Craniotomic Magazine

From The Editor

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:49:00 -0500

Dear Readers,

While I appreciate all of the support we’ve been given, and the great works we’ve posted by our astute contributors, it is with a wooden heart I announce the end of Craniotomic as of February 22, 2012.

I wish everyone who has contributed, read, or even visited us the very best in future years. With sincerity: thank you.

Yours,
Mike Dierdorf
Editor
Craniotomic Magazine

Spam Nuggets, vol. 2

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:12:35 -0400

Casserole Poetry by Brian Hartz and Mike Dierdorf

Scrumpy the Robin
Presents the devils hopyard, G.
Facts all fettle and ameliorate that you may not classify,
Halling poker. Killer poker, G.

George Frocester
Presents the counterpane fairy by the numbers review
The promo for the germs, megaupload the rift.
Spellforce!

The Dodos Undeclared
Presents the brakey house:
The new bookmart bermuda—
The new keldovan harrier.

Guitar. Serial number. Dating fender.
The joint commission, oral liquid dating the bull harpole.
Lebron, dating mother.
We are Sex Bob-omb 3.

Brian Hartz lives in Victoria, British Columbia. He is a previous contributor to Craniotomic. Mike Dierdorf is the editor of Craniotomic and lives in Oak Park, Illinois.

Reading Group Guide

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:27:00 -0400

Fiction by Alex Bernstein

For the purposes of group discussion, we present the following questions to help enrich and invigorate your reading and subsequent analysis thereof:

1. OMG. What was that all about?
2. Why were there no orchids on the cover?
3. For that matter, why were there no orchids in the book?
4. Conjugate the entire novel.
5. Discuss the incessant use of the phrase “beer goggles”.
6. Discuss the refreshing absence of Magic Realism.
7. Discuss my hat at length.
8. No, keep going.
9. Describe the elegant way old people dance.
10. Does anyone have any Kleenex?
11. At what point did you fall asleep and why?
12. Who is Chet Atkins? Who is Lord Vexing? Why weren’t they in the book?
13. Who brought the babka? Wow; that was good! I can never make anything that good at my house. You bought it?! You didn’t!
14. Really? Where?
15. When Twyla says Gordo is “full of vinegar,” what the hell is she talking about? I mean, full of vinegar? Literally? Full?
16. How could the “Plight of the Jews” have better informed this story?
17. Next time, can we please pick something with a few more chicks in it?
18. Screw men! HA HA HA HA HA! Oh. Oh, not you, Bill. Sorry! You’re the exception. Damn, you look good tonight. Did I say that out loud? Shut up, Carrie—I have not had too much to drink.
19. What was the significance of the—of—of—oh, forget it.
20. This is so nice. Is this teak?
21. What was the question?
22. Book club? Oh, shit! I thought this was Bunco.

Alex Bernstein is a freelance writer in New Jersey. His work has appeared at Blue Print Review, Swink, MonkeyBicycle, The Legendary, The Rumpus, The Big Jewel, Yankee Pot Roast, WordRiot, and PopImage, among others. He can be contacted at his website http://www.promonmars.com.

Spam Nuggets, vol. 1

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:17:14 -0400

Spam Nuggets have been contributed by Brian Hartz and arranged by Mike Dierdorf. All of the text has been gleaned from real web comments submitted by bots to a website edited by Mr. Hartz that shall remain nameless. It has been altered only by punctuation and the movement of some of the phrases.

Guy loses at table soccer and the girls take it out on his ass.
Actual:
Latina tranny bounces on hard cock!
The ark wantage, Prednisone for dog-licking side effects,
The banshee dorchester—all about the barn girton.
Actual:
Vectorworks!
Free student all about the book-of-the-millennium club,
Welcome the eagle carvery.
New:
The amorous prawn presents the brunchery brandon.
New:
The acorn evershot PresentTop news the beatards.
Get it, Bukowski?
Jack Hickman real estate: the shoelace.

Brian Hartz lives in Victoria, British Columbia. He is a previous contributor to Craniotomic.

Sacrificing Bunnies Is Fine, But What I Really Like Is Burritos

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 10:04:00 -0400

Fiction by Mike Bryant

Metallus blinked into existence.

“I’m back,” he said. At least, that’s what he tried to say, but his mouth was full of primordial ooze, which was less of a surprise to him this time.

He took a step forward and stuck out his claw to break the gelatinous seal on his birthing pod. As it tore, the ooze rushed out and splatted wetly onto the floor.

He stepped out through the slit and immediately fell to his knees and vomited up the remaining goo.

After he remembered how to breathe again, Metallus stood shakily on his skinny new red legs. He saw that he was in a standard-issue birthing chamber with a vertical womb built into the wall, a drain in the rough stone floor, and a black curtain on the wall opposite the womb. Beside the curtain, in a small alcove in the wall, was the usual welcome package that accompanied all new births. He ignored it as he knew from last time that it was useless.

He was not surprised to notice that he could see the floor quite clearly through his feet. In fact, he could see through himself no matter what part of his body he looked at. That was normal at this stage.

Metallus took a deep breath and pulled aside the curtain. On the other side was a nondescript stone corridor, its floor well worn over many millennia of ongoing use. Demons of all shapes and sized walked, crawled, squirmed, oozed, rolled, hopped, extended pseudopods, slithered, and used any other available means of locomotion to move from place to place across it. One dragged itself along on its own huge, sticky tongue. Another, a large, roughly-hewn, rectangular chunk of living rock, sat on top of a bed of rolling logs, whipping his minions while they pushed him along, repeatedly moving the rear log back up to the front as quickly as they could.

Of these, Metallus was easily the smallest demon. And the most translucent. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’d better report in.”

After a rather harrowing walk through corridors and elevators full of demons much larger and more solid than him, Metallus finally arrived at check-in. The trip was easier this time, as he already knew his way around from his last visit. Also, he didn’t have to rely on the map included in the aforementioned welcome package, which had the fifth and twentieth levels printed in reverse for the express purpose of fucking up the newbies.

The check-in area was comprised of a long, black counter with a series of disconcerting-looking devices along the front.

Each was essentially a small alcove in the stone with organic, fleshy, veiny walls on three sides. Inside the alcoves, hanging from the ceiling, were three spindly, boney arms, which looked like they had actually grown there. This is because they had. The arms also looked to be very good at probing parts that many beings prefer to have left unprobed. This is because they were.

Metallus approached the nearest available alcove. A horizontal slit opened up in the back of it, revealing horrible, pointy teeth and a tongue.

“Welcome to Hell,” said the mouth. “Please step into the scanner for identification.”

“I am Metallus!” said Metallus. “Scourge of the Deepest Jungles of the Land Beyond the Great Plains! Feared and Revered Death God of the Oong’akluk Tribe!”

“That’s nice. Step into the scanner.”

Metallus sighed, slouched, and did as he was told. Two of the arms grabbed him tightly while the third did its horrible, horrible business.

Metallus could have sworn that he saw the mouth grin. It definitely licked what would have been its lips, if it had any.

After a not-brief-enough prodding, the mouth once again spoke. “You are indeed Metallus,” it said. “But a Death God you are not.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Oong’akluk Tribe died out over seven thousand years ago. You have come back due to the miracle of archaeology.”

“The what of whataeology?” asked Metallus.

“Archaeology,” the mouth repeated. “Your long-dead believers left a small legacy which modern archaeologists have just discovered.”

“Excellent,” said Metallus. “This Archa-whoever Tribe will soon worship me like their predecessors. And I will once again become strong and fearsome!”

The scanner decided that it really wasn’t in the mood to break the revived demon’s palpable enthusiasm right then, so it just got on with its job. It opened up a soft, goo-coated cavity in its side and spit out some papers. “Please report to Archdemon Horax on the thirty-fifth level.”

“Thirty-fifth,” said Metallus, mortified. “But that means I’ll be in—”

“Technical support,” said the mouth.

“Goddammit,” said Metallus, taking the papers. “I really am in Hell.”

After another journey through corridors and elevators, Metallus arrived in Hell’s Technical Support department. He walked to the front desk and looked up at the blue, blobby thing sitting behind it.

“I am Metallus!” said Metallus. “Scourge of Technical Support!”

The thing leaned over the top of the desk and looked down at the tiny, reddish, see-through, horned deity.

“Papers?”

Metallus handed them over.

“I’ll notify Horax that you’ve arrived,” said the thing. “In the meantime, go through that door and find G’BroagFran The Mighty. He’ll be your new supervisor.”

“G’BroagFran the Mighty?” asked Metallus. “Not the G’BroagFran the Mighty!”

