Tag Archives: short stories

Witch and Warlock – A Short Story in 4 Installments

Photo by Clotee Pridgen Allochuku

Photo by Clotee Pridgen Allochuku

FIRST INSTALLMENT

The maître d had misunderstood him. Peter wasn’t annoyed she’d already come and gone before he’d even made it to the restaurant; it was that she’d left and was coming back. That she’d allowed him a blissful moment where the burden of performance had been lifted, as if he’d unshouldered the weighted jogging vest his mother had bought him hoping he’d finally “get serious” about being over forty. Gone was any hope of an idyllic near future: alone in his apartment out of his pants, wallowing in buffalo wings and cowardice, rummaging the DVR backlog for his favorite extreme reality shows, the kind where the host basically has to cannibalize himself to survive the last inhospitable terrains left on the planet.

It was the maître d—Peter’s mother loved hearing there were still places with maître d’s—thinking he was doing anyone but himself a favor, who blocked Peter’s view of his own fantasy by handing him the woman’s purse and relaying her message she had to take care of some urgent business but was committed to their evening, hence the leaving behind of her purse.

Blind dates were their own form of inhospitable terrain, Peter thought.

But he took the purse. He surprised himself. This guy who just a minute ago was the picture of a pantless coward making love to barbecue sauce accepting responsibility for a stranger’s personal property. A stranger who was either a very trusting person or, more likely, too crazy to care. Really, what did he know about this woman? Her name, what she did for a living, a fleeting impression of what she looked like. And her taste in handbags—not the “cargo ships” his mother went for, but a sleeker, red leather square with a flap that clasped in the front like an envelope. That was supposed to clasp. That couldn’t clasp, because the purse was overstuffed and something at the top of the pile inside fell out when he tried to figure out how to hold the thing and still hold on to his masculinity. The maître d smiled dumbly at him, maybe seeing in this situation the makings of something romantic. Probably, Peter thought, vaguely aware he might be projecting, the guy was just happy to have released himself of his obligation to the woman. The maître d did pick up what had fallen, a compact case, and carried it with him as he led Peter to a secluded table in the back corner of the restaurant. An intimately lit, lean enough to lean across to kiss kind of table. Not at all close to the nearest exit. Okay, so the guy was a romantic and she wasn’t a complete stranger, red leather purse owning Allison Dawner, marketing consultant, a strawberry blond? with blue eyes? a friend of a friend of his co-worker. Still, he couldn’t vouch for her sanity.

Like it mattered. He almost laughed out loud. They all went to shit in the end anyway. The blind dates, the Internet dates, the meet-up groups that spun out into dates. Even the dates that turned into longer term relationships. How long had any of those shit storms lasted? He guessed six months was his personal record. At the very least this date was beginning unlike any of the others. The maître d wished him good luck and instructed a busboy to bring out a glass of the house red, compliments of the house. Peter discovered he wasn’t immediately envious of the other couples in the restaurant, the ones who didn’t have to perform for each other. Maybe it was the wine, but tonight felt different. So what, he thought, let it be the wine. He was going to enjoy a fresh beginning before it all went to shit.

His mother used to say relationships were a numbers game. He had to keep trying, every failure brought him that much closer to a success. She’d been saying that since he was in high school and she repeated it every Thursday when they got together for chicken salad sandwiches and a few hands of gin rummy. When he’d turned forty she took a harder line. Like she’d set an alarm when he was born and now it was finally going off. Maybe he wasn’t taking good enough care of himself, or maybe he didn’t understand how to treat a woman. Or god something had happened to alter his brain chemistry. She’d read somewhere that it sometimes happened to men in middle age. Should he be on medication? Should he try some of her medication? Peter did his best to explain to her that it took two people to unravel a relationship and each of his doomed unions had been its own particular mess. The only constant was that they never worked out. He guessed he was just unlucky. And maybe stupid, because he kept at it, kept playing the game, hoping the odds would eventually land in his favor. His mother wasn’t convinced. He’d found a baggie with four of her Lexapro secreted inside a pocket of his jogging vest.

The wine tasted like a dessert topping; what Peter’s brain was turning into. Bad idea drinking on an empty stomach. How many of those dates had ended prematurely? He flagged down a waiter and asked for a basket of bread. He had to stop thinking about his mother. If she was on his mind he’d bring her up and how many of those—what was that?—how many of those—something was catching light, irritating his eye.

Build A Story With Bryan 2013 – Story in Verse Continues

Photo by Voskos

Photo by Voskos

Hello fellow story-builders! Hope the week is treating you well so far, but not too well that you can’t still raise your spirits with a rhyming line or two. As you can see our story’s grown since the last post, but this tale is still in its infancy. Give it a read and then add your own verses, let’s collectively rear this thing into a fine upstanding literary citizen.  Okay? Okay. Thanks for reading, thanks for playing.

Here’s what we have so far:

The old man who smelled of memory loss leaned in

He said “Pull my finger” then grinned.

It felt cold and omniscient as a skeleton key

And once tugged a door did fall open before me. 

The past lay before me, all musty and grim

My hope for some cheer grew depressingly slim.

I first saw my teacher, from elementary school

Who said I was foolish, as well as a fool.

No fool I am, said I, proudly

It is you, I proclaimed loudly

Oh really? he mused with his dogcatcher’s sneer

Wasn’t me who sunk the spelling bee in a puddle of fear.

The old man at my side flicked his tongue, then his finger

And the teacher quickly vanished, not a trace of him lingered.

Replaced by another, a familiar face less unfriendly

A girl whose smile and whose spine were quite plastic and bendy.

Build A Story With Bryan 2013

Illustration by W.W. Denslow

Illustration by W.W. Denslow

It’s time once again for Build A Story With Bryan! Our first round is a story in verse that be rhymin’. I’ve started us out with the first four lines, and you adding on to them is the whole design. Two lines per builder are preferred but one line will do, any participation at all in this madness will be a major coup.

Below’s how we start, in 36 words I’m relaying, and thank you as always for reading and playing.

The old man who smelled of memory loss leaned in

He said “Pull my finger” then grinned

It felt cold and omniscient as a skeleton key

And once tugged a door did fall open before me.   

Build A Story With Bryan #5 – The Final Story

Here it is, in all its Circus Maximus glory, the full and final story for this Circus Maximus of a Build A Story Round 5.  This one’s a doozy, in process for about four months and clocking in at over 3,000 words. Thanks to everyone who contributed and to everyone who’s been following along. And a very special thanks to Scott Ritchie once again for his enthusiastic creativity.

Have a read and let me know what you think!

Mrs. Blendinson had certainly entertained a foolish thought in her day, had even been married to one for twenty-five of them, but never had she been so resolute in her belief that this foolish thought, the one occurring to her now while she rooted through the neighbor’s trash, this was the foolish thought that if acted upon would put her back on top.

“If I can just find that clown nose,” she mused, “I’ll prove once and for all that the circus debacle was all Mr. Freddie’s fault, not mine!”

Mrs. Blendinson’s musings, unlike her foolish thoughts, took on the affect of a nobler woman, usually a duchess of some vague royal lineage, the kind who would never consort with a sad clown and his dim associates, who endured scandal with a stiff upper lip and dry eyes, not a stiff drink and stolen credit card.       

In spite of her contemplative irrational thoughts and ramblings of life on the road with the circus, there were times with Mr. Freddie that were downright playful. Even though there were moments of joy and ecstasy, they somehow turned into long hours of nervous, frightful horror. Mrs. Blendinson remembered the time when she and Issey (Issey was Mr. Freddie’s self-appointed first name) created an impromptu beach setting at midnight behind the pup tent, which was just south of the Big Top. Mrs. Blendinson smiled to herself with the contentment only a woman in her 70’s could understand as she reflected on the unusual foreplay that occurred prior to the laying of the blanket.

