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Reginald Blisterkunst, Ph.D.
Greg Chandler
Doug Childers
Gene Cox
Clarke Crutchfield
Jackson Davis
Jason DeBoer
Defran Mason
Dennis Must
Charlie Onion
Chris Orlet
Christopher Voigt
Andrew L. Wilson

 


Archives
Contemporary Fiction & Poetry

Fiction

Reginald Blisterkunst, Ph.D.
Among the Remembered Saints: My Life and Subsequent Death

So there we were, the five of us, stumbling drunk and shuffling single-file down the road, pink-lit by those horrid street lamps, with Candy Tabitha Lewis, bearer of the Hard-Candy Nipples, leading us all through the corridor of pink-tinged darkness like half-hearted mendicants.

An odd night out, you'll say, early spring morning in a nice suburban neighborhood and nothing amiss and suddenly here they come like lost marauders—or was it mendicants? Christ. You'll have to read that last bit back—but no, let's keep moving or we'll never get through...

WAG's first serial novel can be read online.

It is also available as a FREE illustrated e-book.

[Note: This nonprintable, downloadable e-book is a PDF file, which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not already have Acrobat Reader, click here to download it directly from Adobe for FREE.]

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Charlie Onion & Reginald Blisterkunst, Ph.D.
Pluto Wars: A Serialized Novel

There is a small disc in the sky, glowing like a sapphire and accented with blinking red lights, and for a moment, I merely stand and watch as it dips wafer-sized over the trees. Then the front door bursts open on the ramshackle house across the street and an old woman in a star-covered house dress appears on the porch. The disc hesitates and then dips back over the woman, who is, I can now see in the glow coming off the disc, clutching a shotgun.

A thin shaft of white light shoots from the bottom of the disc and surrounds the woman, who immediately, with an angry, guttural yawp, lifts the shotgun to her shoulder and fires. A tin-tinged ping leaps off the side of the disc and it flutters momentarily. The spotlight that had bathed the woman clicks off. The woman cracks the shotgun open, reloads and squeezes off another shot that goes wide.

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Greg Chandler

"Bee's Tree"

Bee and Dez were half way to the treehouse when the rope ladder spun out of control. Dez lost his footing and almost fell—he would have brought Bee down with him—but caught himself just in time. He entered the treehouse through a hole, concealed by ivy, in the plywood and Masonite floor. Once inside, he set down the bag of provisions and extended his hand to Bee, pulling her in. Dizzy, a little drunk, they quickly undressed.

"Local Folk"

"In my opinion, your mobile home perfectly illustrates the success of our little town. Its violet outer skin generates the warmth we want to convey to outsiders. I think it will evoke free-spiritedness but also security. You see, Mrs. Gooday, we are fortunate enough to live in a place with a joie de vivre. We want all those folks who don't know the pleasures of our town to give us a second look. Mayor Albright wants hourly screenings at the rest stop and shopping park." He paused, holding a black silk handkerchief to his nose. A heady odor of white vinegar and mothballs lingered in the room.

"Pond Story"

The mayor lit a piece of paper on fire, wafted it about, then crinkled it in his hand, letting the ashes fall to the floor. "A gift?"

"Sort of. You see, what I've done is sculpt you. I've sculpted all of you."

"Sculpted?"

"Yes. I do drawings most of the time. I can copy you, anyone—"

"Really?" The mayor was somewhat alarmed. "I should know about this."

"Roland's Feast"

"Listen to him talk to Harriet, I mean, she's senile, she's supposed to speak nonsense, but he's just a boy," Dr. May said, smacking lion meat in his mouth. "I foresee sexual problems in the very near future."

"Last week I met a guy who looks like Victor Mature. He had big muscles and tattoos and the most handsome face I've ever seen."

"If you want my professional opinion," Dr. May said, "your kid's already something of a pervert."

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Doug Childers
"The Baptism"

"He's gone!" the deputy shouts, like he's one of the disciples staring into Jesus's empty tomb. "Bubba! You bastard!"

I open my eyes in time to see scrambled eggs falling into my cell and jiggling on the floor. Then I look over at Bubba's bed—empty—and up at the window. Bars sawed off, window wide open.

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Gene Cox
The Sunset Lounge: A Chandler Harris Murder Mystery

The first blow caught Jaco on the cheek and spun him against the mailbox. The second sent him to his knees. By the time the attacker kicked him in the stomach, Jaco was close to blacking out. Still, with the evenly timed rhythm of someone working on a punching bag in the gym, Jaco's attacker continued to work him over, and somehow, Jaco remained conscious.

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Clarke Crutchfield

"The Canceled Party"

"Say, isn't that someone at the upstairs window?" Harry said.

"It's the dog."

"I thought I saw a face. There, look."

"It's Boomer, damn it. I know my own dog."

Boomer, the border collie, was watching them from the upstairs bedroom window, cocking his head like a little person.

"Awfully quiet dog," Harry said uneasily.


"The Break-In"

It could not be said that his father was swaying, but there was something unsteady about him, like a big tree coming loose from the soil where it is rooted. Tyler smelled liquor. But there was also the reassuring smell of his father's jacket, a mixture of tobacco and wet leaves and, somehow, musty books. He pictured his father on the bed upstairs in his own mother's house, where he lived now, smoking and reading books from the attic.

"The Imaginary Bullet"

We moved to the edge of the water and started looking for sharks' teeth, something we had done since I was a small child. Robert usually found something. I rarely did.