The blobby blue thing moved a contractile vacuole in the same sort of way that you might raise a single eyebrow.

“The G’BroagFran the Mighty who invented that worm that swims up your penis, attaches itself, and sucks your blood?”

“I guess,” said the thing.

“We used to hang out,” Metallus said. “One time, he had so many followers it was crazy. For a laugh, I snuck into this baby right at the moment of conception, ate its soul and took over. Then, when the body got older, I made up this other demon. I called him, like, ‘The Great Gajoobi’ or something idiotic like that, and I started my own church and got a bunch of G’BroagFran’s followers to believe in Gajoobi instead. So, of course, Gajoobi comes into existence and is just a total dick since I had all those suckers perceive him that way. So G’BroagFran gets all pissed off and goes on this rampage, disemboweling all of Gajoobi’s followers, AND THEN, at the last minute, I jump out and I’m all like ‘Surprise! It’s me!’ and then we fed on the wailing souls of the disemboweled. Serves them right, I say, turning their backs on G’BroagFran like that. Oh, man—we laughed our asses off about that one.”

The thing sat there, waiting patiently for Metallus to wrap it up. Once he did, it said, “Well, now he’s your boss. In there.” It extended a pseudopod toward the Technical Support area.

Metallus sighed and walked through the door. He found G’BroagFran and they had a pleasant greeting, but G’BroagFran was too busy running a department to really have a proper reunion.

“Here’s your cubicle,” said G’BroagFran. “You’re not a newbie, so no point in wasting time training. Here’s your headset; there’s your phone. Enjoy.”

Metallus sighed again, climbed onto his chair, strapped on his headset, and took his first call.

“Thank you for calling Hell Technical Support, this is Metallus. How can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah…” came a low, hoarse voice. “My thing isn’t working.”

“Pardon?”

“My…thing. The red thing.”

“Can you be more specific?” Metallus asked.

“You know, the thing I poke with.”

“What level are you calling from?”

Metallus heard a rustling, then heard the voice again, muffled this time. “Dude, what level are we on?”

Another, quieter voice said, “Twenty Eight.”

“Twenty Eight,” said the rasper.

“OK. Twenty eight,” said Metallus, trying to remember what happened on the twenty-eighth plane of Hell. “So, you’re talking about your trident.”

“I guess.”

“The thing you use to jab the souls of the damned?”

“Yeah.”

“All right,” said Metallus. “What seems to be wrong with it?”

“Well…I poke them, but they just stand there and look at me.” The rasper said. “The other guys poke them and they scream like stuck pigs!”

“Are you using the right end?”

“Whaddya mean?”

Metallus rubbed his temples. This was going to be a long shift. “There’s two ends, right? One has three points on it. The other is just, like, a stick, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You have to poke them with the end that has the three points.”

There was a pause, followed by a raspy “Are you sure?”

“Seriously. Try it.”

“OK, but I don’t think that’s it.”

“Humor me,” said Metallus, barely containing his annoyance.

“One sec,” said the rasper.

Another pause followed, during which Metallus heard a blood-curdling scream.

“Hey, that was it!” the rasper said. “Thanks!”

“You’re welcome, sir,” Metallus said. “And thank you for calling Technical Support!”

And so it went for the rest of his shift, which lasted over twenty-four years, since demons don’t sleep, eat, shit, or drink coffee.

One day, though, Metallus suddenly began to experience a sensation of weightlessness, and his headset fell right through him.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he said.

He wafted above the floor to G’BroagFran’s office and passed effortlessly through the door. “Uh, G’BroagFran?” he said.

G’BroagFran was sitting, frowning at his computer monitor. “Yeah?” he asked, looking up.

“I’m fading,” said Metallus faintly.

“Huh. So you are. Gimme a second.”

G’BroagFran poked at his touch screen and pulled up all the latest information on Metallus. “Hmmm,” he said. “It appears that the archaeologist who wrote about you has died.”

“But I’m still here. Sort of.”

“That’s because there are still people who have read his book, which is terrible, by the way.” G’BroagFran paused, then peered over his glasses. “Not a lot of them, and they don’t actually believe in you, but the idea is still there. They likely don’t even remember your name.”

“So what do I do? I’m too incorporeal to take calls.”

The computer display changed.

“Ah, there are new orders coming in now,” G’BroagFran said, reading. “You’re to report to a huge, creepy old house in Scotland. You’re supposed to stay in the attic, and then float down the big spiral staircase at precisely 3:26 am every day, at which point you’re to float directly into the picture of the old guy at the bottom of the stairs and disappear. Then you float up through the wall back to your waiting area in the attic.”

Metallus hung there, astonished. “I’m a ghost?”

“Ghost, apparition, phantom, whatever,” said G’BroagFran. “Seems like a standard haunting.”

“But…I want to be a demon!” Metallus protested. “I used to be bigger than the trees! Mortals worshiped and feared me and I devoured their souls! You remember!”

“Yeah, yeah. Good times. But at least you’re here, right? I mean, you were gone for, what? Six thousand years? Things are different now, is all.”

“But…a fucking ghost? Nobody worships ghosts. They’re just pale, floaty things.”

G’BroagFran raised an eyebrow at the pale, floaty thing in front of him. “Yeah, well, that’s what the customers want this millennia. Demons are out. Ghosts are in. Actually, little grey space men with a penchant for mechanized anal rape are in, but you gotta take what you can get, I guess.”

“I guess,” said Metallus, crestfallen. “Well…Scotland it is, then. Catch you later.”

And Scotland it was.

Metallus, however, didn’t get to wander the moors, eat haggis, or toss cabers (through things) as he had hoped. He didn’t even get to stop by and talk to an old reptilian buddy who was on assignment in a small lake there, freaking out the local drunks. He simply found himself floating around a disused attic waiting for 3:26 am to arrive. When it did, he followed his instructions precisely to the letter.

Every night for six months he wafted gently down the staircase, into the painting and back up to the attic to wait. Luckily for him, supernatural beings don’t get bored. They do, however, get slowly less real as they languish in a lack of human attention.

One night, though, during his regular waft, he spotted something unusual. A person. A mortal person. Apparently someone had a bit too much to drink earlier that night and had to leave the comfort of his bed to let the ale out.

The person spotted Metallus, who was shimmering vaguely in the air. He stopped, squinted, and blinked. Metallus floated toward and then directly through the pitiful mortal who stood there, eyes wide with fear, his trip to the bathroom no longer necessary.

Metallus immediately felt a bit more corporeal. He would have smiled had there been enough of him to do so.

For the next six years, Metallus found an increase in the frequency of humans on the stairway during his nightly waft. Some came with devices that measured sound waves or air pressure. Most came with devices which did nothing except blink cool-looking lights whenever the user secretly pressed a button in the handle.

All of them, eventually, ran away screaming.

Metallus began to feel much better. He was gradually becoming more solid and changing to look like the old man in the picture. Obviously, mortals believed him to be the ghost of the man. He was even getting used to the idea of being a ghost instead of a demon. Maybe if enough people began to believe, he’d get upgraded to Ghastly Apparition. Or even Wraith.

He could end up holding his own head under his arm, with gore spouting from his neck-hole! Hell yeah, he thought. That’d be the life.

And that’s when things got weird.

Floating in the attic late one night, Metallus began to feel strange. Like he wasn’t himself. He sensed another presence in the room—a not unfamiliar presence.

3:26 rolled around and off he went down the stairway. Three people waited for him at the bottom this time. As he rounded the corner, they gasped and took on the usual humanly astonished look when they saw him.

Then Metallus stopped floating, while somehow simultaneously continuing to float. He fell to the stairs and stood there on solid feet. Yet, he looked up and saw himself, pale and billowy and hovering. Also, he continued to float and looked back to see himself standing there, looking less like the old man in the painting and more like his old solid self, red and horned.

“What the fuck?” his two selves asked each other. Then he remembered that he had a job to do, and continued down the stairs. This worked out much better for the ghost part than the demon part, which leaned forward and promptly went tumbling down the stairs and into the terrified onlookers.

Metallus jumped to his feet and looked to his other self in time to see it disappear into the painting. He spun around, hissed at the puny mortals, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

He found himself back in G’BroagFran’s office. “What the fuck?” he said again, this time to his chuckling boss.

“Ah, there you are,” said G’BroagFran. “I just got word to expect you. It looks like you’ve got followers again.”

“I—what?”

“Followers,” G’BroagFran repeated. “You’ve got ‘em. So you separated into two autonomous selves. The phantom part and the demon part. I’m told the cutover can be quite disorienting.”

“You could say that,” said Metallus.

“Anyway, you’re back. Again.”

