all that is beyond

inspired by twitter prompt: #vss365

The silver dollar danced up and down the stranger’s fingers, tumbled from his knuckles in a brilliant flurry of bright flashes, cutting light and sticky curses.

Max was suddenly sober for the first time in twenty-three months. More even, the feeling of sleepwalking fell off of him as soon as that silver light pierced his eyes.

The presence of the coin dragged him into this bar and slammed him into that seat near the stranger. It put him back into his place. Fifty-four years old, profusely sweating, diabetic, a man without a home or family or a penny to his name – that was his place, the only one he merited. It brought back the insecurity, the impotence, the numbness in his hands and feet, the inadequacy, the being alone. There was tingling in his crotch. He saw the stains on his pants for the first time.
Finally, the coin snapped him into the present heartbeat, like a bungee cord attached to his bum ticker.

Devil’s Peak (5b)

Part 1 Superstition / Part 2 Names for Blades/ Part 3 Sin-eater / Part 4 Threshold / Part 5a Tainted blood

Triggerwarning: cruelty, injury, predatory behavior

Part 5 b

-TAINTED BLOOD-

“He was searching for a human child. Your handiwork?” I growled at its gaping mouth and its pulsing tongues. Its tiny eyes fixed on the glowing markings on my flanks. If it had brows or a forehead, it would have looked suspiciously.

“Yes, intruder,” it sizzled with a hollow thrumming in its throat flaps.

may, 28th

writing exercise, the perfectly normal and mediocre

The toaster threw my toast at me. No. It just made the hot piece of bread pop out and that jumpscared me. This was how my morning started. I sent my cup flying from the counter. Of course, it was filled to the brim with coffee as it exploded on the floor tiles. I yelped cause it burnt my foot and didn’t catch the toast, which promptly landed in the dark puddle. This was going to be a weird day.

Improbable

“THE HORSE DID IT!” I roared at Detective Inspector Redfern, pointing at the nervous beast in the box behind me. He rolled his eyes. The Detective Inspector, not the horse. This was my only chance to solve the murder of Beggy, the jockey, and save myself.

“You, braindead ululating crumpet! You snuck into my crime scene to – what?- brighten my sad little day up?” I kept out of his and the horse’s reach. My jaw still had vivid memories of the time he caught me good with his famous left hook, and no way I came close to that thing.

Weekly Horrorscope

ARIES

Olaf is a resourceful man, isn’t he? A skilled hunter and a handy craftsman. A bloodthirsty maniac can still learn a lot from him. On your thirteenth day together, a black cloud comes, and man cannot walk, birds can’t fly, and fish can’t swim. Dear Aries, you will be safe, you will be held. It’s all upside down from here on, but you will BE.

TAURUS

Collect all dolls in your house, and put them into a box. Leave them out in a park, a parking lot, an island, the swamp, anywhere you like, but not near your house or flat. They mustn’t return to you. Their revenge will be most gruesome if they find you. They will punish you for what you did to them.

Weekly Horrorscope

ARIES

Sorry, dear Aries. Last week the Vikings were coming, not the locusts. Hold your horses, we do make mistakes. Granted, never big ones, we’re not perfect. Oh, and the big Viking hiding in your basement is getting hungry, and thirsty. Give the man some pizza, and maybe some mead, so he won’t try to kill you. By the way, he is Olaf and likes long walks on the beach, braided beards and long shiny hair.

TAURUS

Time is looping around you. You shouldn’t be that happy, you know. Yes, it is a great achievement, and you are a genius. But… Sigh, we know you want everything to remain as it is. You merit great moments, you really do. Reliving them makes us a bit sleepy, and bored. You know what? Contact us, if you’ve had enough.

Weekly Horrorscope

ARIES

The locusts are coming. It’s not a warning, it’s a promise. We know you are not a farmer. We know you don’t give a s****, but the locusts do. It’s a mutation within your DNA. Those locusts are just going to love you to bits. We suggest you don’t leave your apartment, and tape the windows and the doors shut.

TAURUS

There are letters on your doorstep. They are all the love letters that were lost, or never sent in the first place. There are simple napkins, post-its, envelopes, and torn notebook pages. Some are wet, some perfumed and some are pink. If you’re lucky, you live on ground floor, and you are able to leave through a window. If not… We will come to that next week.

Weekly Horrorscope

ARIES

This week you are under the guidance and protection of the Ancient Eldritch Entities, aka THE cephalopods. It’s the eye of a Giant Ethereal Cuttlefish, that judges you 24/7. You will be up on the soul-board next month. You will be judged and disputed upon in the course of following nine days; even your first bids may arrive. We suggest you show your best or your worst. Whichever will do.

