Writer’s Rut Is A Pain In The Butt

Posted by Madd_Fictional on May 14, 2016

Well, it is if you actually believe in it. I’ve run into more than my fair share of scribes who emphatically state that writer’s block is about as real as Santa, the Easter Bunny, or Steven Spielberg’s dinosaurs. I’m of the opinion that if it’s real to you, then it exists. But whichever side of the fence you personally stand on, there’s no denying the fact that writers, somewhere during the process of penning their magnum opus, can get stuck.

The first telltale sign of blockage is Oculos Computator, better known as The Stare. If you’ve ever experienced it, you know exactly what I mean. Hinder parked in your favorite writing chair, knuckles cracked, fingers nimble and hovering above your keyboard… when you become mesmerized by the siren song—I always hear Bali Hai from South Pacific—of the vast white void of your computer screen.

But you’re a determined writer, so you shake it off, gird your loins, and make resolute your desire to put words to paper. The problem is you can’t. That scene that’s so clear in your mind has suddenly become uncomfortable and difficult to write. Your synopsis refuses to mold itself into story form. An unbridgeable chasm has open up between you and the end of the story. The next scene (or chapter) is an empty pit of nothingness that stares back at you like the abyss and mocks your talent and very existence. Somehow—not through any fault of your own, surely—your characters have all been written into inescapable corners. But you have to write, that ache is in your bones, so what do you wind up doing? You rewrite, edit, rewrite, and edit what’s already been written instead of moving on.

That, my friend, is the kiss of death for creativity.

So, what are the workarounds? Hate to break it to ya, kiddo, but there ain’t no one surefire method. It’s like that line from the Diff’rent Strokes theme, “What might be right for you, may not be right for some.”

What’s that? You think that’s a cop out answer? You want what? Actual advice, even though everybody and their mother uses a different approach? Fine. Here are some of the more popular methods, in a nutshell:

Plot the story out beforehand. It’s akin to knowing the destination before you begin the journey. Stop whinging, you artsy bastard. Sure, preplanned structure can be viewed as limiting the creative spontaneity of your currently unwritten baby, but it’s only a suggested story path that you can alter along the way. Nothing’s written in stone—rewrites’ll drive that point home soon enough, trust me—until your work has been published.

Gender swap. As silly as it might sound, tinkering with the XX and XY chromosomes of your protagonist or antagonist actually helps change the character’s viewpoints and perspective. Or if you’re not up to playing God—who are you kidding? You’re a writer. You think you’re God, go on and admit it—try switching up your writing style. If you normally write in first person, why not give third person a go?

Dora, of Explorer fame, is keen to shout, “Swiper, no swiping!” But you ain’t her and no one’s watching, so why not rip a page from the Star Trek TV series plot device book (from Next Generation to Enterprise) and give your characters a mini goal they must accomplish and pair them up with other characters they absolutely cannot stand. Conflict is story. Just ask Moses. It was written on the back of one of the stone tablets. Trust me on this.

Don’t allow yourself to get hung up on formatting, grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and all that crap, and save editing for the very end. Right now, your goal is to transport that nagging story from the ether of your mind and plunk it firmly down on the page. You’ll have plenty of time to go back and gussy it up later.

And the simplest bit of advice I can offer any of you lazy sods who positively hates following patterns and formulas or doing any sort of precursor to writing; the quick and dirty solution to putting the boots to writer’s block is to stop waiting for your muse—she’s really not that into you and it’s embarrassing how you chase her around like a lovesick puppy—and simply write. Let your thoughts spill out and let it be awful and unstructured and nonsensical, just as long as you’re actively engaging in the process of writing. Hell, start a blog. Works for me.

Now, what are you doing still staring at this? Stop procrastinating. Sally forth and be writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Your Writing Says More About Your Character Than You Realize

Posted by Madd_Fictional on May 7, 2016

Creating worlds? That’s the easy bit. Populating them with three dimensional characters… that’s a bit trickier. Whether you write for a living, a hobby, for sport, or just to have a laugh, you will eventually reach a point in your storytelling where you’re forced to pluck the innocent bystanders from your life and slap them smack dab in the middle of your literary dreamscape. Don’t be embarrassed. It happens to us all.

But just because a fictional character has a fleshy counterpart, imbued with their quirks, verbal crutches and personality tics, it doesn’t always mean they’re actually memorable.

So, how do you combat that? Dig, my friend. You need to burrow underneath the surface layer affectations and unearth the true source of their core character and examine what piqued your interest in the first place.

Even the most boring person you know can be a source of inspiration in your writing if you scratch the surface carefully enough. As corny as it sounds, we all carry within us a wealth of creativity and inspiration. Your job is to look deeper.

One of the most important parts of being a writer, aside from textual flourishes and clever turns of phrase, is the ability to see the world, both the one you’re creating and the one you live in, through their eyes. What are their views on major and minor things? Are they blessed or cursed with odd perceptions of the way the world should and/or actually works? Do they engage in activities that exist outside social norms?

Once you’ve identified these tidbits, you have the first building blocks for your memorable character’s foundation. But it’s only the beginning. You’ll need to build on this in order to make your newly birthed person dynamic.

Since you’re not creating a clone or an exact replica of your best bud or the nosy neighbor down the hall who tracks you via her peephole every time you leave or enter your front door—seriously, lady, get a life—you’ll want to take a few pages from Baron Victor von’s notebook and Frankenstein your creation up a bit.

If you do your job properly, your patchwork person will seem more believable because they contain traits your friends have that you secretly covet—we covet what we see everyday, Clarice—family member habits that absolutely drive you up the wall, as well as the little insecure bits of yourself you pray nobody really notices (FYI: they do, they’re just too polite to bring it up in conversation). Stop moaning, you’ll always be a part of the mix. You can’t help it. You’re the person you know the best. Yup, it’s true and you heard it here first.

The best thing about your ethereal Prometheus is only you will be able to see the stitches that hold the monstrosity together. To everyone else, the jigsaw pieces fit together seamlessly. But you’re still not done.

You can’t have your bouncing baby entity walking around all starkers—well, you can if you’re writing one of those 50 Shades thingies—so you’ll need to dress them with your imagination and layer in true life details like articles of clothing, substantiating them as a new independent life form while better solidifying your understanding of them.

Then, to top things off, dab them with a little Eau de real desires—just behind the ears—and spray obstacles in the air and have them walk through the mist, before you powder them down with motivations.

And voilà! Take a step back and view your bonafide multidimensional, absolutely-fictional-but-seems-so-damn-real-it’s-scary character. Now all you have to do is repeat the process several more times.

Hey, I never said this would be easy.

Sally forth and be writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Greets The Lightning, Fears The Thunder

Posted by Madd_Fictional on May 5, 2016

Although the rough draft was completed years ago, I finally put the spit and polish touches on the official first draft of my favorite horror screenplay, “Greets The Lightning, Fears The Thunder.” And while the screenplay format might be new, the story isn’t. “Greets” first saw life as a short story written for a long-forgotten vanity press, Writerarium, way back in the Fall of 1988. It was loosely based on actual events involving my then girlfriend who suffered from a severe case of astraphobia and night terrors.