But then she remembered that fateful BBQ afterward. She frowned, and her entire visage changed from nobility to something far less regal – vengeful. “That Mr. Freddie, and all the Freddies,” she mumbled. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

And with that, the circus was relegated to a forgotten compartment in the portmanteau of her mind, for her new resolve was building, the resolve that drove her to reach inside the hem of her dress and pull out the thin strip of microfilm hidden within the gingham. She slipped it into the clown nose that she’d finally found, planning on the perfect place to leave it, where it would be found “by accident.” She looked around furtively, the microfilm/nose mélange secreted in the pocket that once held recipes for blancmange and other favorites.

“Outta my trash, Blendinson!”

She smiled and checked the diamond-studded watch that had been strapped to her wrist when she’d accidentally fled from Zales the other day. Right on time, her neighbor’s five a.m. ritual, a stumble into the bathroom and back, with a glance out the kitchen window, occasionally to check for raccoons, mostly for her. Mrs. Blendinson waved before she looked up and winced. Ruffy was out of his makeup, but his face still looked painted: purple-black around the eyes, yellowed cheekbones. That and a sweaty fistful of G. Washingtons his likely compensation for starring in another Clown Fight video the area college kids were always staging in the alleyway behind the fried chicken restaurant. Ruffy had fallen on hard times ever since the circus stopped employing sad clowns.

 Mrs. Blendinson wondered if he’d like to help her make a different kind of dishonest wage today, although she couldn’t promise his nose wouldn’t get smashed in with a clown shoe for his trouble.

“Well?” he snapped.

She stuck a quick tongue over her shoulder, and yanked a pink and white cheap leather bag from the bottom of the trash. She could use this, even with one strap broken. She slung the good one over her shoulder and the bag became her shield. Now she turned saucily, determined to put Ruffy back in his clown car for good but the window was empty.

She bent and retrieved her Smirnoff, uncapped it and took a sip, acrid in the morning, trash-laced air. She made a face and began her waddle back to her place. She had plans.

As she approached the caravan she called home, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She was certain that she’d shut and locked it. She always triple-checked it every time she went out. If Freddie had used his key to go in without her permission again he was going to be sorry!

She opened her door with some trepidation, calling out, “Hello? Is that you?” in her sing-song lilt. “No, it’s not me,” a strange voice answered back, sending chills down Mrs. Blendinson’s gingham-clad spine.

She stepped inside, sensed a presence in the kitchen, and lifted her new bag to her chest once more. But she paused, still in the hall, when she saw the revolver on the kitchen table next to an open Smirnoff bottle, her last. She stepped fully into the light and the view of a four hundred pound brown bear tossing back a shot of vodka with a raspy snarl.

“Daaaaaaaaamn!” it complained, shaking its massive head at the vodka’s bite. It noticed Mrs. Blendinson and swept up the pistol expertly.

“All right, now, Marjorie, easy does it.” He jerked the gun twice to the empty chair opposite.

Mrs. Blendinson slipped heavily onto it and her whole body seemed to slump in defeat.

“Daisy,” she stated.

“Goddamn right, only I’m done with the dancing.” Daisy the Dancing Bear used both paws to draw back the hammer on the gat. “Have a pop,” he commanded.

“A pop? I don’t think so,” Mrs. Blendinson sneered. “My father disappeared twenty years ago.” Since bears don’t understand puns, especially bad ones, Daisy faltered for a moment. This was Mrs. Blendinson’s only chance. “I have it,” she blurted. “What you want. I know what it is and I know where it is. I have it. I know right where to-

“Allllllright, fer Chrissake, shaddap!” Daisy brought a massive claw to his furry ear and dug at it angrily. “You don’t even know why I’m here,” he grumbled and adjusted his vest and its gleaming watch chain.

“Yes, but…” Then, very softly, daintily, she slid a box of bear treats onto the plaid tablecloth and looked up with a devilish anticipation. Her greasepaint smile grew as she saw she was right.

Daisy’s eyes never left the box. He let his grip on the pistol loosen then set it down altogether. He licked his lips. When Marjorie Blendinson swept up the box, he rose to his massive eight-foot height.

Mrs. Blendinson was wary, her head bent at an unusual angle. She had to be careful. She held the box out shakily even as her foot disappeared into the draped pantry and fished out a massive red circus ball. She shook the box and tapped the ball at Daisy.

“Up you go,” she hissed through her smile.

Daisy leapt upon the ball and balanced perfectly, head erect, paws at Ports de Bras. Mrs. Blendinson shook out a treat and tossed it. Daisy caught it perfectly, took two rolls forward and two back, bumping the table. Mrs. Blendinson’s eyes darted to the pistol. She shook the box into her palm again only… nothing came out. Daisy saw it. She saw it.

Empty.

Daisy crashed onto the tabletop and snagged the gun. He rolled back into his chair, out of breath and disappointed in himself. “Alll right, Blendinson. Think you’re smart. I told you I’m done with that shit.”

“Wait, I have more,” Mrs. Blendinson desperately stammered, “Some sardines, maybe.”

“What am I, a trained seal? I think not.” He paused. “It’s time, toots,” he said with chilling finality.

The words drew her feet under her involuntarily. Her heart skipped a beat as one of them encountered her salvation. She drew that foot forward and certainly rolled over it again. She lifted her foot and stole a glance. One of the bear treats must have been shaken from the box. She dipped quickly at the waist, causing Daisy to re-aim threateningly.

“Hey there, toots. Alright. No sudden moves.” he snarled. And then, “Harry!”

And out of the wash room stepped the sword swallower in top hat, head tilted toward the ceiling, eyes fixed on Mrs. Blendinson. And it was at that point the forgotten compartment of the sealed portmanteau in her mind was blown supernaturally open.

“H…H…Harry?” she stammered. “But I thought you’d burnt up into a colorful cinder! Didn’t I, I mean didn’t someone?”

“You overcharged my flame thrower, Blendinson,” he snarled. “But I faked the cinder part.”

“It’s time for a reckoning,” Daisy growled. “Show time.”

Just then there was a loud banging on the door. “Are you in there, Blendinson?” called a low rumbling voice. No, she thought. It can’t possibly be. And then the door flung open.

The fat man.

Rounder than a wrecking ball, he turned sideways to enter, allowing the midget to scamper past his knees, careful to duck under the thunderous overhanging gut.

“You have to be defecating me!” Blendinson stammered. Her little kitchen was getting crowded.

“Shaddap,” snapped Daisy. “The circus is in town and we ain’t leaving without the photos.”

Mrs. Blendinson produced the clown nose, micro film secreted within, and fixed it firmly on her own.

The fat man swatted it off. Mrs. Blendinson watched it skip out of sight under the stove until the fat man’s sweat-spotted face filled her vision with its foul labored breath.

“You making fun of us, Blendinson?”

Mrs. Blendinson couldn’t answer. Couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten to this point or what she should do next. She cursed Mr. Freddie. Wait until she saw him again. She was planning on pulling out her aristocratic air when her eye was drawn to her wrist, where the midget had just swiped her stolen, diamond-studded watch. The Little Man lifted it to his big ear, an island in his thinning hair, and smiled. She could only watch her watch as he winked and pocketed it. Something had to be done.

“I want you all to know,” she began. “That even though I was flattered you thought of me for our barbecue, I never said cooking was my strong suit. Now, the three pounds of laxatives I left carelessly above the stove must have accidentally fallen into the maplewood baked beans when I had my back turned. ”

Her visitors looked at one another remembering with a certain…discomfort.  And then very conspicuously their eyes settled on Daisy.  

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, so bears don’t just shit in the woods. Satisfied?” Daisy showed her teeth to Mrs. Blendinson. “You got to the count of ten to cough up dem photos. Or I turn your insides into maplewood baked beans.”

The fat man again leered in her face. The short bursts of rancid air he flushed from his nostrils were mind-altering enough for Mrs. Blendinson to wonder if she might be back outside rooting through Ruffy’s garbage.

“I got it, Stanley, please,” she said, trying to close her own nostrils without using her hands and triggering Daisy’s gun. “One…two…three…four…” And then, just to keep things interesting, she started counting again. This time, backwards.

