Missouri Ave. and No Thumbs

:: by :: Frankie Metro

I grew in these sewers..to gigantic proportions. I grew teeth that were large,

eyes that could see full circle..

 

 

'full rotary- perception.'

 

 

And in the dark there was cross chatter between the 2 hemispheres of my brain:

 

 

Left: 'How many years have I been below?'

 

 

Right: 'The walls are swelled with grime and terror. Each brick is damp, and

trickles with slaughter and gore.'

 

 

Left: 'How old am I now?'

 

 

Right: 'I could play in the waste and make angels in the city's muck.'

 

 

Left: 'How many paces to an open manhole?'

 

 

Right: 'There is plenty of inspiration in this new body and above. It grows older

and the surface air is acceptable now.'

 

 

And so it was, that I matured and looked all about the dank pools of discarded

function..Below or above, the sewage was home, the muck was Shangri la..and the

 

 

 

 

 

That I could walk days with teeth (that would clinch and smile), eyes (that were

slit and watching in the dark) amazed me..

 

I learned to listen closely and soon the cross chatter grew to simple sentences:

 

 

Left: 'How?'

 

 

Right: 'The walls & welcome.'

 

 

Left: 'How?'

 

 

Right: 'I can play. Make a muck of angels, cities, and waste.'

 

 

Left: 'How?'

 

 

Right: 'The manhole is open.'

 

 

I became lost in their muddle-tongues..They're conversations ran together and

created a ripple-wind effect at my core..

 

That barbarous center where hedonism and logic, where heart and brain are

butchers. Here I was racked with the theories of an unrecgonizable man, split

among two voices...Here:

 

 

'There are men who stand in their own pools of secreted jargon and grow spouts

and spew and spit their fallacies on their sons. And the *Agoge no longer resides

in the hillside of the 7th year..no longer hides with sharpened staff and bold

bloody fists..But this rite of passage now lies within the bowels of

 

cities..**Mt. Taygetos has fallen beneath the rubble of new man...of new mature

beast..and the term "criminal" only applies to those abroad..topside..above. We

have lost the test of man. We have lost the schematics of proud sons..and we

dwell and play and make angels of women..Someone must save the skin, from turning

scale....Someone must coax the serpent from man...'

 

 

So it was that I climbed up and through, into the night and the lights of a city

that lived above my head at one time. The dregs

 

were once but stories I told myself in the dark.

 

But here they were before me, alive and growing with impact. I grew in these

streets for many nights that passed...

 

 

at a minuscule level..

 

 

I grew an unbearable pain in my shoulder from the long-winded walks that I once

conquered in long distance runs through the sewers of my youth. Some nights the

waste of yonder year proved to be a deterrent for the walk forward. Some nights,

the sewers echoed with cries of vermin and the rushing pools of the refuse I had

left behind.

 

 

I continued moving...and the growth became more apparent. The ol' sewer skin

flaked and there was a fuschia tone, a strange pigmented huborous about me during

the majority of these walks..As if the skin was a huge joke, and no one would

guess its point of origin. They would simply see it is hardened and purple..There

was nothing poisonous about my nature.. nothing definitive at all save a stern

comedic approach to the surface...

 

 

I grew with a weary sanity..

 

 

paranoia..

 

 

 

Beneath the squinted eye of the moon.. in this city..I grew more apparent of a

presence at my back. Some omnipresent pace keeping time and foot with my own.

Some nights there would be no traffic..

 

 

'no sound save the Gulf's belch o' cold wind,

 

and shrill nighting

 

gales/larks/crows/bats..

 

 

Some manner of hidden-winged manifestation-

 

Watching eyes..Full rotary-perception from a stoop..

 

Still above..

 

 

Even elevated from the underground,

 

man still looks above..even to the watching eyes of space..

 

Where does one look to up there?

 

Beyond the point of above...'

 

 

Yes. Along these casket eves, I found my mind to be ever alive and used

accordingly by the spirits at my back..

 

A tool, of the muses in the treetops..Those thin, grey, beaten, weary, ancient

tongues and harks above..

 

 

'The 'ol screech from the palms that swayed in the funeral nights' song.'

 

 

In fact, I found myself creating hymns for vagabonds, as I passed them sleeping

beneath the neon lights of bus stops..

 

 

 

'All glassed in..their rags draped about their bleak faces..

 

sheltering from the passing world..

 

 

Bright orange billboards of open hands rest above them..

 

asking for more fathers..

 

more time..

 

asking if there is help needed and offering earned income credit relief..

 

assistance..'

 

 

These hymns would be baritone..low and long..swaying like the poor Southern pews

along the Mississippi..

 

They would include:

 

 

ol's

 

&

 

ye's

 

&

 

faithfuls...

 

 

'No coming back to Bethlehem for this lot..They sleep without knowing rest..And

if there is no rest in sleep that is mortal, how do we walk in ol' faith? How do

ye sing of joy

 

and salvation?'

