TREE TOPS FOR A THOUSAND YEN A POP

"TREE TOPS FOR A THOUSAND YEN A POP " is another super fast fast fiction based on this incredible image by Seth Scriver.

You can read about how people are digging his stuff by clicking on cbc or you can email the government requesting that Seth be allowed to doodle the design for a new twenty three dollar bill. As always the choice is yours.

While you're reading this I'm pounding out one hundred pages of literature and typos for the 3-Day Writing Novel Contest so I won't have anything new for you until Tuesday but feel free to peruse any of the other 539 short-short stories which I have on-line here at fast fictions or over at Kevin Spenst dot calm.
Enjoy...

TREE TOPS FOR A THOUSAND YEN A POP

"Daddy I want a super crazy Christmas tree top !!" Tsutomu screams while yanking on his father's arm like its a pump designed to pour out a stream of money.

The tree tops stand in the display window and are coated in decorations and "illuminations" (Janglish for lights). A poster explains where they were grown: "Celebrate Christmas in your super hot Australian swinging style. Christmas originally designed by Jesus for fun by the pool so why not cast off those foolhearty ways and celebrate with the sun. These trees have been grown on the heads of summer time revelers whose job is to dance, laugh, splash and have a fun all time long."

"No today," the father explains and they continue on their way to the hairdresser.

SIAMESE TWINS DIVERGE ON THE DIRECTION THEIR SCRIPT SHOULD TAKE

"SIAMESE TWINS DIVERGE ON THE DIRECTION THEIR SCRIPT SHOULD TAKE" is a super fast fast fiction about some of the possible difficulties of being a siamese twin.

Think twice before you consider getting the operation with your best friend.

Today's visuals have come all the way from.. out of my sketchbook. That's right this is my handiwork:

Yeah... I'm an artist too. As least that's what's been reported in the papers.

Enjoy...

SIAMESE TWINS DIVERGE ON THE DIRECTION THEIR SCRIPT SHOULD TAKE

"Well I think there should be more explosions. You know, like the exorcist throws dynamite down the mouths of possessed people," he says with his head tilted at an angle. His shoulder jerks along with his argument, propelling the point.

"No way that just doesn't fit. If we want this greasy haired loser to be possessed then we need an equally low-key hero. An anti-hero. A guy who just doesn't care. Okay maybe he has these wings that he wears for a joke but that's it," he says with his head tilted in the direction of his brother. He is flush with frustration and nothing moves but his lips.

"Okay, you don't have to get in my face about it."

"Well actually...."

He smiles and they crack up in laughter in one another's faces.

THE FILTHY HAND CLEANS US ALL ON THURSDAYS

"THE FILTHY HAND CLEANS US ALL ON THURSDAYS" is some fast fiction that will zip right by you like a black van with this image on its side:

Right behind the van is a low-flying airplane with some words trailing behind on a banner. They consist of several sentences and they illustrate the image on the van.

Yes, that's what today's fast fiction combo is like.

Once again we're lucky to have some art from Mark Delong. Go visit his site, smoke a cigar and then email him a description of the way the trail of smoke played with the images on his site.

Enjoy...

THE FILTHY HAND CLEANS US ALL ON THURSDAYS

"Sometimes when I look into the sky, I imagine that God is a big ogre with ugly hands. Every week that big hand reaches down from the clouds to wipe everything down with a dirty sponge," he explains all this while his eyebrows rise and fall to punctuate his words

He doesn't realize that he is dead. That he is talking to God. He will give God ideas that will forever change the way we look at Thursdays.

You feel a drip of brown, soapy water on your shoulder.

CONCLUDING IN TEARS

"CONCLUDING IN TEARS" is some exceptionally fast fiction based on an image by the guys over at the Royal Art Lodge.

It has to be extra fast as I'm preparing for this weekend's 3-Day Writing Novel Contest. I'm doing push-up on pens clenched between my fists. I'm reading my thesaurus with renewed vigour.. no avidity... no moxie... no brio. I'm conserving my writing "juices". I will do a whole slew of posts on Friday and then be back on Monday or something. I hope.

But for now enjoy an extra fast fiction...

CONCLUDING IN TEARS

She makes her own glasses to deal with the torrents of tears that constantly splash against her specks. (The salt erodes the frames.)

"Why does she cry," you ask.

If you want to ask her just follow the tiny, salty stream of tears that always flows behind her.

GRAMPS PANTS

"GRAMPS PANTS" is some fast fiction designed to make you fire out through your nose anything that happens to be in your mouth during your read: milk, o.j., chicken salad, your tongue, etc. Based on another illustration by Pieter Frank de Jong, a very talented art student from the Netherlands, "GRAMPS PANTS" will never be required reading at any retirement home.