The Sword Swallower advanced, head tipped skyward, voice full of silver menace. “Marjorie, we of the center ring request the photos so impudently snapped in our moment of disrepose…if you please.”

Mrs. Blendinson’s eye twitched. Her foot rolled the bear treat two revolutions. She steeled herself. “Disrepose…is not a word.”

Harry’s eyes flamed and his Adam’s apple convulsed, as a monkey on a stick. His jaw distended and his hand disappeared inside, only to emerge clutching the coiled handle of a saber, drawing its spit streaked length continuously out of his throat until clear. He sliced the air and brought the blade to rest at Marjorie’s cheek.

“Are you feeling us, madam? Your act is drawing to a close.”

“Under the stove,” she stammered. “On microfilm inside the clown nose under the stove.”

Daisy’s massive paw sent the table sliding across the room in one move.

Meanwhile, a “Timeless Travel” taxi pulled to a stop in front of the small trailer bungalow. The passenger door creaked open, rusty from disuse.

Inside, Daisy fell to his knees and laid the pistol on the linoleum. His paw wouldn’t fit beneath, and his head was too massive for either eye to see. He swung his snout in irritation.

“You, hors d’oeuvres, get over here,” he commanded.

The midget stomped over angrily, and raised his fist, the one wearing the watch. “You want the time, Gentle Ben?”

Daisy cuffed the midget under the stove with a CLANG! It came back with lint in its little hair and a jujube stuck to its cheek. But it was holding the clown nose.

Daisy’s eye caught something rolling toward him. Could it be?

Marjorie bet it all on this moment.

Harry was distracted, the Fat Man, too labored to react. Mrs. Blendinson swung her pink and white leather bag off the chair behind her and draped it over the sword-swallower’s saber. With all of the act’s momentum, she charged him past the Fat Man and into the laundry room, into shelving that collapsed boxes of detergent onto his head. The midget grabbed up Daisy’s pistol but Daisy didn’t care until after he’d swallowed the treat and, of course, by then it was too late.

The midget smiled at Mrs. Blendinson, signaling their new partnership in crime until she kicked him into the wall at thirty miles an hour with her shoe.
She snatched up the pistol and the clown nose and spun.

“Allllllllllllllllllllllllriiiiiiiiiiiiight,” she hissed.

The moment breathed, short and thin with tension. Marjorie’s focus flit face to face. Every eye glistened with a scheme. Even the midget, splayed oddly in the corner, waited to right himself until the moment played out.

Daisy’s eyes darted to the fat man’s. A conspiracy? Marjorie thought so, so cocked the hammer and swept her aim from man to midget

The second hand on the wall silently bled their diminishing choices, reaching out to grasp fate’s hand when, rooms away, the front screen door springed its coil and then banged its thin metal clap.

Harry’s eyes slid toward the hall. Detergent sifted from his top hat.

And all at once they knew. Everyone knew. It was the squeak of shoe leather, faint at first, but most rhythmic. Squeak…squeak. Squeak…squeak. Coming closer.

It was unmistakable. Those shoes were big.

They wore a hat of their own, a bowler. Following it down the kitchen hall, you couldn’t help but notice the flower, short of stalk, jutting from the band. Beneath, big red wings of hair, a foot in both directions, sculpted to a point like cotton candy. When they all reached the kitchen, the tableau hadn’t changed.

Mr. Freddie had returned.

His jacket was bright yellow, crossed with a blue and red plaid. It draped his pear shape oddly. His gloves were immaculate, white and pleated. His bow tie was huge and blue, matching the eyes in a face that was wide and a little dumpy. The tip of the nose remained unpainted and bare, missing its signature ornament. But it was all offset by a big painted smile that he garnished with a fat, unlit cigar.

“What’s the rumpus?”

And still nobody moved. As if they could not.

Marjorie’s eyes trembled, liquid amber in the morning sunlight. “Issey?”

“The very same.” He produced a big bike horn and squeezed its bulb loudly. Twice.

The pistol tumbled from Marjorie’s hands, which had left for her mouth.

“All right now,” Mr. Freddie looked around shyly. “None of that.” He reached down and removed Harry’s hat, shook the detergent from it and handed it back.

“Stand up, Harry. Everyone, up.”

And each in their own fashion straightened. Mr. Freddie moved the table back to its original position as if it had never been moved.

Daisy seemed worried and moved to explain.

But Mr. Freddie held up his hand. “Uh-uh-uh, shhhhh.” His massive shoes planted either side of the pistol, which he lifted and placed on the table. “It would appear my presence here is sorely needed. I’m guessing all this is about the photos?”

Everyone suddenly found interest in their own feet.

“Well, I’ve seen all three of them and although they leave an indelible mark on the nutter, none of them embarrass you and they certainly don’t call for all this.”

He held out his spotless white palm to Marjorie. Into it she placed three Polaroids. Mr. Freddie frowned. “Hmmm, no microfiche?” he asked.

She shook her head with downcast eyes.

“There never was, was there?”

Another shake. He gently took her head and kissed it.

He spun the cards like an expert dealer, which he was, and held one up to the fat man. “Bert, I dare say this colonic misadventure is less remarkable than your size. Don’t you agree?”

The fat man squinted and, having seen too much, agreed. Mr. Freddie shuffled the pics once more and thrust a photo at Daisy. “This is you in the woods is it not?”

Daisy growled.

“Doing what comes naturally, despite…” he spun the photo for a glance and grimaced. “…the pose.”

He set the photos on the table next to the gun. He pointed at the midget. “Tyler, gimme.” The midget slid off the wall and handed over the watch. Mr. Freddie reached behind him and Harry put the leather bag in his hands. Everything went on the kitchen table, even the sword. Then everyone stepped back.

“Alright now, you know what’s what…” Mr. Freddie intoned. “What has to happen.” And when no one moved he squeezed his horn.

“C’mon. You’ve had your fun and said your piece. Fall in line.”

And slowly they did, each taking their place in a line behind Mr. Freddie who regarded Marjorie tenderly. A kindness shone from his eyes as he moved close and took her by the shoulders.

“Marjorie, are you still blaming me?” he asked skeptically.

“Well, who brought those laxatives to the BBQ in the first place?”

“Yes, but did I spill them in the beans?”

Marjorie wouldn’t meet his eye, trying instead to hide a small, devilish smile.

“Did I?”

She shook her head quickly, twice.

“No. That would be a foolish thought to have, wouldn’t it?”

She nodded and began to giggle. He hugged her and she saw that they were now alone in the kitchen. And when he set her back, tears filled her eyes, tears of love and gratitude.

“But there was another, wasn’t there?” Mr. Freddie began to glow.

Marjorie nodded, faster and faster, the pain pulling the muscles of her face to its center, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

“I thought…” she tried. “I thought…”

“You can say it.”

“I thought if you saw me rooting though the trash…” Her chest heaved, her shoulders hunched and she let it out. She threw her face into his big blue bowtie. “I thought you’d feel sorry and come back for me. Ohhh, Issey, I’ve missed you so much!”

She sobbed and sobbed. He stroked her hair. “There, there. There, now. I’m here.”

Mr. Freddie’s glow intensified. He set her back and looked between them. “I think you have something that doesn’t belong to you.”

Her hand unfolded. She brought his clown nose up and placed it where it belonged. Mr. Freddie wiggled it into comfort.

“Thank you. Are you ready, my love?”

Marjorie looked around her kitchen of so many years, wiped her nose and nodded. She took Mr. Freddie’s hand. “Ruffy is still sad, in case you were wondering.”

“Well that’s always been his downfall. Why don’t you leave him his credit card.”

Marjorie relented with a grumble and slid it onto the table. The light was almost blinding now, making the kitchen hard to see. Mr. Freddie kissed her smile.

Mrs. Blendinson was found one week later, dead in her bed with the smile still on her face and the all too big shoes of her love on her feet.