There’s a strange sense of satisfaction in breathing new life into old work that I wish I experienced more often, Most times, old stories lose their malleability, having found contentment in their original form. This work fought me a little as well, but in the end we were able to come to a suitable compromise (which is a fancy way of saying the story allowed itself to be written by me).

This draft went up for review on the Trigger Street Labs site on May 15, 2013 and the first review was:

“This is an action packed, intense thriller!

I’d love to see this made into a movie. I feel like your dialogue and script feels well developed. I feel like maybe more comic relief would break up the intense moments. But overall really well written.

Your opening scene really sucked me in and I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t tell if it was a dream she was having or real at the beginning.

i liked the flashback scenes to Africa – so you get the background story. I feel like this was a perfect way to get the information you needed about Leyna.

The ending was awesome, gives you the notion that there was more to the elements than we knew. That maybe Gordon is now a catalyst of the bird… I loved the ending.”

“Greets” then got the screenplay review treatment on June 3, 2013, by the New York City Screenwriters Collective.

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Unaltered, “Greets” was subjected to a third round of script review, this time in Los Angeles on February 2, 2014, courtesy of Write Club.

The draft was subjected to a fourth round of script review in Los Angeles on April 1, 2014, courtesy of the Malibu Screenwriting Group.

Still unaltered, “Greets” was subjected to a fifth round of script review in Los Angeles on April 20, 2014, courtesy of the Inktank Screenwriting Group.

The only reason I’m blogging about it now is because the story has been on my mind, not foremost, I’m working on another screenplay at the mo with a difficult Act 2, and “Greets” is on the back burner tempting me to pull it out of mothballs for another go-round, assuring me that is won’t give me a hard time during the rewriting process. We both know it’s a lie.

It’s a selfish story, jealous of all its siblings, and it never misses a beat to try to get my attention when I’m struggling with a scene, or a patch of dialogue. But when it has a turn at bat, it gives me the same problems as always, and never apologizes for being difficult.

The Folds of Love

Posted by Madd_Fictional on September 10, 2014

When the delivery truck pulls up outside the shop, neither of us look out the window ’cause we know exactly who it is. 12:15 pm on the dot means Department of Tissue Waste Removal. Light load today. Driver only schleps in one body bag.

“You’re up, Mickey.” Jhonni nods my way. “Snag ‘n tag salvageables and dip the rest.”

Mickey. Only other person to ever call me that was my pops. I hated when he did it and I damn sure hate that my boss somehow exposed that raw nerve. He only does it to get a rise outta me, but I ain’t bitin’ so I let it slide this time. My mistake? Tellin’ baldilocks here I prefer bein’ called Michelle.

Snag ‘n tag means I gotta dissect the corpse for salvagables, which are any organs that ain’t completely shot to shit and dip whatever’s left over in the chemical vat for DNA repurposin’ — usually either cosmetic skin grafts, lifelike mannequins for movie stunts or some other bioengineerin’ bullshit I don’t really understand.

I sigh, chuck the rest of the deck onto my game of solitaire — cards weren’t cooperating, no how — and walk over to the body bag. I ain’t squeamish about dead bodies or puttin’ the blade to ’em, but I do have one hangup…

I hear myself mutterin’ before I have a chance to stop it, “Don’tbeadudedon’tbeadudedon’tbeadude…” and when I unzip the bag, guess what? A dude. So’s we’re clear, I gots no prob flaying a man, it’s just that chick thing that does me in. You gals know what I’m talking about.

Every man a woman meets, she sizes him up and decides if she’d throw him one. Sex, I mean. Young, old, fat, skinny, short, tall… alive or dead, you rate ’em. Would you do ’em, could you do ’em and under what circumstances? A dare? Boredom? For the story? Only me, I got this vivid imagination, see, and when I come across a mutilated dude, I see myself having sex with him. And no, I ain’t no nekkidphiliac, they’re very much alive in my scenarios, just all banged up, pardon the expression.

This one, Ethan Garner, by the toe tag, was tore up from the floor up. Anythin’ worth savin’ would be an innard and not one that’d bring high market value, either. Somethin’ nickel and dime like an appendix, spleen, or some shit.

The fluorescents buzz overhead and sweat breaks out on my forehead as I hear Ethan groan beneath me in my mind’s eye. Think of a dude I know, think of a dude I know. No good. Where’s my iPod? I need a distraction.

The cause of death is listed as Industrial Misadventure which meant poor old Ethan was mangled by machinery, probably one of them press and fold jobbers. His body looks like a bedsheet fresh out the package, tucked up all tight into a tidy square. How the hell am I going to get inside to harvest organs?

I put a little elbow grease into it, dig my fingers into a crease — an armpit, maybe? — and try to pry it apart. Bones creak and skin pulls apart from skin with the sound of moist velcro. I’m sweatin’ buckets now, cause in my head, Ethan is givin’ me the workout of a lifetime, only I can’t see his face so it’s like doing it with a Hot Pocket with a hard-on. Focus, Mickey! Focus! Damn, now that bastard’s got me doin’ it.

With the back of my blade, I scrape away the dried blood, which there’s plenty of, and I find a seam. That’s right, a goddammed seam! Now, I wasn’t exactly top of my class in Biology, but I’m kinda certain the human body don’t come equipped with seams. But I’m curious about this so I make my first cut along Ethan’s unnatural hem.

My fingers move into the cut and part skin. I tilt the swing arm lamp to get a better view and the light catches somethin’ that makes my stomach hitch. Whoever bagged this on scene fucked up big time, which I suppose is kinda-sorta understandable, given the unusual nature of the cause of death, but if I reported it, it’d probably cost that slob their job. The Office of Forensic Affairs forgives a ton of infractions, unfortunately, body count ain’t one of ’em. This was incorrectly listed as a single, when Ethan here, is wrapped around a whole other body.

The second body’s a smaller one, a girl, judging by the tiny pink-painted fingernails, and in the middle of a splatter of brain matter is a child-sized tiara, pressed between them like a flower in a book. The sex visions with Ethan stop instantly and my stomach heaves as I try not to hurl.

My jumpsuit is dripping with sweat and it clings to my clammy body to the point it makes my skin crawl. And then my trusty dusty brain, with its wonderful imagination, kicks into overdrive and I play the story of their final moments.