 

 

 

There were nights that I heard no whistles or song..Nights when it was more

apparent that bigger teeth walked at my back..And as if shot from a black chasm

yards ahead me..a fantastic vision..a random meeting would appear from this empty

corridor of pavement..

 

 

One night in particular, a lone, black swagger wandered curiously from a couple

o' blocks ahead of me. It moved slowly as if it recognized my shadow..My slouch

frame was its target of interrogation...

 

and I silently name this presence now..as the

 

(Phantom) Inquisitor..

 

 

But then, (much more vague from now) I grew more paranoid.. as this man (assuming

a shape is necessary in description)

 

was suddenly within 10ft. of me and my stroll..

 

 

"Excuse me sir. Have you seen a black girl walking this way?"

 

 

"No. Sorry man."

 

 

The meeting was short but lingered...

 

 

'As I walk forward..paying no mind to the eyes above or the hymnals before me.

 

 

My gaze lingers at my quaking shoulder..

 

The teeth are close..

 

Bigger..

 

But I have full rotary-perception..

 

 

and beneath them..'

 

 

Beneath the squinted eye of the moon:

 

 

Missouri Ave. is a straight-edge razor where blood runs clear through Largo and

on into St. Petersburg and The Bay..

 

Missouri itself, was purchased by the U.S. for $15,000,000.00 from Napoleon..and

this street is a long deviated stretch from its namesake.

 

 

'However, it is not so far from the havoc that scarred the mind of the Missouri

Man Truman and his Atomic legacy of evermore poisoned fiends..in far away

corners..There is no shelter from the aftermath there and here, now and

then..Yes, Missouri Minds are barren, sickened..and they stumble lost in Florida

now.

 

 

These new children of the radioactive age.

 

 

Missouri Ave. is where refugees from the economic fallout walk the streets in

search of drunken bliss. There is dead enterprise, and rotting corpses of the

free market tucked away from the tourist's sight..All manner of closed

store-fronts and empty filling stations. But the Industry of fast and food..of

gas and brood..still thrive, still remain. The common way of life is deadly ill

and injured here.

 

 

There is no mining for lead as in the Show Me State. But there is plenty of lead

to show in the state of the Clearwater pedestrian stomach. Gore is common. Gore

is easy to find, with little to no digging and this new mineral is a nutritious

source of strength and endurance. It is easy to carry on the walk home. It fits

well within the paunch, dysentery or nay. You can make room for the extra weight

of violent visions in the night air.

 

Just keep walking.'

 

 

 

One night, trauma emerged from the shadows of the quiet, swaying palm trees.

Then, (as now) it was a deadly and foreboding silence.. mixed with rustling sharp

needles, durable and pointy trunks.. and from hence, a goon-shaped specter took

form from the nightshade.. from the ***'sweet, sweet nuthin' of these streets..

 

 

'His arms are extended at his sides..He is burly, and silent..void..a dangerous

yet subdued presence that draws closer..closer..near. It is a ghastly black

menace. Large and breathing heavy from the mark of the slow stumble. The lead,

the gore..appears to hold him down. His arms dangle in a forced- concentrated

stance..It is a demented Jesus upon the cross pose..as if he is a bloody child of

Bethlehem and Nazareth looks to have suffered a great injustice on this vile

hour. His wrists face me and forward..His gesture is docile..and he only turns

the pose to face the on-coming traffic.'

 

 

There was no chatter from the man as he approached. Once again, covered in the

new night air and dressed in black, this (Phantom) Inquisitor would show

himself..his shape ever-changing.

 

 

'But to question is purpose, and there is so much silence to these nights..so

much.'

 

 

This time however, there was no distant greeting.. No random questions from the

brawny dark.. There were no screams..not even as the morbid smile became

more..apparent..while his teeth shone in the light of the streetlamps overhead.

This time, there were no distant greetings or sporadic mannerisms. Only a subdued

sense of urgency as he approached with his hands forward...The man, was

injured..

 

 

'Bloody stubs where his thumbs once rested..wrapped, in toilet paper, and the

expression on his face is drunken bliss..as if searching for approval of the

act..Perhaps it was self mutilation. Perhaps, the city had finally outgrown him,

and jealous of its maturity in comparison to his own, this beast of man took a

pair of sheers and cut off his mode of proper transportation..the thumbs. But

then how would he hold the scissors for the second cut without his other thumb?

 

 

Planning.'

 

 

I wonder now:

 

 

'If only he had a tongue to speak..

 

If by some cruel and demeaning fate it was ripped from the nightshade hole

 

(the tar-stained negative space where his words once reside)

 

by a pair of Stanley pliers perhaps..

 

 

And a hot curling iron would rest on a tar-stained table..

 

ready to cauterize the wound..

 

Hold the tongue..

 

Steady..Ready?..siiiiinnnge.'

 

 

I move ahead of myself here.

 

and ahead of him there..and then:

 

 

He shows me the wounds.. And I pass on with a slight acknowledgment..as

before..But as before, the experience lingers and I question the man's

profession. Judging from the brutish tattoos on his arms, one could assume that

he was employed as a local tattooist..somewhere in the heart of other broken

avenues far more dangerous than where he found himself stumbling on that night.