Build A Story With Bryan #5 – Stay of Execution

Good Wednesday, fellow story-builders! Thanks to your efforts our tale has been granted a stay of execution. Even so, the pulse is certainly quickening as our dear conniving Mrs. Blendinson attempts to cooperate with her circus-performing nemeses. Whether you’re picking this up where we last left off, or reading it for the first time, we invite you to continue our story by leaving a sentence of your own in the comment box. As always, thanks for reading and thanks for playing.

Mrs. Blendinson had certainly entertained a foolish thought in her day, had even been married to one for twenty-five of them, but never had she been so resolute in her belief that this foolish thought, the one occurring to her now while she rooted through the neighbor’s trash, this was the foolish thought that if acted upon would put her back on top.

“If I can just find that clown nose,” she mused, “I’ll prove once and for all that the circus debacle was all Mr. Freddie’s fault, not mine!”

Mrs. Blendinson’s musings, unlike her foolish thoughts, took on the affect of a nobler woman, usually a duchess of some vague royal lineage, the kind who would never consort with a sad clown and his dim associates, who endured scandal with a stiff upper lip and dry eyes, not a stiff drink and stolen credit card.       

In spite of her contemplative irrational thoughts and ramblings of life on the road with the circus, there were times with Mr. Freddie that were downright playful. Even though there were moments of joy and ecstasy, they somehow turned into long hours of nervous, frightful horror. Mrs. Blendinson remembered the time when she and Issey (Issey was Mr. Freddie’s self-appointed first name) created an impromptu beach setting at midnight behind the pup tent, which was just south of the Big Top. Mrs. Blendinson smiled to herself with the contentment only a woman in her 70’s could understand as she reflected on the unusual foreplay that occurred prior to the laying of the blanket.

But then she remembered that fateful BBQ afterward. She frowned, and her entire visage changed from nobility to something far less regal – vengeful. “That Mr. Freddie, and all the Freddies,” she mumbled. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

And with that, the circus was relegated to a forgotten compartment in the portmanteau of her mind, for her new resolve was building, the resolve that drove her to reach inside the hem of her dress and pull out the thin strip of microfilm hidden within the gingham. She slipped it into the clown nose that she’d finally found, planning on the perfect place to leave it, where it would be found “by accident.” She looked around furtively, the microfilm/nose mélange secreted in the pocket that once held recipes for blancmange and other favorites.

“Outta my trash, Blendinson!”

She smiled and checked the diamond-studded watch that had been strapped to her wrist when she’d accidentally fled from Zales the other day. Right on time, her neighbor’s five a.m. ritual, a stumble into the bathroom and back, with a glance out the kitchen window, occasionally to check for raccoons, mostly for her. Mrs. Blendinson waved before she looked up and winced. Ruffy was out of his makeup, but his face still looked painted: purple-black around the eyes, yellowed cheekbones. That and a sweaty fistful of G. Washingtons his likely compensation for starring in another Clown Fight video the area college kids were always staging in the alleyway behind the fried chicken restaurant. Ruffy had fallen on hard times ever since the circus stopped employing sad clowns.

 Mrs. Blendinson wondered if he’d like to help her make a different kind of dishonest wage today, although she couldn’t promise his nose wouldn’t get smashed in with a clown shoe for his trouble.

“Well?” he snapped.

She stuck a quick tongue over her shoulder, and yanked a pink and white cheap leather bag from the bottom of the trash. She could use this, even with one strap broken. She slung the good one over her shoulder and the bag became her shield. Now she turned saucily, determined to put Ruffy back in his clown car for good but the window was empty.

She bent and retrieved her Smirnoff, uncapped it and took a sip, acrid in the morning, trash-laced air. She made a face and began her waddle back to her place. She had plans.

As she approached the caravan she called home, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She was certain that she’d shut and locked it. She always triple-checked it every time she went out. If Freddie had used his key to go in without her permission again he was going to be sorry!

She opened her door with some trepidation, calling out, “Hello? Is that you?” in her sing-song lilt. “No, it’s not me,” a strange voice answered back, sending chills down Mrs. Blendinson’s gingham-clad spine.

She stepped inside, sensed a presence in the kitchen, and lifted her new bag to her chest once more. But she paused, still in the hall, when she saw the revolver on the kitchen table next to an open Smirnoff bottle, her last. She stepped fully into the light and the view of a four hundred pound brown bear tossing back a shot of vodka with a raspy snarl.

“Daaaaaaaaamn!” it complained, shaking its massive head at the vodka’s bite. It noticed Mrs. Blendinson and swept up the pistol expertly.

“All right, now, Marjorie, easy does it.” He jerked the gun twice to the empty chair opposite.

Mrs. Blendinson slipped heavily onto it and her whole body seemed to slump in defeat.

“Daisy,” she stated.

“Goddamn right, only I’m done with the dancing.” Daisy the Dancing Bear used both paws to draw back the hammer on the gat. “Have a pop,” he commanded.

“A pop? I don’t think so,” Mrs. Blendinson sneered. “My father disappeared twenty years ago.” Since bears don’t understand puns, especially bad ones, Daisy faltered for a moment. This was Mrs. Blendinson’s only chance. “I have it,” she blurted. “What you want. I know what it is and I know where it is. I have it. I know right where to-

“Allllllright, fer Chrissake, shaddap!” Daisy brought a massive claw to his furry ear and dug at it angrily. “You don’t even know why I’m here,” he grumbled and adjusted his vest and its gleaming watch chain.

“Yes, but…” Then, very softly, daintily, she slid a box of bear treats onto the plaid tablecloth and looked up with a devilish anticipation. Her greasepaint smile grew as she saw she was right.

Daisy’s eyes never left the box. He let his grip on the pistol loosen then set it down altogether. He licked his lips. When Marjorie Blendinson swept up the box, he rose to his massive eight-foot height.

Mrs. Blendinson was wary, her head bent at an unusual angle. She had to be careful. She held the box out shakily even as her foot disappeared into the draped pantry and fished out a massive red circus ball. She shook the box and tapped the ball at Daisy.

“Up you go,” she hissed through her smile.

Daisy leapt upon the ball and balanced perfectly, head erect, paws at Ports de Bras. Mrs. Blendinson shook out a treat and tossed it. Daisy caught it perfectly, took two rolls forward and two back, bumping the table. Mrs. Blendinson’s eyes darted to the pistol. She shook the box into her palm again only… nothing came out. Daisy saw it. She saw it.

Empty.

Daisy crashed onto the tabletop and snagged the gun. He rolled back into his chair, out of breath and disappointed in himself. “Alll right, Blendinson. Think you’re smart. I told you I’m done with that shit.”

“Wait, I have more,” Mrs. Blendinson desperately stammered, “Some sardines, maybe.”

“What am I, a trained seal? I think not.” He paused. “It’s time, toots,” he said with chilling finality.

The words drew her feet under her involuntarily. Her heart skipped a beat as one of them encountered her salvation. She drew that foot forward and certainly rolled over it again. She lifted her foot and stole a glance. One of the bear treats must have been shaken from the box. She dipped quickly at the waist, causing Daisy to re-aim threateningly.

“Hey there, toots. Alright. No sudden moves.” he snarled. And then, “Harry!”

And out of the wash room stepped the sword swallower in top hat, head tilted toward the ceiling, eyes fixed on Mrs. Blendinson. And it was at that point the forgotten compartment of the sealed portmanteau in her mind was blown supernaturally open.

“H…H…Harry?” she stammered. “But I thought you’d burnt up into a colorful cinder! Didn’t I, I mean didn’t someone?”

“You overcharged my flame thrower, Blendinson,” he snarled. “But I faked the cinder part.”

“It’s time for a reckoning,” Daisy growled. “Show time.”

Just then there was a loud banging on the door. “Are you in there, Blendinson?” called a low rumbling voice. No, she thought. It can’t possibly be. And then the door flung open.

The fat man.