Ethan works — worked — works in laundry services. It’s bring your daughter to work day. Maybe he’s a weekend dad that doesn’t get to spend enough quality time with his baby girl and he fights the court order and pushes for this until he’s able to negotiate terms.
So he brings her to his job and she insists on wearing the little princess halloween costume, the one with the tiara, and he can’t say no because she is his little princess. Things are going great and he tells her to be careful and stick close to him, but he gets distracted for a moment, maybe by his boss about special instructions on a rush job or somethin’.
The little girl tries to be good and listen to her daddy, but curiosity gets the better of her and she climbs on a piece of machinery she shouldn’t climbin’ and Ethan’s dad-alarm goes off and he spots her, losing her balance and he runs for her… runs and dives with no care for his own safety and he manages to grab hold of her but it’s too late and they both fall into the machine before his coworkers can hit the shut off switch.
So, Ethan does the only thing he knows to do… he wraps himself around the little girl and folds her in his love, as the machine does what it’s designed to do.

It probably ain’t even in the same neighborhood as the actual events, but even though my story is most likely bullshit, it’s still real to me. it’s what I choose to believe.

And it breaks my heart ’cause that’s how I wish it was with me and my pop, but after moms died, we can’t be in the same room for ten minutes without it breakin’ into some big production. I know he means well, but who the hell is he to give me instructions on how I should live my life? Holder the Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition Lifetime Achievement Award, is who.

I carefully harvest the tiara and clean body residue out of every nook and cranny. Then I place the plastic jewelry on a towel and carefully fold it into the best presentable package I can manage.

“Fuck’re you doing over there, Mickey?” Jhonni says over his shoulder.

And suddenly I can’t do this anymore, not just Ethan and this nameless little girl, but any of it. I peel the sopping wet jumpsuit off me and throw it at my boss. “Quitin’ is what I’m doin’.” Correction, my ex-boss.

I take the tiara package over to the phone and search the directory for Forensic Affairs. “And it’s Michelle, by the way, you fat piece of garbage. Call me outside my name again and somebody’ll be unzippin’ you from one of those bags.”

I expect a response, an argument, a something… but he just sits there and takes it quietly. Makes me think this isn’t the first time somethin’ like this has happened.

I dial the number. Do I feel sorry for the person about to lose their job? Sure, but fuck ’em. There’re more important matters at hand. There’s a family that needs reunitin’.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll make another call after this one. It has been a while since I spoke to the old man, after all.

Sally forth and be folding them what you care for into your lovingly writeful.

– Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Love’s Love Lost

Posted by Madd_Fictional on September 4, 2014

Once, in the gloomy and perpetually rainy City of Alphabet, there was born a girl who was said to be the living embodiment of love. From the doctor’s first slap, the girl giggled instead of crying and flushed the neighborhood of all its gray. Her smile was a bottomless thing, its roots branching up from her soul, and it beamed so brightly as to cause blindness if it caught you unawares. Her large jade eyes radiated an innocence so pure it momentarily took your breath away. Given her birthright, she was destined to have but one mate throughout her lifetime and that person would live a charmed life ever after.

Or so the story went.

An urban legend to most, Tyrone, son of William, believed the girl existed and based on the age of the story’s telling, she surely had to be an adult now. He also was convinced it was his mission to locate the girl and put an end to love, once and for all.

Tyrone worked fingers to the bone for years and all the wealth he amassed was spent on all the matchmakers who claimed to have an in with the living embodiment of love. Most were scammers, of course, the rest were simply delusional and bestowed the honor upon the wrong women. Only one woman was genuine. She knew the embodiment’s true identity and so deep was her jealousy that she gladly agreed to arrange a match if it meant obliterating the anomaly from the face of the planet.

When Tyrone met the matchmaker in a single occupancy room off Delancey Street, he thought of all the people he had ever encountered, this woman was the flipside of the living embodiment of love’s coin. Emaciated with a rat’s nest for hair, her features were packed together tightly as if God had pinched her face when she was born and left it to set that way.

“Your fee has been paid in full. Why have you not set up the introduction?” Tyrone asked.

“You are not ready.” the matchmaker spat the words like a cawing crow. “As long as you wear your true intentions like armor, she will dismiss you outright.”

“If I pretend, she will spot the ruse instantly. I am sure she has developed the ability to detect friendly facades. I will approach her as a man scorned, which is the truth, and win her over from there.”

“Interesting. And how do you mean to kill her?”

“Those were not my words. I mean to put an end to love.”

“The difference being?”

“I intend to woo her, make her love me, and when she is at her happiest moment, I will argue with her, break her heart with harsh words and hurtful actions. And I will not let her leave, and I will not stop, not until the shine dulls in her eyes and the smile becomes a rootless tree, and even then I will continue until she withdraws, from our relationship, from her happiness, from the world.”

“That will take years, if it ever happens at all.”

“It will. I am patient.” Tyrone said.

“But I doubt you are strong enough.”

“Then refund my money. I will find her on my own.”

The matchmaker leaned in closer and eyed Tyrone head to toe. His nose was full of her scent, decaying food left to stew in its own rancid juices.

“A deal is a deal.” she said. “So we are clear, I will make the introduction and my part will be done. Should you fail in your attempts, there will be no returning of the fee paid, understood?”

Tyrone nodded and she led the way out of the room on Delancey. Under the cloak of night, they dipped down into a subway station marked, Closed For Restoration. Past the turnstile and empty platform onto the train tracks. Tyrone masked his apprehension as he gave the third rail a wide berth and occasionally peered over his shoulder at the sound of distant train rumblings.

Between stations, they encountered a society of people, homeless and long abandoned by the surface world, who barred their path. Tyrone thought he would have to fight his way through, but the matchmaker had things well in hand. She mumbled something at the leader, a password perhaps, and pulled a tin of potted meat from her handbag and placed it in his hand. They carefully waded through a field of displaced people’s bedding and cooking stations until they finally reached the service passageway that led to a room not much larger than the one they just left.

In the room were two chairs that faced each other. The matchmaker sat in one and gestured for Tyrone to sit across from her.

“If this is some sort of trick…”

The matchmaker waived off the threat. “She will be here, I promise.”

“Why here?” Tyrone asked.

“There is an interesting story behind that.” The matchmaker cleared her throat and spat a gob of phlegm to the side. “It seems the gift of unconditional love that Arianna was born with — that is the name of the woman you seek, Arianna — the gift that flowed freely from her, the gift that touched everyone within her sphere of influence and filled them with ecstasy, proved too much to bear for most people.”

“Are you telling me people fell too much in love?” Tyrone asked.

“To the point of delirium. It drove them mad. Imagine the feeling when you have loved someone or something in your life, more than anything else in the world, loved it so much that it hurt. Now multiply that by ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million, even. Never any hatred, or indifference, only a love for everything that increases exponentially the longer you remain in Arianna’s presence.”

“I never considered that.”

“Most do not.”

“So what happened?” Tyrone leaned forward in his seat.

“Nothing like a good story, eh?” The corners of the matchmaker’s mouth curled slightly. “Arianna’s parents, immune to her gift, fearing for their daughter’s safety as well as their own, moved in the small of the night to parts unknown, somewhere far removed from society at large, and remained in seclusion.”

The matchmaker stopped talking. Tyrone waited, thinking she paused for dramatic effect, but after nearly ten minutes of silence, asked, “Is that it?”

