The New Flesh: 2011

“Bananahead has lost his appeal.”

So speaketh the AgraCon spokesman to the picketers and protesters gathered in the lobby. NOT IN MY FRUIT BOWL! YELLOW BASTARD! GOD HATES BANANAS! their poster boards read. Snarls and raised fists and arching angry eyebrows purvey the mob. The spokesman calmly straightened his tie, slicked back his hair and gave the crowd and the cameras a plastic smile.

“Ladies and gentleman, AgraCon wants you to know that your patronage is important to us. We would like to reassure you do have a voice, and that voice was heard, loud and clear. That said, it is in light of recent events that AgraCon Inc. will no longer be carrying the Bananahead brand. Our relationship with Bananahead over the years has been both illustrious and profitable, but providing you – the public – with delicious, family-friendly, produce and produce-additives has, and will always be, our number one priority. It is our hope that you will continue enjoying AgraCon’s diverse array of food-like consumables – from beef nuts to werepears – AgraCon, Let Us Put Our Yummy In You©.”

He gave the thumbs up.

The crowd let out a cheer. Bananahead’s 15 minutes of fame were up.

*   *   * 

Officially, the corporate bigwigs in their Armani suits claimed Bananahead’s particular type of ‘services’ were no longer necessary. Marketing wanted to take the company in a new direction – Can-Dee, the Can-Do Cantaloupe was testing well with both boys and girls, ages 5-12, and Rufus, the Skateboarding Say-No-To-Drugs Kumquat has been popular amongst the coveted demographic of male’s, ages 18-34. But being the mascot for AgraCon Inc. Produce Division was the role Bananahead was born to play. After only a few modeling jobs in several small, yet reputable, medical journals, it was those very same corporate bigwigs that came and plucked Bananahead out of obscurity, skyrocketing him to superstardom. And now they were just going to take it all away? Just like that?

It’s not fair.

.

*   *   * 

Billboards. TV commercials. A line of plush toys with his grinning, yellow face – Bananahead was more than a mascot, he was a cultural icon. His signature catchphrase ‘A banana a day keeps your demons at bay’ entered the lexicon, usurping the apple’s former throne as America’s favorite fruit-related idiom. His logo adorned t-shirts and lunchboxes. The official Bananahead Bananahead Hat was last year’s ‘must-have’ item, topping the crowns of trendsetters from Milan to Paris. The Adventures of Bananahead Saturday morning cartoon was lauded with a Peabody Award for Exc­­eptional Children’s Programming and his personal memoirs Beneath the Skin sold over a million copies during its first month on the market…

But then came his guest spot on Oprah, and in an instant, everything changed. 

He was to announce his recent engagement to teen-pop princess Misty Meyers. They had met during her recent European tour and had both hit it off immediately. During the interview, Oprah asked him how his relationship was going. Elated and in love, Bananahead couldn’t contain himself – he leapt onto the couch and took a huge shit, right on the cushions. He smeared his feces all over Oprah, her crew and the audience. He rolled around in it, giggling. He put some on his tongue and held it out for the world to see. We all looked on in horror, thinking stop, Bananahead, stop! What in god’s name are you doing?!? 

But it was too late. The backlash had begun. 

.

*   *   * 

The tabloids – the paparazzi, bloggers and sycophants – they just couldn’t leave Bananahead alone, could they? Always watching. Dissecting. Judging. And the greedy, spaded eyes of the over-caffeinated public, they just had to know every intimate detail. Every private moment. They had to keep digging, until they found that one brown spot on his otherwise perfect soul.

Beneath Bananahead’s thick, yellow rind, he is still a man, is he not? And a man has needs only a man could understand. And what goes on behind closed doors should be nobody’s business but their own, correct? What is normal anyway? It’s all very subjective.

Of course, it didn’t help that Misty called it rape.

But c’mon, she knew the deal when they met. She knew he had certain…proclivities. She knew the aesthetics were going to be a bit, uncomfortable. “It’s not my fault,” cried Bananahead, “It’s just the way that god made me.” But you can’t blame Misty for saying what she said; she needed to protect her own career. The tween crowd doesn’t need to know every kinky detail of their illicit affair, though I suppose everyone was just a little bit curious how she was able to fit his whole body up there.

.

*   *   * 

When the news of Bananahead’s ‘extracurricular activities’ broke, adulation turned quickly to disgust. “How could you do this to us?” the public demanded, “We trusted you, Bananahead! We loved you!” But the consensus was in. The population agreed:

“Keep your goddamn head away from our children!”

.

*   *   * 

Bananahead’s fall was meteoric. AgraCon canned him. His agent wouldn’t answer his calls. Larry King had him on to give his side of the story, but the interview quickly devolved into a bout of racial slurs and name-calling. FOOD FIGHT! the Post dubbed it. He was label a pariah. A sexual deviant. Scum. There was no doubt about it.

Bananahead was rotten.

After all, AgraCon’s most recent polls show that most mothers don’t want their children chowing down for breakfast on a bushel of makeshift dildos. And who can blame them? It’s hard enough to get your kids to finish their bowl of fake vaginas in the morning without trying to cram some nutrition down their throats.

"Bananahead"

-------------------------------------

Danger Slater is the world’s most flammable writer! He’s so flammable that he’s actually on fire as you read this! Seriously. Why are you still here? Go get help, goddamn it! He’s short fiction has appeared in online magazines, offline anthologies, and his poetry can be found on many truck stop bathroom walls across the country. His first novel, called Love Me, will be out in Summer 2011 from the Jersey Devil Press. For more disinformation please visit his website: dangerslater.blogspot.com

The trees have been known to calm me yet they haven’t since that day. I was walking off a fit of rage when I came upon the shack. I stumbled into a hillside clearing and there it stood in all its wooden one room malevolence. A creek rushed silently beside it, the underwater blades muffling its flow. Demons and birds perched in the surrounding trees watching me silently with glowing eyes and rotted souls.

I would have walked away and sought my masochistic redemption in the thick dark of the woods except I heard the theme song from M.A.S.H. from inside the little structure. The song was sorrowful but the jokes immortal. Hawkeye could always cheer me up, and Klinger wore dresses my mother emulated. She never smiled as much as him though. Flower patterned funerals have a different taste. I pulled myself from my memories and pushed the door open without knocking.

My poor manner karma was instant and uncomfortable. Splinters dug in my fingers and squirmed under my fingernails. I thought of sweet January; naked flesh, bloody lips, shivering in summer time. The song changed and I found myself tapping my foot on the dirt floor to Rezso Seress’s Gloomy Sunday. A two song soundtrack for students of sorrow.