Perhaps, and this is left to the 'What if's?', he was employed for a prolonged

period of time at Eightball Ink..

 

 

and Larry grew tired of Slick always being:

 

 

 

"Fucked up and trying to work. You can't be drooling on a bitch when you're

trying to doing a full Japanese mural on her back."

 

 

Perhaps, Slick liked [Roxys] and needles outside the shop. And the habit grew.

And his teeth grew yellow..like the habit. And the debt came back when he woke..

 

 

So he has to work:

 

 

"Right? I gotta' eat too man. You can't fire me right now. C'mon."

 

 

"Fuck you Slick. You owe me and Ziggy $2,000.00 already for that shit you put in

'yer arm and I ain't got the stomach to watch it go on anymore. And by the way,

if you think that just because you don't got a job right now, that we won't get

our money..think again. Better get to hustlin' out there..Do some work from 'yer

mom's house or something. You got a month, and then we come and see you. Take

'yer livelihood. Ya' get me?"

 

 

'And what madness could this be?

 

What a supreme loss of reality do I suffer

 

if this not be a true meeting of myself and Slick..

 

That wounded shop-monkey..

 

stranded and left bleeding on Missouri Ave..with no thumbs...'

 

 

What lunacy do i suffer if these sewers and cities..these homes and wounds and

lives be nothing more than crude imagination?

 

 

What avenure do I walk upon as we are speaking, you and I?

 

 

 

What part of me is real reptile..and imaginary man?

 

 

Where did I leave my thumbs?

 

 

How many more paces to an open manhole?

 

_________________________________________

 

 

*Agoge-When the (Spartan) child reached the age of seven, they were ready for

their education and were organized into age groups or Agelai (relatively meaning

flock or flocks of animals). Once introduced into the age groups, they were

introduced to communal living with their age group and with others. From then on

once assigned the Agelai, the children became subject to the Agoge. The Agoge was

what allowed a Spartan child to become a homoioi or equal, which meant they were

not reserved to work for the rest of their lives, and could have the political

freedoms of a citizen. The training that went on throughout the Agoge was brutal.

 

-www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/aegean/culture/spartaculture.-

 

 

**Mt. Taygetos-It is impossible to visit the Taygetos region without noticing the

pyramidal Mount Taygetos. The mountain actually consists of five peaks, known

locally as the Pentedaktylos(Five Fingers),and the highest, Prophet Ilias, rises

to 2410 metres. The mountain is an imposing sight, and looms ominously over the

city of Sparta.

 

Taygetos was the site where Ancient Sparta executed criminals, cruelly throwing

transgressors to their death.

 

-The Geology of The Taygetos Mountains by: Sufidreamer Copyright © 2010 Hubpages

Inc

 

 

*** 'sweet, sweet nuthin'

 

-"Oh Sweet Nuthin"-The Velvet Underground-

 

 

In the Heart of Aube

:: by :: Kyle Hemmings

 

 

 

 

The Beast with 1,000,000 Facebooks

:: by :: Gregg

 

 

 

 

Where are you, my love?

:: by :: kalwar.g

Where are you, my love?

 

Are you in paradise?

 

Milking white cow

 

And listening tunes of birds

 

 

Or are you in your room

 

Listening heavy metal

 

And smoking marijuana

 

 

Or are you in your library

 

Reading words of love, seeking

 

Knowledge and wisdom

 

 

Or are you in hell?

 

 

Selling your body

 

Satisfying unwise men

 

 

Or are you heartbroken

 

And trying to find me

 

or Someone just like me

 

To fulfil your aloneness

 

 

Are you near that lake?

 

Where we spent long hours

 

Fishing and reading poetry

 

 

Tell me my love

 

Where are you?

 

 

Maybe right now,

 

You are in me

 

 

I know you are in me

 

You are God’s divine creation

 

 

And I feel your smell

 

In every petals of the red flowers

 

 

 

And I feel your light

 

With every morning

 

When there is sunrise

 

 

And I feel your body

 

Every night when I go to bed

 

 

But I repeat my beloved,

 

Where are you?

 

 

 

©2010, Santosh Kalwar

 

 

 

Chainsaw Vs. Rickshaw

:: by :: kmwgh

I know vertigo. I have cobbled these boots out of buckets of gasoline – treading

combustible fashion. If I move forward, I’ll fall over and an amalgamation

between increased temperature and gravity may exhibit varying results of

humiliation. You could all be laughing and I could be a match struck against the

asphalt, screeching. What to make of this montage? Competing gut-wrenching

snippets of frenzy transpired, I’m perspiring months of madness. I have my face

pressed against the screen and the proportions and dimensions of all things seen

are askew and spiraling - I could be inanimate if I wasn’t breathing. With my

equilibrium shot, I struggle in transit with a shuffled walk. All I can hear is…

Well, I can’t hear anything because I never listen. I’m just waiting for it all

to be over, the waiting. I’m conscious of the time and how long I’ve been pacing

and leaning against this pole and pacing but I haven’t the slightest inclination

as to when the 75 to North Gate will arrive because some anarchist saw a glitch –