Rounder than a wrecking ball, he turned sideways to enter, allowing the midget to scamper past his knees, careful to duck under the thunderous overhanging gut.

“You have to be defecating me!” Blendinson stammered. Her little kitchen was getting crowded.

“Shaddap,” snapped Daisy. “The circus is in town and we ain’t leaving without the photos.”

Mrs. Blendinson produced the clown nose, micro film secreted within, and fixed it firmly on her own.

The fat man swatted it off. Mrs. Blendinson watched it skip out of sight under the stove until the fat man’s sweat-spotted face filled her vision with its foul labored breath.

“You making fun of us, Blendinson?”

Mrs. Blendinson couldn’t answer. Couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten to this point or what she should do next. She cursed Mr. Freddie. Wait until she saw him again. She was planning on pulling out her aristocratic air when her eye was drawn to her wrist, where the midget had just swiped her stolen, diamond-studded watch. The Little Man lifted it to his big ear, an island in his thinning hair, and smiled. She could only watch her watch as he winked and pocketed it. Something had to be done.

“I want you all to know,” she began. “That even though I was flattered you thought of me for our barbecue, I never said cooking was my strong suit. Now, the three pounds of laxatives I left carelessly above the stove must have accidentally fallen into the maplewood baked beans when I had my back turned. ”

Her visitors looked at one another remembering with a certain…discomfort.  And then very conspicuously their eyes settled on Daisy.  

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, so bears don’t just shit in the woods. Satisfied?” Daisy showed her teeth to Mrs. Blendinson. “You got to the count of ten to cough up dem photos. Or I turn your insides into maplewood baked beans.”

The fat man again leered in her face. The short bursts of rancid air he flushed from his nostrils were mind-altering enough for Mrs. Blendinson to wonder if she might be back outside rooting through Ruffy’s garbage.

“I got it, Stanley, please,” she said, trying to close her own nostrils without using her hands and triggering Daisy’s gun. “One…two…three…four…” And then, just to keep things interesting, she started counting again. This time, backwards.

The Sword Swallower advanced, head tipped skyward, voice full of silver menace. “Marjorie, we of the center ring request the photos so impudently snapped in our moment of disrepose…if you please.”

Mrs. Blendinson’s eye twitched. Her foot rolled the bear treat two revolutions. She steeled herself. “Disrepose…is not a word.”

Harry’s eyes flamed and his Adam’s apple convulsed, as a monkey on a stick. His jaw distended and his hand disappeared inside, only to emerge clutching the coiled handle of a saber, drawing its spit streaked length continuously out of his throat until clear. He sliced the air and brought the blade to rest at Marjorie’s cheek.

“Are you feeling us, madam? Your act is drawing to a close.”

“Under the stove,” she stammered. “On microfilm inside the clown nose under the stove.”

Daisy’s massive paw sent the table sliding across the room in one move.

Are you feeling this story-builders? What happens next is up to you and your next sentence…

Flash Fiction – “Spoiler Alert”

Spoiler Alert

I.

When you turn the faucet on, water will come out and you won’t hear them coming and when they kill you they’ll have actually done you a favor because of the terminal cancer blooming in your gonads, and when you get to Heaven you’ll meet a woman who you always just missed at the bus stop who will take you under her wing until you’re returned to Earth because the date on your death certificate was misread and you become a slightly grumpier version of yourself, except when you use your favorite razor.

II.

When you shave your face, your beard will go away and you’ll find the secret fingerprints that will help you track down your brother who is actually a woman who says she’s your sister when she’s actually your mother and needs you to be her alibi to be freed from a CIA black site in Prague that was once a renowned brewery that you will revive and bring back to prominence in less than three years time and after which you will return to the United States intent on throwing out all the horse meat in your refrigerator.

III.

When you pull the empty carton from the fridge you won’t be having juice with any leftover horse meat and you’ll see the cash in the crisper is bundled in five stacks of $5000 like you didn’t even ask for, and the moisture that’s accumulated on the plastic bag the money’s in contains a tiny cell-mutating microbe that will absorb into the prominent vein that extends from the knuckle of your middle finger to halfway down your arm and thus you’ll stop returning your books to the library no matter how many librarians sacrifice their lives trying to retrieve them from your garage.

IV.

That hummus is almost a year old.

V.

When you turn the key in the ignition your car will start in the garage and the odometer reading will be one number away from the code for the meaning of life and your bare arms will adhere to the leather interior and when you peel your elbows off the armrests the writing imprinted in the skin will be the highlights of a transgender’s interrogation inside a secret Czech prison that smells vaguely of stale pilsner poorly translated by an angel with unreliable eyesight, and even though the prominent vein in your hand is making figure eights under your skin and you should be treated immediately for missing fingerprints and testicular cancer that you mistake for a horse meat addiction you’ll be determined to fight off as many bloodthirsty librarians as it takes with your favorite razor and $25,000 in cash to get back inside your house to wash off your elbows.

Build A Story With Bryan #5 – Is This Circus Leaving Town?

Photo by Yury Masloboev

Okay, story-builders, it might be true, this tale could be on its last legs, uttering its last gasp, listening to its last rites through an ear horn. But I just couldn’t say goodbye without one more attempt to delay its crossing over into the Great Beyond.

Will you help me? The boy who cried whenever the circus left town? I’ve taken the liberty to add onto the story since its last posting a few weeks ago. Give it a read and then if so inspired add your own defibrillating sentence to keep this heart a’ beating. As always, thanks for reading and thanks for playing.

Mrs. Blendinson had certainly entertained a foolish thought in her day, had even been married to one for twenty-five of them, but never had she been so resolute in her belief that this foolish thought, the one occurring to her now while she rooted through the neighbor’s trash, this was the foolish thought that if acted upon would put her back on top.

“If I can just find that clown nose,” she mused, “I’ll prove once and for all that the circus debacle was all Mr. Freddie’s fault, not mine!”

Mrs. Blendinson’s musings, unlike her foolish thoughts, took on the affect of a nobler woman, usually a duchess of some vague royal lineage, the kind who would never consort with a sad clown and his dim associates, who endured scandal with a stiff upper lip and dry eyes, not a stiff drink and stolen credit card.       

In spite of her contemplative irrational thoughts and ramblings of life on the road with the circus, there were times with Mr. Freddie that were downright playful. Even though there were moments of joy and ecstasy, they somehow turned into long hours of nervous, frightful horror. Mrs. Blendinson remembered the time when she and Issey (Issey was Mr. Freddie’s self-appointed first name) created an impromptu beach setting at midnight behind the pup tent, which was just south of the Big Top. Mrs. Blendinson smiled to herself with the contentment only a woman in her 70’s could understand as she reflected on the unusual foreplay that occurred prior to the laying of the blanket.

But then she remembered that fateful BBQ afterward. She frowned, and her entire visage changed from nobility to something far less regal – vengeful. “That Mr. Freddie, and all the Freddies,” she mumbled. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

And with that, the circus was relegated to a forgotten compartment in the portmanteau of her mind, for her new resolve was building, the resolve that drove her to reach inside the hem of her dress and pull out the thin strip of microfilm hidden within the gingham. She slipped it into the clown nose that she’d finally found, planning on the perfect place to leave it, where it would be found “by accident.” She looked around furtively, the microfilm/nose mélange secreted in the pocket that once held recipes for blancmange and other favorites.

“Outta my trash, Blendinson!”

She smiled and checked the diamond-studded watch that had been strapped to her wrist when she’d accidentally fled from Zales the other day. Right on time, her neighbor’s five a.m. ritual, a stumble into the bathroom and back, with a glance out the kitchen window, occasionally to check for raccoons, mostly for her. Mrs. Blendinson waved before she looked up and winced. Ruffy was out of his makeup, but his face still looked painted: purple-black around the eyes, yellowed cheekbones. That and a sweaty fistful of G. Washingtons his likely compensation for starring in another Clown Fight video the area college kids were always staging in the alleyway behind the fried chicken restaurant. Ruffy had fallen on hard times ever since the circus stopped employing sad clowns.