A demon stood on a step stool, the song emitting from his wide open mouth. He held a sign that read ‘gun metal tastes like cherry’ scrawled in black sharpie marker. I marveled at his musical innards reproducing such a haunting tune. A tear formed in my eye as the song reminded me of failures and aborted dreams.

“Why do you disrupt my bathing?” A calm deep voice asked from behind me.

I turned and noticed a man sitting in an old stand-alone bathtub with hooves instead of rounded feet. The man had two small horns protruding from his forehead and a bubble beard. Rose petals and eye balls floated on the surface of his steaming bath water. A black dog with mis-matched eyes curled up on the dirt floor next to the bathtub. I thought of sweet January again; her lovely scars and gnashing teeth. The horned man snapped his fingers. My memory vanished in the echo.

“Why do you disrupt my bathing?” The man asked again as his soap beard dripped.

The music stopped and I looked back to the demon. He glared at me and held a sign that read ‘razor blade rebellion’ scrawled in black sharpie marker. In the silence of the shack I missed the haunting tune. I shrugged my shoulders and mumbled an apology.

“Is there no common decency anymore?” the man asked.

The black dog raised his head and shook negative.

The demon started the song over from the beginning and my toes tapped along. He held a sign that read ‘the tighter the noose, the sweeter the juice’ scrawled in black sharpie marker. I found courage in the pit of my stomach where all the bad feelings swirl and used it to answer the bathing man.

“No,” I told him, “for everyone burns in the fire of life.”

The horned man splashed his bath water at me; flinging eye balls and rose petals all over the floor. The water hit my face and plugged my nose. My eyes burned but I told myself I’d never cry in front of strangers again. You never know if the strangers know we are all ghosts in the fog. So it’s better to not give them the chance to judge you.

“I see,” the man told me while applying more bubbles to his chin. “And what of forgiveness? Does it still pester?”

“No,” I told him, “for solitude is a cold flaming mistress.”

“I see,” He answered. Then he pulled a rag from the water, held it out to me and asked, “Could you wash my back?”

“No,” I told him, “for I lost my kindness when all my toys broke.”

He nodded sadly and lost himself in his own memories. I shuffled my feet and waited impatiently for him to speak again. The black dog stood slowly and stretched; one eye on my and one eye on my nightmares. Still his master said nothing. So I broke his concentration by snapping my fingers. The echo wasn’t near as impressive but still he looked at me.

“May I steal your demon?” I asked using the voice I employed when asking for the toys- now broken- when they were shiny and new.

The horned man leaned back in his bath and slid down into the water. He opened his mouth and swallowed up bathwater then he spit the water like a fountain.

“No,” he told me, “but you may take his sign if you wear it around your neck.”

“Fair enough,” I answered content to leave the humid room with my soul and a souvenir.

The demon handed me the sign with a small loop of barb wire attached so I could wear it. I put it over my head and bowed. The horned man waved me away. The black dog scoffed and spun in place three times before laying back down beside the bathtub. I walked out the wooden door into the night.

My eyes were glowing strange neons and they lead me home through the forest. Demons and birds squawked and chirped blasphemies at me but the words on the sign kept me strong. I held a sign for all to see that read ‘my emotions are zombie’ scrawled in black sharpie marker.

"The Devil's Bath Shack"

-------------------------------------

Jonathan Moon is the horrorcore author of Mr. Moon's Nightmares, the upcoming HEINOUS, and co-author of The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole with Tim Long. You can keep one eye on him at all times by following his Monkey Faced Demon blog at http://www.mrmoonblogs.blogspot.com/.

YEAR TWO

Hey Weirdos!

Can you believe it? THE NEW FLESH turned 2 years old today! It seems like just yesterday I was giving her CPR and pushing the defibrillator to her chest just to try and keep her alive and now I can't even open submissions for a month without having to close them for another three months because of all the interest. Wow. We've come a long way, folks. Thank you all so much for your support over the years - to the readers, to the authors. YOU alone make this work. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

As a way of showing our appreciation, we've gathered up our favorite stories that were published on THE NEW FLESH within the last year and made them available to download for FREE! The ebook is called LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH: YEAR TWO and you can download it here.

A very special thank you goes to Mr. Brian Barnett for working his ass off to get this ebook ready in time. He says his fingers are still smoking, haha.

So there it is, folks - Year Two all wrapped up in a nice pretty package. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did publishing them. But don't spend too much time reading it, get out your pens and crack your knuckles... let's not waste any time getting started on Year Three.

Keep it weird!

III

Everyone thought it was just an earthquake...

Eliot was only just holding off the intruding beef people with a large stick. The blasted wall of the sand castle was teeming with the greasy foe, and Eliot knew he wouldn’t last much longer. Surrendering his doorway in a momentary break of the enemy drive, Eliot rushed down the gritty sand hallway on his own beefy legs. He and his comrades, however, were raw beef, exuding a golden hue from years of sand mixing in their red hides. The intruders, on the other hand, were cooked nasty messes. They blew through multiple points of the sand castle at once, and were gaining ground fast.

Eliot caught sight of light down the hall. Suicidal berserkers had lit themselves aflame and were attempting to cook the residents out of the castle, thrashing through masses of soldiers, walls, and air alike. Unfortunately, the coupling of damp air and moisture in the walls seemed to be abolishing the fires with little effort from the defenders.

Surviving the trip to a stable roof, Eliot saw the entire scene. His allies defending their home with the basest of tools available to them: sticks, stones, bits of shell. The enemy boasted superior weaponry, the majority of them swinging long, weathered handles topped with gnarly hooks, caked in rust and grease. Some bore sharpened bones. Still others simply set themselves on fire and ran for a crowd.

And of course, they wielded the Nercobos: a colossal cow carcass that towered stories above the sand castle.

Eliot had never seen a more disgusting object in his life. The Necrobos was pulled toward him on a cart by an army of grease slaves. Hundreds more climbed about the decaying corpse itself, throwing various bits of vulgar and flaming debris towards the castle.

Movement on the staircase. Eliot poised to attack, but some of his own men ascended the stairs. Roger was in the lead, followed by Monty and another raw boy Eliot did not recognize. Behind them was a swinging hook, attached to an attacker around the corner. Monty tore at the ceiling from his elevated position on the staircase, and the ceiling dropped down on anyone in the hallway with the hook bearer. Eliot saw the section of roof fall victim to gravity from his vantage point.

The Necrobos loomed ever nearer. Eliot and his gang retreated further from the hulking corpse, past a toppled tower of muddy sand. Hooks and meaty limbs poked through the wreckage, but the group didn’t stop to identify the victims as friend or foe.