“All the true bits. The rest is apocrypha. I figured that would not interest you.”

Tyrone shrugged, his disinterest unconvincing, “Since we are here…”

“Well, the way I heard it, the family managed to get along fine. True they were isolated but they were also together and safe and Arianna’s constant state of happiness helped the situation be less stressful. Their lives remained uneventful… until the day their daughter reached puberty.

“On the twenty-second day of the seventh month of her fourteenth year, Arianna began growing distant, her once innocent eyes darkened and the luster faded from her smile. The gift, once thought to be good was slowly transforming from its former sham and ruse into the corrupt curse it truly was.”

Tyrone’s brow knotted. “So she is not actually a child of love?”

“Why would you think that? Arianna is the physical embodiment of love. At birth she was the love that was new and innocent and when she entered womanhood, she became the other side of love, the dark side none of us admit to feeling or acting upon.”

“Which ever side she represents when I make her mine, I will cause it to wilt away to nothingness.”

“Do you have an alternate plan?”

“A what?””Should she find out what you are attempting, is there a fallback?”

“The only way she would find out is if you tell her…”

“Oh, I will not have to tell her anything… you already have.”

It took Tyrone a few moments to piece together her meaning. “You are… ?”

The matchmaker spread her arms wide. “The genuine article.”

“But you are…”

“A hag? Not at all what you expected? It is the only bit the urban legend got wrong. I was born an ugly child, but people viewed me through the eyes of unconditional love, so my looks did not matter.”

“You tricked me!”

“How? Hello, Tyrone, I am Arianna, pleased to meet you. Consider yourself introduced. Now, live up to your word.” Arianna said as she moved from her chair and sat on Tyrone’s lap. “Woo me and put an end to love. I dare you.”

Tyrone wanted to push her off, but perhaps he hadn’t really wanted that at all. Up close, Arianna wasn’t that horrible to look at. Her mottled skin was actually clear and smooth. Her nose, once bent and crooked, appeared aquiline now. Her lips, full and delicious. Her build, athletic.

“Something the matter?” Arianna asked.

Tyrone’s heart beat in his throat. “What are you doing to me?”

“Giving you a taste. I can control the power now. Love, hate, passion, jealousy, to greater and lesser degrees.”

Tyrone tried to scowl but his face wouldn’t cooperate. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Offer you the opportunity to become my mate.” said Arianna. She climbed off his lap and drew her power back into herself, allowing Tyrone to see her in her true form again. “If legend is to be believed, a charmed life awaits you.”

“And if I decline?”

“Then you join the loveless.” Arianna gestured toward the door.

“You mean the people we passed… ?”

“Men and women, not much different than yourself, unable to deal with heartbreak or rejection. Selfish people who, being denied love, sought to prevent others from experiencing it.”

“Why do they mill about below ground so lost?” Tyrone asked.

“They were unable to fulfill their supposed heart’s desire of removing my influence from the world and refused my offer of companionship. Once you turn your back on love, what else is there?” Arianna drained the dark room entirely of love and let him ponder the notion as he sank deep into loneliness and wallowed in abandon and despair.

After an eternity of brooding silence, Tyrone spoke up, “I… accept your offer. I will become your mate.”

“And will you woo me, make me love you, and when I am at my happiest, will you break my heart and make me withdraw from the world?”

“That I will indeed, even if it takes the rest of my life.”

“Challenge accepted.” Arianna shook the man’s hand firmly.

Contract sealed, he put his plan into effect by telling the living embodiment of love his story. Of the woman he loved, that he did nothing to deserve but was blessed with nonetheless. Of their happiness together. Of the sharp knife of cruel fate that cut their time short. Of the anguish that swallowed him whole the instant her body was committed to the ground.

And when his tale was through, Tyrone, son of William, pulled her into his embrace and kissed her with every ounce of his intent and Arianna was forced to admit she felt a slight tingle. They battled for years in this game of hearts, each giving as good as they got, and if he actually succeeded putting an end to her, it was with kindness. Despite the competition that continued to their dying days, the couple wound up living happily ever after.

Oh, and they had one child, who was said to be the living embodiment of peace… but that’s a story for another day.

Sally forth an be careful that the love you kill isn’t your owningly writeful.

Joey Mac and the Pearlescent Unicorn Uniform Part 1

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 27, 2014

His job made Joseph MacDonal II, Joey to his pals, the enemy of the world and a target for assassination. He was one of the few people on the planet trained and licensed to butcher unicorns and prepare their meat for consumption. This also put him at odds with PAUTU (People Against the Unethical Treatment of Unicorns) who accused him of unicorn genocide.

The thing that stuck in everyone’s craw, more than selling unicorn steaks, chops and burgers, was the butchery aspect, though that was the bit they all had gotten wrong. Yes, Joey was technically a unicorn butcher, but the proper definition was:

/ˈbo͝oCHər – NOUN
A person whose trade is cutting up and selling meat in a shop.

which he did. What most folks failed to understand, though it was a matter of public record, was that his license hadn’t included or even allowed the hunting or slaughtering of unicorns or any other animals. In fact, Joey never killed a thing in his life. Insects that crossed his path were the subject of a strict catch, relocate and release system.

At this very moment, Joey sat across from a field news reporter undergoing makeup in preparation for the live broadcast. He found her cute in a cable news presenter sort of way, and probably would have been more attracted to her if she hadn’t that I’ll make my bones off this story hungry look in her eyes.

She ignore him completely, even brushing off his initial “Hello” until the cameraman counted her down. When the station anchor threw to her, the field reporter beamed a smile so unnaturally white, it would have stood out in a blizzard.

“Thank you, Sylvia. I’m here with noted unicorn slaughterer, Joseph MacDonal…” the field reporter said, finally locking her predatory eyes on him.

“Actually, I’m a unicorn butcher…”

“Same difference, isn’t it?”

“Actually, there’s a big dif–‘

“What made you decide to embark on his horrible profession?” she interrupted.

***

The economy had been in the toilet since before God talked to Moses and Joey hadn’t worked in forever. And even though he was one of the fortunate ones who managed to do what analysts suggested and set aside six months worth of salary in a high yield account before he was made redundant at the meat packing plant, now going on his tenth year, all that money was little more than a distant memory.

A Christian in name more than practice, it had been years since the soles of his shoes touched the floor of a church and that time was his best friend’s wedding, a wife twice removed. To say Joey was out of practice with the proper act of prayer, would have been an understatement. His first attempt came off as more of a bitch session, with him blaming his parents for his rotten upbringing and lambasting society for its prejudice of gingers, which, he reckoned, was the chief reason for his being kept down by the man. Surprisingly, he saw no results.

His second attempt at prayer was akin to a letter to Santa, in which he listed all the positive things he’d ever done in life and expected a little compensation for his good behavior. Again, results were not forthcoming.

Third time was the charm, however, when he realized that he should have admitted his sin, expressed thanks for the things he had and humbly requested the one thing he needed most: a job.