“And I’m a ghost, too?”

“Nope. The ghost is its own entity now.”

“Huh.”

“So it looks like you’re back on the phones. For now.”

“Goddammit.”

A few months into his shift, Metallus found himself growing considerably stronger, larger, and more solid. A mailroom demon rolled up to his cubicle, its rickety bone wheels squeaking. “Are you…Metallus?” it asked, scanning the front of a package.

“I am.”

“I got a delivery for you,” said the mailroom demon, lifting the shoebox-sized parcel off the flat middle part of itself and depositing it on Metallus’s desk.

“What is it?”

“Hell if I know. I just deliver ‘em,” said the flatback, passing a clipboard and pen to Metallus. “Sign please.”

Metallus scrawled his name and stared quizzically at the box as the flatback rolled away. Eventually, he extended a claw and peeled away the plain brown wrapping to reveal the reason why the package was shoebox-shaped.

It was because it was a shoebox.

He daydreamed momentarily about his impending sponsorship deal, and then lifted the lid. Instead of a sweet pair of King Metallus kicks, though, was a bloody, burned, and mutilated pile of flesh, fur, and bones. Metallus used a pen to lift up the gory, blackened mess, which spilled tiny internal organs all over his desk.

“Huh,” said Metallus, inspecting the pulpy mass. “This looks pretty good.”

G’BroagFran was passing by just then saw the disgusting pile of goo. He stopped. “Is that what I think it is?”

Metallus, not looking away from the contents of the package, said, “Think so. Ritual sacrifice.”

“To you?“

“Looks like it,” said Metallus. “It’s got my emblem carved right into the forehead and everything.” There was a long silence.

“Nice,” G’BroagFran said, smiling at his friend.

“Well, shit yeah! I’m pleased.”

“Cool, man—good for you!” said G’BroagFran, slapping Metallus on the shoulder. “Looks like someone remembers you after all. So will you be granting some wishes soon?”

Metallus sat back in his chair and considered that. “Of course. I mean, whatever gets me more power, right?” G’BroagFran nodded.

“Any idea who it is?”

“None. I’m hoping it’s some really powerful warlock who wants me to smite the fuck out of some townspeople or something,” Metallus said.

“Ooh. Maybe it’ll be some emperor wanting you to guard his harem.”

Metallus smiled. “Oh, I’ll guard it, all right. I’ll guard the shit out of it.”

They laughed and high-fived at that one. Or, in total between them, it was a high-seven, but who’s counting?

Then Metallus abruptly stopped laughing. “What? Hello?” he asked, glancing quickly around. He was beginning to feel odd.

G’BroagFran also looked around, unaware. “What?”

“Did someone call me?” asked Metallus.

“I didn’t hear-” G’BroagFran began, before being interrupted by a convulsion from Metallus, who at last realized what was happening.

“I’m being summoned!” said Metallus. “Whoa. That’s been a while.”

“It’s the middle of your shift,” said G’BroagFran, suddenly unamused.

“It’s always the middle of my shift.”

“Good point.”

“Gotta go,” said the already-going Metallus.

“Don’t forget to mark this on your time sheet!” called G’BroagFran after him. It was too late. His charge faded away with a quiet “schlurp” followed by a miniscule popping sound. For Metallus, however, it was the office that did the schlurping. In its place came darkness. Then the light of candles surrounded him in the shape of a five-pointed star.

“Whoa,” said a voice. Another followed with “Shh!” and then, a loudish “Um… Oh, great Metallus, we have—”

Metallus, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, cut off the voice, shouting, “WHO DARES SUMMON THE GREAT METALLUS?”

“It is I, your faithful servant Azrael, Lurker of Darkness,” said the voice, which Metallus could now see was coming from the second of three black-clad figures kneeling outside the pentagram which contained him.

“WHY HAVE YOU BROUGHT ME HERE?” Metallus demanded.

“Oh. Um…”

“’Cause you’re awesome,” said the larger figure to Azrael’s right. This earned him a smack across the back of the head from Azrael.

“Dude,” Azrael whispered loudly to his underling, “I said I do the talking.”

The larger figure shoved Azrael and told him to fuck off.

“AND YOU!” Metallus bellowed at the fuckoff-suggestor, “WHAT IS YOUR DESIGNATION?”

“I am—” he began, before being cut off by Azrael.

“He is The Mighty Rez-Nore, Keeper of the Sacred Scrolls!”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Rez-Nore, Keeper of the Sacred Scrolls. “I am The Black Mamba.”

“Oh, you are not. I thought we settled this,” said Azrael.

“I don’t want to be Rez-Nore. I’m The Black Mamba.”

Azrael sighed and rolled his eyes. “That’s a dildo.”

“It’s a giant-ass snake.”

“It’s also a dildo. And you’re totally a dildo.”

“Your mom calls me The Dildo every night,” said He Whose Name Was In Question.

Throughout this exchange, the third, much smaller, black-clad figure kneeled unmoving, mouth agape, and gave Metallus a wide-eyed stare.

Metallus surveyed his captors. They were young men, each wearing on his chest symbols and words that Metallus found to his liking, such as “Carcass“, “In Flames“, and “Nuclear Assault”. Similar symbols and words lined the walls of the low-ceilinged room, which were made of a type of flat, glossy wood unknown to Metallus. The grass under their feet appeared to be manufactured rather than grown. There was a door to the left and two small windows set high in the wall to the right. Behind the three mini-men were devices unfamiliar to Metallus—low, short, metal boxes with portholes in the front.

“I GROW WEARY OF YOUR BICKERING!” she shouted. “FOR WHAT PURPOSE HAST THOU SUMMONED ME TO THE MORTAL PLANE?”

“To…to let you know that we totally worship you,” said Azrael. “But, can you keep the booming down a bit? My mom’s upstairs sleeping.”

“CAN YOU NOT WORSHIP ME FROM AFAR?” boomed Metallus.
“Uh… I guess. But we wanted you to know that Cockstrangler is totally awesome.”

“YOU WANT TO STRANGLE CHICKENS?”

“What?” asked Azrael, his eyes looking up for an answer. “No, wait. Cockstrangler. Your band. They fucking rule, man.”

“EXPLAIN!” Metallus demanded.

Azreal turned to Black Mamba and said “Dude, the Sacred Scrolls.”

Black Mamba/Rez-Nore grabbed a black backpack and rooted through it for a moment before pulling out a small, stiff, rectangular object. He handed it to Metallus across the line of the pentagram.

Metallus took it and examined it. On one side was a picture of five humans wearing the flesh of slaughtered bovine. Their faces were covered in a white substance with black designs around the eyes. At the top it said “Cockstrangler”. And at the bottom, in heavy block letters: “GLORY BE TO METALLUS”.

Metallus turned the object over. On the back was a list of ten short phrases, each numbered sequentially. Some stood out to him. “Metallus, My Lover”, “Praise The Metal Demon”, and “Metal Hellion”. “Glory Be To Metallus” appeared there, also.

“WHAT IS THIS…THING?”

“It’s a CD.” said Black Mamba/Rez-Nore. “It’s got music on it. It’s all about you.”

“SONGS OF DEVOTION?”

“Um. Yeah.”

“I WISH TO HEAR THESE SONGS IMMEDIATELY!”

“OK,” said Black Mamba/Rez-Nore. “Give it here, I’ll put it on.”

As Rez-Nore/Black Mamba got up and walked over to the CD player, Metallus gestured at the third young man, who was still staring in horror.

“What’s up with him?” asked Metallus.

“That’s my little brother, Andy,” said Azrael. He then smacked Andy upside the head. “Andy. Close your mouth. You’re not a codfish.”

Andy looked at his brother, turning away from Metallus for the first time since his entrance, and said, “I think I peed my pants.”

At once, the room filled with noises the likes of which Metallus had never heard. There was something that sounded like drums, but they were different from the drums of the ancient people who once worshipped him. These drums were brash and harsh and fast. And there was a grinding noise speeding its way along with them, playing dissonant intervals at a blistering pace. Then the vocals started. They didn’t sound human. They were more like a low-pitched, guttural growl. And they were saying nice things about Metallus, though he couldn’t make out a word until Black Mamba/Rez-Nore showed him the lyric sheet.

“He sings like I talk,” said Metallus. “This is a demon singing!”

“Nope. Human.” said Azrael.

“But that would be awesome,” said Black Mamba.

“Human?” Metallus asked, incredulously. “Impossible!”

Black Mamba turned the CD insert over and pointed to the picture of the band. “That’s the guy right there.”

“His face is painted.”

“Yeah.”

“And what is that he’s wearing?”

“A dead cow,” said Azrael.