As the last of the standing walls and ceilings dropped, the shadow of the Necrobos passed overhead. Darkness was cast across the gritty rubble, save for the pockets of fire not yet extinguished by the exposed mud strewn about, as well as the glowing eyes of the Necrobos. The real eyes had been plucked out by some scavenger long ago, but ghostly energy still glowed from the sockets. Wretched forms amassed around the necrotic utter and dug their hooks into its taut skin as the monstrosity centered over Eliot’s crew of survivors like a UFO ready for abduction or destruction. The utter maggots screeched with laughter audible hundreds of feet down. They danced. They laughed. They pulled.

And a bombardment of rancid milk surged from the sky above Eliot’s head. The stench alone struck many of the riders clear off the Necrobos. The milk was gelatinous as it fell and exploded into a grotesque concoction resembling chunky chowder with bits of amoebic fat floating about. The mixture dissolved Eliot and his crew in seconds as they simultaneously choked on the thousand year old milk remains.

And only seconds after that, an even larger shadow was cast across Necrobos itself. A tsunami propelled by the earthquake that morning surged forward and tore the shore asunder. The Necrobos was flung across the sandy expanse then ripped back into the sea among assorted beefy debris. The initial force ripped its crispy head clean from its flanks, but the glowing in its eyes remained.

"Battle at Beef Beach"

-------------------------------------

Joseph Bouthiette, Jr. eats food and poops poop. His work has appeared online at The New Flesh, Staring At the Walls and In Between Altered States.

So when Sir Mix-A-Lot decided to do a twenty-year anniversary remix of the 1992 hip hop classic “Baby Got Back,” he decided to accompany it with a remake of the video. The legendary rapper insisted that only the actors, dancers, and extras of the original video be hired to appear in the new one. Sure, if any of the original players were dead or physically or mentally incapacitated they would be replaced, but Mack Daddy wanted to keep things as original as possible.

Rick Peterson (casting director for the new video) and his assistants got on the horns, mailed letters, sent out emails. In about a month, they succeeded in getting ahold of nearly everyone from the old video, all of whom were enthusiastic to sign back on for the remake. Although it was more of a formality than anything else, Rick held auditions with each original performer at his Hollywood office, essentially just to make sure everyone was healthy enough to do the work. Because if it turned out, for example, that one of the original Big Butt girls’ rumps had grown so big that it now had to be wheeled around in a bariatric wheelchair, that could pose certain practical problems and justify use of a stand-in.

Luckily, every lady who was required to bend, gyrate, and jiggle her ass for the camera could still do so, even if their bending, gyrating, and jiggling was a little slower these days, a little harder on their lower backs. But any loss of youthful, sinuous movement on the part of these dancers was more than offset by the value of the extra poundage that twenty years had added to their rumps.

The only notable problem the casting team encountered during the whole roundup was in trying to locate “the white guy”: that nerdy white dude who briefly appeared in the original video precisely at the moment when Sir Mix-A-Lot uttered (to paraphrase and reword the lyric a bit), “Even white boys have to holla: baby got butt!” (thereby implying that every “white boy” is a socially awkward, yellow-haired, bespectacled, suited geek who, in a room full of big juicy female butts, wouldn’t know what to do with himself other than nervously fidget with his necktie).

Turns out this actor legally changed his name to “White Boy” back in 1993 and had been gigging on the national comedy club circuit ever since, dubbing his act “The White Boy from the ‘Baby Got Back’ video.” His act consisted of himself standing onstage—his geek glasses, monkey suit, and side-combed yellow hair all in place—while he fidgeted with his tie in front of a screen displaying a life-sized image of the Big Butt girls while the song played in the background. The guy didn’t tell any jokes. Never talked to the crowd. He just fidgeted with his tie and pulled a few jittery facial expressions. That was it. White Boy was frequently booed off the stage, yet somehow he still managed to eke out a meager living doing this—and had been doing so for nearly twenty years now!

Due to his itinerant life style, the man was difficult to track down. Last anyone heard, White Boy had performed for two nights at a club in Arkham, Massachusetts. When he’d checked out of his motel, White Boy had asked the front desk clerk for directions to the blasted heath, some sort of strange tourist attraction in the rural outskirts of Arkham. The clerk gave him the directions, but warned White Boy not to drive out to the place, that it was cursed. That had been over six months ago.

But just when Rick was about to give up on his search, just when he was about to hold auditions for the part, White Boy showed up in the doorway of his office. Apparently, the travelling performer had heard tell of the remake and wanted in.

“Um, Mr. Boy?” Rick nervously inquired as he sat at his desk, an assistant at each elbow. White Boy sat on the other side.

“Please, just call me White Boy.”

“We’re glad you came to us,” Rick said. “I thank you for that. But . . . oh, this is always so damn hard. I’m sorry, but we can’t give you the part.”

After a moment of silence, White Boy spoke, the indignation thick in his voice. “Now let me get this straight. You’re remaking ‘Baby Got Back.’ Sir Mix-A-Lot wants all the original players. I am the original nerdy white guy from the first video. So why in God’s name would you refuse me the part?”

“Well, White Boy, I don’t know if you’ve looked in a mirror recently, but you’re not white anymore. You’re . . . you’re the Colour Out of Space—a color of allegedly alien origin that defies any sort of description because it’s outside the visible spectrum of the human eye.”

“Call it what you want, Rick. I call it a skin condition that I contracted while motor touring the countryside outside of Arkham. And you know what else I’m gonna call? The Screen Actors Guild and have your ass nailed to the wall, buddy.”

“Sorry, White Boy. But both the script and the song lyric call for a “white boy,” and you just don’t fit the bill anymore. And frankly, you’re sort of freaking us out right now. You’ve left a trail of the Colour Out of Space on my carpet and ruined a very expensive leather chair. I’d like for you to leave now, sir. Please, or I’ll be forced to call security.”

White Boy rose abruptly, knocking that expensive chair on its side before whipping around and stomping off to the door. Before exiting the office and slamming the door behind him, he halted, turned his outlandish, indescribable, colorless-colorful head back toward the casting people.

“This certainly isn’t the last you’ll hear from me. Yo, y’all racist!”

"Even Colour-Out-of-Space

Boys Got to Shout: Baby Got Back!"