an opportunity to enchant chaos by defacing the bus schedule here with a

plethora of Hello Kitty stickers. I have tried to scratch them off with my house

key, mail key, and fingernails but the residue left behind by the layers of

 

adhesive and paper still obstruct my view of the 75’s printed ETA. I kicked the

dirt and then it began to rain. Seattle's soft mist tickles the scruff on my

cheeks and neck and for the first time in months I am gifted with a semblance of

acclimation. I can be secure and delusional in my bizarre proclamations. I can

call myself “Chainsaw”, dress in corduroy and disrespect all oak, pine, and

cedar. This is what I’ve been talking about; the post-mortem dance fever. When

you’re broken-hearted, suicidal and more so because of it, shaking off an

abortion – envious of the visitor you were unable to induce and give pardon to –

hating yourself and what of yourself you see in others so much you can’t balance

your checkbook because buying stupid shit is stimulating and distracting and

right now, the only thing keeping you moving… And you just say ‘FUCK IT I’M DEAD’

and play a fifth like a trumpet. Self-avoiding. Unaccountable. Alone. Caribou

crazed and dancing. Untouchable. A reverse black-hole spewing out everything

stamped out inside of you. Trip on a nail – scuffed and bruised, you smile to tip

the scale and then – break down. Repeat if bored. I don’t remember boarding the

bus, paying the $2.50 fare or even seating myself. I also don’t recall picking

the seat closest to the aisle. I look to my left and am met with only my

reflection and an empty space separating me from it – out of respect for her

ghost, I give up the window and within it’s frame is captured flashes of the

outside world, belonging only to itself and I’m included because I can see.

Suddenly, the reel is changed – my bus has t-boned a Prias and my nose is

bleeding. Who needs coffee when you can have shock? Adrenaline = zen. I feel

nothing for either distracted driver or my fellow passengers who are as helpful

as a herd of fainting goats; who at the first sign of distress freeze up and keel

over. The bus has stalled and the clock is still ticking and all I have is time.

You can drain someone of theirs without gaining anymore for yourself and that's

what I am, drained. People are selfishly and constantly sucking on the tit of my

hourglass. Where did my precious seconds, minutes, and hours go? All I know is

the location of their tombstones - marked at the bottom of my text messages, call

records, and pay stubs. I lost Tuesday to a hangover and an argument with one of

my roommates about who consumed the last burrito out of the freezer and (more

importantly) the final dollop of cream cheese. I could have gone skydiving or

rigged some explosives to the space needle or something. Now today, Friday, I'm

missing my appointment at the plasma center because someone sneezed and forgot to

break. The accident is crying, gargling obscenities and whining - I'm handling

this quite well considering how impatient I normally am. I mean, I'm not

responsible for any of this. Affected and bothered maybe but this isn't my mess.

I'll just sit and experience the experience as I get older... As my hairs grow

longer... As my eye sight worsens... As I banter back-and-forth with my own brain

and clutch to one liners. Observing the interior, I see, according to one of

these colorful and informational panels here next to the rules and regulations

one must adhere to in order to "ride right"; the wheel man of this particular

route was voted 'Operator of the Year' for '07. Harry Randolph. Harry Randolph, I

hated you a week ago when you let that brunette hipster ahead of me with her

torn tights and melted crayola make-up prance on in after only paying a dollar

then sternly enforced that I cough up the twenty-five cents I was short of for

the usual fare. I use the word "hate" loosely but not with you. You deserve to be

 

raped up the ass with your swiped trophy you eczema riddled, flat-eared, chubby

armed and rodent bodied fuck! This is not so zen anymore. I need to find my

center. Johnny, be good. I remember magic. Before I became familiar with its

language and schematics. When my eldest brother, Rick, used to pluck quarters out

from the waxy build up behind my ears and detach his index finger from his hand

and then re-attach and then detach again. I used to think he was Spider-Man, the

way he'd climb up the walls in hallways... I want to be tricked - like that -

into believing that these are all just things that are happening. That the

universe has no method, order or plan to conspire against me. At all. If I

evaluate my own life as I do all of my hangovers, and this one, I'm

responsible... But this damn headache may as well be a migraine - No-one deserves

this much pain. I'm tired of snapping out of blackouts with a belt around my

neck in the closet or waking up next to a knife on my pillow. Sometimes I leave

notes to myself, on my forehead, written in sharpie "NO MATTER HOW MANY COLORS

YOU WEAR, YOU'LL ALWAYS BE DARK INSIDE - LOVE, STEVEN. HATE YOURSELF." Who the

fuck is Steven? I'll assume, because I'm in position to, that he's one of those

fuckers who refers to every minute journey - to the grocery store or camping trip

- as a Kerouac adventure and proposes toasts to the loss of written word.