TAURUS

You may feel that you want to work more with your hands. That feeling coursing through your muscles will remain with you. What a curious feeling! Dig your hands into the garden soil, into the sand in children’s playground, let your fingertips taste the cold clay if you dig the hole for that body.

ONCE UPON A TIME… prompts

These brilliant starters are the work of my favorite electric sheep. Go take look what he is up to. 

1. … a suitcase full of unmarked, non-consecutive bills was under your bed. Shame, it was all Reichsmark and Notgeld, that have been scribbled on with a red sharpie by a preschooler.
2. … you lived in a womb. Also, you lived in a time pocket and a dimension bubble. And as you‘ve grown, you emerged from all those protections to meet reality head-on.
3. … humans were fish. There was no other possible explanation. Some were really hard to pin on their promises, some still had gills, slimy skin, scales, and fins.
4. … everyone joined in whether they liked it or not. Yeah, the daily dancing sessions had been tedious, but since the government turned them into mandatory broadway musical performances, it was unbearable.
5. … most of the people in your life were aliens. Well, if that’s how you gonna put it, sure. But I’ve always preferred the realistic interpretation. Look into the mirror. There was your alien, or more precisely: your humanoid whatever.
6. … there was only one way this was going to end. “I know… But are gonna do with the goat, the guitar, and the antique jade hairpin?”
7. … you know that thing you’re most afraid of? Well, it’s right behind you. My mother isn‘t that sneaky anymore. I heard her.
8. … formaldehyde tasted great in soup. The cookbook was very specific about the use of neurotoxins. Actually, it tasted like death. But in this line of work, there always was strychnine. It got to you faster than the formaldehyde.
9. … all the left-handed people were lined up and shot. “My my, this year, they’re making a fuss about that flu-shot.”
10. … at four in the morning on a Tuesday, three strangers sat half-dressed in room 23 in a motel off Highway 10. They pulled on their clothes and left without saying a word. The fourth player never showed up. Well, so much for the First Annual Time-travel-Strip-Poker Event / Competition. After the rating dropped into oblivion, all expenses were recompensated by the Intergalactic Gambling Society.
11. … a red light was ignored but a head-on was not. So the police got their new protective gear and the order to stand on every busy intersection, to jump every red-light violator.
12. … no one saw it coming. It counted on that.
13. … Arnold chased a cat up the stairs, through the attic, onto and off of the roof. That was when he realized two things. Firstly, the cat could fly. Bugger. Secondly, it had a foul mouth as it meowed profanities at him, while he plunged to the ground.
14. … two stick people went to find water. They walked out of the desert, across plains and hills and plateaus and mountains until, finally, they reached the coast. ‘This used to be all water,’ said one to the other and they set out onto the salt flats. They walked for days and nights. They walked until only one of them breathed. He looked at the full moon. ‘This used to be easier,’ he sighed and took a sip from the bloody flask.
15. … two sisters took their elderly mother to the mall and left her in a changing room. Nobody took notice of the two identical looking women taking a dusty, handpainted mannequin in outdated clothes into the changing room. Only a cough betrayed the elderly woman walking out in the same clothes, the dummy had.
16. … the leader of the iguanodons came to Jackie in a dream and implored her to seize control and help the animals escape. When she awoke, Jackie jumped to the window, grabbed the bars and tried to pull them apart. Jackie’s caretaker wondered what was wrong. “What’s gotten into you so suddenly?” He gave her grapes and some bananas to calm her. That usually did the trick for the chimp, but not today.
17. … your phone watched you while you were sleeping. “It’s the REM-timed buzzer app, Ben. The children are already scared with your deep web horror stories.” I poked the campfire. “What happened to the good old-fashioned demon and possession stories to go with the roasted marshmallows?”
18. … everybody in the elevator looked at Janet who smiled, turned red and said, ‘Sorry about that.’ “It’s just a hiccup.” She said, but people kept staring at the orbs darting from her head in every direction. “Please ignore it.” Casually, she windmilled with her free hand around her hair, and the orbs sizzled out.

 

The New Year of the Rabbit

The boat rocked heavily.

That made me trip, not the whiskeys, nor the pills or the beers. Cross my heart! The railing was cold and wet under my grip, and for a moment, I wondered if I should let go of it. The stupid pink rabbit ears slipped and went bye-bye. They took a dive into the big black hungry Hong Kong Bay. Maybe I should jump straight after them, and end this farce.