He put no expectation on the prayer and went about his normal daily existence, when, a week later, he received a phone call. Seemed that a friend of a friend knew a guy who knew a guy who had roommate who was related to woman who owned her own business and was looking for someone in his line of work.

Joey arrived at the interview, resume in hand, and launched into his well-rehearsed spiel, when the business woman waived him off and ushered him into a small kitchen area.

“Show me what you can do.” she gestured at section of animal carcass, a shank, by the look of it, that rested atop a butcher block countertop.

Joey inspected the meat before touching a utensil. Not beef, nor pork, nor lamb, the texture was something he had never encountered before. A grain like beef, yet soft to the touch like flan, and it shimmered without a light source, as if it were bioluminescent. “What is this?” he asked.

“Are you interested in the job or not? I don’t have all day.” she drummed her fingers on her crossed arms.

Joey sighed, selected a knife from the butcher block and approached the slab of meat much in the same manner a sculptor would a block of marble, envisioning the cuts before blade touched flesh. With no idea what type of animal he was dealing with, there was no way of telling how this woman expected it to be prepared, so he simply followed his instincts and let the meat talk to him. And in a way, it did.

Every time the stainless steel edge portioned the strange meat, Joey thought he heard a high-pitched tone, like the sound of a moistened finger running along the rim of a crystal goblet. A sound that broke his heart. But in the aftermath, when the tone was just about to become inaudible, he heard a voice inside his head. It said two words:

forgive you

and he felt a permission granted. This had not relieved the wave of guilt that flooded over him but it gave him the desire to do something with his own life worthy of this unknown animal’s sacrifice.

When he was done, the business woman nodded her approval, “Every bit the professional you claimed to be.” And it was a professional job. Every cut was perfect, none too generous, nor too small, and there were absolutely no scraps. He utilized every last bit of the meat.

“I’m curious, what type of meat is this?”

“Unicorn.” she said very mater of factly.

“Uni-excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“I don’t get the gag.” Joey inwardly chastised himself on his tone. If his dumb mouth cost him the job, he’d…

“I’m quite serious.” the woman took him by the upper arm in a grip tighter than he was comfortable with and led him through a maze of stairwells and corridors, down, down, so far down beneath street level that he expected to see passage markers scratched into the walls by Arne Saknussemm.

Their destination was a room designed to look like a field, complete with grass, trees and rocks. Had he been blindfolded and dropped here, Joey would have sworn he was outside. The room was so vast, he couldn’t see the far wall. The only telltale sign this was in fact an indoor facility were the track-lights that provided sunlight, positioned incredibly high overhead, but even they were mostly obscured by the clouds of the room’s self-contained weather system. But as fascinating as all this was, by far the most mindblowing thing were the unicorns grazing in the field.

“They’re real?” Joey asked.

The woman couldn’t suppress her chuckle, “Our organization, as advanced as it is, isn’t able to manufacture live unicorns.”

“But how is this possible?” Joey took a cautious step into the room and felt the spongy grass beneath his shoe. He moved slowly as not to spook a unicorn no more than ten feet away. The unicorn paid him no mind.

“Some trapper with an overabundance of dumb luck caught the last pair in existence by accident. Fortunately for him, and us, they were a stallion and mare. We made him a very wealthy man in order to breed them in captivity.”

“For food?” there went his tone again, but this time he didn’t care.

The woman shrugged. “There’s nothing else we can do with them. You can’t ride them. Young, old, virginal, virtuous… it doesn’t matter. They simply won’t allow it. Utilize the horn for its magical properties? It’s only magical for the unicorn, there’s no transference of power. Grinding down the horn and ingesting the powder for immortality? Turns out the human body is unable to digest the powder.”

“Then why not let them go?”

“Not until we recoup our investment. And we can’t risk one of our competitors getting hold of them as creating a revenue source we haven’t managed to think up ourselves… yet.”

“This is going to sound strange,” Joey said. “But I don’t know if I can do this.”

To be continued…

No Future In Arguing

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 25, 2014

Because of the argument with her mother, Lakshmi wasn’t able to sleep. It happened ten days ago to this very minute and her hatred for her mother hadn’t abated one iota. Truth to tell, she wasn’t able to remember who started the argument or what the initial disagreement was about, but, as with most feuds, it opened a doorway for all the other things, the niggling bits of minutia to spill out and words were exchanged and feelings were hurt on both sides.

Ten days of freezing her mother out. Ten days of refusing to eat or talk or even be in the same room as her mother. Ten nights of lying awake in bed, staring at the headlights of passing cars that trailed rectangles across her ceiling. Lakshmi knew every inch of the ceiling and walls of her room like the back of her hands… which was why she was shocked when her eyes fell upon the crack.

It was beside the mirror that sat atop her chest of drawers, a horizontal crack no longer than a foot in length that looked like a demonic smile. Lakshmi stared at the crack, long and hard, wondering how she had missed something so obvious before… when it blinked. All right, so maybe blinked wasn’t the proper word, but she could have sworn she saw a light flicker from within the crack.

Probably just the wiring, she thought as she pushed a chair against the wall beneath the crack. At night Lakshmi heard mice scurrying between the walls. One of them must have nibbled on a wire and exposed it. She’d have to remember to tell her father in the morning. She was sure it had to be a fire hazard.

Lakshmi stood on the chair and inspected the crack, running her index finger along its jagged yet smooth edge. It was surprisingly cold to the touch and she thought she felt a slight suction… then the flicker again.

This time she was sure she hadn’t imagined it. Lakshmi leaned forward and stared into the crack and was surprised to see something within it. She saw…

Herself.

It was like watching a movie. She watched herself being herself, doing the things she normally did, but not in any day she ever remembered. The images began at a normal pace then sped up to such a degree where to anyone else they would have appeared to be nothing but a blur but Lakshmi was able to follow along because she was somehow connected to them. They were her personal images, of her life and she was living them, retaining the information contained within them.

Her eyes glued to the crack, Lakshmi watched the rest of her life, the entirety of her existence, literally flash before her:

Her relationship with her mother falls apart in a series of little spats over the next few years which leads to the big fight when she turns seventeen that causes irreparable damage. That will be the final time the two will ever speak to one another.
Her father grows miserable with all the constant fighting, which wears on his soul until he can’t take it anymore. Lakshmi cries uncontrollably the day he finally leaves their home for another woman. She begins smoking to handle the stress.
Her dream career of becoming a geophysicist vanishes that day she quits college for a job that allows her to move out of the family home and away from her mother for good.
She works so many menial jobs, none of which manages to hold her attention for very long, and slowly saps all the dreams and creativity she holds in reserve. With each successive job, the sheen in her eyes dulls a bit more.
As with the job situation, so, too, her love life. Her many attempts at love fail for the same reasons time and time again. Somehow, she becomes relationship poison and seeks out the same.
Eventually, her worries and frustrations in finding a mate causes her to settle for a man beneath her standards, a man who adds nothing to her life, a man who also works dead end job after dead end job with no hope of career advancement.
Then comes the struggle to save money for secondhand furniture and a used car, and as rents increase, their apartments over the years become smaller and rattier.
She cries alone in the bathroom with a pregnancy test showing a positive result.
The birth of her daughter, Enid, is agonizing and when it’s done and the baby is placed in her arms, she knows she should feel something, tries to feel love, but the emotions just won’t come.
Not long after, she’s pregnant again with a premature boy this time, Jack, and makes the effort to spread the already nonexistent love even thinner.
Jack is born sickly and remains that way. Medical bills mount that they’re unable to pay, and her husband comes home later and later complaining of overtime that is never reflected in his paycheck.
Fed up, her husband leaves in much the same way that her father did, for another woman, and she now is forced to get a second job to make ends meet.
Her already distant relationship with her daughter grows volatile when Enid turns to drugs after running with a group of delinquents.
Jack’s condition worsens and neither her husband nor Enid are present at the hospital as he dies.
She develops a cough that turns into a hacking fit that turns into lung cancer that kills her a day before her sixty-sixth birthday. And like her son, she, too, dies alone.

Lakshmi thought the images would stop there, but was sadly mistaken. She was actually able to see beyond her own death, where Enid, holding a one-year Narcotics Anonymous recovery coin, arrives at her hospital room moments too late. Too late to apologize, too late to make amends, too late to say “I love you.” And the pain of this sends her running back to a den to score, where a fatal hot dose takes her life.

***

A noise, the sound of wood and plaster breaking in reverse, pulled Lakshmi away from the visions of her future and back into the room with such a quickness that she staggered back, fell off the chair, and hit the hardwood floor with a heavy thud.

A concerned woman’s voice called from outside the room and down the hall. Her mother. The woman she hated mere moments ago and wished all the nastiness a seven-year-old girl’s mind could muster… but now, there was something else. Something she couldn’t quite remember. The images of her future started jumbling inside her head to the point they made no sense and turned into so much mental vapor.

Something about her father and her husband leaving? Something about a baby… a girl, or maybe a boy, sick and dying? And a fight, a big fight…

Lakshmi scrambled to her feet and raced out of the door and down the hall as memories evaporated from her mind. There was something she had to do, something before these feelings vanished and she went back to being angry.

Lakshmi burst into her parents’ room, where her father, just about to fall into a deep sleep, jumped at the girl’s sudden arrival.

Her mother, on the other hand, was fastening her dressing gown and about to investigate the sound from her daughter’s room, when her daughter rushed up, arms flung wide and embraced her.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Lakshmi sobbed, as the memories of her future disappeared completely.

Her father watched in confusion. Her mother shrugged at him, smiled and stroked her daughter’s hair, cooing that everything will be all right. Everything will be just fine now.

***

In Lakshmi’s room, the crack in the wall, once the length of a wooden school ruler, began to shrink, as the wall knitted itself whole again.

The Anniversary Meal

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 20, 2014

As Amantha carefully diced the spleen, she caught herself. Lost in the preparation of the meal, she absently sang a song under her breath. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem but she was doing it in her native tongue, a dead language that might have revealed her true identity, had anyone heard it. Not that they’d have been able to pinpoint what she was exactly, but they would have sussed she wasn’t what she appeared to be.

She bit the inside of her cheek as she marinated the kidneys, the pain and the coppery tang of blood in her mouth served as a reminder to be more cautious. The head that had been severed and chilled on ice overnight to preserve its freshness, was placed in the stewpot to dissolve in a broth that smelled faintly of sulfur. She would have to remember to do the same with the hands and feet and all the other body parts that couldn’t be disguised as normal cuts of meat.

Anal to a fault, Amantha arranged all the innards neatly on the countertop and went to work on deboning the torso and limbs, the bones of which would join the head in the liquifying broth. She knew she had plenty of time to get rid of the evidence, but she also wanted time to get dressed and made up before Onathan arrived. It was their one year anniversary and she wanted the meal to go without a hitch because suspected he was going to propose tonight.

“He’s going to propose tonight,” she let slip aloud as she slit open the intestines to clean them. If only she had studied the language better, none of this food preparation would have been necessary.

Onathan’s mother was an important figure in his life, more a best friend than a parent, and he wanted to include her in the anniversary celebration, which Amantha had no problem with because she enjoyed the old woman’s company, she just wished he had phrased his wish differently.

His exact words were, “Do you mind if we had Mom over for dinner? It’s a special night that I want to share with her. Since Dad died, she’s been alone in that house and it’s not good for her.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Amantha answered, playing the question over and over in her mind. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“You’re amazing. I can’t believe how understanding you are.” Onathan pulled her into him and gave her the biggest kiss. Surely, she had gotten it right this time. The kiss made her confident that her first interpretation was accurate.

Amantha called Onathan’s mother over late last night, after he had gone to bed and she came without question or hesitation. Either she was the most selfless person on the planet or she truly was lonely in that big house all by herself. This would be a good thing.

No stranger to the procedure, Amantha treated her hopefully soon-to-be late mother-in-law to refreshments laced with a two-part toxin. The first substance was mixed into the pâte sucrée and would have passed through her system harmlessly, had it not bonded with the chemical placed in the sherry. Death was instantaneous and painless.

The phone rang not a few seconds later. It was her mother. When Amantha relayed the news and what Onathan asked and what she had done, there was silence on the other end of the line.

A chill ran down Amantha’s spine. Before her mother said a word, she knew she had gotten it wrong once again. English was such a bastard of a tricky language.

“These humans, they’re not like us, Ammie.” her mother said. “Relatives do not sacrifice themselves for celebration feasts nor do they feel pride in eating kin.”

“But what am I going to do, Mother?” the rising panic made her body quake.

“Are you sure she’s dead?”

Amantha prodded the old woman’s arm with her shoe. “No doubt about it. I followed your recipe to the letter.”

“Looks like you have no choice but to tell him the truth.”

“The truth? I can’t do that! Hi, honey, remember your mother? I killed her by mistake last night, sorry. He’ll never marry me now!”

“Then play ignorant.” her mother suggested. “Human females do it all the time.”

“And what about the body?”

“It isn’t a body anymore, it’s evidence. If you intend to live a lie, you’ll have to get rid of it.”

“I can’t move the body, somebody will see me!”

“Who said anything about moving the body?” her mother said nothing further, waiting patiently for her daughter to catch on.

“You mean cook her?”

“You were going to do it anyway.”

“I–I can’t. That would be wrong.”

Turned out she could. After hours of playing out scenarios in her head, she decided she couldn’t live without Onathan and he wouldn’t want to live with her if he found out the truth.

The difficult part was hiding the body until Onathan left for work in the morning. Amantha thought she had tipped her hand when she rushed him through breakfast and out the door. One of his mother’s earrings was on the kitchen floor, right beside his shoe! It was so close that if she made any move to retrieve it, he would have noticed.