Stabbing hotel walls and calling rape rock n' roll (because you'll always be

remembered). His cock is a cattle prod. Ahhh... A war is brewing. "Some nice

weather we're having, aye, kiddo?" I face straight ahead at first, avoiding the

source of this unfamiliar voice reverberating behind me. "It's weather," I say

"All it dictates is how many layers of clothing I'm going to wear. I'm as

thankful for it as I am for paper." The stranger's laugh is a feminine moan and

cack' - "Oh, you're one of those..." She says. Her voice travels from two rows

back to the seat directly across from me, "We're going to have a moment." She

says "A moment?" "Yes, a moment." "Jesus," my tone changes from reluctant and

malleable to raspy and overweening "You're one of those, aren't you? Are you

going to be my 'Summer'? My 'Clementine'?" "No," she says "Five-hundred days is

too much time I'd rather spend shitting than fucking but once we're done, I

promise you - no amount of brain damage will be able to erase me from you." My

brown, captivated eyes align with her poised, hazel eyes and I find peace in the

cut on her swollen bottom lip. Buddha's C-Section. "Besides," she says "My name's

Tina." Fuck! M83 - Don't Save Us From the Flames.

 

 

Her tongue salivates questions which feel like a swarm of tiny chisels scraping

away at my surface. Beneath the flakes of skin that still rest, they hibernate -

I haven't been this uncomfortable since kindergarten, when I had to acquaint

myself with that entire class of chubby, jam covered, yipping hyenas. Tina's

asking questions like: What's your name? Tanner Mabie. Where are you from?

Ballard. I will do now, what I did then, when I was small feeling smaller "Do you

want to know who my favorite band is, too!? Why I've never gone color and prefer

gray-scale!?" once I start lashing, I'm whipping for the scream "What is this, a

fucking survey? You'll never know me!" I should have opened this conversation by

lying - I'd be a good guy still if I had tourettes, Tina's smiling "You're a

 

madman!", she replies. Two officers board the bus and begin handing out accident

reports to be filled out with dull pencils by passengers seated ahead of us,

making their way to us. "In as much as detail," one of the policemen says "write

what you saw and any injuries you may have accrued in the accident." "Accrued?" I

ask "Are you implying that I was already broken before, sir?" Tina's pretending

she doesn't know me but, wait... She doesn't. Not yet. "I don't know, son. Would

you like a tissue?" As a rebellious expression stretches across my face, the

cracking of dried blood beneath my nose permeates the scent of iron and ope! I am

reminded of the fantastic introduction between it and the hard plastic back of

the seat in front of me during the collision. Somehow I had forgotten about this

- I'm not an imbecile but I retain only water. "Sure, sir!" I tell him "You will

make a fine detective some day!" He unfolds a few Kleenex and hands them to me.

As he turns away, I decide that I like him, his look, because he resembles the

composite sketch done of the Zodiac Killer. Tina turns to me again "Okay... How

about I ask you this," she says "Why are you so bitter?" I could drop to the

floor, foam at the mouth, hump the air and gnaw at the words escaping from me if

I even attempt to think about it. "Have you ever been to Lincoln, Nebraska?"

 

 

 

Mr. Powers

:: by :: Scott Wilson

An ad on the front page of the Courier Mail stated boldly in a full-page

feature, 'Want to be a super hero? Come try out for the latest reality TV show -

My Hero.' Splashed across the bottom half of the page were a variety of costumed

characters arrayed in all the colors of the rainbow and all manner of zany

outfits. According to the ad, the auditions would be held on the weekend at the

distribution warehouse of Dark Idol comics between eight in the morning until

five that evening. Founding editor and storywriter, Jack Idol, would be judging

the auditions himself.

 

 

“Take a look at this,” Chris said to the group of nerds hanging out at his flat.

“A full page, color ad. That must have cost a fortune.”

 

 

“Guy must think he's Stan Lee, throwing that sort of money around.” Ivan, Chris'

friend with an unnaturally large red afro said in a nasally voice.

 

 

Charlie and Shaun paused the Star Wars Jedi Knight game they were playing, and

looked with childlike excitement at the ad Chris had discovered.

 

 

 

“We should enter,” Shaun said.

 

 

“Yeh,” replied Charlie. “Use the characters we created in Champions.”

 

 

Ivan pulled out his superhero role-play game book and took his well-worn

character sheet from the page. He held it up beside his head, looked at it then

looked at his three friends.

 

 

“I look just like Transistor,” he said mockingly. “Don't I?”

 

 

The rough sketch on the piece of paper held the image of a muscle-bound

superhero wearing a tight, bright blue, spandex costume with a silver T across

the chest. The three friends burst out laughing at the ridiculous comparison

between the hero on paper and their wiry framed friend with thick, black rimmed

glasses. The absurdity of even thinking they could dress up like their heroes

caused immense amusement to the four friends.

 

 

“What have we got to lose?” Shaun said. “The auditions are on next Saturday, so

we won't miss work. Don't have to tell anyone we are going.”

 

 

“Yeh,” said Ivan. “It'll be a blast. Dressing up as our characters will be super

fun.”

