Damned Words 60

May 7, 2025May 5, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 2 Comments

What Was Left
Miriam H. Harrison

She had told them something was wrong. Time and again she had said that she wasn’t quite herself, that things were getting worse, that something needed to be done. First they said it was her weight, and told her to come back after a diet. Then they said it was her cycles, as though discomfort was the price of femininity. As her cycles ebbed, they said it was merely old age, as if the concerns hadn’t gone back to her youth. When at long last they opened her up, they were surprised to see what was left of her. Rust and dust and cobwebs filled the space where her heart and hopes should be. It was too late, they said, shaking their heads as if she were the one who let the clock run dry. Wheezing, creaking, rattling, she laughed as she left them. After an invisible lifetime, it was a relief to be seen.

The Operator
Lee Andrew Forman

With blackened hands, The Operator approached the ancient mechanism; a rusty toolbox hung from one arm. After placing it on the cold floor he rubbed his palms together. He opened the top of his rectangular companion with care, splaying the trays apart on squeaky hinges. From within he retrieved an iron handwheel. With careful eyes he inspected its every surface. He blew the dust from its threaded center, then raised it above his bowed head. A symphony of desperate cheers resounded behind him.

The crowd quieted while he aligned the wheel with its intended place, and carefully screwed it tight. Silence made the room itself sweat. Then, a low hum came from deep within the machine. Its dormant innards turned and life surged through its pipes. The room creaked and shuttered as the bygone contraption was reanimated from its slumber.

The vents in the ceiling opened, and in flowed exactly what they wished and waited so long for.

The Eliminominator
Marge Simon

It was a rusty old useless piece of machinery, that was obvious. Why we had to keep it in our one spare room was a mystery, but since it belonged to Grandpa, nobody dared suggest we get rid of it.

I grew up despising the thing. I wanted my own room and it wasn’t fair that this thing of Grandpa’s had priority. We weren’t even supposed to touch it. I waited years for the opportunity to destroy it. One summer, I had just turned twelve and everyone was gone on a picnic. I said I would be swimming with friends, and nobody questioned it. When they’d departed, I took a sledge hammer to it, whacked it up and down hard as I could. Nothing happened. I may as well have been using a feather.

After that, it had my full attention for other reasons. In fact, I actually tried to get Grandpa to tell me what it was for. To my surprise, he grinned really big like he was tickled I asked. Since he’d not spoken or smiled – or even moved from his bed since before I was born, that was a surprise. He motioned me close and whispered how it was a Eliminominator. Said it was his first and only invention and what it could do. He told me how to start it up, but he made me promise never to turn it on.

Okay, you probably think I didn’t keep my promise to Grandpa. You think I maybe tried it out on my stupid kid brother Bobby, the one I had to share a room with, right? You think I made Bobby lie down at the juncture where the knives popped up on the wheels after I’d placed a bucket for the blood in the space provided, don’t you? Well? Don’t you?

Programmed
RJ Meldrum

Long after the end, the machines kept moving. The factory was fully automated and the machines, only artificially intelligent, had no sense their creators were gone. The factory was hermetically sealed so it took years for rust and decay to have an impact. Eventually it did and most machines ground to a halt, parts seized by rust or lack of lubrication. One machine kept running, mechanically building cardboard boxes for the product and after the supplies dwindled to nothing, simply going through the motions. Its arms mimicked the action of folding and sealing.

The human burst through the door onto the factory floor. The disease had destroyed humanity, but some had remained alive. They were here to loot. There was metal here, aluminum and other rare metals to trade. Electronic eyes followed them as the human moved down the manufacturing line, gathering precious material. The human stood in front of the only functioning machine, its arms blindly moving in obedience to its programming. The human craned over to get a better look and in doing so, stepped over a red line on the floor. The human, born after the disaster, had no sense of impending doom. The machine, similarly unaware, simply picked up the new raw material and did as it was programmed to do. It folded.

The Drip
Kathleen McCluskey

The pipes hadn’t been touched in decades. Hidden deep within the crumbing asylum, they snaked through the walls like veins of a corpse, rusted and forgotten. The maintenance crew avoided the lower levels, muttering about sounds, the whispers and the dripping that nobody dared investigate.

Until tonight.

Evan, desperate for overtime pay, descended into the dark. His weak flashlight barely cut through the heavy air. It smelled like old blood and wet iron.

