While you were gone we would flirt with flirting, pretend touches and exquisite silences.
When you came back we pretended nothing happened at all.
A fools belief
Bernard was sure he knew what he was doing. His Mother disagreed as she confirmed the man under the concrete block was her son.
Two Sentence Story bookmarks
Hi everyone, so I had people emailing me about Goldfish illustrated, suggesting it would make a good bookmark.
I’d like to gauge interest in printing up some bookmarks from the stories on this website. I’m thinking five different bookmarks, full-colour double-sided. This means a single bookmark would have a story on each side.
In total, ten different stories would be made into bookmarks. They would cost $1 each or buy the set of five for $4.
Using online estimators, the postage within Australia would be about 0.55-$1. For US/UK and everyone else in the world it would be somewhere between $2.50-$4.50 AUD for postage.
The bookmarks are 40mm wide by 150mm tall, so clearly there would be some design constrictions which would affect which stories could be printed up.
Anyways, I’m leaving this post up so you can tell me if it’s a good idea (as in, you’d be a customer) and which stories you would like to see made into a bookmark. Leave your reply in the comments and vote on this page.
If enough people reply and vote then I’ll start putting up designs for voting. The best designs win.
cheers,
Mat
Whatev
Say yes and we’ll run away together.
Or whatev.
Elephant In The Parlour
Even in the heat of Summer she is swaddled in layers of clothing, wrapped shut in sleeves and smocks and cardigans, growing ever-smaller within them as time drifts on.
Lazy in her living room, Sunday afternoon stories drifting over me like soup-spill, I wonder what I have often wondered: if her arms are kept covered to hide the tattoo that must be there, the one that we don’t talk about.
Retirement
When you said “attention everyone” I thought for a second you would actually say something interesting.
Like about how the guy leaving was a horrible person to work with, an insufferable bore and many of us there would happily kill him if we thought we could get away with it.
Fourth Pig
I am the fourth pig.
Check out my uranium house.
Bite
Chomp my neck!
Bite my toes!
All Is Silent In The Underground
The expanse of dirt and mineral cradle the dead in their graves as a mother cradles her stillborn. A drip falls through a crack in the ceiling of the subway tunnel; the earth is mourning its loss.
Testing submission
Testing submission.
Testing submission
Downsizing
It wasn’t much of a house, with the old wood plank floors worn into grooves from generations of dwellers, thin windows and sagging mattresses and a ramshackle, rundown front porch with bentwood rockers that had held countless dreamers and so much love on their welcoming slatted seats.
He stood alone at a huge window of his 12,000 square foot mansion, looking out at the view of acres of perfectly manicured grounds, the pool, the tennis court, the 5 car garage, the servants quarters, the gated and guarded entrance, and wished he was looking out at the woods and peaceful water from the rocker on that beat up front porch, with nothing to fret over but how many fish he would be able to catch in the lake that day and how he could make his family smile while they talked together and ate the fresh catch that night at supper.
Piano
I threw a piano off a house-roof today.
Only five more new year resolutions to go!
The Good Mother
She thought herself a very good mother and hated leaving the five of them alone for any length of time, even to go across the street to get food for dinner, for they were typical young’uns always looking for mischief, but what choice did she have?
He didn’t even brake when he saw her, just muttered “damn raccoon” as he sped off leaving her dying on the road, bleeding and broken, and her young babes hungry, motherless orphans.
1455
What is it you are looking for?
Who is linking to this stupid post?
Log
Log into my website.
Smashed the place right up.
Surrounded
When you’re surrounded by assholes there is only one thing to do!
Lube up baby.
Red Hat Ladies
They came into the restaurant, the ladies in purple dresses, decked out in feathery boas, glittering broaches and pins and rings made of rhinestones or zircona, their blonde or gray curls topped with red hats adorned with feathers, ribbons, flowers, fruit, jewels, and whatever else came to mind, talking and giggling and patting their hair with gloved hands, sharing gossip, secrets and pictures of their grandchildren and pets as they made their way to the big round table at Red Lobster, where they would debate at length the merits of various menu items (and afterwards change their order twice after the longsuffering waitress had written it down) before finally settling on the all-you-can-eat soup and salad for their one monthly outing.
Two hours later the petite waitress (a single mother, trying to make it raising two children on tips and no child support from a dead-beat ex-husband) asks, “Can I get you ladies anything else?” as she clears the dishes and picks up her $1 tip from each place.
Longing
Once upon a time, there was a place called ever after that no one ever reached. In writing names and places, pain, joy, and distant faces, they tried in vain to show to others what their own eyes could not see.
Famous
I swear the moment I’m famous, I’ll totally call you and we’ll hang out.
And you’ll do the same, right?
Advice
No one cares you are writing a play or a novel or a script.
More advice to myself.