-------------------------------------

Clyde Baker recently remarked, “I have seen the future of horror and his name is Douglas Hackle.” Clyde Baker is the blind, homeless, illiterate crackhead who lives underneath Douglas’s dilapidated front porch--but hey, Clyde’s opinion counts too, damn it! Douglas reads and writes out of Northeast Ohio, where he lives with his wife and little boy. His short fiction has been published or accepted for publication in several online and print venues. Visit him at: http://douglashackle.wordpress.com

COMING SOON - The New Flesh: Episode One

Table of contents:

Juan's Cranial Pregnancy
by Edmund Collel

Captain Crotch Hook
by Matthew Revert

Unfruitful Works
by Jordan Krall

The Never-Ending Halibut
by Josh Myers

Your Heart Won't Go On (A Jagger Serial)
by Eric Mays

The Continuing Adventures of Billy Van Krall
by Chris Bowsman

Dying Images
by Kirk Jones

Look Who's Fucking Talking
by Jason Armstrong

Hamartia: A Tale of Sister Merciless
by Garrett Cook

Just to Spite Your Face
by Steve Lowe

Power!
by William Pauley III

An Invasion of Privacy
by Robert C.J. Graves

A Professional Woman
by R.M. Cochran

The Cunning Liguist
by Jess Gulbranson

Lurking in the Dark With Mimi
by Joshua Dobson

Introduction
by Jonathan Moon

Thomas turned his Ford pickup off the main road and onto a grassland area. The sun’s dark orange glow had lured him from his rented backyard apartment to the edge of the forest.

“Stay put, Rascals,” Thomas commanded his dog.

He stepped into the knee-high grass and shook his head at the sound of chainsaws buzzing like hyped-up bees through the foliage. He knew the forest would be gone in a few years. Every idiot in the city knew it, but no-one said anything.

Thomas continued to stare at the sun’s peculiar gloom – a mixture of nature’s beauty and an unfamiliar phenomenon. The sun’s murky, rotten-carrot-like radiance didn’t even hurt his eyes. He wished his wife and child were still around to see it.

The noise of chainsaws died.

Silence.

Rascals stood up against the dashboard and barked hysterically.

A new sound emerged from deep within the woods. A rumbling resonance akin to flowing water.

Thomas jumped at the sight of a dark figure running out of the woods and onto the grassland. In the shady light he couldn’t tell if the individual was in danger or looking for trouble. “Everything alright?”

The figure altered its direction towards Thomas and picked up speed.

Unsure of what else to do, Thomas reached into the back of his pickup and removed a tire iron.

With a strain in his voice he once again called out. His grip strengthened around the cold apparatus. His heart rate spiked and he picked up a large rock, tossing it towards his potential attacker.

His scare tactic didn’t work.

Another figure exited the woods. And another.

Thomas stepped back.

The roar of flowing water grew louder.

Thomas gasped when he realized his assailant was a woman. But it was what he saw on her face that almost made him drop the tire iron. A thin layer of skin appeared to be stretched over her eye sockets, nostrils and mouth. Like a watery, rubber-type skin pulled over her face.

“Stay back!” Thomas shouted as he picked up another rock.

A dozen more of them ran from the forest, most of them dressed as lumberjacks.

The woman was only a few yards away when he hurled the rock through the air and hit her against the chest. Her body evaporated in an explosion of water.

Thomas stumbled backwards and fell to the ground.

“Rascals,” he whispered as two figures charged his car. Their bodies burst into a shower of water that consumed his truck. Like melting ice it disappeared into the ground.

Rascals barked no more.

Hundreds of faceless people now swarmed out of the forest. A river of water followed their every step.

Two more of the creatures turned towards him. He threw more rocks, but his shaking hands refused to take proper aim.

A watery shape rose from the grass before him. It was the woman who dissolved earlier. Her naked body grew before him; first her outline, then her hair, and finally her clothes.

She was right in front of him, the others only feet away.

It was too late.

They were too close. So close he could see their jaws lower as they tried to scream, stretching the skin over their mouths to within an inch of tearing.

Thomas raised his arm and swung the tire iron with unrelenting force, sending the tool through both the woman and the second assailant.

Acidic water blasted over his body and into his eyes. It burnt through his clothes and into his blood stream.

Thomas screamed . . . then disappeared beneath the body of water that now flowed across the grassland.

Seconds later a figure closely resembling Thomas rose from the river. He looked at the thousands of water-creatures just like him and joined them in their sprint. The flood followed them on their journey towards the smog-laden city, and the polluted world beyond.

A muffled bark rose from the horde.

"A Simple Certainty"

-------------------------------------

Joe Mynhardt is a South African horror writer and teacher. His work has been published at Pill Hill Press, Dark Minds Press, Library of the Living Dead, Microhorror, Flashes in the Dark, Pages of Stories, Ghastly Door and many more. Joe is also a moderator at MyWritersCircle.com. Read more about Joe Mynhardt and his creations at www.Joemynhardt.com.

June’s bright sunbeams failed to penetrate the blinds of the closed-smelling dorm-room. Brother Reynolds knocked hesitantly at the open door. “May I come in?”

“Lemmee the hell alone ... oh ... father Reynolds, I’m so sorry, I...” mumbled Eula, wiping the dried material from the corners of her mouth and rising groggily from bed in her slept-in clothes.

“Neither this,” Brother Reynolds said admonishingly, removing the empty fifth of bourbon from the floor to the leather bag he carried, “nor hiding in the dark is going bring him back... he’s in a better place now.”

Eula looked at him grimly, barely holding her tongue.

“You need to get out and do something with yourself, and I‘ve found just the thing.”

Eula winced as he drew up the blind.

“The Chicago diocese has a wilderness camp for inner city girls, north of Green Bay ... they need a wildlife interpreter for the summer. I said you’d take the job.”

“You, wha--,” Eula stopped short, his stern yet amiable look disarming her.

* * *

A month with giddy young teens, camping and rambling through the outskirts of the Nicolet National Forest, had muted Eula’s melancholy. Now, after a quick breakfast, they were moving campsites, a 7 mile hike to Drag Lake, over towards the Potawatomi Reservation.

“Eula, you’ll stay behind with Constance and Aretha...clean up the campsite...trailhead’s 2 miles down the road, at the sandy patch, turn left, follow the blazes...anyways, you’ve got the forestry map.”

* * *

“Great job finding the blazes girls, we’d have been here --”

“Eula, that you?” came a voice from back towards the sandy patch.

“This way.”

Three exhausted girls emerged from the underbrush, their breathless counsellor, Bea, in tow. “Eula ... praise the Lord ... couldn’t find the blazes ... kept on the trail ... swamp ... coming back ... Margie ran ahead ... said she knew where to go ... dunno where... gotta ... go ... back ... take the girls?”

“I’ll go, take Constance and Aretha, they found the blazes.”

“Thanks!” puffed Bea.

