used CD rack for $2, I’ve tried to stop by Discus Tech in Havenbrook on the relatively infrequent occasions that I pass through town. I found it the first time by mistake while cruising around trying to find an Arby’s and a Best Buy, in that order, on the 5-lane megatraffic artery in the middle of town just off the freeway.
Thing is, I’ve almost never been able to find it since.
The road it’s on is a fustercluck, with left turns being nothing more then the fevered dream of a madman and pushy drivers anxious to make it too or from the highway always gnawing at your bumper. It’s hard enough to turn right at a light, much less anywhere else, and I always seemed to lose the store while trying to scan the roadside and drive at once. Turning around multiple times when I missed it was a pain and often not in the cards, timewise.
So when I found the shop again, I thought I’d mention it to the guy behind the counter. After all, if the place was going to stay afloat in this era of MP3 and cloud computing, it needed more than just me buying some music whenever I was in town (rarely) and could get through the door (rarer still).
“You know, your shop is really hard to find even when you know where it is,” I said.
“I’m not surprised.” The clerk lowered the sheet music he had been reading and gazed at me, white eyebrows over bifocals. “Only people who truly need this store can find it, son.”
“What?” I said.
“You must be meant to be here, to make some great purchase or otherwise shift the path of your life onto a new tangent. You can’t find the shop otherwise. Think of it like Neverending Story rules.”
I bit my lip. “Really?” It was true that Neon Nightlife II with the first edition cover was pretty awesomely, life-changingly cool (well, if you’re into that sort of music).
“Either that or this place is just really easy to miss,” the clerk said. “Take your pick.”
October 16, 2012
From “Ice Cream Burgers” by Cinda Routte McKinley
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, food, hamburger bun, hamburgers, humor, ice cream, story |[2] Comments
“Yeah, I’d like to try one of your ice cream hamburgers.”
“We don’t serve those. Would you like ice cream or a hamburger?”
“But the sign says ice cream hamburgers!”
“No, it says ice cream on one line and hamburgers on the other. It’s not a sentence or phrase.”
“Well it sure looks like one.”
“Believe me, I know. But the management won’t change it because they’re not the ones who have to answer 50 questions a day about ice cream hamburgers.”
“Are you sure you don’t have any?”
“Yes, I’m sure! How could I not know how to make something on our menu and still work here?”
“Maybe you could just try to make some.”
“How the heck would I do that, exactly? Fry up a burger and try to put it between two scoops of ice cream? It’d melt in seconds.”
“You could put a scoop of ice cream in a hamburger bun.”
“Ew. Would you really want to eat melty ice cream off a sopping wet bun? That’s normally the sort of thing people save for Cancun.”
October 15, 2012
From “A Pirate is Not a Halloween Costume” by William “Black Bill” Cubbins IV
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, halloween, humor, pirate, story |1 Comment
This plea comes to us on behalf of Black Bill Cubbins, a native pirate and chair of the American branch of the Pirate, Buccaneer, Corsair, Privateer, and Other Plunderers Anti-Defamation League (PBCPOPADL).
-The Editors
Pirates come from a number of diverse cultural and historical backgrounds, from corsairs to buccaneers to privateers to today’s modern pirates-on-the-go from Somalia or Malacca. Homogenizing this piratical diversity into the stereotypical and misleading “Captain Hook” mold denies, minimizes, disenfranchises, and other-izes pirates past, present, and future.
The stereotypical accoutrements of these misleading and insulting costumes also perpetuate negative stereotypes about pirates. Contrary to the popular Western image of pirates with cutlass and pistol, most pirates preferred to take plunder through nonviolent negotiation and treated prisoners well. The image of the tyrannical pirate captain embraced by ignorant and divisive Halloween revelers is also a hurtful fabrication: pirate captains were typically elected by the consent of the captained, making pirate ships one of the few true democracies in the world at the time.
Perhaps most inaccurate and offensive is the concept of “pirate speak” glorified in Hollywood and by divisive and disenfranchising holidays like “Talk Like a Pirate Day.” This patois, completely unlike the speech of any known pirate (who more often than not would not even converse in English) hypersexualizes and commodifies the image of the drunken and lustful pirate sailor and can result in ignorant violence against actual practicing pirates. And this doesn’t even touch on the proud tradition of lady pirates, who dressed modestly and were often mistaken for men–a far cry from the lewd and revealing “costumes” currently in vogue.
As a pirate, American, and father, I urge this year’s trick-or-treaters and their parents to support a progressive and inclusive vision of the holiday by shunning any and all pirate-themed “costumes.” Be a hobo, be a ninja, be an astronaut, but don’t be a pirate. Pirate costumes plunder us all of our dignity.
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 