The pipes groaned, too, an organic sound. Evan told himself that it was just stress, fear. Nothing more. He found the main valve, rusted and covered in cobwebs, and reached for it. The metal was slick, greasy, almost sticky.

Drip.

The noise was coming from behind him. He turned, shaking. Nothing but the endless pipes. He yanked on the valve, it didn’t budge.

Drip.

It was coming from the pipes, like something trapped inside bleeding out. Evan leaned closer. In the cone of his flashlight, he saw that it wasn’t water.

It was red. Thick and warm.

The valve shuddered violently in his hand, the pipe screamed. A wet, gurgling shriek echoed from the metal. A skeletal hand clawed free, its fingers wrapping around Evan’s throat before he could scream. Rust covered nails punctured his skin, dragging him down against the pipe. As Evan thrashed, more arms slithered out, pulling him inside.

His last breath was a bubbling choke, swallowed by the twisted mass of metal and bone.

Above the asylum’s walls trembled as more pipes burst.

Deep below, something ancient laughed, and was still hungry.

Torn Asunder
Elaine Pascale

More than anything, Clara wanted to discard the old relic that was rusting away in her attic. She thought she had discarded her family years prior, but her recently deceased Aunt Sophie’s lawyer had found her and bestowed the industrial fossil on her.

There was a belief, set forth by great-great grandfather Silas, that the iron shafts and gears preserved from the family’s first factory was what bound them together. “Anything happens to it, and the family is torn asunder,” Cara had been told many times when she was young.

“It didn’t bind me to anyone,” she muttered, frowning at the rusted albatross. It had come with a note, but the note was far too faded to read. She could make out the words “torn asunder” and she assumed the note contained more warnings about keeping the object.

At least I can clean it up a bit, she thought, get rid of some of the dust and cobwebs. She grabbed a towel and proceeded to rub the gears.

A puff of smoke emanated from the relic and a large shadow darkened her attic.

“Who dares to wake me?” A djinn asked, his voice ominous.

Cara was too frightened to speak.

The djinn eyed her. “You didn’t read the note?”

“N-no. I couldn’t.”

“I warned Silas that a note was not the best way to prevent disaster.” The djinn glared at her. “He promised me eternal rest in that.” He pointed to the factory piece. “And I would grant your family wealth.” He scowled, “But you defied the conditions and woke me.”

“It doesn’t matter, the family is already torn apart,” she insisted.

The djinn’s scowl transformed into a smile. “You misunderstood. You get wealth, which will bind the family financially. Whoever wakes me, will be torn asunder…literally.”

Just Like Her Father
A.F. Stewart

Daddy lived and died in the company of machines.

It was what he loved, the purr of a good engine, the turn of a crankshaft. He was a first-rate mechanic, working shifts at different jobs over the years from garages to factories. He always called it his passion.

It wasn’t his only passion, though. Drinking ranked just as high.

He never took a sip on the job, he saved it all for home. A mean drunk too, swinging his fists, slamming me and mom against the wall, the floor, splitting our lips, giving us black eyes. Mom had enough when I was ten and walked out, leaving me alone with his rages.

At least that’s what I thought. Until the news showed the recovery of a buried skeleton wearing a gold necklace. Mom’s necklace. Then I knew what he had done…and what still needed doing.

Have you ever wondered what a running engine does to a face?

Daddy found out the day he died.

All it took was one quick shove and slamming the hood down with my body weight. Then it was over except the screaming.

A Wheel A Rollin’
Harrison Kim

Ezekial saw a wheel a rollin’ way in the middle of the air. This one’s stopped except for a single fresh screw with a shining thread. All out there alone in the Universe rusty and dead on the outside. That single oily protuberance pokes out, that last forlorn hope. Curiosity as Ezekial the space walker bobs near, a tiny, suited soul examining this humungous rusty thing…. attached cameras beaming back to earth what is discovered. He’s a fly on the rust, a piece of white dust against the brown, as he uses X rays and close microscopic focus, as he burns and parts the surface with his blowtorch. We must find out what’s inside everything, it is like that with all of us humans always looking for more, thinks Ezekial, he was a suicide case after the death of his wife that’s why they sent him up there, a disposable volunteer for this risky job, and he wanted it! The change in his life a miracle, and now to go out doing something interesting, his brain implanted with new attitude changing electrodes, he’s life loving now but it’s for the whole planet not just himself. He will go out doing something important for everyone. His welding torch opens the pipe, funny the hole widens so easily, becoming the face of his now-dead wife. How miraculous! He peers closer and inside the face he sees his whole existence inside that eye everything from his birth to his death…as that eye blinks and covers him. His space suited body and soul absorbed by that shape shifting mass blinking just under the rust on the wheel. After Ezekial disappears the screw extends out further and becomes slightly shinier. It’s found one more drop of oil and Ezekial has joined his loving wife.