But all that was behind her now, as she opened the refrigerator to get the older woman’s eyeballs to mash into a jelly topping for the dessert. But they weren’t there. She searched everywhere she hid body parts, everywhere they could have rolled but there were no eyeballs! She distinctly remembered plucking them out of their sockets last night.

How could she have misplaced them? Amantha knew she had to find them before Onathan came home in two hours. She threw herself into overdrive and tore the house apart, all the while cursing herself for not being more careful. The last thing she wanted was to have Onathan accidentally stumble upon one of the elusive orbs. He might not recognize it as one of his mother’s, but at the end of the day, it was a human eye and while she didn’t completely understand human culture, she was sure finding random eyeballs in your house wasn’t a common practice.

Amantha finally found them, yes, in the refrigerator. They somehow managed to roll off the saucer and landed in the crisper. She breathed a sigh of relief… until she looked at the clock; Onathan was going to be home in less than an hour, and she not only hadn’t finished dinner yet, but now the house was a complete mess.

She prepared the dessert in record time then hopped on the massive chore of tidying up the house. Just as she put the finishing touches on her makeup, the doorbell rang.

Amantha sat on pins and needles the entire dinner. What if he recognized his mother’s taste? A silly concern but it plagued her nonetheless.

Onathan seemed nervous as well, his eye constantly checking the wall clock or shooting over his shoulder to the front door. It didn’t stop him from enjoying the meal and he ate everything placed before him. At the end of the meal. he accidentally knocked his fork on the floor. Amantha was about to comment on how clumsy he was, when he came up on one knee with a ring in his hand. “I was going to wait until mother arrived, but I feel now’s the perfect time, after the perfect meal.”

And that was all it took. The dam of emotions she tried to suppress all evening burst wide open and Amantha began to cry uncontrollably.

“D-did I do something wrong?” Onathan said, confused. “I thought you wanted this?”

“No, no, I do want this,” she said, her breath hitching. “Just not this way.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s not you, you’re fine. Really, really fine. It’s me. I have something to tell you…”

Sally forth and be truthful to your better half should you accidently murder themingly writeful.

The Math of the Moment

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 6, 2014

There were two things that Evan knew:

Mathematics
He lived the wrong kind of life

The first he had known nearly all his life, from age four, if a proud mother’s braggadocio was to be believed. The second he only recently discovered, when he first laid eyes on The Woman. As was his nature, Evan quickly tabulated the absolute value in his head to assess his chances with her. The figures hadn’t added up.

The Woman, obviously accustomed to being the object of men’s stares, avoided eye contact with every XY chromosome in the room as she stood in the doorway and scanned the tables for a place to sit. There were so many free spaces, Evan hadn’t given the possibility of her settling next to him a second thought… until she did just that.

Suddenly the nearness of her had Evan checking the computations of his existence and wondering how he came to live a life so cruel as to deny him the reality of waking up beside The Woman every single morning. The closer she stepped, the more he realize just how lacking he was. The more he examined himself, the further away he pushed the percentages of the two of them spending the rest of their lives together.

But even though he knew down to his square root that nothing could ever have existed between them, he couldn’t let the thought of her go. He wracked his brain trying to suss out what needed to be done to correct their blaring parities.

What charismatic calculus would he have had to perform in order to make the possibility of a relationship between them a reality? What was he lacking that could have been excavated from the untapped depths of his soul in this limited time they cohabitated at this table, these minutes that were passing far too quickly. that would have given her pause? What prime number would have made her consider the impossible? Convinced her to go against every single internal voice and take a chance on a fractioned man well past his sell-by date? A man who needed her greater than she would ever have needed him?

Instead of coming up with solutions to solve the theorum, he vaporlocked. He went to the place where he should have found inspiration and courage and instead stood staring down at a dry well.

If this were a movie, a romantic comedy following a by-the-numbers formula, this would have been their meet cute moment, where though she had no time for him, Evan would somehow have found the nerve to punch above his weight class, as he swung for the fences, until he stumbled upon that one right sentence, quite by accident, that would have opened the door of their budding relationship just a crack.

But this wasn’t a movie in which Evan had access to some writer, a prince of prose, to whip up a witty bit of icebreaking banter, which meant he sat there quiet as a church mouse as the woman of his dreams failed to acknowledge his presence as she sipped her small yet overpriced mall beverage and worked her delicate thumbs across her smartphone keypad.

Perhaps he had approached it wrong. His shyness and lack of confidence in this situation was the problem, but all problems had a solution, so if he somehow broke down the math of the moment, he could not only solve the equation but restructure the formula to his benefit.

And so he began with

The Problem

He was absolutely enchanted by this stranger, who, when she left this table, wouldn’t have known him from Adam due to his insecurities. And while the thought of either tricking or forcing her to have affection for him against her will was a repulsive notion, he wanted to at least put forth the concept of a relationship between them.

The Equation

The left-hand side of the equation needed to describe the geometry of the manifestation of what a man considered love and the lengths he would go through to achieve it. The right-hand side needed to reflect the concomitant swirling curvature of a woman’s nurture and passion weighed against the romanticized notions of love.

Evan pulled a tattered notebook from his backpack and wrote the equation. Front and back on all the blank pages. On the backs of pages containing non-related items. In the margins. On every napkin he laid his hands on. and finally on the table itself.

He wrote and wrote until his brain collapsed under the sheer weight of computations, then he wrote some more. He continued to write until he finally discovered…

The Solution

Evan straightened his back, turned to The Woman, cleared his throat and said in voice squeakier than he would have liked, “Excuse me, Miss. Hello, my name is Evan.”

Sally forth and be mathing your way into the perfect relationshipingly writeful.

Custody Battle expletive deleted

Posted by Madd_Fictional on July 30, 2014

Kylie heard there were people who actually had the luxury of choosing whether or not to be a f**king @$$hole. She, unfortunately, was not one of those lucky $#itheads. Her great grandfather was an old-fashioned @$$hole who begat an even bigger @$$hole, who begat the king of all @$$holes, who married the high exhalted queen b**ch @$$wipe, better known as the person she called Mommy W**rest. All this to illustrate why Kylie felt she wasn’t totally responsible for the way she was. Not so f**king easy to be a g***ammed pillar of the community when the gene pool you’re pulled from was a $#itty septic tank.

The other genetic trait she inherited was the uncanny ability to choose the absolute d**chiest mate. Enter: Simon. Ever much the p**ck match to her @$$holosity, only he wasn’t merely a p**ck to her, sometimes he was a c**t, too. They were made for one another, the most fearsome twosome since the Kray brothers. And as long as they had a mutual target to focus their hatred on, they maintained wedded bliss. When no target presented itself, they turned on one another like rabid @$$ dogs.

There was only person on the entire face of the planet who was spared their abusive wrath, Ms. Brittany Anne, their daughter. The only thing they gave two $#its about because she was the only thing the pair of created that remained unsullied by the $#itstorm of their separate and combined f**ked up worlds. And as the only thing they had ever gotten g***ammed right, Brittany Anne was only thing they would have abso-f**king-lutely died for, no hesitation, no questions asked.

