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February 27, 2013

Flash Fiction: “Futuresmell”

by Derek Osedach

Futuresmell (Farmyard part 2)

bulldozersPast the distant treeline Malamute saw the cranes swinging big tubes of metal. But his pedestrian eyes were only good for initial, vague impressions. It was his snout that would tell him what he wanted to know. Malamute’s sense of smell was so fine-tuned he could could sniff from any random occurrence a level of factual detail equivalent to what a promising graduate-level scholar, engaging wholeheartedly in two-or-three days’ worth of research, could come up with. For example, a mere three sniffs into his snout-recon, Malamute knew without question that a real estate developer named Leonard Craltin—who had a sort of man crush on his Latino office intern, Phil Ricardo—had broken ground on an ambitious project to build a high-class movie theater smack in the middle of the farmyards, whether the farmers there were movie buffs or not. A forth sniff told him that Mr. Craltin had, earlier today, bullied Farmer Mongol into selling his land at a cutthroat price. Malamute didn’t like where all of this was heading, so he took a really really big breath and then, as he did on rare occasions, sniffed clear into the future, instinctively translating into usable data the inscrutable scents that swirled on the horizon. And so that’s how he discovered that Mr. Craltin would, having connived Farmer Mongol out of his land, next come to Malamute’s own employer, Farmer Jert; and would bully him into selling his poor excuse for a farm. And then poor Malamute would be out of a job, likely to get scooped up by a catcher and brought to a high security pound for dogmen. Malamute couldn’t bare to sniff any more after that. It was too stinky.

_______

Read part 1 here!

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February 18, 2013

Flash Fiction: “Farmyard”

by Derek Osedach

Farmyard (part 1)

Malamute shuffled out of the bunkhouse scratching his doughy, left glute. He was a skinny dogman with the body of a pale teenage boy, but with the thick furry head of a middle-aged Siberian Husky (growing up, he had been erroneously told by his handlers that his head belonged to the Malamute species, not Husky, hence the inaccurate moniker). His eyes were a loving, chocolaty brown and the fur which rippled softly in the wind was like snow and dirt. After sniffing miles into the wind for breakfast things, Malamute took a few steps over to where the marigolds were and he pulled down his khaki slacks and took a shiny dump right there, quite solid, impressive even. Then he walked to the tool shed, lazily working his pants back up from his waddling ankles. He didn’t wipe his arse, not yet. He wouldn’t get around to that until later, when his boss came back and demanded he do it. For now, the farm was his and his alone, and he felt he shouldn’t fret over silly human conventions. When he got the rake he went to the tomato garden and started raking the dirt there. Neither he, nor his employer, knew the first thing about farming, but early on the two of them agreed it was probably a good idea to rake the dirt (as long as there were no plants already there) at least twice a day. They believed this to have a similar function as stirring soup while it cooked. He was just about done with this when he heard the bulldozers. His big ears perked up and even hardened a little, and he two-legged galloped over to the pinewood fence and climbed halfway up to get a better look.  There was trouble brewing on the horizon…

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January 21, 2013

Search Engine Optimization: A Novel

by Derek Osedach

Search Engine Optimization: A Novel

Chapter 1. Latest Tablet Computers asks his father why he named his son ‘Latest Tablet Computers,’ and is then attacked by 100% Natural Penis Enlargement Ads.

Latest Tablet Computers Jr., a shy little boy of ten, with a soft mop of brown hair that horsetailed sometimes into his bright hazel eyes, had always wondered why his father saw fit to haze him with such a silly name. Mr. Latest Tablet Computers, a highly respected lecturer on the subject of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), himself had an equally peculiar name, and this too had always been a point of curiosity for his precocious son. Finally, one day, while playing the best version Angry Birds on his tablet computer, Latest Tablet Computers Jr. couldn’t bear it any longer and finally addressed the issue with his dad. With great effort, he pried his eyes from the tablet computer and said to his father, “Father, why did you name me Latest Tablet Computers Jr. when you could have just as easily named me Raymond?”

