Tag Archives: Micro fiction

Painter

To say it caused a sensation in the art world would be an understatement.

The first painting from Laurent Saint Michiuex in over 30 years. An infamous recluse, Michiuex had a meteoric rise to art-world notoriety with his first exhibition, simply and bluntly titled: ART.

And then he never painted again. Until now.

A single painting. A single stroke of red paint. A singular masterpiece, the critics agreed.

It would break all of Sotheby’s records for a painting.

Decades later on his deathbed, Michiuex would make a terse confession to his nurse. A confession people either did not believe or did not want to believe.

“I was born Earnhardt Jones and 20 years ago a bumped into a table, spilled some paint on a piece of canvas, and became a millionaire.”

And then he died.

Title

His name was The Grand Supreme Leader Of Everything That Is, Was, Or Will Be.

He promised us inner peace, knowledge of things heavenly and worldly, a profound sense of purpose.

We could have all of this, The Grand Supreme Leader Of Everything That Is, Was, Or Will Be said, if we just trusted him completely.

That trust, he said, could be earned easily, quickly, and with a few strokes of a pen.

Just sign on the dotted line. Don’t read the document, just sign.

And so we did.

After two weeks of intense seminars, meditation, fasting, we signed.

And now we are the proud owners of a pristine beach-front property.

In Kansas.

General

“Alright, listen up you maggots! There’s no room for weakness in my platoon. You got that! I said do you god damn got that?!

We will advance on the enemy. We will fight the enemy. And yes, some of you may die. And some of you may lose an arm or a leg. And some of you will never be the same.

But ask me if any of that matters to me and my answer will be that it fucking does not matter to me what happens to you. Not one god damned bit. Do you understand?

What matters to me is that you don’t act like a bunch of motherfucking, cocksucking, wet pussy wimps. That’s what matters to me.

Do you understand, maggots?”

Reflected in the beady, black eyes of the bears and giraffes and one white and pink bunny was the image of a six year old kid in a way-too-big-for-him Army uniform, perhaps belonging to a man 30 years older than him who never came home.

Organise

It was all wrong. The face didn’t look quite right. The proportions were somehow…off. And one of the arms seemed to be longer than the other, which didn’t make any sense. He’d been trying to arrange the parts for what seemed like hours, but still. It was all wrong somehow.

He couldn’t try much longer. His hands were sticky and slippery and the parts kept slipping through them. He had to get it right. He knew they were on his trail and would find the body soon enough.

Climate

Sure, the seas were boiling and some of the water in some of the lakes had turned to blood and locusts were eating all of the crops and on some days it was too hot outside for human safety, but the new portable Bluetooth speaker Max ordered on Amazon Prime just arrived, so he really wasn’t concerned right now.

Origin

“Good evening and welcome to another episode of Voices of Villians. Tonight, we’re very happy to have our guest, Fast Foe, join us in the studio. Welcome, Fast Foe.”

“Thanks for having me.”

“So, as our viewers probably know, you’ve been quite busy lately. What drives you to your acts of villianry?”

“You, know Chuck, I think it’s just sort of a passion. Like, you have to really like what you do. And, like they say, find something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. I think I can say that’s true for me.”

“And for me, Fast Foe. And for me. Very true words. So, I have to ask a question that is definitely on my mind and I think on the minds of a lot of our listeners too.”

“Ok.”

“Why or how did you choose your specific targets? Why fast food chains like McDonalds or Dairy Queen? Is this some sort of health crusade? Which would be a little odd for a villian.”

“Haha. Yeah, I think that would be a little weird, Chuck. And that’s definitely not the case, not the reason. I think, like most villians, my main motivations all go back to my origin story. I think that’s true for a lot of us.”

“Interesting. And what, may I ask, is your origin story?”

“Glad you asked, Chuck. A lot of my fans seem to be confused.”

“Oh, so you have a strong fan base?”

“I do. I just hit 30 followers on Instagram.”

“Well, that’s not–“

“Like I was saying, and to answer your question, it all goes back to my origin story. You see, some years back, I was driving back home from a really long road trip. Like 8 hours straight, or something. And, boy, it was hot that day. Like 90 degrees. And I didn’t have AC in my car at the time. I do now, but anyway. I didn’t have AC then and it was hot and it had been a long drive, like 8 hours or something, and at this point all I really wanted, like what I was really craving, was a milkshake from a McDonalds.”

“Those can be quite refreshing.”

“They can! But, Chuck, and here’s the thing, I couldn’t get one.”

“There isn’t a McDonald’s in your town?”

“Oh no, there most certainly is, Chuck. But when I pulled up to the drive-thru window and tried to order, they told me their milkshake machine was down. Can you believe that? On a day like that? No milkshakes?!”

“That must have been disappointing.”

“That’s putting it mildly, Chuck. Putting it mildly. So it was then and there, sweating and unsatiated in my car, that I decided I would put an end to all of them. It was then that I decided to become Fast Foe.”

“Because you couldn’t get one milkshake?”

“Chuck. That’s not the point. It’s not about just one milkshake. Plus, I went to four other places that day. Four, Chuck! Four! And all of them, all of them, said their milkshake machines were down.”