 Mrs. Blendinson wondered if he’d like to help her make a different kind of dishonest wage today, although she couldn’t promise his nose wouldn’t get smashed in with a clown shoe for his trouble.

“Well?” he snapped.

She stuck a quick tongue over her shoulder, and yanked a pink and white cheap leather bag from the bottom of the trash. She could use this, even with one strap broken. She slung the good one over her shoulder and the bag became her shield. Now she turned saucily, determined to put Ruffy back in his clown car for good but the window was empty.

She bent and retrieved her Smirnoff, uncapped it and took a sip, acrid in the morning, trash-laced air. She made a face and began her waddle back to her place. She had plans.

As she approached the caravan she called home, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She was certain that she’d shut and locked it. She always triple-checked it every time she went out. If Freddie had used his key to go in without her permission again he was going to be sorry!

She opened her door with some trepidation, calling out, “Hello? Is that you?” in her sing-song lilt. “No, it’s not me,” a strange voice answered back, sending chills down Mrs. Blendinson’s gingham-clad spine.

She stepped inside, sensed a presence in the kitchen, and lifted her new bag to her chest once more. But she paused, still in the hall, when she saw the revolver on the kitchen table next to an open Smirnoff bottle, her last. She stepped fully into the light and the view of a four hundred pound brown bear tossing back a shot of vodka with a raspy snarl.

“Daaaaaaaaamn!” it complained, shaking its massive head at the vodka’s bite. It noticed Mrs. Blendinson and swept up the pistol expertly.

“All right, now, Marjorie, easy does it.” He jerked the gun twice to the empty chair opposite.

Mrs. Blendinson slipped heavily onto it and her whole body seemed to slump in defeat.

“Daisy,” she stated.

“Goddamn right, only I’m done with the dancing.” Daisy the Dancing Bear used both paws to draw back the hammer on the gat. “Have a pop,” he commanded.

“A pop? I don’t think so,” Mrs. Blendinson sneered. “My father disappeared twenty years ago.” Since bears don’t understand puns, especially bad ones, Daisy faltered for a moment. This was Mrs. Blendinson’s only chance. “I have it,” she blurted. “What you want. I know what it is and I know where it is. I have it. I know right where to-

“Allllllright, fer Chrissake, shaddap!” Daisy brought a massive claw to his furry ear and dug at it angrily. “You don’t even know why I’m here,” he grumbled and adjusted his vest and its gleaming watch chain.

“Yes, but…” Then, very softly, daintily, she slid a box of bear treats onto the plaid tablecloth and looked up with a devilish anticipation. Her greasepaint smile grew as she saw she was right.

Daisy’s eyes never left the box. He let his grip on the pistol loosen then set it down altogether. He licked his lips. When Marjorie Blendinson swept up the box, he rose to his massive eight-foot height.

Mrs. Blendinson was wary, her head bent at an unusual angle. She had to be careful. She held the box out shakily even as her foot disappeared into the draped pantry and fished out a massive red circus ball. She shook the box and tapped the ball at Daisy.

“Up you go,” she hissed through her smile.

Daisy leapt upon the ball and balanced perfectly, head erect, paws at Ports de Bras. Mrs. Blendinson shook out a treat and tossed it. Daisy caught it perfectly, took two rolls forward and two back, bumping the table. Mrs. Blendinson’s eyes darted to the pistol. She shook the box into her palm again only… nothing came out. Daisy saw it. She saw it.

Empty.

Daisy crashed onto the tabletop and snagged the gun. He rolled back into his chair, out of breath and disappointed in himself. “Alll right, Blendinson. Think you’re smart. I told you I’m done with that shit.”

“Wait, I have more,” Mrs. Blendinson desperately stammered, “Some sardines, maybe.”

“What am I, a trained seal? I think not.” He paused. “It’s time, toots,” he said with chilling finality.

The words drew her feet under her involuntarily. Her heart skipped a beat as one of them encountered her salvation. She drew that foot forward and certainly rolled over it again. She lifted her foot and stole a glance. One of the bear treats must have been shaken from the box. She dipped quickly at the waist, causing Daisy to re-aim threateningly.

“Hey there, toots. Alright. No sudden moves.” he snarled. And then, “Harry!”

And out of the wash room stepped the sword swallower in top hat, head tilted toward the ceiling, eyes fixed on Mrs. Blendinson. And it was at that point the forgotten compartment of the sealed portmanteau in her mind was blown supernaturally open.

“H…H…Harry?” she stammered. “But I thought you’d burnt up into a colorful cinder! Didn’t I, I mean didn’t someone?”

“You overcharged my flame thrower, Blendinson,” he snarled. “But I faked the cinder part.”

“It’s time for a reckoning,” Daisy growled. “Show time.”

Just then there was a loud banging on the door. “Are you in there, Blendinson?” called a low rumbling voice. No, she thought. It can’t possibly be. And then the door flung open.

The fat man.

Rounder than a wrecking ball, he turned sideways to enter, allowing the midget to scamper past his knees, careful to duck under the thunderous overhanging gut.

“You have to be defecating me!” Blendinson stammered. Her little kitchen was getting crowded.

“Shaddap,” snapped Daisy. “The circus is in town and we ain’t leaving without the photos.”

Mrs. Blendinson produced the clown nose, micro film secreted within, and fixed it firmly on her own.

The fat man swatted it off. Mrs. Blendinson watched it skip out of sight under the stove until the fat man’s sweat-spotted face filled her vision with its foul labored breath.

“You making fun of us, Blendinson?”

Mrs. Blendinson couldn’t answer. Couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten to this point or what she should do next. She cursed Mr. Freddie. Wait until she saw him again. She was planning on pulling out her aristocratic air when her eye was drawn to her wrist, where the midget had just swiped her stolen, diamond-studded watch. The Little Man lifted it to his big ear, an island in his thinning hair, and smiled. She could only watch her watch as he winked and pocketed it. Something had to be done.

“I want you all to know,” she began. “That even though I was flattered you thought of me for our barbecue, I never said cooking was my strong suit. Now, the three pounds of laxatives I left carelessly above the stove must have accidentally fallen into the maplewood baked beans when I had my back turned. ”

Her visitors looked at one another remembering with a certain…discomfort.  And then very conspicuously their eyes settled on Daisy.  

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, so bears don’t just shit in the woods. Satisfied?” Daisy showed her teeth to Mrs. Blendinson. “You got to the count of ten to cough up dem photos. Or I turn your insides into maplewood baked beans.”

The fat man again leered in her face. The short bursts of rancid air he flushed from his nostrils were mind-altering enough for Mrs. Blendinson to wonder if she might be back outside rooting through Ruffy’s garbage.

“I got it, Stanley, please,” she said, trying to close her own nostrils without using her hands and triggering Daisy’s gun. “One…two…three…four…”

What happens when Mrs. Blendinson gets to ten? Will she get that far at all? Only you and your sentence know what happens next…

Build A Story With Bryan #5 – No Constipation Here

Photo by k e n g

Good Monday, story-builders! Apologies for the slight delay in re-posting our saga-in-progress. I’m happy to report that things are flowing nicely for Mrs. Blendinson and the gallery of anxious circus-types assembled in her trailer, but we still need your help to move it forward.

Whether you’ve been following the story for awhile or are new to the series, we want your sentence! And whether or not you consider yourself a writer, we do and we want your sentence! Give our story-so-far a read and add on as only you and your singular imagination can. Thanks for playing.

Mrs. Blendinson had certainly entertained a foolish thought in her day, had even been married to one for twenty-five of them, but never had she been so resolute in her belief that this foolish thought, the one occurring to her now while she rooted through the neighbor’s trash, this was the foolish thought that if acted upon would put her back on top.

“If I can just find that clown nose,” she mused, “I’ll prove once and for all that the circus debacle was all Mr. Freddie’s fault, not mine!”