Metallus studied the picture for a few moments and listened to the cacophonous black metal. “This is to my liking,” he said. “I approve!”

“Sweet,” Azrael said, and high-fived Black Mamba. He then attempted to do the same to his little brother, but Andy was again staring at Metallus and left him hanging.

“Do these Cockstrangling people actually sacrifice chickens on stage?”

“No, that’s just a name.” said Azrael.

“I thought not, as I have received no such gifts. A shame. They could gain much power and favor from me if they did.”

“Well, maybe you should tell them that,” said Azrael.

Metallus lifted the Sacred Scroll to his face and shouted “YOU THERE! STRANGLERS OF CHICKENS! YOU SHOULD—”

“Dude! They can’t hear you,” Azrael said. “We’ll have to go in person.”

“Then let us make haste!”

“We can’t right now. But they’re playing at the Bamboo Forest on Monday.”

“And what day is it now?”

“Friday.”

“Then we have three of your Earth days to wait,” Metallus said. What shall we do?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” said Black Mamba, pulling a textbook out of his backpack.

He opened the book and pulled a small plastic bag containing small bits of paper and a sort of green vegetation from the space between the spine and the binding.

“We will be eating health food?” asked Metallus.

“Sort of,” Black Mamba said. “Say, do you know who Tom Servo is?”

By Monday afternoon, Lord Demonicus, the vocalist for Cockstrangler was making a different sort of noise with his throat than usual. It went “HUUUUUUUAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!” and was followed by a moist, splattering sound against the water in the toilet bowl.

“Nnnnggh,” he said.

“Dwayne. Dude,” said his guitarist, Sodomus Necrogina, or Dave, from just outside of the washroom. “I guess you’re not feeling any better.”

“Nnnnnngghh,” said Dwayne/Lord Demonicus. He followed that with another violent expulsion of his lunch.

Dave, having never been very good with puke, scrunched up his face and pulled his shirt up over his nose. “We’ll cancel the show. I’ll go talk to the promoter.”

“No, no…” said Dwayne, “I’m fine.”

“You’re so not fine.”

“Just do sound check without me,” said Dwayne. “I’ll get some sleep and do the show.”

Just as Lord Demonicus was calling Ralph on the porcelain phone, the guys returned from school to find Metallus watching a DVD and taking up the entire couch, as he had all weekend.

He removed from his mouth the bong he had fashioned out of a twenty-gallon gasoline can and said, “I do not understand! Why does the Empire not simply use their death star to blow up the entire planet instead of waiting for the forest moon of Yavin to complete its orbit?”

“Uh…” said Azrael, who had never thought about that.

“This so-called ‘Grand Moff’ is inefficient. If I was Lord Vader, I would subject him to a sound force-choking. I’ve been trying to do it myself, but it does not appear to work through the screen.”

“It’s not real, dude,” said Black Mamba.

“What do you mean?”

“Nevermind that,” said Azrael. “Suit up. We’ve got to grab a bite and head out.”

“I have no suit. I need no suit. I have nigh-impenetrable scales. FOR I AM METALLUS!”

“You’ll be Metall-Missed-The-Concert-Us if you don’t move it.”

Two bus, one train, and one subway ride later, the trio and their new demonic friend made their way from the suburbs to the city and, finally, the club. Metallus aroused some suspicion in the suburbs, but that was because he had all his teeth and no mullet rather than his normal appearance. The closer they got to the city, though, the more he was just ignored by people who, quite frankly, had seen stranger things.

The Bamboo Forest was like all great rock clubs: dark, dank and, much like your mom, looked a lot better with the lights off. It also had that special old club smell—years of spilled beer, stale cigarettes, and underage vomit.

Outside was the usual lineup of black t-shirts and expensive boots waiting to get in. This displeased Metallus.

“Why are we lined up?” he asked. “These songs of devotion are about me! I will not stand in a line!”

With that, he stomped up the sidewalk to the still-locked door and knocked it down with one punch, much to the delight of the waiting audience.

He strode into the club, the lineup following him, to find four of the five band members lounging on grotty old torn-up sofas, eating cheap take-out hamburgers.

“I AM METALLUS!” bellowed Metallus.

“Dude, that is one sick costume,” said the bass player.

“THIS IS NO COSTUME! I AM METALLUS! YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TO PLAY YOUR SONGS OF DEVOTION!”

“You’ll have to wait until the show, man,” said Dave.

“METALLUS DOES NOT WAIT! WORSHIP ME NOW!”

“Doors are at nine, dude,” said Dave. “There’s two openers, then us. Sorry, but you’ll have to wait.”

“I DEMAND TO KNOW THE MEANING OF OPENER!”

Azrael began to explain the finer points of rockshowdom to Metallus, but the demon rapidly grew impatient.

“WILL THESE SO-CALLED ‘OPENING ACTS’ BE SINGING SONGS OF PRAISE TO ME AS WELL?”

“Uh, well, no…” Azrael began.

“THEN THEY ARE IRRELEVANT! SING YOUR SONGS OF WORSHIP NOW!”

“I’d love to, man, but Dwayne—er, Lord Demonicus is sick.”

“Sick meaning good, like the way the kids say?” asked Metallus. “Or the more traditional meaning?”

“Traditional. He’s been puking his guts out all day.”

One of the many black-shirted youths in the crowd turned to Metallus and said, “Why don’t you sing, instead?”

“What’s that?” Metallus asked.

“You should sing,” said the kid. “You’ve got the voice for it. And if you want to be worshipped, being in a band is the way to do it.”

“You raise a valid point, puny mortal,” said Metallus. “Your death shall be swift and painless.”

“Sweet,” said Puny Mortal.

Metallus turned to the band and said, “Take up your noisemaking machines! I shall now be your bellower, and I shall sing songs of praise to myself and incite amongst my followers the destruction of all those who do not worship me!”

The band shrugged, climbed on stage, and began to rock out.

The audience ate it up. They raised their metal fingers, shouted a lot, and slammed repeatedly into their friends in order to show their appreciation, as is the custom in such situations.

The band performed a few of their songs, but Metallus changed the lyrics on the fly, thus creating new masterpieces such as “Glory Be To Me”, “All You Mortals Can Suck It”, and “Sacrificing Bunnies is Fine, but What I Really Like is Burritos”.

Metallus then heard one smartass in the crowd call out to him, requesting that they play some Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“There’s always one,” said Dave.

“I WILL NOT!” Metallus bellowed, then he stomped off the stage and grabbed the offender by the neck. He tore off his head, cracked it open with his bare hands, and proceeded to eat the brain, getting more of it on his chest than in his mouth.

The crowd loved it. Even the friends of the Skynyrd-yelling douchebag thought it was pretty cool because really, deep down, they knew he deserved it.

Metallus returned to the stage as the band started into another of their songs, now appropriately re-titled “Screw You, You Freebird-Yelling Douchebag.”

After a few more songs, including “I Shall Scorch The Earth and Leave No Survivors”, “I Will Eat Your Soul and Fuck Your Entrails”, and “The Grand Moff is Incompetent”, Metallus decided that the crowd had enough of his greatness so he smashed a hole in the wall and literally threw them all out of the club.

Neither the audience nor the band could get enough of this spectacle. Dwayne was unceremoniously kicked out of the band, then very ceremoniously eaten by Metallus.

Word of Cockstrangler’s unique new vocalist spread quickly, and soon the band found themselves playing bigger and bigger clubs to larger and larger audiences. Some of their early-adopting fans, upset by the fact that they could no longer consider Cockstrangler to be their own personal band, turned to the internet to register their disgust and levy scathing accusations against the band of “selling out”. Soon they found bits of themselves splattered on the walls while their souls were doomed to a painful thousand years of horror in Metallus’s digestive tract before eventually being shat into a black hole to suffer eternally.

Metallus didn’t respond well to criticism.

The egos of the band members swelled, but not as much as Metallus did. With more followers, he gained more strength and grew larger and louder and generally more badass. They started selling special, extra-expensive tickets to pre-designated areas of each venue, which were referred to as “The Fire Pit”. At the end of each show, fans lucky enough to score tickets to the Fire Pit were gloriously immolated by Metallus’s own fire breath. Each incinerated fan considered themselves to be a sacrifice to their Rock God, thus increasing his power even more. The band, of course, took to the usual excesses that one is expected to when one is a rock star.

But none more so than Metallus. He began demanding the sacrifice of at least five virgins before every show. This had a detrimental effect on the attendance at renaissance fairs and Star Trek conventions everywhere.

Soon, Metallus was snorting the lava of up to five volcanoes a day. He began sacrificing mud sharks to himself, and even had two ribs removed in order to skewer the Fire Pit fans before roasting them.