So, when their marriage $#it the bed for the final time, Kylie told Simon he could keep the house, the car, everything in the joint account, the whole ball of wax, just as long as she got Brittany.

Of course, Simon was having none of that and they wound up in court, which to Kylie was the stupidest move he could have made. He ate his b**ls in the courtroom. He was a living off the grid, import/export, bootlegging sonuvab**ch who looked like dog$#it warmed over on paper. Hadn’t taken the judge long to award her full custody, but she knew in her heart of b**tard hearts that the motherf**king court order wasn’t anything but a piece of paper to wipe her @$$ with.

It took Simon less than four hours to enlist the aid of his brothers, who Kylie knew to be a bunch of fake f**king tough guys who swore they had King Kong sized b**ls simply because they watched Scarface and Goodfellas on continuous DVD loop. And when Kylie was in the kitchen microwaving dinner, those $#itbirds kidnapped her daughter.

Being that there wasn’t an Einstein among them and together their collective IQ couldn’t reach room temperature, Kylie knew exactly where they were holding Brittany. The hot house. It was where Simon operated his numerous non-corporate businesses, a tiny hovel where his inbred f**ktard brothers shacked up when their w**re mother threw their shiftless @$$es out. It was also a $#itty crack den that sat in the otherwise decent residential neighborhood like an infected, bloody hemorrhoid. One that was definitely getting lanced tonight.

After Kylie cased the house and picked the best spot for her approach, she drew her piece, the assault rifle pushing its way from under her denim duster. Simon always accused her of having p**is envy, and if that was the case then this b**ch of a rifle was her g***ammed hard on!

Lep stepped out of the front door, planted his feet on the porch and turned his gat Kylie’s way. The gun was a piece of $#it .44 he bought out of a Kmart shopping cart from some dude with a serious boner for Clint Eastwood.

The youngest of all the brothers, Lep’s real name was Earl but his brothers gave him the moniker due to his height and bizarre resemblance to a leprechaun. Four foot if he was an inch and at least two feet of that was head. Combined with his high pitch laugh, he had a nickname that stuck for life.

Even thirty feet away and caught off guard, Kylie had more than enough time to clean this @$$hat’s clock. She whirled around and squeezed her trigger. His oversized head came apart like a pumpkin in a microwave. To his credit, he managed to take a few steps forward and pulled his trigger before he collapsed, but the shot went wild, missing Kylie by a mile.

Lep was the rare brother who had never really done anything to Kylie and for the briefest of instances she kind of felt sorry for him. But he did try to shoot her, so fuck him, dancing under rainbows, gold hoarding, headless motherf**ker!

The sound of the rifle shot was bound to bring out the rest of the boys so Kylie put a little pep in her step as she walked toward the house.

Slick Sid, the middle brother with the oily, bad skin, was next out of the house and his face went went slack the moment his eyes fell on Lep’s body. He started screaming. Screaming like the little b**ch he was. Kylie though. Mouth going off like a little p**sy siren.

When Sid saw Kylie coming at him, rifle leveled, his hand shot down to the pistol in his waistband, even while he continued to scream. She could have shot his dumb @$$, but chose not to. Maybe hadn’t even needed to.

By the time Sid’s gun cleared his waistband, Kylie was on top of him. Rifle butt to the family jewels doubled him over, then an elbow to the jaw knocked him down to the hardwood porch deck. Sid’s hand twitched on the pistol grip which made Kylie stomp down on his jaw with a horrible crunch.

“Where is she?” Kylie’s voice was controlled rage. Sid made a noise that Kylie took to be “Who?” Maybe smashing his jaw wasn’t the best idea.

“My daughter, b**ch! Where’s my child?” Kylie knelt down and pried the pistol from Sid’s hand. She placed the muzzle on his temple and cocked the piece.

Call it self-preservation or simply blind luck but Sid’s hand shot up and clutched the gun in a manner so that the meat of his hand between thumb and forefinger blocked the hammer from firing.

Kylie was caught off guard as Sid twisted the gun out of her grip, spun the barrel in the opposite direction and squeezed the trigger.

This mutherf**ker! she thought as she took a gun shot to the stomach. Kylie grunted as she brought the shotgun up to his neck. Sid’s throat bloated with automatic rifle ammunition and burst, spitting a dark crimson stain on the bare hardwood.

Kylie pressed her back against the house near the front door, the worst possible place she could have been but the wound in her gut wasn’t letting her go anywhere.

“I know you heard the commotion, so you know I’m out here.” she yelled into the darkened doorway, putting pressure on her stomach to try to stop the bleeding. She prayed they couldn’t detect the pain in her voice. “Si, can you hear me? Two of yours are dead. Didn’t need to be that way. Just give my daughter back unharmed and we’ll call it quits. How’s that sound to you?”

Kylie thought she heard someone running inside the house but couldn’t be sure over the sound of her own heart in her ears as blood continued to ooze from her belly. Unbeknownst to her, Gabby Otis, the mute brother, crept around the side of the house and would have had her dead to rights if he hadn’t stepped on a loose floorboard.

The creak snapped Kylie to attention. She brought the shotgun around and blew the bottom part of Otis’ right leg clean off his body. The man dropped face first off the porch… but never let go of the gun.

Otis’ gun came up over the lip of the porch deck, shakily trying to target Kylie. She put the man in her sights and pulled the trigger. Jammed.

Kylie cursed and squeezed her bullet-pierced stomach as she grabbed the rifle by the barrel and swung it at Otis’ hand. Not a direct hit but the butt connected with enough force to send the gun flying off into the unkempt lawn grass.

Kylie angled the rifle butt at Otis’ head, connected and did it once more for good measure. Otis’ eyes fluttered close as he lost consciousness. His head still in striking distance, she aimed the rifle butt again, catching him full on this time. The left side of Otis’s head caved in and blood squirted from his right ear.

Without warning, Kylie cried out in agony as she was blown forward by the impact of a bullet in her back. She tumbled over the porch railing and landed face first in the grass. Though every movement was pure agony, Kylie twisted her head and struggled to understand what she was looking at.

Brittany Anne, the young girl with clear traces of her mother in her face, a face that was now a mask of fury covered with a sheen of tears, held a pistol in her tiny trembling hands.

Kylie tried to ask her daughter, “Why?” but only managed to cough blood as her mouth formed the word. A shadow fell over Kylie.

“No one took her, you dumb c**t.” the familiar voice said. “She came to me on her own. She wants to live with her daddy right now. Isn’t that right, pumpkin?”

Kylie lifted her head up from the grass, trailing threads of pink saliva and blood, in time to see her little girl nod her head.

“But, if you want to stay,” Simon said, “… there’s one thing I’m going to need you to do. Remember what it was?”

Brittany Anne nodded a second time and answered, “Kill Mommy.”

“What? No!” Kylie said as the pistol in Brittany Anne’s hand went off a second time.