* * *

After a narrow stream the trail extending beyond the sandy spot split to right and left. After two hundred yards of the former revealed no signs of passage, Eula turned back and headed, as Bea had, up the left branch. The dark soggy soil was home to sharp sedges, tall Joe-pye weeds, and bushy tufts of willows and alders. Eula proceeded slowly, calling out and tracking up and down any branch trails.

Sitting on a dry tussock, she opened her pack, and scarfed down a messy peanut-butter sandwich. Taking a deep breath she pulled out a locket, opened it and kissed a clip of hair within it -- hesitatingly, she drew out and opened a waterproof packet. She rubbed her cheek against the man’s sweatshirt inside, drawing in the smell. She sat pondering ... it was nearly 4 o’clock, 10 minutes more searching and she would turn back.

Rising over a ridge the trail ended abruptly on a small reed and sedge-skirted pond. Tall bare trees adorned a hazy green background. The map showed a lumber road running from beyond the marsh, over a ridge and down to Drag Lake -- this would save hours of backtracking. Looking up, she noticed a trail of crushed sedges winding it’s way into the marsh -- had Margie wandered this far?

It took a full 3 hours of crossing beaver dams, hopping from tussock to tussock and ultimately slogging knee-deep through bubbling, foul-smelling mud to reach the shore beyond, but she had far overshot the road. The trail of trampled sedges continued, ending where the forest began.

Crossing a dried creek bed, her attention was drawn by movement beside a large beech. The grainy grey vision gathering twilight imposed left her more the impression than a certainty that a thin, dark man, beating winged arms, had processed reverently up the hillside and behind an outcropping. Confused upon reaching the tree and finding no sign of anyone’s passage, she still pursued that direction, as it would lead her to the Lake.

Reaching a ledge just below the ridge, she was briefly assailed by a smell of rotting flesh, along with that of a wood fire; still, oddly, she felt composed. Rounding a spur of rock, she came upon a wooded hollow which the setting sun bathed in a deepening orange glow. The trees housed a number of platforms, some tenanted and equipped with jars, dishes of food, fresh clothes; others, in a state of disrepair were empty. Silently she drew closer.

The man, who had removed his wings and placed them between a tenanted tree and a blazing fire, turned. Eula sensed rather than saw him beckon her. He silently climbed to the platform, unwrapped a tattered blanket, and exposed a skeleton to which a few tatters of flesh still clung. These he daintily yet respectfully picked off with his preternaturally long fingernails, finally descending to offer them to the fire. Climbing again, he drew apart the bones, placing them on a clean piece of coarse cloth, wrapping them, along with the few other objects the platform bore, in a bundle he tied together with a rawhide strip.

Descending with the bundle and extinguishing the fire, he paused, looking her over intently. She pictured than heard when he whispered: “You too have work to do here.” She understood. Climbing to the platform she laid Jim’s shirt across a remaining piece of blanket, placing the locket inside it, and folded the blanket over it, sealing it with her tears.

As she climbed down, the Indian had moved off the way she had come, but was pointing up the hill.

* * *

At the lake, a concerned Bea and Margie, were waiting. “I kin smell where you been, an’ it ain’t pretty,” said Margie indecorously. Reaching the middle of the lake, Bea and Margie suddenly tipped the canoe, sending a distracted Eula into the water. Surfacing she said: “I feel much better now.”

"Pick 'Em Clean"

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an 18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

DIRECTIONS: Hold SEXUAL ORGANS upright, pull trigger back and spray the air in a sweeping motion until entire area is covered. For noticeably fresh SEXUAL ORGANS, spray all the rooms in your home.

INGREDIENTS: Odor eliminator, water, fragrance, nonflammable natural repellant, embalming fluid, quality control ingredients. SEXUAL ORGANS Contain no Phosphates.

CAUTION: USE ONLY AS DIRECTED. Intentional misuse by deliberately concentrating and inhaling the contents can be harmful or fatal. Help stop SEXUAL ORGAN abuse. Some surfaces may become damp when sprayed. Avoid slips or falls.

KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. Do not point at face. If eye contact occurs, rinse well with water. If irritation persists, get medical attention. Do not expose SEXUAL ORGANS to heat or open flame, or store at temperatures above 120 degrees fahrenheit. Dispose of properly. Do not puncture or incinerate organs.

"Sexual Organs"

-------------------------------------

Dustin Reade has been published a bunch in magazines, online, and in dozens of anthologies. He lives in Washington. 'Nuff Said.

ONLINE SUBMISSIONS CLOSED

Hey Weirdos!

So we're closing up submissions again. Anything sent in by the end of today is okay, but future submissions will be bounced back. We have received a TON of submissions since we re-opened to subs a couple of months ago, so much that I can barely keep up. So that's why it is necessary to close submissions at this time.

This does not mean that TNF will stop posting stories. We still have tons of weirdness to share and will be posting stories regularly. If you sent a story in to us and it was received by July 20th, 2011, then your story will be read and you will get a response from us soon. No worries.

Thanks so much for supporting The New Flesh! It blows my mind to step back and see how much it has grown over the past couple of years. Really, thank you so much.

Take care!

III

There are forty-seven doors in my house, but only three windows. We are open and closed. Petey (my kid) says I should get a job in paradoxical philosophies. I hold his hand and go outside through door thirty-three. This is when I get hit by the falling expansion peach.

It is the size of a normal peach. Now it isn't. It bounces off my head and grows into a Peach-Planet. Petey and I are sucked away with its gravity and our home shrinks away and all the doors are closed. All the windows are closed.

Petey is holding onto my hand like I'm a balloon elephant with mild autistic tendencies. I say don't let go. He says I won't let go (we're sentimentalists like that). The Peach-Planet sucks into orbit and we can feel it shift, feel it suck, it sucks.

Massive worms grind their teeth and burst through the surface and send peach-pulp scattering. Peach-people, fully matured (yet no more than a day old), approach me and Petey and I'm not sure if they are peach-men or peach-women. Maybe they're neither. Maybe they're something altogether different. They say something I don't understand and I look at them. They say something else and I squeeze Petey's hand. They yell something and tie rope around my neck and around Petey's neck and tug us behind them, taking us back to their peach-town.

Petey says I'm scared.

I say me too, son, me too.

In the town the peach-people look at me and Petey and their kids play with pop-guns and make gun sounds with their mouths and wear helmets for hitting things and falling over and not getting hurt. Petey doesn't have one and a toothless peach-kid throws a grenade at Petey and it explodes into thousands of little birds that spray everywhere. The parent of the grenade-throwing-peach-kid smacks them across the helmet and stares at us. The peach-kid cries, then stops.