Everything was going great for Metallus. Until one day, that is, when he seemed a little bit smaller.

“A phase,” Metallus said. “I’ll be fine.”

But he wasn’t.

As rapid as his ascent had been, his fall was even faster. Within weeks, he and his band found themselves playing in smaller and smaller theaters, and then clubs. Fire Pit sales dropped off. It seemed nobody wanted to be sacrificed to his glory any more.

Sitting in their van after a particularly crappy show, Metallus turned to the band and said, “What has happened? Have I eaten too many fans?”

“Nah,” said Dave. “It’s Lord Baggshott that’s the problem.”
“What are you on about?”

“Lord Baggshott and The Haggis Quartet,” said Dave. “They’re the new thing.”

“But they suck,” said The Bass Player.

“Oh, for sure, but they’re huge.”

“They’ve got a fucking ghost singing for them,” The Bass Player said, “What the hell is that about? You can hardly hear him.”

“Ghost?” Metallus asked. “Haggis? Jesus Christ…”

“Yeah. He looks like some old rich fuck,” said Dave. “But he’s all transparent and floaty-looking. They’re all ‘Ooooh, look how scary we are! Let’s all look at our shoes and mope while Ghosty Ghosterson wails and screams about his immortal soul’s eternal suffering,’ or some such shit.”

“Let me guess,” Metallus said, “He claims to be the ghost of a Scottish Lord who has to float down the same stairway every night?”

Dave nodded. “You’ve heard of him?”

“We’ve met. Sort of.”

So it was that Metallus soon found himself once again translucent, tiny, and sitting in a cubicle. He reached for his headset as G’BroagFran the Mighty stuck his head over the cubicle wall.

“You’re back!” said G’BroagFran.

“For now.”

“Maybe forever. That’d suck.”

“Nope,” said Metallus, shaking his tiny head. “Fifteen years, max. I can do that standing on my head. In fact, I think I will, just to make it interesting.”

“Fifteen years?” asked G’BroagFran. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, there are two interesting words that I learned while topside,” Metallus said, flipping upside down and dangling his legs over the back of his chair. “Two very interesting and lucrative words.”

“What two words are those?”

Metallus put on his headset, pressed the “ready” button, and grinned at his old friend.

“Reunion tour,” he said.

From Toronto, Ontario, Mike Bryant has released two novellas, Shaolin Rock Star and Operation Dickhead and a spoken word CD entitled “Chicken Noodle Pants”. He enjoys science fiction and heavy metal, which pretty much makes him a hit with the ladies.

Gliders

Tue, 03 May 2011 22:23:00 -0400

Fiction by Martin Shaw

That was a bomb, sir, and in case you didn’t know, it’s blown a great big gaping wound in your head.

HELLO! Hello? Hello? HA! Look—I can see a football pitch and a gaggle of geese that are honking at me. Honk-honk! Honk-honk! Anyway… ah yes, let me see. I can see another massive hole inside there. Wood-boring insects are trying to escape the violent lashing of one of your severed neurons. Gosh, it’s like a broken air hose on a generator.

Oops-a-daisy. There goes an exoskeleton shell. Uh oh! Now the hose is whipping at the insect’s bare buttocks. Will you listen to it bray, sir? Err … are you still here, sir? Come on now—wakey-wakey! We can’t miss the big buttock lash. You didn’t with mine, you naughty thing!

Right! Okay, that’s better. Anyway, as I was saying, sir, there’s a show on inside your head tonight; I saw it advertised on the side of the bomb on the way in. It’s the first air show done at night for gliders. We can all pretend to watch them as they, well, just glide I suppose, and then listen out for the tips of the wings whooshing past at head height. We’ll have to duck, or they’ll cut us smiles before crashing like flies hitting a windscreen into the back of your eyes.

Don’t worry though, sir. We’ve all had crashing gliders in our heads at some time or another. They’re what have created our coronal suture. Smashing gliders. Inside of our heads. It’s the bane of humanity!

Where are you going? Keep those eyes open now. Come on, sir. Stay with me, stay with me. You’re making hard work of this, aren’t you? Ah, that’s better.

You have never liked me, have you, sir? You’ve always seen me as someone continually brushing his teeth, and you have held me in contempt for spitting out in front of you. I must admit, I know it looks complacent when I empty my mouth: taking that life essence Water and letting it drain down a plughole. You see, it’s just that I have done it since childhood, and have never given it a second thought. Like you, sir, just like you… We’ve all been your Water, haven’t we?

Well, I don’t think there are any medics going to make it up here. Look—everyone’s like popcorn in that minefield, and there’s not much hope for you with the size of your wound. It’s all go today, isn’t it, sir?

Can I have one of those cigars you keep for a special occasions? Thanks… I’ll blow some smoke in for you. Mmm, oh yes. This is jolly nice, isn’t it, sir? I shall stay right here with you until you pass; not like we did to Clancy.

Do you remember Clancy, sir?

If he’s alive now, he’ll be alive in the morning, you shouted.

Morning came and he’d kicked the bucket. He’d written a note to his wife. Do you know what it said, sir? I have it here; let’s see if we can strike a compassionate chord, hmm? Here we go:

Jena, my darling wife, the one I have always loved: As I look up at the night sky at this moment, I hope that you will do the same after you read this. I am leaving you now, but please, don’t cry, even if I know that you are. If I hadn’t gone for that bagel, we’d never have met. A yen for toasted garlic led me to you, and I’ve never had a taste for garlic since.

I love you, Jena, and everything I have done after that bagel has always been because I love you. I die the happiest man in the world.

That’s sweet, isn’t it? I’ll just tuck that back in my top pocket, nice and snug.

I feel a bit despondent about this whole war thing now, sir. You see, since the twin towers collapsed, I’ve had to join the army to supplement my wages because I can’t sell my Porsche 911. A gypsy once told me I’d own a car that will bring me bad luck, but when I look inside there is never room for anything at all. Stupid gypsy and her lucky heather, she should have been born a bee.

Hey! When are bees actually born anywho?

As I was saying, I use the army to supplement my wages because I already work for the government. Come to think of it, we all work for the government. The only thing that isn’t taxed is masturbation. It’s a good job too; I’d be skint otherwise. No, I just work in the houses of parliament’s main cafeteria and dish out re-heated chips to make the politicians feel in touch with society. I was fishing up some cod out the fryer when I got called up, so to speak.

Now there’s a thought. You could use a Porsche 911 to get away from a devastation scene pretty quickly, couldn’t you? I’m sure you could. That’s good advertising. I don’t think it’s illegal, is it? In bad taste, maybe, but not illegal. Like the blokes shooting sparrows in Auschwitz to keep it a tourist attraction.

Anyway, sir, the end is nigh for you, old chap. Instead of dying in hand-to-hand combat like you’ve always predicted, you’ll die in the flooded fields of blood red poppies that we were sent here to protect. You’ve been knocked out of your orbit by a stray bomb from a bi-plane. Seriously, they’re using bi-planes now. And they’re working.

Cuh … tut! They bomb their own kind, these bi-planes, don’t they, sir? Anything to be different, eh?

You’re going now, aren’t you, sir? You remind me of a song.

Hold on, I’ve got it! Let’s both have a jig as I sing to you. Up you get.

Blimey! You’re heavier than you look. Come on! Well, at least hold your head up… Ready? A-one-two-three!

Oooooooooooooooooooh!

The Campptown races, la la la

Doo-dah! Doo-dah!

La la la la, five miles long!

Oh, dee dooh-dah day!

Goin’ to run all night,

Goin’ to run all day!

I bet my money on a bob-tailed nag,

Somebody bet on the grey!

Tadaa!

Ahh… that was good. Well, got to go myself now, sir; be lucky. It is really me, don’t you know? Don’t you know? Don’t you know!

Martin Shaw is a war veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder who is unintentionally good at making pancakes. He can be contacted via telepathy.

Deep City DNA, Photo by Laura Miller

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:40:04 -0500

Deep City DNA, Photo by Laura Miller

Complex

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 20:23:00 -0400

Fiction by Whitney Porter

What the fuck were we thinking? But it was already September. It had been 95 degrees every day. The air was so thick with humidity and industrial grime I thought I was going drown in it, if I didn’t choke to death first. We’d been driving all around town in my car with a busted AC. We’d been looking for three months. The apartment was cheap. It was on a top floor. No upstairs neighbors. It had a balcony. Granted, the vista was a smog-choked view of the expressway. It didn’t matter. I had an apartment where I could look down on things. And I love looking down on things. Even really ugly things.