“Still, it seems a little–“

“Chuck. Chuck. I’m not liking your tone, Chuck. This is my origin story. It’s mine. And I have my reasons for becoming Fast Foe. For becoming a Super VIllian.”

“I couldn’t help but notice–“

“Yes?”

“Well, I couldn’t help but notice that you added the word ‘Super’ in front of ‘Villian’ this time.”

“Well, that’s what I am, Chuck! That’s what I am. Fast Foe is a Super Villian. That’s what I am.”

“I think your ego may be a little Super-Sized there, Foe.”

“Chuck.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Look, I’m feeling like you don’t respect me. Like you don’t respect what I do. I think this interview is over, Chuck.”

“Oh come on now, Foe. Don’t leave. This is my first interview with a Super-Sized Super Villian.”

“That’s it! So help me god, Chuck. So help me god. You will never drink another milkshake from a fast food chain again. I’ll see to that!”

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

Summary

An open letter to the people of Waterstown, Indiana,

Listen, the long-and-short of it is that there’s nothing really to talk about. Things happened, as they are want to do from time-to-time. I mean, things happen every day, am I right? I don’t see why y’all have to make a big to-do over this.

Yes, I’ll admit that shit went down at Bob’s Bar on Main Street. We all know they did, so there ain’t no point in me trying to deny it or say otherwise. But, and I think y’all all know this is true, Bob’s been having it coming his way for a long time. A long god damn time.

I can’t say it was self defense or that I was defending somebody’s honor or that it was a wrong-place-wrong-time type of deal. It weren’t. It weren’t none of them things. Fact of the matter is, I just couldn’t stand that son of a bitch any longer. So, yeah, we got into it. I hit the man. More than a few times. The only thing I slightly regret is pouring that bottle of Glenlivet 18 year all over that man’s body. That scotch deserved better.

And yeah, since we’re being honest, we all know about Greg’s tractor. Hell, there’s photos on Facebook about the whole ordeal. Listen, since we’re being truthful, I don’t rightly have a good explanation on that one. In short, I may have had one too many, I saw a tractor, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I do apologize to Mary Walton’s mailbox, Steven Altman’s picket fence (lord knows he just finished painting that thing), and to little miss Julie’s dog (may that pup make a speedy recovery, God willing and the creek don’t rise).

And I’d like to issue a formal apology to Marsha Winston and her husband Mike. I know it weren’t right what I did. To stand out front of a married woman’s house at 3 in the damn morning holding up a boombox like in that John Cusack movie. Well, I know that weren’t right. And I should’ve left when I was asked to. I know that now.

But listen, y’all. The short of it is that nothing’s really changed. Yes, some things happened. Ok, yes, I done did some things I ain’t to proud of. But which one of us hasn’t?

Ain’t nothing really changed, folks. If you take a good and hard look at it. Our town is still the best in the whole of Indiana, our property taxes is low, and local businesses have been thriving of late (that reminds me, I will pay for the repairs to Ike’s Ice Cream Parlor on 5th. On my honor, I will).

So, for fucks sake, can’t we just all move on from this? Live and let live and all. I think it’d do our little town a world of good.

Sincerely,
William P. Hallstad
Mayor of Waterstown, Indiana

Sow

Pilot’s Log
12 March 2130
Days to Deployment: 5

Infinity is beautiful. If you’ve never seen it, it would be hard for me to describe the breathtaking wonder of an endless void. Some might find the solitude disquietning, but I have come to take comfort in the isolation.

It gives me time to think.

They told me this mission would be simple. Long and mentally and physically taxing, but simple in its directives: Locate Planet X1506-78, Locate fertile terrain, Deploy and Dust terrain with panspermia capsules.

Simple.

I know what’s riding on this mission, what’s at stake. I feel the weight of hopes millions and millions of lightyears away.

Physically and mentally taxing. But, for me, I have come to see this mission as morally taxing as well.

Do we deserve to perserve our species? What right do we have to disrupt the natural evolution of an alien planet? Is life sacred or profane?

I do not have the answers to these questions yet.

Pilot’s Log
13 March 2130
Days to Deployment: 4

I spoke with my wife today. It’s just a room now, I told her. It’s time, I told her. You need to do this, it’s healthy, I told her.

It’s easy for me to say that. I’m not the one who has to remove the crib, the toys, the pictures on the wall. I’m not the one that will have to paint over all of those animals and their bright smiles and frolicking feet.

It’s just a room now. Walls and a window and a floor and a ceiling. It’s just a room as sterile and inhuman and indifferent as the white-walled hospital room with its machines and their beeps and hums and numbers on screens signifying a decline.

It’s just a room now. Just like it was just a body in the end. A tiny 14-month old body. It wasn’t even a body. It was a host. It was a tiny 14-month old cancer host.

It’s just a room. It’s just a body. It’s just a host.

Pilot’s Log
14 March 2130
Days to Deployment: 3

Is it better to have never been born at all? Given the unpredicatble nature of life, given all of the possibilities for pain and pleasure, given the uncertainty of the ratio of pain to pleasure, given the question of the duration of the pain, of the pleasure, of the act of being alive itself, is it a gamble worth taking?