Mr. Latest Tablet Computers, a very serious man who was never known to pass over an opportunity to throw down some good, manly fathering, squatted low into his son’s domain and said, “Sweetheart, it’s all about SEO. It’s about repetition.” Indeed, Mr. Latest Tablet Computers was also the type of man who thought it was acceptable to refer to his son as “sweetheart,” as if the boy was an adorable girl. And Latest Tablet Computers Jr. somehow failed to find this emasculating. “You have to learn to tune your mind to how the big search engines,” continued Mr. Latest Tablet Computers, “like Google and Yahoo! and Bing crawl the internet. You have to think like a robot does.”

“Yes,” said Latest Tablet Computers Jr., his face glowing blue from the flickering screen of his tablet computer, “But I’m a boy, not a blog post. I’m not something that needs to be optimized for Google or Bing.” And then, quite unexpectedly, Latest Tablet Computers’ eyes flashed big and wide. His jaw dropped in wooden terror. A bunch of 100% Natural Penis Enlargement ads had suddenly popped up (pun intended) on the screen of his tablet computer. A moment too late, Latest Tablet Computers Jr. averted his eyes from the tablet computer and started to cry.

Chapter 2. Mr. Latest Tablet Computers rescues his son from the attack of the 100% Natural Penis Enlargement Ads, but sadly cannot rescue himself.

“Sweetheart!” Mr. Latest Tablet Computers swooped down and yoinked the tablet computer from Latest Tablet Computers Jr.’s hands and, one by one, began to close out all of the 100% Natural Penis Enlargement ads. Except, while he did this, he couldn’t help but notice some particularly flashy wording in one of the ads. It seemed to suggest, in a very confident font, that a man’s wife would really respect him if his penis was 100% naturally enlarged; and so Mr. Latest Tablet Computers, in one fluid motion, whipped out his credit card and ordered some 100% Natural Penis Enlargement pills. Though, even while feverishly typing in his account number, Mr. Latest Tablet Computers wondered what the term ‘100% Natural Penis Enlargement’ even meant. If it was so 100% natural, how was it any different from what he could do himself with the lingerie section of the Sears catalog? Still, Mr. Latest Tablet Computers ordered the pills, then closed out the remaining 100% Natural Penis Enlargement ads and handed the tablet computer to Latest Tablet Computers Jr. so the boy could continue playing the best version of Angry Birds.

Chapter 3. Mr. Latest Tablet Computers lectures his son about how all those ‘Top Ten Ways to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines’ represent only half the battle, and tells him what all of this has to do with why he named his son Latest Tablet Computers Jr.

Later on in the afternoon, Mr. Latest Tablet Computers took a long nutty sip of his coffee, and then said to his son, “Latest Tablet Computers Jr., listen up. I say it in all my lectures. If a blogger is ever going to be truly effective at SEO, he can’t just read one of those ‘Top Ten Ways to Optimize Your Blog for SEO’ and then suddenly think he knows all about how to optimize his blog for search engines. Those ‘top 10’ things are only a means to an end. You must practice practice practice until SEO comes as naturally to you as breathing. SEO must become part of you; you must ooze Top Ten SEO techniques from your pores. When you look at your skin with a microscope you must see little tiny bubbling vats of SEO.” Mr. Latest Tablet Computers shrugged his shoulders, his point being made. “So, naturally, when it came time to name you, dear boy, I simply had to go with an attention-getting keyword, a search engine darling. I had no choice. Nor did my own father, Attorney General Latest Tablet Computers. SEO isn’t some collection of cheap tricks to draw random internet traffic to your lonely web page. It’s a lifestyle.”

Chapter 4. A slightly altered version of Chapter 2 which shamelessly recycles that content, offering no new information about our characters.

Mr. Latest Tablet Computers snatched the tablet computer from Latest Tablet Computers Jr.’s hands and patiently closed out all of the 100% Natural Penis Enlargement ads. While he did this, one of the flashiest ads lassoed his eyeballs, and before he knew it he’d gotten out his credit card and ordered some 100% Natural Penis Enlargement pills. Apparently they’re the real deal. Yet, even while Mr. Latest Tablet Computers typed in the numbers of his Visa credit card, he wondered what the term ‘100% Natural Penis Enlargement’ even meant. Did this mean they would simply send him a Victoria’s Secret catalog and say “Have fun”? Then he closed out the rest of the 100% Natural Penis Enlargement ads and handed the tablet computer to Latest Tablet Computers Jr. so the boy could continue playing the best version of Angry Birds.