Petey and I are taken to a small farmhouse and tied up on the back porch. The peach-people say something I don't understand and I say something they don't understand. They go inside and play poker and Petey goes to the end of the porch at the end of his rope and does a little wee. I curl up and go to sleep and dream of bank loans skiing down mountains in big purple hats. Petey dreams of going to a peach-kid and showing the peach-kid his big gums.

The big peach-person (who kind of looks like a Ned) wakes me and Petey up and we see the earth rise. I miss the earth and Petey misses the earth. We miss the earth together. Ned touches my hair and says something and hands me a weird shape-tool and takes me out to the field. Ned takes Petey to the other side and hands him a smaller shape-tool. I stare at Ned and then at the shape-tool and Ned comes over to me and smacks me across the face. Ned snatches the shape-tool and starts moving it through the ground in a weird shape-motion. I take it back and try doing it. Ned watches me do it. I don't know if it's right. I do it again. Ned walks over to Petey and teaches him the same movement. Petey does a clumsy shape in the ground and Ned hits him and snatches the shape-tool off him. I yell out. Ned looks over and I go back to shaping. Ned does the shape again and Petey does another clumsy shape. Ned smacks him to the ground and I drop my shape-tool and run to him.

Ned yells something at me and I pick Petey up and hand him the shape-tool. Ned hits me. I get up and guide Petey through the shape a couple of times. I let him go and he shapes on his own. A little shaky, but good enough. I look at Ned and he thinks so too.

We stand in the field, just me and Petey, shaping it continuously each day every day and my back is sore and my arms are sore and my legs are sore. Petey is exhausted and he hasn't shaped a quarter of what I have. His little bones are turning to peach-pulp and bruising so fast. We sleep on the back porch and drink peach-seed soup.

Petey dies. He gets buried out back, behind the barn.

In the field I can feel myself dying too. A group of drunk peach-teenagers sneak into the back yard at night looking for things to destroy and they boot stomp me in my sleep and I dream I'm being eaten by jazz singers. I wake up and Ned is fighting off the peach-teenagers with his katana and they're falling apart at the waist and splattering onto the ground. The neighbours hear something going on and they come over with their own katanas and start fighting Ned. Ned dies and falls apart at the waist and some other peach ties me up and slings me over their shoulder. I forget where I am. Another peach-person kills the one carrying me and picks me up over their shoulder. I fall asleep.

When I wake up there is only one peach-person and we are on a hill and the peach-person says that I will no longer work the fields. I say I want to go home. The peach-person says I can't. I say how do you know my language? He says nothing. I say are there others like me? He nods and picks up his katana and walks away.

"The Expansion Peach"

-------------------------------------

S. T. Cartledge is a weird, surreal, experimental writer from Western Australia. He spent his childhood brooding around in a small coastal town and has since spent the beginnings of his adult life brooding around in a small coastal city. His greatest thrill in life is antagonising grammar nazis at every opportunity.

So a few months ago I accidentally built a time machine. I don’t know what I was trying to make, but it wasn’t a time machine. A lot of people were very excited, but because I hadn’t set out to build a time machine I considered the experiment a failure. I was in all the papers for a while, and then one day I put the time machine in the garage and forgot about it.

Well, a few days ago, my dad was out cleaning the garage when he came across the Time Machine. He came up to my room to tell me about it. His face was red and he was angry.

“That doo-hickey of yours has got a hornet’s nest in it,” he told me. “I’m not gonna clean it up. You can do that yourself. You’re twenty-seven years old; I shouldn’t have to tell you to clean up after yourself.”

“Fine, I’ll clean it up,” I said.

Then, I said: “Jeez.”

I put on my purple windbreaker and my favorite pair of jeans and headed for the garage. My mother was in the kitchen, juggling bombs. They were round and black and all of the fuses were lit. One of them looked like it could blow up at any minute but she didn’t seem to care. I had to assume she knew what she was doing, but it seemed to me that my dad should have stepped in and done something. A bomb with a lit fuse was a heck of a lot more dangerous than a hornets nest in my crappy Time Machine.

I went out into the garage and looked at the Time Machine. It didn’t look like much, just a chair and some tinfoil, really. There was a little platform built around it, but it only went out about six or so feet. Looking at it, I still couldn’t figure out what it was I had been trying to make.

The hornets nest was under the seat, so I grabbed a can of spray paint and started spraying them. I had no idea how to kill hornets but I found out that spray paint doesn’t do anything to them. Soon they were buzzing all around me, and I had no choice but to kick the nest from the chair and use the Time Machine.

Everything went dark for a minute, and then I saw a bunch of rainbows. They were tiny, no bigger than my fingernail, and there were thousands of them.

After a few minutes, the rainbows faded, and gradually a sort of desert came into focus. My parents were standing there. Their faces were streaked with black and their hair was standing straight up on their heads. I looked around and realized it wasn’t really a desert, more of an impact crater. I could see bits of my neighbor’s houses, a few tires and other indications of a great explosion. Like, there was a tree up on the top of the crater that had been split in half, and there were body parts scattered all over the place.

My mother reached up and touched her hair. There was a spark, and she quickly pulled her hand away. Smoke trailed out of both of their ears.

“What the heck are you guys doing here?” I asked.

My dad brushed himself off. “Your dumbass mother blew us up.”

“Yeah,” mom said sheepishly. “I was practicing my juggling. My teacher told me that, if I wanted to get really good at it, I had to try juggling something dangerous. That way, I wouldn’t lose my focus.”

I threw up my hands. “Jesus, Mom! He meant to try juggling knives, or chainsaws, not bombs!”

She just shrugged.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to improve my juggling skills.”

“Well, I hope you’re happy,” dad said, putting his hands on his hips and staring at her. “You and your damn juggling have knocked us all into next week.”

I checked the time-o-meter on the Time Machine. It said we had, in fact, travelled exactly one week into the future. I was momentarily upset, because I had missed a couple of my favorite shows, but luckily I had the Time Machine.

“Luckily,” I said. “I have this Time Machine.”

They both looked at me.

“So?”

“So,” I explained. “We can use it to go back to last week, before any of this happened.”

They climbed on and we went back to our own time. When we got there, we walked into the kitchen and looked at the bombs mom had left on the table. None of them had blown up yet, so the machine must’ve worked.

My father sat down and put his elbows up on the table.

“Well, Marie,” he said. “Was it worth it? Do you feel your juggling has improved as a result of this accident?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Here, let me show you!”

She picked up the bombs, lit the fuses, and started juggling them. She really was quite good.

"Tiny Rainbows"

-------------------------------------

Dustin Reade likes old surrealist movies, Sangria Senorial Soda, writing stories and using his body for shock value. His work can be found in numerous magazines and anthologies. All of his stories are weird.