The Pipe
Charles Gramlich

“See that rusty pipe?” I asked my victim.

“What? Why are you showing me that?” he asked in his irritating whine.

“Because I’m going to chain you to it and leave you there.”

“No! Why…would you do that?”

“Too many reasons to name,” I said.

“Please, you can’t. I’ll starve to death.”

My chuckle echoed. “Oh, you won’t have time to starve.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t see them but that pipe is full of microfractures. Should have been replaced years ago but it’s still in use. And every day…. Several times a day, they pump boiling water through it. Those fractures are going to give way any time now.”

“That’ll cook me! Burn me alive!”

“Preach it, brother.”

“I didn’t know you hated me so much.”

“Hate isn’t a strong enough word. I can’t take another day trapped inside your sad, putrid, useless form.”

“Please!”

“Shut it,” I said.

I looped the chains I’d brought around the pipe, then fitted the manacles on my wrists and snapped them closed. A few jerks against the constraints showed that I—that we—were solidly bound. And already the sound of boiling water gushed through the pipe toward me. Would this be the moment when the pipe ruptured? Or next time? Or the one after? The sooner the better.

I should never have possessed this disgusting sack of human flesh. I’d never imagined how clingy a desperate mortal could be. But once the flesh and muscle boil away, the bones won’t be able to hold me. This devil will go back to Hell. It hadn’t been that bad a place. This time, I’ll appreciate it more.”

A Major Error in Judgement

March 5, 2025February 11, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 3 Comments

When the two teenage hot dog vendors laughed at Brandon Viktor, they stuck their tongues out. The thin, stoop shouldered 21-year-old Viktor took his wiener from its bun and bit a huge piece off. Everyone in Princetown thought they could make fun of him, but he still had a powerful chomp.

He arrived in town two months ago, after his mom kicked him out of the house. She gave him a thousand bucks, told him to adventure somewhere far away and find some meaning to his life.

Brandon walked into his tiny apartment. He got down on his hands and knees and inspected the couch. It looked pretty much the same. But the lamp. A chip out of the side. That wasn’t there yesterday. Brandon punched the side of the couch with his fist. “They won’t stop. They just won’t stop,” he muttered, holding his aching hand. Every day after returning home, something valuable replaced with a cheap replica. That, and the tongue teasing, and the surreptitious giggling. He’d already changed the locks three times.

Brandon went to the police station. The two female officers laughed, just like the hot dog vendors. He saw their protruding tongues. “Are you on any medication?” said one.

“No,” Brandon whispered. It seemed that the officer wanted him drugged up and compliant. Brandon wasn’t going down without a fight. He left the police station grinding his teeth and muttering “evil Princetown bastards.”

He opened his bedroom closet and inspected his collection of whips. He liked how the whips snapped. He often practiced flicking them, imagining his enemies flayed and under his power. Now, even here, replica whips found. Cheap imitations. A normal sheeple wouldn’t notice, Brandon mused, “they’re talking advantage of my sensitivity.”

He didn’t know why everyone wanted him out of Princetown. Possibly jealousy. People walked by him on the street, showing their tongues. Trying to make him think his member didn’t measure up. He sometimes stuck his own tongue out at them. Yet the more he fought, the more the persecutions escalated.

One day he lost his keys. He searched all around the neighbourhood, on the lawn, behind the toilet. He bought a carton of milk at the store, opened it for morning cereal. In the pouring white gush he felt something heavy. He upended the container and discovered his lost keys. Someone had broken into his apartment, grabbed the keys, then placed them in the very milk carton he chose at the supermarket. Brandon threw his cereal against the wall. The plate shattered. His favourite plate, the one with Darth Vader on it.

Brandon decided to change tactics. He’d throw a party. If he did something nice, something generous, maybe everyone would like him. After all, he’d been very insular. He hadn’t spoken to anyone but the police for many days.