———

Sometimes, hoping to discover new ways to increase internet traffic to practicallyserious.com, I check out random blog posts that have to do with SEO. Usually these posts come in a “top ten tips” kinda format (like this one); and, though helpful, if you’ve read one you’ve read them all. Seems like one of the go-to techniques is simple repetition of search-friendly phrases. Reiteration. This isn’t all that hard to pull off, especially if you have one of those Martha Stewart-kinda informative blogs. However, I have yet to find one that recognizes the existence of blogs that deal mostly with fiction and prose. How are flash-fiction-friendly blogs supposed to optimize their content for search engines? Is it even possible? So, as an experiment, I wrote Search Engine Optimization: A Novel.  Bring on the traffic!

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January 11, 2013

Flash Fiction: “Cat Puppeteer”

by Derek Osedach

Cat Puppeteer

Many nights, after C15 (the cyborg) checked the food bowl to make sure Ston had considered the food, he switched on the laser pointer embedded in his fingertip and went in search for the cat. When he found him lazing on the couch in the ship’s entertainment room he got his attention quick by putting a laser dot on the wall and shaking it around. Ston’s eyes turned black with fun-madness and he sunk low to the ground, butt in the air, ready to pounce. C15 then moved the dot to the couch, to right in front of Ston’s front paws, and he jiggled it there to watch Ston jiggle his head. C15 loved to feel like a puppeteer of the cat. He could control exactly how fast Ston jiggled his head and when he froze too.

Ston didn’t look safe to cuddle at moments like that, right before an attack on the dot. He looked like he was receiving commands from a separate universe where all the cats are nervous and have black pupils. At last Ston launched at the jittering dot. C15 then made the dot dart back up to the wall, and Ston ricocheted madly after it. Finally the cat gave up and returned to his pre-launch posture; head down, butt up. His eyes still black with excitement, and sharply following the laser bug on the wall. C15 was happy when Ston’s eyes were mad with fun, because it meant he was still young and had plenty of good vibrant cat years ahead of him.

___________

To learn a little more about C15, check out the following short story!

Box of Peaches

Or, for a practicallyserious article about what usually goes on in a cat’s mind, click here!

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January 7, 2013

Flash Fiction: “The Crawling Hand (with a gun)”

by Derek Osedach

The Crawling Hand (with a gun)

crawling hand The Crawling Hand (with a gun) inched toward the man in the fancy leather reading chair. It wasn’t just hand—there were a few inches of forearm too, pale and springy with hair, but this, rather unceremoniously, gave way to streamers and flaps of purple flesh that wetly brushed along the floor. In dreadful fits and starts the whole ghastly thing catepillared onwards, twitching and quivering between the cold, comfortless furniture. Occasionally the perfect curve of the pistol’s barrel caught a somber glow from the fireplace. Finally, the beastly thing came to a rest about two yards from where Anthony Smeegle sat—quite near the ashy bluestone hearth. Veins bulged beneath parched skin as the Crawling Hand (with a gun) deftly shifted the .45 until its muzzle set a spiteful eye on Smeegle.

Yet the large, stolid Smeegle didn’t budge an inch. Since he’d first caught sight of the thing on the floor, he’d fallen prey to a paralyzing fear; not borne of the ghastly abomination itself, but of the terrible likelihood that he’d, after so many years on the brink of it, finally crossed over into madness. Now his breath plumed visibly from his lips in quick bursts; despite the large, crackling fire nearby, the room tonight harbored an inexplicable chill. Frost cornered the window behind him, obscuring an otherwise serene vista of the moonlit beach.

On the floor the Crawling Hand shifted its odd grip on the gun, in order that its pointer finger could find solid purchase on the trigger. Then, finally, all the necessary muscles contracted. The gun discharged with a riotous crash. The kickback literary spun the Hand counter-clockwise ninety degrees. Some blood from its own flesh-streamers spritzed the smooth oak legs of a nearby chair.

