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THE PEACOCKS by Alexandra Isacson

9/25/2010

113 Comments

 
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An abandoned flock of Indian blue peacocks and peahens wandered over from another street to Iris’ ranch house.  The peafowl ate the cat food she left out for the strays, roosted in her peach and orange trees, and perched on her corral and truck bed.  Since the neighbors could never agree on having an HOA, the peafowl had free rein of the neighborhood street.  They made messes, wailed, and kept the roaches and bark scorpions down.  Landing on neighborhood roofs, the fowl sounded like men walking in boots, and looked into people’s houses through skylights.  

Iris set out a shallow pan of red paint.  Red peacock footprints stepped across her front, curved ivy- edged pathway.  The neighborhood children followed the flock.  The peacocks were as exotic and curious as the llamas that had wintered there.  The fowl multiplied and molted.  Children plucked fallen iridescent blue-green peacock plumes from the ground.  Neighbors collected the talismans.  Iris arranged the peacock silks in feather bouquets from  neighborhood barn owls, hawks, and chickens.  

Years later, the flock disappeared, except one peacock.  Days before, a strange, unshaven man came to the street and asked Iris about the peacocks.  There was much talk among the neighbors.  Without the peafowl, the scorpion population increased.  Iris’ hand burned and numbed after being stung.  She and other neighbors watched for scorpions everywhere: the ceilings, while handling clothes, or slipping into shoes. 

The lone peacock preened his plumes.  He stared at object of his desire and shimmered his eye-spotted feathers.  He courted cats, rosebushes, and dented garbage cans.   For months, the peacock hung out with a neighbor’s chickens, and they fell under his hypnotic spell.

Feeding her cats, Iris heard a loud, piercing scream that electrified her.  It sounded like something out of a black and white Vincent Price movie.  In a flush of feathers, the oddest bird teetered on her chain link fence, watching her with a cold, unflinching eye.

 
Alexandra Isacson is a graduate of Arizona State who lives and works in the Phoenix area.  Her work appears or is forthcoming in Grey Sparrow Journal, PANK, Right Hand Pointing, DOGZPLOT, Emprise Review, and elsewhere. Visit her at alexandraisacson.com.

 

 

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FREUD + TALK = INTERESTING CONVERSATION by Greg Gerke

9/18/2010

15 Comments

 
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He was a plain-faced but athletic guy from bowling who acted kind of surprised when I mentioned I ate men for a living. He laughed, I laughed, but he was the one who agreed to be tied up on my bed. We had an interesting conversation about Freud and then I sank my teeth into him. He staunched his leaking neck and squinted at me. “You don’t really care about Freud at all, do you?”

          Neck flesh is superb with oregano, rosemary and cilantro. Cook at 350.

          “My mother warned me about women like you.”

          I nibbled on his toes and he screamed at my low grade attack, but a shade of bemusement sat on his face. I could see he wanted to understand this process. From bowling and beers to being eaten slowly, savored as a tender but weak delicacy.

          His cries sounded pushed from a broken flute and it was such a turn on. From a hairy, big-handed man to mush. I rushed to the bedroom and put on my scarlet lingerie, the push up bra costing an arm and a leg. Gentleman through and through, he took off the 49ers hat in lieu of my partial nudity and showed his tongue, “Why does you chewing me up kind of feel so good?”

          I pulled my hair back, twisted it and spit on his ankle. “Well, I’m very experienced for one. I’m thirty-eight years old and I’ve been eating men for close to two decades.”

          Blood loss made his wiry body jerk. Removing his underwear was next and for that I put on Rod Stewart.

          “Not that shit,” he yelled.

          I held an aluminum bat against his windpipe. “Rod Stewart is not shit. Say it.”

          He did say it and I took off his shanks with an electric meat cleaver. Shanks like to be marinated in hoisin sauce with garlic and low btu cayenne pepper spread out on a skillet slippery with oil.

          In the last throes he was hungry and I fed him applesauce. He glared at the container and turned to me. “This is generic? You should shop at the health food store if you want the good stuff.”

          “I have a reputation there.”

          The dance began and I stripped him, waving a heat lamp over his oozing body. He was kind of crooked down there, but I opened my bra and he flooded up, ready for me to claim him.

          “Don’t I get a final phone call at least?” he asked in a delirious voice.

          I tongued his belly and his arms flared out. He hugged me to him, he demanded to be devoured.

          When I started removing his large intestine he went out for a while but right before the end he came back. “Tell them I loved them.”

          “Tell who?”

          “My family. My team.”

          “I don’t think I’ll be back at the alley anytime soon.”

          He tried to lick away the brainblood from his lips. “Where will you go? What will you do?”

          I sharpened the machete. “I’ll probably stay inside for a while. Maybe I will read the real Freud and not just Freud for Dummies.”

Just about exited from the earth, he smiled.

“Oh you poor thing.” I gave the good side of his neck butterfly kisses. “Don’t worry about me. But get ready. I hear they ask you only one question when you arrive, so try to put on a happy face.”


Greg Gerke lives in Brooklyn. His work has or will appear in Mississippi Review, Gargoyle, Rosebud, Fourteen Hills, and others. There’s Something Wrong With Sven, a book of short fiction has been published by Blaze Vox Books. His website is www.greggerke.com

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REVELATION AT IHOP by Robert Scotellaro

9/5/2010

3 Comments

 
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The wife sees Jesus in her pancakes at IHOP.  The dark pan marks, distinct—unmistakable.  There is even a berry bleeding where the heart should be.

"Is there something wrong?" her husband asks, as she stares down at the plate.  Their sons are blowing straw wrappers at each other—banging knees under the table.  "Quit it!" one of them says.  "Screw you," says the other.

 The wife, gazing down, knows it is a sign; blowback from that time with the guy who cleaned the rugs.  The delivery men who lugged in the fridge—the three of them filling that king size bed.

No," she reassures. "Nothing."  The husband watches as the syrup she pours spills over the sides.  Her fork cutting into a sandaled foot, up an ankle—along His holy robe. "Good," she mutters, her mouth fuller than he's ever seen it.

"Simmer down," the husband chides, swatting at a son without looking.  Her fork reaching for the center now—chopping out a juicy red heart.  "Umm," she says.  "Yum."

Robert Scotellaro's poetry and short fiction have appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, including: LITSNACK, Fast Forward (A Collection of Flash Fiction) Vol. 2 & 3, Houston Literary Review, DOGSPLOT, Willows Wept Review, BULL: Fiction for Thinking Men, Clockwise Cat, Ghoti, Storyscape, Battered Suitcase, Boston Literary Magazine, and others. He is the author of several literary books and chapbooks, and the recipient of Zone 3's Rainmaker Award in Poetry. He currently lives with his wife in California.

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