Mrs. Blendinson’s musings, unlike her foolish thoughts, took on the affect of a nobler woman, usually a duchess of some vague royal lineage, the kind who would never consort with a sad clown and his dim associates, who endured scandal with a stiff upper lip and dry eyes, not a stiff drink and stolen credit card.       

In spite of her contemplative irrational thoughts and ramblings of life on the road with the circus, there were times with Mr. Freddie that were downright playful. Even though there were moments of joy and ecstasy, they somehow turned into long hours of nervous, frightful horror. Mrs. Blendinson remembered the time when she and Issey (Issey was Mr. Freddie’s self-appointed first name) created an impromptu beach setting at midnight behind the pup tent, which was just south of the Big Top. Mrs. Blendinson smiled to herself with the contentment only a woman in her 70’s could understand as she reflected on the unusual foreplay that occurred prior to the laying of the blanket.

But then she remembered that fateful BBQ afterward. She frowned, and her entire visage changed from nobility to something far less regal – vengeful. “That Mr. Freddie, and all the Freddies,” she mumbled. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

And with that, the circus was relegated to a forgotten compartment in the portmanteau of her mind, for her new resolve was building, the resolve that drove her to reach inside the hem of her dress and pull out the thin strip of microfilm hidden within the gingham. She slipped it into the clown nose that she’d finally found, planning on the perfect place to leave it, where it would be found “by accident.” She looked around furtively, the microfilm/nose mélange secreted in the pocket that once held recipes for blancmange and other favorites.

“Outta my trash, Blendinson!”

She smiled and checked the diamond-studded watch that had been strapped to her wrist when she’d accidentally fled from Zales the other day. Right on time, her neighbor’s five a.m. ritual, a stumble into the bathroom and back, with a glance out the kitchen window, occasionally to check for raccoons, mostly for her. Mrs. Blendinson waved before she looked up and winced. Ruffy was out of his makeup, but his face still looked painted: purple-black around the eyes, yellowed cheekbones. That and a sweaty fistful of G. Washingtons his likely compensation for starring in another Clown Fight video the area college kids were always staging in the alleyway behind the fried chicken restaurant. Ruffy had fallen on hard times ever since the circus stopped employing sad clowns.

 Mrs. Blendinson wondered if he’d like to help her make a different kind of dishonest wage today, although she couldn’t promise his nose wouldn’t get smashed in with a clown shoe for his trouble.

“Well?” he snapped.

She stuck a quick tongue over her shoulder, and yanked a pink and white cheap leather bag from the bottom of the trash. She could use this, even with one strap broken. She slung the good one over her shoulder and the bag became her shield. Now she turned saucily, determined to put Ruffy back in his clown car for good but the window was empty.

She bent and retrieved her Smirnoff, uncapped it and took a sip, acrid in the morning, trash-laced air. She made a face and began her waddle back to her place. She had plans.

As she approached the caravan she called home, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She was certain that she’d shut and locked it. She always triple-checked it every time she went out. If Freddie had used his key to go in without her permission again he was going to be sorry!

She opened her door with some trepidation, calling out, “Hello? Is that you?” in her sing-song lilt. “No, it’s not me,” a strange voice answered back, sending chills down Mrs. Blendinson’s gingham-clad spine.

She stepped inside, sensed a presence in the kitchen, and lifted her new bag to her chest once more. But she paused, still in the hall, when she saw the revolver on the kitchen table next to an open Smirnoff bottle, her last. She stepped fully into the light and the view of a four hundred pound brown bear tossing back a shot of vodka with a raspy snarl.

“Daaaaaaaaamn!” it complained, shaking its massive head at the vodka’s bite. It noticed Mrs. Blendinson and swept up the pistol expertly.

“All right, now, Marjorie, easy does it.” He jerked the gun twice to the empty chair opposite.

Mrs. Blendinson slipped heavily onto it and her whole body seemed to slump in defeat.

“Daisy,” she stated.

“Goddamn right, only I’m done with the dancing.” Daisy the Dancing Bear used both paws to draw back the hammer on the gat. “Have a pop,” he commanded.

“A pop? I don’t think so,” Mrs. Blendinson sneered. “My father disappeared twenty years ago.” Since bears don’t understand puns, especially bad ones, Daisy faltered for a moment. This was Mrs. Blendinson’s only chance. “I have it,” she blurted. “What you want. I know what it is and I know where it is. I have it. I know right where to-

“Allllllright, fer Chrissake, shaddap!” Daisy brought a massive claw to his furry ear and dug at it angrily. “You don’t even know why I’m here,” he grumbled and adjusted his vest and its gleaming watch chain.

“Yes, but…” Then, very softly, daintily, she slid a box of bear treats onto the plaid tablecloth and looked up with a devilish anticipation. Her greasepaint smile grew as she saw she was right.

Daisy’s eyes never left the box. He let his grip on the pistol loosen then set it down altogether. He licked his lips. When Marjorie Blendinson swept up the box, he rose to his massive eight-foot height.

Mrs. Blendinson was wary, her head bent at an unusual angle. She had to be careful. She held the box out shakily even as her foot disappeared into the draped pantry and fished out a massive red circus ball. She shook the box and tapped the ball at Daisy.

“Up you go,” she hissed through her smile.

Daisy leapt upon the ball and balanced perfectly, head erect, paws at Ports de Bras. Mrs. Blendinson shook out a treat and tossed it. Daisy caught it perfectly, took two rolls forward and two back, bumping the table. Mrs. Blendinson’s eyes darted to the pistol. She shook the box into her palm again only… nothing came out. Daisy saw it. She saw it.

Empty.

Daisy crashed onto the tabletop and snagged the gun. He rolled back into his chair, out of breath and disappointed in himself. “Alll right, Blendinson. Think you’re smart. I told you I’m done with that shit.”

“Wait, I have more,” Mrs. Blendinson desperately stammered, “Some sardines, maybe.”

“What am I, a trained seal? I think not.” He paused. “It’s time, toots,” he said with chilling finality.

The words drew her feet under her involuntarily. Her heart skipped a beat as one of them encountered her salvation. She drew that foot forward and certainly rolled over it again. She lifted her foot and stole a glance. One of the bear treats must have been shaken from the box. She dipped quickly at the waist, causing Daisy to re-aim threateningly.

“Hey there, toots. Alright. No sudden moves.” he snarled. And then, “Harry!”

And out of the wash room stepped the sword swallower in top hat, head tilted toward the ceiling, eyes fixed on Mrs. Blendinson. And it was at that point the forgotten compartment of the sealed portmanteau in her mind was blown supernaturally open.

“H…H…Harry?” she stammered. “But I thought you’d burnt up into a colorful cinder! Didn’t I, I mean didn’t someone?”

“You overcharged my flame thrower, Blendinson,” he snarled. “But I faked the cinder part.”

“It’s time for a reckoning,” Daisy growled. “Show time.”

Just then there was a loud banging on the door. “Are you in there, Blendinson?” called a low rumbling voice. No, she thought. It can’t possibly be. And then the door flung open.

The fat man.

Rounder than a wrecking ball, he turned sideways to enter, allowing the midget to scamper past his knees, careful to duck under the thunderous overhanging gut.

“You have to be defecating me!” Blendinson stammered. Her little kitchen was getting crowded.

“Shaddap,” snapped Daisy. “The circus is in town and we ain’t leaving without the photos.”

Mrs. Blendinson produced the clown nose, micro film secreted within, and fixed it firmly on her own.

The fat man swatted it off. Mrs. Blendinson watched it skip out of sight under the stove until the fat man’s sweat-spotted face filled her vision with its foul labored breath.

“You making fun of us, Blendinson?”

Mrs. Blendinson couldn’t answer. Couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten to this point or what she should do next. She cursed Freddie. Wait until she saw him again. She was planning on pulling out her aristocratic air when her eye was drawn to her wrist, where the midget had just swiped her stolen, diamond-studded watch. The Little Man lifted it to his big ear, an island in his thinning hair, and smiled. She could only watch her watch as he winked and pocketed it. Something had to be done.