Now, between Anthony’s legs, in the flesh of the leather reading chair, there showed a definite, value-depreciating hole. By the time his ears stopped ringing, the smell of gunpowder stung at his nose. That’s when his jaw dropped like a cellar door, and he issued the most appalling, high-pitched cry a man of his bulk could possibly generate without first swallowing a lungful of helium. A damp spot bloomed in the crotch of his slacks, ribbons of steam rising up through the chilly air, commingling with the black smoke of singed leather.

The Hand (with a gun) crawled and dragged its way back to firing position and, seeming to understand there was no great rush, trained the gun with far greater care than before on the large man’s bosom. Then for a second time it pulled the trigger, but the hammer rung dry on the firing pin. No more cartridges! For a moment the Hand bobbed irresolutely on its wrist, as if only then considering the technicalities of reloading a firearm with only one “hand” available.

In moments the Crawling Hand (with a gun) seemed to understand that the unexpected crisis wasn’t, after all, going to hamper it’s devilish plans. For Anthony had already, and indubitably, expired. In the chair by the window he was frozen bolt upright, his eyes bulging glass orbs, his stark expression frozen solid in a cold visage of blood-curdling fright. His hands were like the roots of an old, dead oak. Moments after the shot had rung out,  Anthony’s heart, ever under duress from supporting so sturdy a man in the first place, tore and deflated right there in his chest. Now his tongue was a purple thing huddled sideways in his hanging mouth. In this frightful posture the other fellows of the Tsunami Beach Club found him. And not a one of them noted any long streak of blood on the floorboards, nor the bullet-hole in the chair, because these things had somehow departed the scene as cleanly as had the Crawling Hand (with a gun).

Copyright 2013 Derek Osedach

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January 4, 2013

Flash Fiction: “Brain Polaroids”

by Derek Osedach

Brain Polaroids (Crazy Moths IV)

The boy Sky woke and there was crust in his eyes that kept the lids together, which was good, because otherwise he would have seen the moth on the headrest. Not a moment too soon—right when his eyelids were strong enough to break the crust—he remembered the rules: Don’t look up or there they’ll be. The world opened bright around him and he gazed down at his lap. To survey the scene he used only his ears and his hands. He could tell he was in the station wagon, that was easy. Quite well he knew the plasticky smell of the seatskin, and he could feel the hum of the engine idling beneath him. Next he decided his head ached. He touched it and it hurt more. And a moth flew away, like it had been sleeping on his eyebrow all this time. It tickled the bottom of his wrist and then bounced off the ceiling. The wind on his plump little arms told him the doors were open. The doors shouldn’t be open.

And so, like his mom taught him to do when it was absolutely necessary; he polaroided. This means he shot a super-quick glance out through the window and then back down to the safety of his lap, and while staring at his lap he let the image develop in his mind. It came slow, like when you jiggleshook a picture from the old Polaroid camera his dad had. The colors and edges and things came as chemicals. The picture developed. It was the fun wooden play structure at Veteran’s Park. The station wagon had apparently parked right up against the metal bars, in the sand. Sky didn’t know you could do that. More parts of the picture joined together. His dad (!) sat on the upper level of the play structure getting ready to go down the metal slide. Sky didn’t know why his dad would risk being out in the open. The slide wasn’t even good. It screeched and slowed your butt down. One time in the summer Sky and his brother took butter to the park, to put on the slide, but it melted in his pocket when they were still on Middle Road. More of the picture: there were bugs up there with Sky’s dad, clouding his hair. They were probably moths, and Sky’s dad wasn’t even looking down at the ground like he was supposed to. Then the rest of the picture came. Next to the play structure was where the swings were with the heavy rubber seats. His brother was there, wobblestanding on one of the swings, holding the chains to keep from falling. Stand-swinging. This is a fun thing to do, but not when there were moths all around like you’re a lightbulb.