Enjoy...

GRAMPS PANTS

"Gavrilo Princip," Gramps shouted, blurting out a mouthful of chicken noodle soup.

"What ?" my mother asked, perplexed. Her brow knit into a big "X marks the spot" between her eyes. Please put me out of my misery right now, was how my brother and I understood that X. She worried her way through every minute of the day.

My grandfather was lost in some reverie over the details of this name and didn't respond as the noodle soup dripped from his chin. He wasn't senile, just eccentic, our mother insisted.

"Okay, well I was trying to remember who assassinted the Archduke Franz Ferdinand for the Sunday crosswords. You know these things sometimes take a while to retrieve in the old grey storage space, but when they come back... those memories... oh Christ they come back with a vengence." He smiled.

"Maybe you should just take it easy," my mom said. By the look on gramps face however we could see right away that she had said the wrong thing.

"Every moment is a challenge at this age. How in the hell am I supposed to take it easy. A lot of people assume that because you're up there" - he sawed his hand through the air above his head - "You're blessed with some kind of all seeing view. Some kind of resting place. Forget it. I'm still clawing every inch of the way up that goddamn mountain we call life always aware of the fact that if I make one wrong move - bam. Dead as a doornail. Every moment is a challenge and every memory is a battle and without that challenge I'm just an old geezer in adult diapers. Every breathe could be my last. You don't think there's suspence in that ? Age is not for the faint hearted. It's for the fighters."
He breathed heavily like an obscene phone caller between jobs.

"Gavrilo Princip," he repeated, turning the word over in his mind like a prize.

TATTOOED LOOPHOLES

"TATTOOED LOOPHOLES" is a fast fiction based on this beautifully bizarre image by Matt Furie. Not since those really disturbing paintings by
Miguel Calderon which appeared in The Royal Tenenbaums have images given such a one-two punch.

Unlike most people in Vancouver, I don't do drugs and so I need imagery such as this to take me to those altered states which dump you out in the middle of nowhere in a gorilla suit plastered in lipstick stains.

On behalf of the world, thank-you Matt Furie, for kicking the shit out of us through the medium of art.

TATTOOED LOOPHOLES

John Stimmer's rather large tattoo of a sasquatch in running shoes with an owl on its hairy outstretched arm caused a lot of commotion whenever he took his shirt off. He was shy but gladly "told the tale" of how and why and where and when he got his tattoo. He lurched through the facts illustrated with jerky flourishes from his bony arms and people were too mesmerized by the tattoo to notice that there was no real tale being told.

They were too busy gawking at the sasquatch which has a third eye of enlightment burning bright on its forhead.

Staring directly at them.

One evening John took a somewhat treacherous short cut through a back alley to get to his bus stop. His fear of showing up late for a date with his girlfriend overruled common sense and the shadowy figure in the back alley wasn't as frightening as his girlfriend with a mask of a scowl over her face. So he told himself.

"Hey man you got some change there ?" The man stepped into the middle of the narrow alley.

"Nope, sorry," John said. (And being from Canada he said sorry in day more than you will say in a lifetime.)

"Okay well then gimme anything else that you got," he said, pulling a dirty needle out from his frayed pocket.

"I don't have anything," John stammered.

"Gimme everything. Take off your pants !!"

John fumbled with his button and fly which suddenly took on a new level of difficulty. (For our purposes let's say eight or nine zipper teeth out of ten). "No don't take off your pants just gimme your wallet. And take off your shirt."

And after his shirt was off the junkie's clenched fist went limp. And the needle fell onto the dilapidated bricks of the back alley and he high-tailed it into the darkness with a special fear in his drug soaked mind.

Whenever John Stimmer talked about his near mugging experience, he simply listed a series of facts. The extact time followed by the location followed by why he was late followed by statistics about junkies followed by a "tattoo" followed by a narrow escape.

People were too bored by what was coming out of his mouth to dare ask about his tattoo and risk eliciting further figures and facts.

The tattoo stayed in storage under his shirt and the red glare of the sasquatch's eye of enlightenment slowly burned into dullness.

HEARTFELT NON-SEQUITURS

"HEARTFELT NON-SEQUITURS" is a fast fiction based on a photo by Sam Javanrouh,
the art director at Optix, a visual effects and animation company.
Sam's site is quite cool as it provides a daily dose of interesting imagery in the form of photography.


Enjoy...

HEARTFELT NON-SEQUITURS

They gaze out over the lake which shimmers shades of black under the cloudy sky. He is about to kiss her red, red lips.

"An exterminator dressed in a dog mascot suit," she whispers.

He kisses her.

This is the lake where they first meet. This is their three year anniversary. This is her aphasia located in her right temporal lobe which results in strange outbursts of thought in moments of passion.