Thought experiment: I come to you with a proposition to join a game. If you choose not to play the game, you lose nothing. Everything stays the same.

However, if you choose to join the game, there is no gaurantee as to how long you will play the game, how much pain or pleasure will come your way, and, most importantly, you have very limited agency in this game, your will is imposed upon by outside forces and is therefore not free.

Would you play?

Pilot’s Log
16 March 2130
Days to Deployment: 1

Hope is a strange concept, a strange bedfellow, a savage lover. The concept itself has become a little absurd and irrational and naive to me. What good is it to invest in something that’s wholly beyond your control?

Why has an entire planet of people placed their hope on me, on this mission, on these panspermia capsules?

To continue the human race? But what good does that do for them? They’re dead anyway. Is there really any comfort or consolation in the notion that our species will live on this foreign planet?

And do we deserve to? After what we’ve done on and to ours? On and to our own species? On and to every other species that we claimed dominion over?

And what about these capsules? Do they even want to start the long and arduous process of evolution to become something so staggeringly inconsistent as us?

So loving and hateful and compassionate and indifferent and charitable and greedy and peaceful and murderous and on and on and on and on.

Do they even want to play the game?

Pilot’s Log
17th March 2130
Deployment Day

This will be my last entry. I have made a decision, a choice, a commitment. Or I feel that it has been imposed upon me, so maybe I am not to blame for the consequences.

For poserity, in case this recording is ever transmitted: I feel that the moral course of action here is to self-destruct.

This will be a beginning just as violent and firey and random as the beginning of all things.

There will still be a chance for some of the capsules to survive and fertilize the terrain.

Those that fight to live will have made their choice. They will play the game, for better or worse or whatever.

Who will survive and what will become of them?

Hall

Running through surroundings that feel familiar and not-familiar, similar and strange, at the same time, there’s a weight that isn’t normally here, palpable, beckoning, eternal even, no that’s absurd, not eternal, but heavy nonetheless, it is real though, this weight as I’m running, tripping, falling, miscalulations that lead to missteps and I have to grab the wall to steady myself, hands slipping on picture frames of smiling familes that have people I recognize but don’t know, smiles that are somehow frightening, toothy and threatening, the frames slippery so I can’t quite get my grip, but inertia and momentum and an ineffable and inescapable fear prevent me from falling flat on my face, which I know would be distastrous, I know it, that falling would be disasterous, because I feel it and I feel it like a fact, not like a passing emotion, not like this fear that follows, my hands are wet and the soles of my sock-covered feet are damp, there’s a moisture everywhere here that doesn’t exist in the hall that’s in my house, even though that’s the hall that I’m running down, or it is but it isn’t, an abstraction, a concept of a hall, perhaps Platonic in its ideal, the condensation, humidity, a primeordial wet from the oceans we all walked out of, once, the oceans where we all dwelled before we could walk, before we could run, to run to reach some place, to run as play, to run to run, but I’m running away, from what I don’t know, but it’s there, this thing, behind me, I can feel a hotness on my neck, predator’s breath, our relationship, our positions, me in front and it behind, forever in tow, it’s inextricable, entwined, a predestined eventuality, inescapable, something that only our species is aware of, blessing, curse, Granny Smith knowledge, to be conscious of being conscious, an awareness of being aware, the finitude of it all, in the end, not-being is the goal, terrible, unimaginable, conscious of being conscious of not being able to comprehend infinity, ours is a limited set existence with no imaginary numbers, this I know as I run, and I know, no matter what, I know, no matter how I run, I know, that eventually, one day, on a date and time and place, perhaps this one, I know, that no matter what, I know, that whatever I’m running from, I know, it will catch me, I know this because I feel it, and I feel it like a fact.

Ambition

“I mean, they look alright.”

“Don’t they though? I had Narcissus in Quality Control give them a look.”

“Wait, what? You had Narcissus give them a look?”

“Well, sort of. I sent the final design sketches over.”

“And?”

“I haven’t heard back, but I kind of took it as a no-news-is-good-news-type situation.”

“I’m just not sure–“

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I asked Orpheus and Eurydice in Project Management for their thoughts too.”

“And?”

“Same response from both.”

“Which was?”

“They said, ‘There’s no looking back now, Icarus.’ Which, I also took as a good sign.”

“Yeah, but, I don’t think we should take–“

“Listen, Daedalus, I really think we’re good to go. Pretty much the whole organization is behind this flight.”

“The whole organization?”

“Yeah, Atlas said, ‘Hold it up, Ic.’ I think he meant hold it down, but he’s not really up on the lingo these days.”

“He could’ve been talking about–“

“It’s not just him, though! Sisyphus said, ‘Keep on keepin’ on.’ Which I took to mean all-systems-go.”

“Icarus! You know what he has to–“

“Listen, we both know we’ll never be 100% confident on this. Never. We both know that. So, there’s just one thing we have to ask ourselves.”

“What’s that?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”