Brandon took all his social assistance money and went into the liquor store. He bought a few hundred dollars’ worth of wine and spirits and beer. Then he made colourful posters advertising his free party. “Citizens of Princetown, come to Brandon Viktor’s apartment at 21-329 Gorgon Street 9 pm Friday til ? for a welcome bash. Free alcohol!”

People began arriving an hour early. Some folks seemed normal; some resembled the indigents living in the park across the street. They all acted happy. Brandon bought out his CD’s and played them on his little portable stereo. He poured drinks, served chips and popcorn. Everyone laughed, people exclaimed “Thank you.” “This is a great party, Brandon. It is Brandon, isn’t it?”

Brandon drank til the room swirled. Might as well celebrate the housewarming. He didn’t know when he got to sleep. Upon awakening, he staggered into the bathroom, peered into the toilet at a pile of wet paper. He peed and flushed, and the water swirled up over the edge. Plugged! Brandon quickly turned the water off, lurched out of the room and frantically inspected his apartment. What a mess! Empty or broken wine glasses everywhere. The flat screen TV gone, along with his toaster. The music player vanished. And those fabulous speakers! Brandon ran to check his whip closet. All the whips intact, but perhaps more were replicas? He sorted furiously through the collection.

“Someone will pay for this!” he muttered. “Princetown will not escape my wrath. Someone will be sacrificed as a message for these bastards!” Brandon stood on his patio, flicking his whips over the street.

He phoned his mother, spoke one sentence on her answering machine. “You can auction off my comic book collection, I won’t be needing it anymore. Love you, Mom.”

The next morning he bought a razor sharp carving knife with the last of his money. He stuffed the knife under his jacket, swallowed a number of pills to stop his terrible headache, and headed for the town park.

He hid in a bathroom stall at public toilets in a little used section of green space, and waited, crouched on the seat, the knife clasped in his hand. After a while, footsteps. Brandon listened and watched, peeping out from a crack at one side of the stall door. A six-foot tall, hefty shouldered young man entered. Brandon stood five foot five, weighed in at 136 pounds. He decided to let this guy go.

Ten minutes later he watched an older fellow, maybe in his seventies, fumbling to open his fly. Brandon quietly stood up, pulled back the stall door. The white-haired fellow started his business. Brandon leaped forward with the knife and plunged it into the old man’s side. A scream, and then the struggle. It was very, very hard to kill this guy. The old geezer wriggled like a worm. His attacker stabbed again and again. The man raised his arms then began to gargle and fall. Brandon left the knife sticking from the victim’s side and ran out, passing two small children at a nearby picnic table.

He started washing himself off at the nearby brook. Then he stopped, overcome by echoing voices telling him “The Victor, you are the Victor!” Like his last name. He sat back against a tree, laughing. He had taken revenge by killing a community citizen. He showed them who was boss. Princetown couldn’t fool with him. The police discovered Brandon there by the brook, giggling, waggling his tongue in their direction.

It wasn’t until a month later, while being interviewed in his cell for fitness to stand trial, that Brandon heard the details about his victim. The grandfather he murdered, Peter Van Sickle, had popped into the washroom after taking his two grandchildren to the park, allowing their mother a morning break. He’d driven in the day before from Oregon, to visit his daughter and spend a few days.

“He wasn’t even a citizen of Princetown?” said Brandon.

“Nope.” The interviewing psychiatrist shook his head. “Does that matter?”

Brandon gripped his head in his hands. “I killed an innocent man. I should have asked where he was coming from.”

The psychiatrist scribbled some quick notes. “Looks like you’re very upset.”

Brandon looked at the doctor through his tears. “I made a terrible mistake.”

At Brandon’s court fitness hearing, citizens of Princetown protested outside the courthouse yelling “Justice for Peter Van Sickle,” and “Put the monster away for life!” The hearing and the protests made national headlines.

“I can’t figure it out,” Brandon said to his lawyer. “They’re so angry at me, and the old guy wasn’t even from their town.”

“They say this crime took their innocence,” the lawyer said. “They say they’ve never experienced such a brutal, barbaric event in Princetown before.”

A frown played across Brandon’s face. He clenched his fists. “They made me do it. It was an act of self-defence. They should be charged with murder, not me. When we drove up in the sheriff’s car today, I saw their tongues sticking out.”

“We’re going to plead insanity,” said the lawyer.

However, to Brandon, it all made perfect sense, except for his one major error in judgement.