There was a pool in the middle of the complex. Best of all there were Coke machines, snack machines, laundry rooms. I wouldn’t have to get into my crappy un-air conditioned car for weeks. Save for the occasional odd job, which was why we were living in this shit hole in the first place so we could have odd jobs rather than real ones. And this business of over tanned skeevy bat faced men getting loaded in the parking lot, smoking pot and drinking beer while sitting on their pick up tailgates, occasionally giving me a look like they might one night on a meth-amphetamine binge, butcher and then grill me on one of the many hibachis on the premises or the fact that the entire apartment complex celebrates Halloween with the reverence that most neighborhoods in the suburbs reserve for Christmas and the 4th of July. Crap loads of carved out pumpkins on every step, window and doorway, skeletons hanging from balconies like multiple lynchings after a medieval raid, posters of fire breathing demons pasted on the dumpster door, gut like plastic worms stuck to mail boxes. And every single kid looks like a chunky or morbidly obese version of the children of the corn who not only eats an overabundance of string cheese but have already squeezed their hefty trans-fat laden bodies into hideous and titillatingly inappropriate costumes, half Texas Chainsaw Massacre half Tila Tequila. I won’t even go into much detail about the sallow faced teenagers, looking like the kids from the River’s Edge, as I walk past them on the stairs with their jaws hung slack like cows, sprawled against the stairwell, leaning on the skateboards that they spent the entire afternoon falling off of. I thought I could handle it. But for fuck sakes.

Across the hall from us there’s Joe and Timmy Johnson. A father and his 40 something year old son. Joe, the father, is an unemployed machinist out on disability, who looks exactly like the creepy alcoholic next door neighbor I had growing up, who insisted me and my brother call him Uncle Peaches and was always trying get us to put our hands in his pockets. Joe wears oil stained coveralls every single day. Yet I’ve never seen Joe near a car or go more than two feet from his apartment. Rendering that dark substance swathed on his clothing a mystery, a mystery that I’d like to remain a mystery. I loathe Joe’s paternal patter, his macho bravado, the way he unnecessarily spreads his legs practically straddling his chair every time he sits down. How he tips his baseball cap every time he curses, and ask us to pardon his French, even though everything he says is most decidedly of German origin.

He’s probably 65 years old at the youngest and he’s gushing about Halloween like a thirteen year old boy hopped up on pop rocks. “I mean dude, what we got will scare your balls off,” he says, raising the meerkat he has for a brow.

There’s a code to get into the complex. It’s early in the afternoon and they’ve locked the gate. As if anyone on this planet would want to break in here, or feel any safer being locked in. Someone has draped the keypad with cob webs out of a spray can. I have to get out of my car. It takes me ten minutes to claw through, un-stick my fingers, kick, scream, yell, curse, and remember my code. When I’m finally able to open the gate, I find the entire fucking complex is wrapped in cobwebs, from the rooftop to the ground floor. They’re everywhere. Someone has even webbed the high dive of the pool, which is marginally ambitious.

I blame the skateboarding hoard of teenage boys that live here. Not just because I hate them, but because I hate them most, and because they’re staring right at me, standing beside the handy work with smirks on their gruesome acne pocked faces as I pull my car through the gate, and a particularly strong roping strand of cobweb bends along my dirty windshield. They’re slouching just inside the gate, their eyes duly dilated, giving each other high fives for no apparent reason, other than it’s probably the only physical intimacy they’ll allow themselves, aside from the occasional drunken circle jerk. I blame them because they’re the only ones that have the time, energy, and necessary truancy to be able to pull off something like this. Because last week I may have accidently on purpose hit one of them with my car door, because a spray can isn’t exactly a foreign object to them, because their frontal lobes are not fully developed, because they don’t have impulse control or good judgment, and because like most teenage boys they’re assholes. Because this week not only was I subjected to the entire complex’s Halloween hysteria, that renders everything icky, black, orange and rusty, but also to a daily dose of teenage skater boys and their blackened butt cracks, as they try with their thin un-athletic bodies to do some trick they saw on a Tony Hawk video game they probably stole from some sweet trusting fat kid who knows the entire score to “Mame,” which makes me think they’re capable of anything.

Not surprisingly the cobwebs are especially thick along the outdoor hallway to my apartment. I need a scythe get through them. I encounter each with exasperation and muttered nonsensical curses, because after a shitty odd job of delivering pizzas for eight hours yesterday, bringing home a whopping thirty bucks for my troubles, I’m too fucking tired and depressed to think of sensical ones. The cobwebs rub against my face like clawing feral kittens, toxic and oddly fragrant. I turn a corner and manage to scare a woman pushing a cart filled with aluminum cans “half to death” while taking down a hand full of cobwebs along with a couple of rusty wind chimes. She looks at me and tells me I’m crazy. I tell her I’m not the one that’s pushing a cart filled with aluminum cans wearing a nightgown at 1:30 in the afternoon. I finally get to my door. A rush of relief hits me. I know it’s just a door. But to me it’s more than a door. It’s an oasis in a desert of tackiness, stupidity and unbridled inbreeding. It’s beautiful. It’s unadorned. It’s steel. It’s brown. It’s not even brown. It’s not even a color. It is miraculously bland, there are no monsters, no ghosts, no fucking candy corn glued onto it or left beside it in baskets for stray cats to choke on, which is the only way to get rid of candy corn and the worst way to euthanize stray cats, no posters of pock marked, lunar landscape faced lunatics wearing coats cobbled together with the dead flesh of young nubile teenage girls that are entirely too old to be spending their summers in camp. No pumpkins or jaggedly cut jack o’ lanterns that look like they were carved under duress with a butcher knife. It is plain, strong and neutral, just like any other door in any other part of the city, during any other season. It’s my door. It is my refuge.

“What kind of mother fucker don’t celebrate Halloween?” some slurring random drunk asshole that’s got a face like a distressed leather jacket asks me, sitting with his dirty knees pulled up against his chest, scrunched on the stairs, drinking something out of a paper bag.

“My kind of mother fucker, motherfucker,” I mutter.

Originally from Houston, Texas, Whitney Porter now resides in Brooklyn, New York. Whitney has recently acquired a bachelor of arts degree in journalism having done undergraduate work at the University of Houston and Brooklyn College, and currently studies at the Writers Studio in Manhattan. Recent publications include pieces in Battered Suitcase webzine and Ping Pong Literary Magazine.

Wilhelm

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:04:00 -0400

Fiction by Ryan Sayles

J. Wilhelm was the kind of cook who would only work over the broiler. He needed to lose a solid one hundred pounds. Instead, he was content to slave over the five hundred degree heat all shift, carpet-bombing the steak and chicken with droplets of sweat.

He was older than all of us by fifteen years. He’d offer tidbits of wisdom like the appropriate sexual habits of a girl worth dating. Those habits were never flattering. He called everyone “brother” like it was some special honor. He wanted us all to know just how tough he was.

He would smoke a cigarette in between puffs off of his oxygen tank. He only had the tank for a short while. Why he had it and where it went, I don’t know. It was a big deal to show all us young bucks he was the bull.

There was a stove next to the commercial-sized dishwasher. It usually held a five-gallon pot filled with boiling water. Our soups came in frozen bags, and we’d toss them into the pot. That’s how we’d prepare the chicken noodle or minestrone the people ate that night.

We’d all go to the dishwasher’s station and grab a stack of clean plates. Whereas the rest of us would take a small stack or use two hands to carry them, Wilhelm was content to grab a tall stack and tuck it under his arm as if it was the morning paper.

One day Mike was near the stove and Wilhelm was coming with a stack of platters. He got between the stove and the dishwasher and stepped into a hazard all restaurant managers want to avoid: a big, right-out-in-the-open pool of water. Dishwasher overspray.

Wilhelm’s feet flew up over his head. The platters shot up and touched the ceiling, then rained down. Mike was trying to snatch Wilhelm as he noticed Wilhelm’s hand reach for the still-boiling pot of water.

Mike stepped back.

Wilhelm’s ass crashed into the tiles. The platters cascaded down, shattering. The boiling water dumped out in a waterfall. From beside the stove, Wilhelm shot up, soaked from his massive gut down to his stressed ankles. A shard of platter stuck in his forearm. He was doing the pee-pee dance trying to cool down the water sitting on his skin.

“Take your pants off!” Mike shouted.

“I cain’t, brother! I ain’t got on no jimmies!”

Wilhelm’s accident toll: sixty-eight stitches, second degree burns on thirty percent of his body, a fractured pelvis, a $42,000 settlement and a promotion. And that was on top of his twelve weeks paid convalescent vacation.