Father McKinely had sat in the confessional, saying nothing, listening to the ditzy-voiced blonde recount her latest sexual debauches. She had spoken in a voice that was sensual, but cheap. Stupid, but arousing.

The poor husband, Father McKinely had thought.

"Now you have to understand, father, Joey's my husband. Burt he's his best friend. So one day Burt stops by when Joey is out working.

'Sorry,' I tell him. 'Joey isn't home.'

Father McKinely had felt tension go all throughout his body, muscles in his neck contracting, sweat beading down his priestcollar. This is better than Cinemax, he thought, as Mrs. Whitefield had started to get dirty.

Joseph Christopher McKinely had not always been like this.

A priest. In early adulthood he'd been many things. A coast guard, a prizefighter and even a disc jockey at a small-time college radio station. Becoming a priest had seemed like the thing to do back then--there was just no dodging it. His father had been a priest, his grandfather. Family tradition, family duty.

At first, stories like Mrs. Whitefield's had appalled him. He had been a firm believer in the sacraments of marriage: fidelity and the like. But ten years of being forbidden to so much as touch his penis had made things more difficult for him, unbearable.

On the eleventh year Father McKinely had started to do things differently, in his own way. Why not? The sinners were still getting absolution; he just needed to relieve his frustrations from time to time.

"...and then this Burt, he kisses me passionately on the lips, his tongue caressing both sides of my mouth! Oh, Father, it had felt so good, I just couldn't resist it."

Father McKinely could see Mrs. Whitefield through the screened-divider, knelt down on the bench, the sight of her perky, moca-colored breasts being more than he could handle.

Gently, and soundlessly his pants had gone tumbling down. There was a slight, barely perceptible sound of the zipper but Mrs. Whitefield didn't seem to have noticed as she kept on talking.

"And here I am, bent over, and Burt's really riding me good, you know? Showing me no mercy. And it was a beautiful day. A day like today. I could hear the birds chirping, barely a cloud in the sky and Burt he's just... well, getting me sore, to be honest with you. And then a couple seconds more he's finished. He zips his pants back up, real businesslike and tells me, 'tell Joey I'll call him tonight, all right?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh." Father McKinely had groaned.

He had tried keeping the noise under control but the story had just been too much on him. He had wondered, at the very second after climax if his father and grandfather had done these things he was doing? He had hoped so. This was great--better than even making it with those bikini-clad bimbos on the beach. They knew what was going on, this woman on the other side of the screen she hadn't the vaguest clue.

"Is everything okay, Father?"

"Ahhhhhhhh." He groaned. "Ah, yes, Daughter. It's just this time of year I sneeze like a banshee. Allergies."

And then he told her her sins were nothing. "Say twenty-three Hail Maries, and sixty-eight Our Fathers. You are forgiven."

* * *

As she was leaving the booth he had looked at the Roster. Three-twenty--Mrs. Crawford. He smiled crookedly. She was even better looking than Mrs. Whitefield. Long, creamy legs. Pouty lips and a set of knockers that would have given even Hugh Hefner a semi.

He gazed down into his wristwatch with dueling crucifixes, the short, stumpier one was on the three, the longer one on the two.

"Ten minutes." Father McKinely had sighed.

A guy didn't have much time to clean up around here.

"Father McKinely"

-------------------------------------

Jack Bristow is a cross dresser from Nova Scotia. He enjoys riding Harleys and intimidating old people.

I wake up from a deep sleep. There is a lion lying beside me. As his face comes into focus he licks his nose and eyes me, much like my neighbor’s cat does. His mane is dull red framing a cat face of fine, tan fur that fills my entire field of vision. I’m between his paws, two on top of me two underneath, and I lay against his stomach and chest like an asteroid trapped in Jupiter’s gravity well. The body heat coming off of him is tremendous. I’m sweating.

I’m reasonably sure this lion was not there when I went to sleep last night. I don’t remember feeling my bed shift in the middle of the night. Strange. Being this close to a lion brings a bizarre mix of emotions.

I stare at the lion for a while. He yawns, sending a bubble of warm, moist air at my face. It doesn’t stink and it doesn’t help wake me up. It’s very much like cat breath. I like my neighbor’s cat. He has a cute face… Only likes to be petted and held when no one is looking… Maybe this lion wants to be petted and held now that no one is looking. I work my arm from under his paw and play with his nose with my index finger. He licks his nose again, getting my finger wet. It’s cute. Kitty definitely wants attention now, so I wrap my arm around his neck and dry my index finger on his mane. He licks my face with a coarse tongue as a humongous paw slides up my bare back, rests on my neck and hugs me tighter. I hug the lion back and pull him closer. His fine fur feels like a felt blanket on a cold winter morning. I want to wrap up in it and hibernate for a year.

This feels familiar… I start stroking the back of his neck through his mane. My hand slides down the length of his back and settles on his upper thigh. The lion seems to enjoy the contact and I wish I could get my other hand involved. He’s warm and soft, just like the stuffed animals I used to have as a kid. In a way I miss those things. I haven’t slept with a stuffed animal since I was six years old and it’s nice to have one in my bed again. I wish I could wake up next to lions more often. Waking up holding something fuzzy and soft is a comforting way to start a morning…

…this is how I wake up after parties. With a woman lying next to me and I’m so drunk I can’t even remember banging her. I must’ve been really drunk not to remember this lion. I don’t want to offend anyone I wake up next to and can’t remember going to bed with, so I kiss him on the mouth and snuggle closer to him. As my eyes close and I drift back to sleep, the lion’s hind paws draw me closer still and he tucks my head under his chin. The strong, cavernous sound of his breath is very relaxing. A warm, breathing, soft and muscular stuffed animal kitty. It’s even better than when I was a kid. I’m not sweating anymore. I’m grinning. This is cozy. It must’ve been a great night. I wish I could remember it. Maybe my mind will be clearer when I wake up.

"Lion in My Bed"

-------------------------------------

James Steele is a writer in Ohio. He is often asked to sum up his life’s story in a single paragraph. James is very depressed by how easy this is. He has been published in the Magazine of Bizarro Fiction (issue 3), Roar v.3, Different Worlds Different Skins v.2, and Planet Magazine. His bizarre action/comedy novel, “Felix and the Sacred Thor,” is published through Eraserhead Press.

His blog is http://daydreamingintext.blogspot.com

JOSH MYERS WEEK IS NOW OVER!

This concludes our special Josh Myers week here at The New Flesh. We hope you enjoyed dancing around inside his brain for the last few days. More of his stories will be appearing on The New Flesh in the near future. As long as he sends them, I'll post them.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

*Editor probably altered the author's photo a bit.