∼ Harrison Kim

Damned Words 59

February 19, 2025February 13, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 4 Comments

Bound in Mater’s Shed
Marge Simon

Mater has me cloistered in her potting shed. I’ve screamed until my throat is raw, but no one comes. Christ, she’s a bitch supreme. Tis true, I fed her stupid prize rose to the goat. The thing appeared to be a cross between a mushroom and an avocado, truly revolting to behold. Anyway, it was only for a lark, but the old bat took it seriously. Starlight sifts through the cracks between the boards. If I crane my neck, I can see the moon. That sluggish golem servant she’s made is a mess, with sand for brains. He brings me a crust of bread, a lump of stinky cheese. Now off he goes to gather kindling for our hearth. But wait, he’s not going to the house. Instead, he’s piling it high around my shed. I hear the scratching of a match …

The Eye
Charles Gramlich

An eye opened in the forest, a red fleshy eye. Then another. And another. No one realized what they were, or what they promised. Just nature’s oddities, humans thought. People went about their business, using the world as they saw fit. But now the world was watching. It had been asleep for a few billion years but that long nap was over. How long before it opened its mouth too—and began to feed?

My Little Flower
Lee Andrew Forman

Homemade medicine drops between your lips at my discretion. You are ill, that I know. No doctor need visit. One drop, two drops, don’t cry. Your beauty shines too brightly, attracts too many flies. Your protector I was, still am. I’ll make sure they can’t get to you, my dear.

The concoction, a recipe not my own. I paid in a back-alley shop, only known by rumor. Bones dangled from the ceiling and candles moved shadows.

I visit daily since you passed, watch this strange flower grow. I wonder if you hear me there, praying to your ghost. I stroke the petals and think of you—my little flower, how I loved you then, now, and forever.

The Blooming
Kathleen McCluskey

The jungle swallowed him whole, the dense foliage closing in like living walls. Sweat clung to his skin as he pushed deeper, following the rancid stench that thickened with every step. Then, he saw it. A monstrous bloom, red and fleshy. It was huge, sprawled against the base of a gnarled tree. Its petals, speckled like diseased flesh, pulsed so slightly as if breathing. The center gaped open, a cavernous maw lined with slick, ridged folds. The air soured farther, thick with decay. Flies buzzed around something lodged within the gaping cavity. A bone, yellowed and splintered, jutted from the depths.

His stomach clenched. The camera in his hands trembled, the lens trained on the grotesque marvel. He had found it! His colleagues had mocked him, now here he stood in front of it. He raised his camera, sweat rolling down his fingers. The moment the shutter clicked, the petals twitched. A wet, sucking noise oozed from within.

A spray of warm, gooey fluid hit his arm and face. Searing pain flared across his skin, burning, eating through his flesh like acid. He staggered back, his vision tunneling as his nerves ignited in agony.

The petals unfurled and surged forward, grabbing him, pulling his collapsing body closer. Enveloped in the wet, pulsating petals, he writhed while needle-like spikes protruded from the fleshy walls. They pierced his skin and anchored him in place while the flower’s insides began to constrict. His scream barely escaped before the flower slammed shut. Muffled sounds of feasting echoed through the jungle.

By morning, the jungle was silent. The flower sat motionless, its petals gleaming. The only sign of what had transpired was the faintest smear of red on the tree roots.

The Flower Ear
Harrison Kim

My flappy flower ear can hear everything, the tiny tendrils quivering, taking in all you say. There are millions of my listeners everywhere, as everyone knows by now. My spotted flesh and eardrum ring sit planted at the side of every dwelling and business, subway entrance and even on the trees in the park. All whispers caught. All words taken in and all discussions acquired. You might think you are saying nothing wrong, but fear not, I will decide for you. As my flaps flap and my circle thickens and thins over all my millions of ears, I ponder the value of your existence. Shall I approve of all the things you said and did? No, that is impossible. But there are minor sins and venial sins. Sure, if you embezzled a few dollars, ate all the red smarties, or cheated on your wife, more power to you. You’re a person after my own heart. But If you talked against me personally there can be no forgiveness. I have to say “that’s not very nice,” and show you the consequences.

If you see my flappy ear shimmering over your bed at night, you know it’s judgement time. Rise and clasp the blossom to your heart before it strikes. That way, things will go easier for you. Then the flower will either penetrate, gentle but keen as a razor blade, and become part of you as well as me, or it will suck its ring around your red centre and pull the organ out, chewing and absorbing your treacherous fleshy soul.