Robert stopped walking. "Let me ask you something," he said, looking at his feet. "Hypothetical case, OK? Say someone is very, very depressed, and he, or she, shoots himself, or herself. Hypothetical case. If unhappiness is just something in your head, can you be killed by an imaginary bullet?"

Then I saw what he saw. It was a fossilized tooth, as shiny and smooth as if the shark had just lost it.

"Funny question," I said.

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Jason DeBoer
"The Execution of the Sun"

Time was eating his youth, so with little more than a nod Speed parted from his wife...slender, forlorn, fingering her gold ring. The train moved forward impatiently, ignorant of loss. Travel vanquished their marriage like so many before. There was engine noise. A whirlwind. The departure of faces. The wife suffered away, a jewel worth nothing. Sullen and undone at the window, Speed tried to weep but his eyes were dully dry. Heavy with shame. Sleep, a remorseful drift inward, delivered him from the day, and the night descended as a slow twinkling death.

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Defran Mason
"The Daguerreian Marvel"

Robert Navey went to the focus of his preferred Morse camera and the clacking install of a tinny whole plate he properly treated with nitric acid and brazened. He stood back to judge with his governing eye, that colored of ore, which he took to the lens. "There we have it," he said, making some adjustment. "Now if Simonton remains lost in the word from the broadsheets he will likely nap."

Vandolynne Abigail Poston stood unmoving at the foot of a tasseled moss drape; the living statuary of a tableau vivant. A long garland of crimson ribbon rounded her shoulder and flowed across the floor.

"Do you see me?"

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Dennis Must

"Boys"

I could feel my lungs deflating. I was trying to suck air out of them, but the inner tubes had been punctured. Like the black ones of Jimmy's old Packard hanging from the rafters above the license plates.

"Listen to me, Westley. I'm pressing down hard on your chest, pumping the pond water out of your lungs. Do you feel it? Take deep breaths. Come on, Son, do it!"

"Star-Crossed"

A World War II Spitfire airplane sat tethered by guy wires in front of the Hebron's landing strip. Just like a Civil War cannon sat anchored in concrete on its square. Tom was fancying climbing into that fighter aircraft, pulling on a leather helmet and aviator's glasses, flashing a thumbs-up signal from its frosted cockpit—then thundering off into the sky. A man-sized desire of what Joyce Kramer had fantasized. All these dreams were the same—one way or other, a Quixote was going to catapult to glory.

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Charlie Onion

"Feast of the Manifestation"

By the time Mrs. Drewson caught her breath and looked back at the pile, the flames were as high as the lowest branches of the two pine trees that stood over it.

"You said you were going to keep it small," one of the women hissed.

The women stood motionless, paralyzed, watching the flames catch the lowest limbs on fire. Their faces glowed red; even across the street, they could feel the heat coming off the pile.

"Halloween"

For a second, Lilly thought Marty was going to tackle his brother. Instead, he merely prodded at the ten commandments pinned to Edsel's chest. After a moment, Edsel pushed the trident away. Lilly could see Susan wading through the crowd in the living room, carrying two bottles of beer.

Marty swayed drunkenly against Lilly, and then he tried to hoist himself up onto the balcony railing. His right foot snagged on his devil's tail, and before he could stabilize himself against Edsel's shoulder, he pitched over the railing like a featherless devil bird.

"Love Among the Jellyfish"

"This is your rod here, son."

Trish's father held a fishing pole out to me, and I took it.

"We're not fishing," Trish said.

I kept the pole and stared down into the water. It was brackish and green. Jellyfish were everywhere, floating in stacks of three and four under the water. I let the line plummet into the water and wondered how I'd pull a fish outwithout snagging a few jellyfish as well. It was like the ocean had given up after the jellyfish came in and was just going through the motions of lapping up against the pier.

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Chris Orlet
"Romantic Comedy"

Tonight there are odd sounds coming from his room. Sounds resembling someone drowning a sack of cats. Connie tosses aside her romance novel and storms out into the hallway and pounds on Meursault's door. The sounds cease, but Connie continues to knock. "I know you're in there, Monsieur. The whole neighborhood knows you're in there."

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Andrew L. Wilson
"Fat Cake and Double Talk"

Quinn had not written a novel in ten years, only a few screenplays. One morning his accountant called to tell him that he was almost broke. He fell into a strange state of listlessness. There was still time, said the accountant, to turn things around, to recoup his losses. But, strangely, he did nothing to help his situation. Instead, he lazed around his small house playing the saxophone. The accountant resigned. Quinn's supply of cash was dwindling. He owed money to people he'd never heard of. His credit cards began to decline purchases and advances; he was unable to buy new clothes, or to eat in restaurants. Then his property taxes came due. Since he had no means to pay them, he was forced to sell the house—at a loss, as it turned out. He moved into an apartment in the city. One day, soon after the move, he pawned his saxophone to pay rent. After paying the rent and the gas bill, he had nothing left but some change in his pockets. He was forty-eight years old. It was snowing.

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Poetry

Jackson Davis

"The Shovel"
"Depth of Field"
"Come Back"
"Using the Briar Blade"
"Ash Hand"
"Fishing from the Blue Canoe"
"A Virginia Private at Appomatox"
"My Mother's Death: Three Panels"

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Christopher Voigt

"Chapel"
"Let Me Try"
"Sad Vespers"
"The Secular Child"

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