O! and they did burst into our homes with all fire and bleating, and O! did they tear from our arms all so merciless, the little things which we would hold dear! And it was a bad day, I think we seen it written, yes, we did sculpt it all into our memories, them cold awful bastards, them Devils all fire, did rip us asunder and tear to like ribbons.

And like they appeared all up in our homes like a bad dog all up from hell, they did vanish as quick and as gone without notice. And we was left there on our floors all bleeding in cold to piece back together some semblance on whatever that was what we had. We tried our best and we retained all our sanity and most of our organs. Some was privy to cough up all blood and stain our tattered carpet, but these things they became of such little consequence.

And we did clean it up and try to forge forward, remembering them treasured things what was lost and to patch up them holes in our minds, we did try.

We moved on, yes, we plodded on forward and told stories to cheer a fainting mind. We kept ourselves awake and alive in hiding our thoughts.

And it came that we one day I think we did forget them. We remembered, O yes, we remember what went on, the carnage they sowed and the things they did take, the treasures and things that they tore from us screaming, but then for the life of us could not remember just who what done did it. Them Devils all fiery came up from hell, but we couldn’t place it in our minds. Them things what ruined us turned faceless demons, we left out a name and left out a face.

We knew what did happen, we didn’t knew who.

Ha! Those were the days they were. But them Devils evidently they knew us and our thoughts and they took none too kindly to us all forgetting.

And so, while we slept, up from hell they come back.

Our world been repaired from previous torn asunder been ripped once again and burned to smithereens. Them Devils, they stood there before us and made us remember. They did ensure we could never forget. They did go and put nails in. They ensured in their silence we would always remember, and look back in terror forever and ever.

Them Devils up from hell did set us ablaze then. And like to carve their screaming image to our screaming flesh.

They did it all unspeaking the whole while we melted and formed like new creatures, detestable beasts with them in our skin. And to look on each and other was to see all again, and I think that we may have died then.

Surely though, this is not we.

This crispy burned and carved up flesh.

This thing crucified all on one another.

Cannot be, no.

And we do turn our heads and as crispy flakes off, we see Devils in our skin.

And we always remember them just as they stood there.

And sometimes we scream.

"Devils"

-------------------------------------

Josh Myers is one of them humans living in them hideous states, particularly New Jersey, specifically Lambertville. He eats and sleeps mostly, and writes like a good fishy. He’s too fat and is going to die probably. He is not him, though could be if he has to, though does he? We think not.

He is not, we repeat, NOT him.

He appears here on gracious loan from the A.B.C., thank you.

Please refer all complaints to the Consultant.

Scattering about and looking like as chickens all what with no noggins. Searching all up and down we did, but no avail. All happiness and joy and not in our time.

Ground went thick and sloshy, yes it did, all squishing up and out ‘tween our toes and like staining our feets. It’s all and everything like they said it would, and we ache in our cringing. Looked all about and eyed us a rock which for us to climb onto and save us from this detestable mud what we done writhed about it.

And look at that, would you! What would be carved into that stone but words from our own majestic and all joyous savior, that Tim what we savor, him and that fat brother, him weepy all detestable Jim, for shame, for shame.

But alas, them words! We known them words by heart, we did! And carved in that rock there all ten miles high:

“Brave sun shines on me on my own it’s only for me

As cold as can be in and English sea

Which could mean something other…”

Says us to all and to other and it, “Say, I remember you!”

We climb all up on it and do we shake hands and pat us on our backs, remembering these words as we do
from another time, another more happier place in this land (and in the sea).

We trenched up our muddy footies all up on our rock and it did leave its mark, we tried to make it vanish but the filth just wouldn’t have it. So we offered instead our sincerest all sorry, to make them amends to our rock, our buddy, and to him our words from sweet, sweet Tim, living on out there, so we hope, in his house and doing so quite happily, we also do hope.

We love him so. We miss him all terribly.

O, and for shame, Jim.

He have an upper hand now, with Tim gone all struck down.

But we think he wouldn’t have it.

Jim’s too fat and is going to die probably.

And in this we find solace.

O, but it make us sad to think of him there…not knowing just where out there does he be, our sweet Timmy. Somewhere in his home, we hope, maybe making amends and fixing all up to save us all over.

We’d like to think so, and we do.

We weep for him in our thoughtful hearts and it does stain us unto our feet again.

But no, we wipe away our tears and struggling though, celebrating happiness and joy as he gave us, on land and in the sea. We take this rock to be a help of his hands, his sweet giving hands and we crawl up and lie down atop them to sleep now, O please.

And we thank him for it.

Once as is waking, we pitch about and start up with creeching as we see the sea from atop our great rock, all carved with his words. Our mud done all gone, and now here in this dim and dank time we see the sea all rising up around us and dispensing with the filth we crawl in!

(As crawling is my world, it dispense with my world.)

(And I thank him for it.)

All water comes rising, we hear it go sloshing, we hear it all there and of forever, might never stop. Could be we won this time. Is a very good possibility, but we’re all too bad ‘cause we just can’t remember.

Maybe, and likely, but possibly not.

And that sticky and shiny atmosphere it did change itself while we was dozing. Used to be it was all awful hot, what did melt at our skin and make us sweat it and leak down our faces, our backs, going dripping along in the filth and trace patterns on our dirty flesh. Was very hot, yes.

But now gone all cold, yes I should think so. Chilly in its worst way and blows now all freezing on our faces to wake us up while we slept.

So very cold now, a welcome change. And it stings on our sweated flesh, in glue in the muck as it freeze to our being.

And now we becoming all, as it does freeze so, we to become some like new creatures, and we take it as commonplace. These small little changes on us now and again, we take in stride and accept it as so. O yes, we scream some and like as to tear at our skin, but we accept it, yes.

And in our new flesh, we look all around and did come to agreement, we leapt from our rock with its beautiful carving and into the sea to live as we might. Our new freezing likeness does open up to the sea and let it in and we soak in it, accepting it as us and it take us up and take us down, and once and twice and all over again.

It turning all gorgeous.

And maybe…

Yes, this is very good at that.

We’ll be very content, yes.

Happy at that, yes.

O, praise him, do.

And our toes do scrape on the filth way down there, it squish through our toes.

"Up and Down Like Stupid Toys"

-------------------------------------

YEAR ONE (free ebook)

YEAR TWO

COMING SOON - The New Flesh: Episode One

ONLINE SUBMISSIONS CLOSED

JOSH MYERS WEEK IS NOW OVER!

The Authors