 

 

Charlie threw a Spiderman figurine at Ivan, hitting him on the forehead.

 

 

“What did you do that for?”

 

 

 

“To bring you back to your senses. Where are we going to get costumes in three

days?”

 

 

Chris opened his laptop and Goggled costume hire in Brisbane. He sifted through

a dozen or so possibilities, excluding those that specialised in B&D outfits,

until he narrowed it down to four that looked half descent.

 

 

“I'll give them a call, see what we can get sorted out,” Chris said, picking up

the cordless on his desk.

 

 

By the third phone call, Chris tracked down a shop that could supply four

different superhero type outfits that could have symbols, letters or emblems

Velcro'd on in a range of styles and positions.

 

 

"We're set for costumes," Chris said to the group/gang, "let's get ready for the

audition!"

 

 

****

 

 

First thing Saturday morning, the four friends drove along Ipswich Road, through

the industrial precinct until reaching the desolate grey warehouse where the

auditions would be held. The four friends dressed in their super hero costumes,

under their normal clothes. Outside the warehouse, a large crowd of costumed men,

women and children gathered already.

 

 

“I thought we'd be here before the majority of other contestants,” Chris said.

 

 

“It's cool,” Ivan said reassuringly. “I'm sure we will be just dandy. The amount

of time we've played these characters in Champion will give us an edge over the

others.”

 

 

 

After two hours, the four friends finally reached the entrance to the warehouse.

Seated at a shiny, stainless steel table were Patricia Shields and Justin Smoke,

two assistant editors for Dark Idol comics.

 

 

“Name and powers,” Patricia asked Ivan, who was first in line.

 

 

“Transistor,” said Ivan. “I have the power over radio waves.”

 

 

Charlie was next in line.

 

 

“Speedball. I have superhuman speed and can run so fast I barely touch the

ground. Water is not a problem, as I can run so fast my weight does not make me

sink.”

 

 

“Next,” Justin said.

 

 

Chris stood forward and flexed his biceps, or lack thereof.

 

 

“Iron Law,” he said. “My superhuman strength is the result of an accident in a

foundry. Now, my skin is as tough as iron and my strength, that of a dozen men.”

 

 

Shaun was the last of the four to enter the warehouse.

 

 

“Fire Fly. I have the power to fly and shoot fireballs from my eyes.”

 

 

 

“Together, we form the HAAS; Heroic Alliance of All Stars,” Shaun added.

 

 

“Oh,” replied Patricia. “A super group. We have not seen one of those today.

Jack will be very excited.”

 

 

“Follow me,” said a gorgeous, red head in a tight latex bodysuit.

 

 

She lead them further into the warehouse, through a maze of passageways and

corridors, all constructed in the same shiny, stainless steel that the desk

outside was made of. Pale blue fluorescent lights hummed softly in behind the

opaque diffusers in the ceiling.

 

 

“How much further?” Ivan asked their host.

 

 

“The secret lair is at the heart of the building. It won't take us much longer

to reach it, gentlemen.”

 

 

“She's sure in character,” Charlie said to his friends.

 

 

“Where are the other contestants?” Ivan said, looking around the corridor.

 

 

“Each contestant has been allocated a host to evaluate their character. Once the

ten are chosen, you will regroup in the arena for the final stage of the

audition.”

 

 

They followed their host to a small auditorium, where she instructed each of

them to sit in a stainless steel chair, which looked more like a modern electric

chair than anything of comfort.

 

 

 

“I think I might stand,” Ivan said to the host.

 

 

“I'm sorry. You must take a seat for the interview process. They look

uncomfortable but you will understand why shortly.”

 

 

Ivan reluctantly sat down, joining his three friends on the cold, hard seats in

front of the host. She stood on a small platform in front of them and asked them

personal questions individually. After almost an hour Ivan, Chris, Charlie, Shaun

and Ivan felt like they had been interrogated by ASIO. The host left them in the

room by themselves.

 

 

“What did you reckon about that foxy mink in that tight red number?” Chris said.

 

 

“Pretty hot,” said Ivan. “I hope all of the staff on this show are going to look

like that.”

 

 

“She could have interviewed me for hours,” Charlie said. “I mean, the way she

moved was so suggestive and erotic.”

 

 

The host re-entered the auditorium.

 

 

"We will now proceed to the next stage of the competition." The host clicked a

button on what looked to be a DVD remote control. Thick, steel restraints shot

out of the arms and legs of the solid chairs, locking the four friends into

place.

 

 

“Hey, what's this all about?” Shaun yelled.

 

 

 

The chairs began to vibrate, and then lift an inch of the floor, before turning

around to face a doorway opening in the wall to the left.

 

 

“Let me out of here!” Ivan yelled.

 

 

The host walked down and ran her hand across Ivan's arm.

 

 

“You've been selected as part of the final ten contestants. Now, you will get to

meet the great Jack Idol.”

