Not much to announce by way of recent publications though I do have one upcoming. Watch out for my short story, Tangela, out on June 1. It will be published in the summer issue of 96th of October: Tales of the Extraordinary. For the time being, enjoy these three microfictions:
List of Demands
It should be called something simple, like Donut, or at most: Donut Palace or Best Donuts, and it should have only a passing familiarity with the notion of interior design. Even better if it is a glaring hallway of a room fronted by a gleaming glass box atop which sits the most out-of-date register imaginable, the kind which groans mechanically with the press of each button. Within the case, arranged, without being overly arranged, an array of options that at first glance is overwhelming to the eye, but the heart knows where to look.
Zoo
We saw a bonobo drop backwards onto a large rock in their enclosure, and lay spread eagle in the sun, dark scrotum and tiny penis tight between his legs. He pumiced himself against that rough surface, but seemed unable to reach the itch that ailed him. Later, in a fit of kiddish annoyance, he chased around a stinging insect.
After lunch, in the aviary, the flashy bird of ego swooped before us, causing a traffic jam upon the ramp as the other zoogoers tried to pluck a suitable selfie out of the overexposed greenhouse air. Slicing through the crowd, feeling self-important, en route to something a bit more humble, like the aardvarks, or a tortoise, something beyond that prismed hothouse of colors and humidity, we bypassed the tropical diva.
Frog Pond
There is not, in my recollection, any reason for my current circumstances, but it is difficult to argue with the facts that:
1) I now live in the retention pond, a part of the municipal flood control system at the center of the Pine Lakes subdivision;
and
2) I am metamorphosed about forty percent into a frog.
The remaining sixty percent of me, a filibuster-proof majority, I might add, remains man. Still, local legends would refer to me as frogman, and never manfrog, if I were so careless as to let local legends propagate. I know what they would do to me if word got out. I’ve read Mrs. Caliban. I am familiar with the mythos of Frankenstein. There was a time when I, myself, would have sprayed Gregor Samsa off the bottom of my shoe without a second thought.
No thank you. I will stay in here where it is safe, so if you were under the impression that this was going to be one of those bored-suburban-woman-gets-it-on-with-anthropomorphic-aquatic-creature kind of tales, I am sorry to tell you that you will have to get your rocks off somewhere else.