in a 1960s French film somewhere…

Huh?

humor of the dark

  • The Shadowpuppets

    [My apology to Stephen King, though he reimagined a jump-rope jingle based on miners folklore.] The classic horror movie trailer to the following story goes like this: COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU Little girls skipping rope, chanting: “Late last year & the year before Shadowpuppets Shadowpuppets tapping on my door Want to stay home,… Read more

  • Bonfire of the Profanities

    Well, fuck. Time once again to thin the herd. Though I don’t consider myself particularly foulmouthed in person, my journals are sprinkled liberally with salty language. As with anyone, some of my ideas have a stench about them. The good stuff has already been gleaned & polished. It’s the scat that’s left. I wish that… Read more

  • Peninsula Gothic

    Let me bore you with some ruins. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only surviving structure of the original 7 Wonders of the World, but it shares a common element with the lost 6. Then a new 7 Wonders list was made, including Petra, Machu Picchu, Great Wall of China, etc. (Angkor Wat was… Read more

  • Now You See It, Now You Don’t

    In a somewhat liminal space, dusty & dark, thick with spider silks & a paper wasp nest or two, there are remnants of a lost civilization. Or, so a 9yr old imagines. On the rafters of the garage lay haphazardly strewn sheets of plywood to contain boxes of the distant past. A pretend archaeologist’s dream.… Read more

  • 1,001 Sleights

    (Well, not really) If Scheherazade took a page from Melville, this mashup could be the result. Our narrator’s first tale is of a hermit residing in a shed in the forest. Not unlike Ted Kaczynski, though without the explosives. Most of the forests have been razed, for no other reason than an economy based on… Read more

  • Nobody Bothered to Write This

    [What follows is playing with words to intentionally skew meaning. This story is written in 3rd person omniscient. No disrespect to other nonbinaries intended, but my pronouns are anyone/everyone/nobody for the purposes of this narrative. A writer writes for anyone, or everyone, or sometimes nobody. That’s why I found these pronouns intriguing.] With the metal,… Read more

  • O Pointed Barb, Where Is Thy Sting?

    Sorry to repurpose 1 Corinthians 15:55, but I was raised in a revival tent [read cult], so the biblical reference makes sense. Revving engine? Check. Squealing tires? Check. Some inbred shouting? Check. Eye roll. I know who’s coming for me. Well, not personally– who’d want that? But FFS, I don’t have time for this. Who,… Read more

  • This is for the Birds

    Like everyone, I’ve pondered what’s to be done with my remains upon expiring. It’s unfortunate that mummification fell out of fashion. Initially I planned to donate my body to science. They use human remains for many things, some as organic crash-test dummies. I learned that from Mary Roach’s book Stiff. My following choice was to… Read more

  • Of Dogs & Disorders

    “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world.” – John Steinbeck Long before our current era, I lived in a post-truth household. An alternate reality. A couple adopts a certain breed of dog one of them nagged the other for, & that dog adores the one who was reluctant.… Read more

  • Plants Über Alles

    [I was trying to make this the German equivalent of ‘My Struggle with Plants,’ but ‘Mein Kämpfen mit Pflanzen’ is the closest I could get & it’s still grammatically incorrect. Sigh.] When I applied for financial aid to go to community college, I qualified for a work study job to supplement my grant monies. I… Read more