Shortly after his return, Wilhelm’s chest hurt, and he stepped back into the stock area to walk it off. He was gone a few hours later.

Norton took over sweating on the food. It was like Wilhelm never dropped dead.

Ryan Sayles was born and raised in the midwest. He has been published at Short Story Library, SNM Horror, Powder Burn Flash, Nefarious Muse, Heroin Love Songs volume 7 and Beat To A Pulp (as “Derek Kelly”). He has been included in Short Story Library’s print collection “Branded Words” and will be included in an upcoming collection from SNM Horror.

Conversations During An NPR Break

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:58:00 -0400

Fiction by Gregory Mazurek

And we’ll be back after this commercial break.

Underwriters.

I beg your pardon?

Underwriters. We don’t have commercials, Steve.

No one knows what underwriters are.

You’re an arrogant jackass.

I’m not the one who sits there waiting for me to make a mistake so I can jump and scream and wave my flabby arms like you do. I see you there, waiting. You’ve been waiting twenty years for me to make that mistake. Your teeth can finally stop grinding into the microphone.

My teeth will stop grinding when your chair stops screaming.

That means nothing coming from someone who uses cupcake wrappers as floss.

It was once. I had seconds before we were back on the air.

I don’t think it should be protocol to continue to wear pajamas in the studio.

There’s no rule that we can’t.

It’s just that the listeners have some sort of expectation of our standards. Look at your shirt. There are barbeque stains. Did you have ribs last night?

Wings.

It’s just not a proper place to work when you have coworkers wearing the same clothes day after day, not even changing for barbeque stains from the night before.

Tuesday.

Great. That was three days ago. There’s some sort of perception, you know.

No one cares what we look like.

It comes across when we speak.

You’re lucky I haven’t started wearing my swimsuit yet. Please stop crying.

This isn’t what I imagined when I joined public radio.

Helen, you’ve been working here for over a decade.

And I’ve always felt like I’m on my way out.

You do cry a lot.

That’s mostly because of you.

So your problem isn’t with public radio.

I suppose not.

Good.

It’s because of arrogant jackasses like you.

Please. If I was as arrogant as you, I would never improve my speech. I’d lose control of my pitch.

You slur your Rs.

That has nothing to do with pitch.

It’s still a negative. If you had better command of your Rs, I bet you’d cry less during the breaks.

I’d cry less during the breaks if you’d talk less during them.

I’m just saying. Say “walrus”.

No.

Walrus. It’s easy. How about “Wally the walrus walks around the waterfall”?

This is childish.

I could say this all day. I sometimes practice at night with my wife.

You aren’t married. How do you have time to critique the way I speak when you’re supposed to be preparing your next delivery?

I tape each show.

You tape each show. So you do this four hours and then go home and listen to the four hours again.

I fast-forward during the commercials.

Underwriters.

An interruption is an interruption.

This is the arrogance I’m talking about. You wouldn’t call all those nasty things you eat fat-enhancers. I haven’t seen such an appetite since my last trip to the aquarium.

You are dumber than my dog.

I will steal your dog.

You’ll do what?

You heard me.

Oh no, you won’t.

I will steal your dog.

Don’t make threats like that.

It’s not a threat. It’s a promise. I will steal your dog.

Go ahead. Try it.

Yeah?

Yes. Go ahead. He will eat your morbidly obese ass alive.

It’s a shih tzu. It weighs thirteen pounds.

Thirteen pounds of absolute hell-raising fury. He will tear you to pieces.

He’s got nothing on me. I’m two hundred and fifty pounds of lightning ferocity.

Commercial break over in five.

Underwriter break.

Hag. Three.

Good luck.

You too. One.

In Washington, this is NPR.

Gregory Mazurek graduated from Brown University with a BA in English literature and has written several as-yet unpublished novels. He can be contacted at http://www.gregorymazurek.com.

A Haiku For Patrick Kane: Signed, The City Of Chicago.

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:59:00 -0400

Hommage Absurde by The Editor

You punched a driver.
Now you’ve given us a Cup.
We love you, white-boy.

My Friend Frey In A Million Little Pieces

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:16:00 -0400

Fiction by Dan Burt

I go to the airport to pick up my friend Frey. He’s returning from his latest appearance on the Oprah show. He appears at the door of the plane, slouched against the flight attendant. Frey’s shirt is torn and covered in blood and snot. I stare at his swollen, gashed face. Some of his teeth are missing. He smells like shit.
What the fuck happened to you?
She ambushed me, man. She fucking ambushed me.
He leans against me as I drag him to my car. I grab a used gym towel from the floorboard and wipe him down. He doesn’t seem to mind. I spread the towel across my seat, load Frey in the car, and buckle him up. He dozes off as I drive back to my place.
He wakes up as we arrive and makes it into the apartment with little help from me. After drinking coffee and smoking several cigarettes, Frey describes what he remembers.
I arrive in the green room. Oprah comes by. She acts like she is happy to see me. She tells me not to worry, that we will get through this. She encourages me to be strong and remember to tap into my inner strength.
Oprah leaves to start the show. I’m feeling more relaxed.
I watch on the monitor as Oprah apologizes, says she was wrong to leave the impression that the truth doesn’t matter. She appears angry. She says she has questions for me after the break. My stomach tightens.
I sit on the sofa facing Oprah. Her eyes are hard, piercing through me. I feel heat from the disgust emanating from the studio audience. Oprah asks the first question.
OK, Mr. Bravado Tough Guy, what the fuck?
It’s just that, that, that…
I begin to stutter. I look away.
Look at me! I want to ask you about what you wrote on page 231. Read this.
I turn around and lean over to see what she is pointing to in the book. When my face is close to the page, she slams the book shut across my nose and twists it really hard. I hear a crack and feel white pain. Wetness runs down my lips and chin. I lose consciousness.
When I wake up, Oprah has my publisher, Nan Talese, in a headlock. She slings Nan around like a rag doll. Oprah notices I am awake. She yells at the audience.
Are you ready people? Grab the cudgels of truth I have placed under your seats. The line forms behind me!
Oprah holds up her Cudgel of Truth, a billy club, and starts beating the shit out of me. The beating continues for the next nine hours until every member of the audience has taken a whack.
I lose all control of my bodily functions and pass out once again.
I wake up and find myself still on the set, lying on the sofa. Oprah sits next to me in her chair. She sees that I am awake, leans over, and whispers.
Mr. Bravado Tough Guy, I have one more lesson for you.
I hear the studio audience scream, going crazy. Suddenly, I hear a maniacal laugh and realize my worst nightmare is coming true. I piss my pants. Standing before me, dressed in black leather and cowboy boots, is Tom Cruise.
He starts jumping on and off the sofa like a retarded wallaby, laughing like a fucking madman, crushing me with his heels.
That’s the last thing I remember until I see you at the airport.
We sit in silence for a little while, Frey smoking.
But, Frey, I watched the show. It didn’t happen that way, man.
Frey sips his coffee and slowly shakes his head.
Editing. Fucking editing.

Dan Burt lives in Alabama with his wife and two sons. He is the creator of the website Captain Canard. In his spare time, Dan works for the federal government.

Think Outside The Lockbox, Photo by Brian Hartz

Fri, 28 May 2010 12:44:18 -0400

Think Outside The Lockbox, Photo by Brian Hartz

Paint By Numbers

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:25:24 -0400

Fiction by John Winn

Oh God. Another stenciled, silkscreen nightmare. Her bangs don’t look all too real. Like a hooker’s wig from a secondhand store. Don’t even get me started on the lipstick. Any redder and she’d be bleeding.

Look at her: mouth agape, arms cradling her head. She’s either a poorly-posed mannequin or a corpse. I feel dead just looking at her. What is she supposed to be? Girl next door? Whore? A short-skirted combination of the two?

Warhol 2.0: Porn Edition

I could’ve stayed home and watched pay-per-view and gotten the same rise out of it. Kids these days are so dull and uninspired. Think they can tweak a photo on their desktop and call it art. I know what it is, and it’s anything but. Back in the day, people really had to get down on their knees and work it—putting those brushstrokes down on the canvas—and no one got up until they were either sore or had a fucking masterpiece before they got to be an artist.

Myself included. Now all anyone needs are the right connections and personality, and BAM! Anything they do is suddenly hanging in some sterile, whitewashed gallery, the arty equivalent of a bleached anus.

Like this tart right here.

Look, but don’t touch. And don’t forget to tip.

Here come the hors d’œuvres. I could use another glass of wine. Maybe a bottle. My legs are numb and tingly. I need to move around and stretch, I know, but decorum and all. There are church services less formal than this.