 

 

The chairs slowly moved on a track in the floor that none of the group had

noticed previously. With the strange and futuristic stainless steel decor

throughout the complex, anything could have any number of alternate functions. A

doorway hidden in an intricate design in the wall opened and the chairs moved

slowly through in single file into a dimly lit passage. The momentum picked up

until the chairs moved at a nice even pace of twenty kilometres an hour.

 

 

“We've got to get out of here.” Charlie yelled over his should to Chris, who was

in the set behind him.

 

 

Chris struggle and wiggled in the shackles but they did not budge.

 

 

“Look, we must almost be there.” Shaun shouted, seeing a white light

approximately the same size as the door they left the auditorium through.

 

The chairs flowed out of the tunnel into an even larger auditorium, capable of

seating over one hundred people if packed in. There were six other solid

stainless steel chairs situated around the outside of the lower level. Sitting on

each seat were other superhero fans, dressed up as their own hero.

 

 

“Ah, the last of my super team.” Jack Idol said in a jovial voice that echoed in

the large, empty room.

 

 

“You have all passed the auditions and will participate in my quest to create

real superheroes.”

 

 

“I think you can unlock these now,” Chris said, rattling the shackles on his

wrists.

 

 

"Oh, I think we might need to keep them on for a little bit longer, Iron Law. I

will now proceed to transform you into your proper personas."

 

 

The wall behind Jack slowly revolved, revealing a laboratory with many

instruments of pain and experimental devices ready for the final stage of the

 

 

Aliens

:: by :: Clif Henning

 

Whistling workers

:: by :: AJ Kaufmann

Careless whistling of construction worker's

 

blues

 

sweat bricks

 

odours of fly meat

 

seared by hotter equatorial explosions

 

black jeans burn

 

white cap stutters

 

TNT evolves

 

eyes closed still seeing the radiant

 

sea of sunclouds

 

witnessing own resurrections

 

deaths of whole cultures

 

at the white guy's realm dream borders

 

why are my ears and noses around

 

to witness

 

all lack of luck and luck of lack-all

 

happy to be blinded and deafened

 

by my white guy's

 

categorizing

 

lunacy

 

why erect them spacy glass works hotels

 

 

 

 

figments of Aztec legend

 

chaotic processions

 

of summer

 

ripped out hearts

 

gold torture

 

if not for the pleasures

 

of failure

 

will leave this jungle hell lodge

 

misused as heaven

 

treated like portraits of sunsnow

 

in dim light lakes

 

so the careless whistling continues

 

not aware

 

of its consequences

 

ten thousand years from now

 

 

A GUILTY PLANET IN REPOSE

:: by :: John Grey

I lie with my head in your lap

 

as the earth lies with its head in the lap

 

of the night

 

and elsewhere there is a brightness

 

you can't see

 

like the guilty grin that would have

 

come over my face

 

 

had I another face on the side

 

looking away from you

 

and of course there is ray confession

 

an orbit of a kind,

 

words circling the worst of what you can make of them

 

looking for a way in

 

to cling to you to make sound seem like peace

 

I am holding my restlessness in like the earth does

 

I am spinning through your flesh

 

even as I keep my bones so still

 

expecting you to digest what I am saying to you

 

like the day does heat and light

 

eventually you just say be quiet be still

 

but you cannot make it sound like

 

be victorious

 

outside the hours move on as if there

 

is a destination somewhere

 

that isn't always when they are

 

 

A Minimum Threshold of Coolness

:: by :: Robert Ciesla

There's something about fluorescent lights that I had forgotten long ago. It's

not the schizophrenia-inducing short-wave ultraviolet or the constant low buzzing

that's designed to comatose kids into submission. It's the property to display

the full atomic spectrum of the basketball-toting guy who was spoon-fed with

confidence since day one only to take a dump on kids like us. It's the smirk of

an asshole. It's time to re-unite with the class of '98. Only this time I have my

 

mentor with me.

 

 

Avoiding eye-contact we sit down beneath the potently fluorescing phosphor with

the rest of them; we walk as one. My pupils still belong to a highschool play

version of Barnes in Platoon: take the pain motherfucker! It's those insomniac's

4 am astral claymores that make you limp like me. Throw in a few non-productive

panic attacks and all the websites you browsed like the other kids exchanged STDs

by the Amazon river and you'll know exactly what I went through.

 

 

Let's take a moment to assume the tear-jerking position. In it there's no room

for social relativism.

 

 

During the somewhat lamented socializing the two of us stand back and visualize

robberies in Bali, threats by a mob of passing militants, hep C, and lots and

lots of wasted stock market options. Let's long for all the things you and I

managed to draft-dodge because we stayed home and took the pain of being who we

really are. This inner odyssey of unsung heroics, one you can' t buy from a cheap

airliner to some troubled continent as your once-rebellious bandmates turn into

these hate-filled insurance men with the same hunger in them before their

conquests began. Their parents still deal in law, international politics, BMWs,

and now they share the same foreign bungalows.

 

 

What about the breeders? The salt of the Earth, Mars, and Distant Cluster Z.