“I want you all to know,” she began. “That even though I was flattered you thought of me for our barbecue, I never said cooking was my strong suit. Now, the three pounds of laxatives I left carelessly above the stove must have accidentally fallen into the maplewood baked beans when I had my back turned. ”

Her visitors looked at one another remembering with a certain…discomfort.

What will happen next? Let loose your sentence and take us there…

LATFOB – What Stuck With Me Part 2

Photo by Carolyn Kraft

“Fiction is like a trust fall. Sometimes the story catches you and sometimes it doesn’t…and you wake up with a bump on your head.”

“Why is calling something realistic a compliment? Just because something’s realistic doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“Everything that talks about the human situation is political.”

“The point of every story is that there are two sides of things, both good and bad, optimistic and pessimistic.”

“I tend to write when I’m upset about something.”

“I spent fifteen hours on a plane to Argentina with a fat German next to me who farted the entire time.”

“Freeze your jeans. Kills the germs from farting.”

“Eventually every Wikipedia article leads to squid.”

“The Internet is a terrible distraction for writers.”

“Starting is just about writing sentences, collecting voices. Need to be comfortable being in the dark.”

“People really want short stories. They buy novels, but really they don’t want them.”

“Reading a work in translation is like kissing someone through a handkerchief…which does have a kinky charm to it.”

“Robert Louis Stevenson based the character of Long John Silver on a friend with all of his finer qualities removed.”

“Fiction is the exploration of the self in the world.”

“All of us are many people and writing is a way to expose our other personalities.”

“You know who’s got great beer? The Czech Republic. You should go there.”

“I write with the feeling that the book could go anywhere, that the whole premise could change in the middle of a sentence.”

“Form is what makes fiction transcendent.”

“As Robert Frost wrote, ‘No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.'”

“Does reading have to be a totally immersive experience? Can’t it be ‘I like this story/I like this sentence.’?”

“I like transparency in art, the idea of knowing that this was created by someone. Jackson Pollack included his own detritus in his paintings: tobacco, dirt, lint. It’s nice to feel like you’re interacting with the creation of the work.”

“There’s this whole idea of momentum in modern fiction, that the  writer has to pick a reader up and carry him or her forward and then drop them off at a certain point, unchanged, probably, at the most a bit breathless and flushed.”

 

The preceding witticisms and wisdom were recorded on a miniature yellow notebook on Sunday April 22 at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The purveyors of said perspicacity were an anonymous festival-goer and the following authors: Etgar Keret, Sara Levine, Ben Loory, Amelia Gray, Elizabeth Crane, Ben Ehrenreich, Mark Leyner, and Aimee Bender.

Build A Story With Bryan #5 – Story’s Got (Furry) Legs

Photo by Ashtoncircus

The skies are gloomy today in Los Angeles, but I don’t need to buy a bucketful of sunshine from that strange guy on the street corner.

Not when I’ve got Build A Story With Bryan to brighten my day.

I really hope you’ve been as consistently entertained and surprised as I’ve been by where these stories have taken us. Though they occasionally reveal their genre-trappings without warning, each story has managed to find a voice, a tone, and then stick with it no matter the sensibilities of its various contributors. There is, it seems, a collective unconscious after all.

This Round 5’s no different.  And it’s still got legs, literally, and furry ones at that. Read what we’ve got so far and you’ll see what I mean. Then build this story further with your own sentence and surprise us some more.

Mrs. Blendinson had certainly entertained a foolish thought in her day, had even been married to one for twenty-five of them, but never had she been so resolute in her belief that this foolish thought, the one occurring to her now while she rooted through the neighbor’s trash, this was the foolish thought that if acted upon would put her back on top.

“If I can just find that clown nose,” she mused, “I’ll prove once and for all that the circus debacle was all Mr. Freddie’s fault, not mine!”

Mrs. Blendinson’s musings, unlike her foolish thoughts, took on the affect of a nobler woman, usually a duchess of some vague royal lineage, the kind who would never consort with a sad clown and his dim associates, who endured scandal with a stiff upper lip and dry eyes, not a stiff drink and stolen credit card.       

In spite of her contemplative irrational thoughts and ramblings of life on the road with the circus, there were times with Mr. Freddie that were downright playful. Even though there were moments of joy and ecstasy, they somehow turned into long hours of nervous, frightful horror. Mrs. Blendinson remembered the time when she and Issey (Issey was Mr. Freddie’s self-appointed first name) created an impromptu beach setting at midnight behind the pup tent, which was just south of the Big Top. Mrs. Blendinson smiled to herself with the contentment only a woman in her 70’s could understand as she reflected on the unusual foreplay that occurred prior to the laying of the blanket.

But then she remembered that fateful BBQ afterward. She frowned, and her entire visage changed from nobility to something far less regal – vengeful. “That Mr. Freddie, and all the Freddies,” she mumbled. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

And with that, the circus was relegated to a forgotten compartment in the portmanteau of her mind, for her new resolve was building, the resolve that drove her to reach inside the hem of her dress and pull out the thin strip of microfilm hidden within the gingham. She slipped it into the clown nose that she’d finally found, planning on the perfect place to leave it, where it would be found “by accident.” She looked around furtively, the microfilm/nose mélange secreted in the pocket that once held recipes for blancmange and other favorites.

“Outta my trash, Blendinson!”

 She smiled and checked the diamond-studded watch that had been strapped to her wrist when she’d accidentally fled from Zales the other day. Right on time, her neighbor’s five a.m. ritual, a stumble into the bathroom and back, with a glance out the kitchen window, occasionally to check for raccoons, mostly for her. Mrs. Blendinson waved before she looked up and winced. Ruffy was out of his makeup, but his face still looked painted: purple-black around the eyes, yellowed cheekbones. That and a sweaty fistful of G. Washingtons his likely compensation for starring in another Clown Fight video the area college kids were always staging in the alleyway behind the fried chicken restaurant. Ruffy had fallen on hard times ever since the circus stopped employing sad clowns.

 Mrs. Blendinson wondered if he’d like to help her make a different kind of dishonest wage today, although she couldn’t promise his nose wouldn’t get smashed in with a clown shoe for his trouble.

“Well?” he snapped.

She stuck a quick tongue over her shoulder, and yanked a pink and white cheap leather bag from the bottom of the trash. She could use this, even with one strap broken. She slung the good one over her shoulder and the bag became her shield. Now she turned saucily, determined to put Ruffy back in his clown car for good but the window was empty.

She bent and retrieved her Smirnoff, uncapped it and took a sip, acrid in the morning, trash-laced air. She made a face and began her waddle back to her place. She had plans.

As she approached the caravan she called home, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She was certain that she’d shut and locked it. She always triple-checked it every time she went out. If Freddie had used his key to go in without her permission again he was going to be sorry!

She opened her door with some trepidation, calling out, “Hello? Is that you?” in her sing-song lilt. “No, it’s not me,” a strange voice answered back, sending chills down Mrs. Blendinson’s gingham-clad spine.

She stepped inside, sensed a presence in the kitchen, and lifted her new bag to her chest once more. But she paused, still in the hall, when she saw the revolver on the kitchen table next to an open Smirnoff bottle, her last. She stepped fully into the light and the view of a four hundred pound brown bear tossing back a shot of vodka with a raspy snarl.

“Daaaaaaaaamn!” it complained, shaking its massive head at the vodka’s bite. It noticed Mrs. Blendinson and swept up the pistol expertly.

“All right, now, Marjorie, easy does it.” He jerked the gun twice to the empty chair opposite.

Mrs. Blendinson slipped heavily onto it and her whole body seemed to slump in defeat.

“Daisy,” she stated.

“Goddamn right, only I’m done with the dancing.” Daisy the Dancing Bear used both paws to draw back the hammer on the gat. “Have a pop,” he commanded.

What happens next is in your hands…or paws, if you happen to be a bear.