Another one down the hatch! A toast! To mediocrity!

Yawn.

Head’s starting to feel woozy…eyes…rolling back…

Feet…stumbling…uncoordinated…

Butt flopping…down…bench!

Motor skills like a five year old. Good thing my phone is in my coat pocket.

I slay myself sometimes.

Hello? Taxi? Yeah, could you send a ride over to five-twenty north main street? I know it’s a little late, and of course my speech is slurry! Ten minutes? Thank you.

Click.

I swear I don’t know which is more of a miracle—the cell phone, or the fact that the operator could hear me through the din of smug, self-satisfied conversation.

Timing’s good, though. Everyone’s filing out. The hangover will kill them in the morning. At least I got a head start.

Better see myself out.

Sleep tight, Porn Princess. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.

A child of the 1980s, John Winn has been thumbing his nose at the establishment since the ripe old age of seven. He eats paste for breakfast and smokes crayon cigarettes. When he isn’t busy ironically watching Barney, he contributes to a variety of magazines. This is his first submission to Craniotomic.

Irony, Thy Name Is Recession, Photo by Scott Dierdorf

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 09:08:00 -0400

Irony, Thy Name Is Recession, Photo by Scott Dierdorf

For God So Loved The Two-Minute Drill

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:17:00 -0400

Fiction by Brian Hartz

Hey, did you see that touchdown? Wasn’t it amazing? We won the game, and I was the hero!

Do you know how I did it? Years of practice and self-sacrifice? Half a lifetime spent working out, getting bigger and faster, and watching film of the opposition? I thought you might say those things.

Nope. Guess again.

What? You give up? OK, I’ll tell you.

God.

Yep, The Big Man Upstairs. He guided that ball right into my hands. Sure, our quarterback, Eli What’s-His-Name, threw the ball, but without the Lord keeping it aloft on a perfect course right into my grasp, who knows? It might have been intercepted.

But that’s not what God wanted, and to let him know that I knew that, I pointed up to the sky. That was my big shout-out to the Man who made it all possible. You might think it was just me bragging that I’m “Number 1,” but no, it was me thanking God.

I know what you’re thinking: “Why would God care about a football game? There’s so much pain and suffering in the world, so many desperate prayers to answer, so many babies to bless and sinners to save!” Well, my friend, let me remind you: God is a sports fan – and he supports the underdog. David vs. Goliath—what was that? A glorified wrestling match.. OK, OK, you’re right, it was to the death and all that, but let’s not overlook the basics. At its core, it was pretty much a steel-cage Wrestlemania-style smackdown.

What’s that? David was fighting for the freedom of the Israelians or some such thing? Well, I was fighting for my livelihood, for my family’s future, for the right to dump all that Gatorade on my coach. (Oh bro, that was hilarious! I caught it all on my iPhone. If you slow it down, the look on his face reminds me of Simon Cowell. Then he cracks a smile and it’s all good. I love that old dude.) Anyway, that ought to count for something. Listen, if I don’t make that catch, my team loses, I get blamed, the fans get mad, the press turns on me, I get nominated for an ESPY but don’t win and—aw, man, I don’t want to think about it.

Wait a minute, dude. What do you mean? I’m inferring that without God I would be a terrible football player? I’m inferring that God hates the other team? I’m inferring that God is an absurd construct who would take sides in a frivolous sporting contest?

I know you’re being all hypothetical and shit, but you’re really starting to piss me off. Yeah, you heard me. I’m kinda taking some exception to the tone of what you are implying. OK, man, you are losing me. Bring that train back into the station. What do you want from me, anyway? An autograph? Seriously, bro, God is on my side. He made that catch possible. Besides, God loves touchdowns. He’s always inspiring those guys who sit in the end-zone seats—you know, the ones right behind the goalposts—to hold the John 3:16 signs. (My favorite Bible verse, by the way. It totally clarifies the Lord’s stance on gay marriage.)

Huh? Field goals? Yeah, I guess Our Savior loves those, too. But His favorite play is the last-second, game-winning touchdown pass. Why do you think they call it a Hail Mary? Because it is both miraculous and immaculate!

Seriously, though, to show you that I am serious, I’m going to have to do something drastic. Clearly you need a dramatic example to set you straight, my man. Let me reach down into the pocket of my sweat pants here. Click!

OK, got it. Here it is—my Glock. A nice piece. That’s real gold inlaid into the grip. Yeah, I know I’m not supposed to carry this anymore after that nightclub incident. (God was definitely with me in prison, by the way, but that’s a different story for another time … and another crazed autograph-seeker. What is with you, anyway? You’re creepin’ me out. But I’m gonna show you the Way of the Lord, friend, you’ll see.)

Here’s my hypothetical for you, hombre. We know God is on my side and wants me to succeed. He doesn’t want me to suffer. To prove it, I’m gonna play some Russian Roulette. By myself. I’m not even going to make you play with me. You hate God, so He would probably strike you down as soon as you touched this highly lethal piece of equipment. I don’t want that on my conscience—or my rap sheet—so you, my pasty-faced friend, are excused. And don’t you try to stop me; I mean business here. You’ll see.

Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show of the Lord Almighty using his Holy power to keep me safe from the pure deadly force of these hollow-point bullets.

Spin … click!

See? I told you. Just to drive the point home, and prove that the power of God is no mere coincidence:

BLAM!

Gugh gugh… hsp pah.

Thud.

Whoa. Where am I? What just happened? It’s so blank here. Am I in the hospital? Where’s the athletic trainer?

Oh, hey, it’s you. So, you lost. God kept me safe from the Glock. And now I’m in this beautiful place and I feel great. The trainer should be along any moment now.

Now you know why I point at the sky when I score a touchdown … or do pretty much anything at all. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings or whatever… I know you non-believers and Muslims can be pretty militant.

Hey man, you grew a beard. How long was I out, anyway? Jesus Christ. It feels like I’m still drunk from the night before, but without the hangover.

DONTRONE, I SAW YOU POINTING AT ME. WHAT WERE YOU DOING RUNNING AROUND LIKE THAT, ENCASED IN ARMOR, SMASHING INTO OTHER MEN, AND CATCHING THOSE ANIMAL-HIDE PROJECTILES?

G.. G… God?

YES. IT IS I, DONTRONE, THE ALPHA AND OMEGA. YAHWEH, LORD OF HOSTS AND HUGE FAN OF AC MILAN.

Oh, fuck.

HOW DO YOU LIKE IT HERE? PRETTY NICE, HUH? DON’T GET COMFORTABLE, THOUGH; I BET ON THE PATRIOTS.

Shit, shit, shit! I’m dead?

HA HA! JUST KIDDING! I DON’T EVEN FOLLOW AMERICAN FOOTBALL. YOU’RE ALL TOO SELF-IMPORTANT FOR MY TASTES. AND I DIDN’T SEE YOU POINT, EITHER, SO STOP THINKING I’M WATCHING YOU ALL THE TIME, YOU NARCISSIST.

Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh fuck, oh motherfucker I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead.

I WAS TOO BUSY WITH THAT GUY WHO THREW THE SHOES AT GEORGE W. BUSH AND THE GUY WHO THREW THE LITTLE LEANING TOWER OF PISA SOUVENIR AT SILVIO BERLUSCONI. YOU SEE, I REALLY DO ENJOY HELPING PEOPLE WHO ARE THROWING THINGS HIT THEIR TARGETS, BUT I JUST CAN’T GET INTO AMERICAN FOOTBALL. TOO MANY COMMERCIAL BREAKS.

Jesus Christ oh shit piss fuck me blind what the fuck?!

OK, DONTRONE, IT’S BEEN GREAT CHATTING WITH YOU. REMIND ME AGAIN WHAT TEAM YOU PLAY FOR, WILL YOU? MAYBE I’LL TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT YOU’RE UP TO SOMETIME. BUT I HAVE TO WARN YOU, I’M A BUSY GOD WITHOUT MUCH TIME FOR TV.

Gun … loaded … God … David … Goliath … Israelians.

NOW FORMULA ONE RACING, THAT’S A SPORT. HEY, IF I TOLD YOU THE REAL REASON FOR MICHAEL SCHUMACHER’S SUCCESS, COULD YOU KEEP IT A SECRET? I’LL GIVE YOU A HINT: JOHN 3:16. LOOK IT UP SOMETIME—AND I DON’T MEAN IN THE ENDZONE.

Brian Hartz is a writer and editor living in Toronto. His work has appeared here as well as in several now-defunct publications, including Friction Magazine and TheSynapse.org. You could say his articles are harbingers of imminent doom for literary magazines, so enjoy this one while it lasts.