“Why are you playing,” he screamed to his knees, but his dad and brother were having so much fun they didn’t answer. Sky was too confused still to be properly horrified. He did a follow-up Polaroid, and this time when it developed his dad was already buttsqueaking down the slide, getting nowhere, and his brother was still on the swing. The two of them didn’t seem scared of the moths. And because he really wanted to, Sky started to think that maybe the moths were finally safe to look at again. This must be the case because why are dad and Joey out there? Then he got mad and clenched his fists and thought: I’ll make sure it’s the case. I’ll go play.

That’s when he heard a nearby collision, a metallic rattle. Someone somewhere had run into something, probably one of those green metal baskets they got all around the park, the ones that protect the garbage cans. He listened carefully then for more noise. Feet, running on sidewalk, sand, coming towards the car. Sky didn’t think it was a tanglebrain because tanglebrains didn’t run. They were too crazy to want to run.

To better gauge the situation, Sky polaroided sideways towards where the sound was— real fast, then back to his lap. The picture barely had time to develop: it was a very-short person, maybe a kid like him. It was running kinda towards him, kinda not. Running bent forward like his head was a battering ram. On his head was a Halloween monster mask with a roaring blue-green lizard face with rubber teeth and tongue included, though the rubber on one side of the face was partially melted and collapsed. The weird plastic face turned into black fuzz for the rest of the mask, starting from the forehead, like hair. It was one of those whole-head masks. There were tiny eyeholes for the person to see out of, too, but there was no way they lined up properly with the eyes. The mask person was very very close to the station wagon by the time the brain-polaroid had finished developing in Sky’s head. Not a moment later he heard the mask person smash headfirst into the side of the car, then collapse into the sand.

“Hey,” Sky yelled. “Did you die?”

It was a kid who responded. Sky thought maybe he was as old as Joey. “No. Come with me.” His words came hollow from beneath the big rubber jaw.

“I’m gonna play with Joey.”

“Are those your family?” said Mask.

“Yeah. What’s your name?”

“Hector. And your family is cuckoo, you can’t play with them. Come with me to my dad in the trailer.”

“Don’t say that.”

“They’re cuckoo,” said Hector. “Just look at them! Actually don’t.”

“Don’t say that,” but by then Sky was already out of the car and following Hector away from the car and the park. Toward the trees. Hector ran in a weird snake pattern but Sky managed to keep behind him by staring at the heels of his shoes. They were brand new Jordans that were too big for him. Behind, Sky heard the squeak of the swings as his older brother changed his grip on the chains.

_________

I wanted to kick the new year off with a subject near and dear to my heart: moths that make you go insane.

To catch up with the Crazy Moths franchise, check out the other installments!

Crazy Moths (Crazy Moths I)

It is I Who Lick the Garbage (Crazy Moths II)

Billy Wiff (Crazy Moths III)

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December 31, 2012

Flash Fiction: “Leap in Literacy”

by Derek Osedach

Leap in Literacy

Jert kept his word. After dinner the lessons began. First it was kiddie books with the really big words that you could read from the other side of the room in the dark if you already knew how to read. Stowaway Lahluu followed the words with her finger. It was like a car driving on crazy roads. She tried to sound out the sounds but got too distracted watching her finger, so she had to wait for Jert to sound out most of the word and then she’d just finish it for him. But soon she learned to stop with the finger and focus on what sounds the letters made. She read through a book about a baby Death Dog with Jert only filling in sounds once in a while. Gradually she got through the books with less and less Jert until she read a whole book all by herself.

Copyright 2012 Derek Osedach

_________

I dedicate this epic tale to all my Americorps friends.

Need more Jert? Follow this link.

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December 27, 2012

Flash Fiction: “Box of Peaches”

by Derek Osedach

Box of Peaches

box of peachesEnsign Dan sat at the washing machine which was covered in a cut-open v-neck tee shirt stretched into a tablecloth. The thick slices of spacespam lay in rows on a chipped serving dish. Ensign Dan took three slices on his plate and poured his catfood tin full of orange juice. He fished a clump of catfood out of the juice.

C15 came in and sat down opposite him. “It’s better if you scrub off all the leftover catfood bits before you used it as a cup,” he explained. “This way it doesn’t flavor the juice.”