Without these guys there wouldn't be class reunions, let alone a mankind. It is

through their zygotes that we celebrate our continuing existence. Their

primordial urges and terminal normalcy set them apart from you and I. It is this

grave lack of enthusiasm and karma, this care-free abandon to baby-shit on all

forms of the extraordinary and treat regions beyond their A to B with some

unfounded arrogance.

 

 

You start to flicker and we both fade in-out-in.

 

 

The mercury vapor suddenly discharges its flow of electrons. The following

crackle confounds them, but to us it is a repose. We are immersed in a purifying

confusion as all visible light dissipates during a speech by one of the

 

former-hipster-turned-lawyer who just seconds ago displayed an inherited baldness

pattern. This should've been the energy policy around here. The only equation

for the elimination of school massacres worldwide is "no neon gas equals no

typecasting - keep 'em in the dark!"

 

 

A majestic life will decorate one's trophy cabinet not just with blowjobs from

fashion designer babes, but with fiery sorrows as well. For each Adolf Hitler

-treatment from an art school and for each hand-me-down from bi-sexual women,

dark side kids get something the alpha mutts will never achieve: synaptic

impulses of utter and complete failure, a touch of the void within. Darth Vader

moments without which one can't even fathom to cross that elusive threshold.

 

 

It's in this darkness that you fully emerge, bright as a class M star. My lonely

guy -pill took me to you, and you were right. My seventeen-year old self with the

big Marshall amp. You're the only one who changed and change is the only

constant in the universe. Those who embrace it are welcome wherever they are. The

others never left this place and they're falling to pieces over a little

photon-loss. They had to learn what you already knew.

 

 

Now that I've found you, I am unstoppable. Seriously broke and bordering on

saccharine, maybe, but still pushing the fucking envelope. As for you, we'll be

friends to the world. It's back to the amps once more.

 

 

Cue Bon Jovi.

 

 

winter. night.

:: by :: j. a. tyler

winter. night. and my son was crying yesterday or just now because of an earache

or his cutting of a new tooth or a stomachache. the flu maybe. and he is crying.

even now. jimmy or mikey or bradley. crying even now. and i am listening like a

good father should. i am listening. but it isn't my son crying. not then or even

now. not now. not because of an earache or the cutting of new teeth or a stomach

bug. the flu even. not that. because it is the wind instead. it is the wind in

this that i hear raging and scarring the outside of this building. right through

the wall i hear its vengeance. i hear its cutting its own new teeth. it is not

them. it is the wind. the wind is back. i don't know what is going on.

 

 

 

i've been waiting for the wind like everyone has been waiting for the wind

because when they tore down the cities and towns and imploded them brick by

wooden plank in on themselves or in great hordes of fire we all stood and watched

or watched on television and worried that the windless heated plains would be

the last bit. we all worried equally those of us still alive and still on the

streets of the cities or the towns that were remaining and still had television

access. because in the end no one had access. in the end was the time that i was

born and died. the time i died. that was the end. the time i wrote those words:

winter. night.

 

 

but it is not jimmy or mikey or bradley crying now. it is the wind. the wind has

returned to us. to us locked in this building. and to them. the monsters in the

gray suits and the dark masks and the boy faces that are plastic and crying for

their mothers behind hollow cheeks and hollow eyes and the loaded pockets of

slinging weight. it is the wind and not one of my boys crying because of a new

tooth or an ear infection or the flu bug. it is the wind. crying like one of my

boys. crying like jimmy or mikey or bradley for not knowing where i am or what is

happening to me. it is the wind. howling like my wife who tastes of strawberries

and smells like lilacs and is crying like wind for me cutting her own new teeth

and blinding her ears and cramping at the waist for want of me. for lack of me.

for loss of me.

 

 

i used to write. i used to be a writer. magazines. newspapers. first. then it was

longer things. things people liked. and someone bound them and printed them and

sold them and gave me some of the money. and so we bought a house and settled in.

 

 

comfortable. and i wrote and she cooked and we all held hands and looked into

each other's eyes and breathed good long breaths. and i was born. and i died. we

were eating dinner or what was left of one. because in our minds we were at a

long table filled with turkey legs and celery crunching dressing and we were

wearing our nice clothes and black ties and holding hands underneath the table

and praying with thanks for the goodness that was in our lives. but really beyond

that gray suit and that dark mask we were wearing burlap sacks for clothes and

eating leftovers from garbage cans or boxes of government issue handed out only

to keep a few surviving and we were burning dead bodies in the fireplace to keep

warm in a place that was always always always.

 

 

and that's when they came. when we were eating dinner like that. and they broke

 

the door and cut the makeshift insulation and took me. to this place. a place

that no one should or could or would ever know. right in front of my wife. right

in front of my boys. jimmy and mikey and bradley. right in front of them. and i

died. like that. because i was born and i was still writing even in the midst of

the windless plains and the burlap sacks and the leftover garbage scraps and the

burning dead bodies firing away in the fireplace. even then i wrote this because

i had to: winter. night.