“I like how I do it,” lied Dan. He picked another bit of catfood and flicked it away.

At about that time his captain came in then and Ensign Dan could tell by the distant look in his eyes that he’d been reading Spaceman Shenanigans again, but Dan wanted to know for sure. With his foot he slid the crate of peaches from nearby the washing machine into his captain’s walkin’ path. His oblivious captain walked smack into the crate and fell headlong onto the washing machine, planting his face into the tray of spam.

Ensign Dan jumped up from his seat, infuriated by the consequence of his own unnecessary experiment. “Why’d you go and do that?”

His captain, Jert, climbed back up to his feet. He shook clean his prescription sunglass and wiped a huge glob of spam from his face onto the floor, all of which Ensign Dan thought was a waste of spam. “Well who the hell put the peaches right in the middle of where we walk?” Jert never liked it very much when it was time to return from his daydreams.

“It was C15,” said Dan. “I saw him.”

C15 didn’t pipe in, as Dan knew he wouldn’t. C15 was a cyborg, and was bound by the Three Laws of Robotics. Or at least that’s what the fellow seemed to think. It was highly debatable as to whether or not the fabled Three Laws of Robotics applied also to cyborgs—regular people with some robotic enhancements. But C15, for whatever reason, seemed convinced this was the case. My point being: C15 knew that to contradict Dan would be to risk breaking the coveted First Law of Robotics—No Robot Shall Ever Harm a Human. If C15 revealed Dan to be lying, Jert Zylan would surely smack Dan in the back of the head, and this would most definitely harm Dan.

Ensign Dan made sure to take advantage of this Three Laws stuff every chance he got. Got him out of quite a few scrapes.

Jert wiped some more spam from his face as he turned to C15. “Is this true? Did you move the peaches?”

C15 spent a moment projecting the “harm” that would ensue if he simply played along with Dan’s selfish game. Lying to a human could be harmful in its own ways. But, ultimately, C15 decided that lying to Jert would harm Jert to a far lesser degree than telling the truth to Jert would harm Dan. “Yes,” said C15. “It was me.”

Jert gave him a long, disgusted look. “I swear you’re defective. As soon as I find the receipt I’m taking you back. You’re still under warranty, you know.”

But Jert would never find the receipt because Ensign Dan had long ago crumpled it into a little ball and flushed it down the toilet. He’d had to flush three times because it got stuck. It was a constant fear of his that Jert would one day replace C15 with another cyborg, and that that one would be well aware he didn’t have to follow any stupid robot laws. Dan knew that without the Three Laws of Robotics, he, and not C15, would be the scapegoat of the group. Things as they were, he was perfectly secure in his position as vice-scapegoat.

Once Jert sat down all the spacespam disappeared rapidly. Ensign Dan followed the other two across the control room to the command station, where the dusty computer was. He listened as they came up with an idea for where they should go and C15 typed some commands into the old yellowing keyboard and Jert gave the order to engage engines at maximum blast. They had decided to visit the planet of Sacktown. Rumor had it there were huge deposits of quartz in the mountains there, and the robot parts of C15 needed quartz in the same way the other parts of him needed spam. Ensign Dan had also heard tell of a terrible terrible beast that roamed the prairies there, but he didn’t think to mention this to his friends.

_______

This story is a prequel to Jert Zylan vs. The Cytard. Check it out!

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December 19, 2012

Crazy Moths: Billy Wiff

by Derek Osedach

Crazy Moths: Billy Wiff (Crazy Moths III)

wiffhouseAt daybreak Billy Wiff stumbled out the front door of his parents’ house and stood for a moment staring off into the quiet neighborhood. He was a scrawny, pale-skinned boy with a large dimple on his left cheek, with callused fingers, dented and white at the tips from playing sad songs on the guitar about his family. His eyes were an unfocused brown and the hair that flopped thick in the breeze was plenty long enough to cover much of his face. Billy was playing with the collar of his too-big leather coat. He popped the collar up in the back and folded it back down again. The coat belong to his father and had a collar that was good to pop up at the back of the neck if you could get it right. When he finally got it how he liked it, Billy’s posture deteriorated fluidly into a brooding slouch. This was automatic. Also automatic: he pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds from his pocket and put one to his lips and lit it. But he’d put it in backwards and when he tried to inhale there was a weird hiss and a bubbling smelltaste. This was something that happened occasionally, because he was nearsighted to the point where he was considered legally blind, and a cigarette was just a uniform white stick to him. After he finished coughing he tried the whole thing again and got it right. Then with cigarette dangling from bottom lip he walked across the front yard to the big black car of his grandma. He maintained a bad boy swagger because he wasn’t afraid of the moths that he could feel, even then, fluttering all around him. He wasn’t afraid because he was too blind to see the bad designs on their wings. He couldn’t see far and he couldn’t see close. Since he’d stomped his bifocals to smithereens two months ago on the back patio, he’d begun to forget even what his own face looked like. Everything he did either by generalizing colorful shapes, or simply by touch. He found the doorhandle of the 77 Malibu Classic and let himself into the car, and he had hardly settled in when a bone-chilling crash of metal and glass came from somewhere over the trees, a few streets down. Some poor fool who’d managed to keep his wits all the way up until now, maybe by wearing blindfolds; or locking himself in the basement, eating dry rice from a sack; had decided finally to venture out into the daylight and take his chances with the moths. Billy wondered if it was someone he knew from high school, and then started the engine and put the car in drive so he could get more smokes. By now he’d memorized his way around the greenish sliding blur that was his neighborhood, all the way to the gas station, and he had no reason to suspect that today’s cigarette run would unfold any differently than any other day.

Copyright 2012 Derek Osedach

_____________

Catch up with the Crazy Moths serial before it starts getting particularly wild:

Crazy Moths

It is I Who Lick the Garbage (Crazy Moths II)

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November 13, 2012

Flash Fiction: “The Barbarian Crazylegs”

by Derek Osedach

The Barbarian Crazylegs

The barbarian Xatmec Crazylegs whirled his broadsword down on the man with a skull for a face, who parried weakly and made his own attempt on Xatmec’s exposed shin. In a wild blur of metal Xatmec lifted the imperiled leg and stomped the attacking blade down into the stone floor, holding it there with all his weight; the grounded sword wobbled and bowed under his boot.

With nothing much else to do, the unsightly cretin simply gaped at the horribly bulbous barbarian who’d bested him. Xatmec was a giant, with an enormous sweep of breast and the shoulders of an ox. He wore a tattered robe of deerskin that fell lightly over a beaten leather girdle. Gripping a chinked sword as heavy as a man, his forearms were massive with corded muscle. His great legs were at the same time fat and lean, like those of the man-eating megahorses.

“Are you ready to boil in hell?” spat Xatmec. He waited somewhat patiently for the other to respond, and then it occurred to him that perhaps the man couldn’t talk. Perhaps, during his Bone Ceremony—when, with obsidian blade, he’d flayed skin and muscle neatly off his face, leaving unmolested only his red watery eyes—he severed his tongue as well. But Xatmec grew bored with such insipid musings, and, in blatant defiance of physics, lashed his hefty leg upwards in a violent crescent kick. The speeding bulk of his leg summoned a strong gust of wind that rattled the enemy’s silver earrings, and then the barbarian’s leather boot connected with the other man’s throat. In a wet pop the man’s windpipe imploded. Unable to breathe, his’ white jaw hung limp. The pupils of his eyeballs vanished up into the shadows of his sockets.

Xatmec took note of the panicked tongue inside the jaw, then, with his massive hand he gripped the entirety of his enemy’s face, and then crushed it like it were an ugly porcelain vase. The bone crunched and popped into a dozen terrible flakes. Freed from their cradle of bone, the bone-face’s eyeballs dangled and rolled over a tongue buried in brittle white shards and speckled with unsightly skull liquids. As a desperate gurgling sound rose up from a now-faceless throat, the eyeballs wobbled on their bed of bone gravel and tongue and blood and brain wrinkles. As Xatmec left the dark chamber he noted with amusement that his enemy was still alive, stumbling around the room sprinkling bone bits on the floor. Choking on his own eyes.

copyright 2012 Derek Osedach

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