Red Spores
A.F. Stewart

A starless night, black as pitch, so the red streak lit up the sky in brilliance and when it landed, the fireball exploded and engulfed half the woods in flames. Sirens screamed as fire trucks and police swarmed the scene, people yelling and pushing everyone back to clear the area.

In the morning, the black SUVs came with the scientists and the quarantine.

Then people started dying.

It happened swiftly, before anyone understood. The cough came first, lungs filling with blood, choking folks on their own fluid. Then the skin shrivelled, dehydration creating a thirst no amount of water could quench. The last stage was the bloating, where the abdomen swelled to twice its size before bursting, spewing putrid guts and crimson spores into the world.

But that wasn’t the worst.

Where the spores landed, plants grew within hours. Giant pulsing leathery flowers, spotted red, emitting a hypnotic hum, enticing people with their siren call. No one resisted, no one protested; we were willing prey. Yet, everyone watched in horror as it happened. The crunch of bone, the blood, their screams, your eyes fixed on your neighbours being eaten alive, knowing your turn was coming. I watched my mama die and it’ll be me soon enough.

I want to run away, to shriek, but I can’t. I stay in line waiting to be devoured.

The best I can do is record our story and hope someone finds it…

Once in a Lifetime
Richard Meldrum

It was an invitation-only event. The rich, the well-connected and a rabble of assorted ‘influencers’ were asked to attend the blooming of the century plant. No riff-raff were allowed.

It was held at the Botanic Gardens, an elegant Victorian glass and steel structure housed in one of the city parks.

The invitees flocked to the event, despite the lack of canapés and champagne. This really was a once in a lifetime opportunity. The clue was in the name, the plant produced a single flower every eighty to a hundred years.

The cream of local society crowded round the huge plant, cell phones in hand, waiting expectantly for the glistening bulb atop the massive leaves to burst open in a cacophony of color and spectacle. The staff discreetly left the area and made sure the doors were closed.

Standing outside, they listened with muted glee to the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ from within. Then there was silence. After a judicious period, they opened the doors to see the pile of bodies. It was a well-preserved secret that the bulb released an air-borne toxin on opening.

The Bloom
Miriam H. Harrison

She had first encountered it in her dreams. On those nights, the bloom spread wide and waiting like a lover. She was no stranger to the pleasures of the forest, of course. She knew the cold, slick touch of the naiads, the rough, knotty embrace of the dryads, the sensuous whispers of wisps beyond her touch. But this beckoning bloom was different, promising a singular experience, and she was woken each morning by goosebumps and anticipation.

So began her days scouring through the forest, sure that the bloom itself was more than mere dream. Journeying in and out of the forest soon seemed inefficient, so she gave up on returning home, sleeping amid the trees and stars, hoping that her dreams might draw her closer. And in those dreams the bloom waited, hinting at mystery and possibility.

Her life was lived between dreaming and searching. It was a strange sort of half life. But she did not fear death—she only feared giving up on the search. The search for something more. Something beyond the limits of her life as she had known it.

And so when she finally found it, it only seemed fitting that the bloom would smell of death. Not a threat, but a promise. As she gave her tired self over to its embrace, she felt the singular relief of yielding to the timeless unknown.

Le Fleur
Elaine Pascale

One day, when the Little Prince was tending to his rose, he noticed another plant sprouting. “This is no baobab,” he confirmed, “it’s a seed from who knows where.”

The plant asked for a moment to ready itself, and the Little Prince dutifully turned his back. When the plant announced that it was ready, the Little Prince turned to see the most startling and strange blossom. Its petals resembled tentacles and its core looked like a widely opened eye.

The Little Prince could not help but fall in love.

The Little Prince said, “You should be careful, there’s a war on my planet between sheep and flowers.” The Little Prince examined the plant carefully. “And you don’t have thorns.”

“I don’t need thorns,” the plant sniffed, “I have teeth.”

“And what is the purpose of teeth?”

“It’s not a matter of importance,” the plant replied.

The Little Prince was confounded. For a flower, there was nothing more important than its thorns. Certainly teeth, being so rare, ranked even higher.

“My rose is not going to like this.”

The plant craned its petals to get a better look at the rose.

“She seems mean.”

“Flowers can’t be mean, they’re vulnerable. For instance, while I am talking to you, she could be eaten by a sheep.” The Little Prince wanted to look away from the new plant, but he was captivated.

“Or by me.”

The Little Prince found he had no choice. He was compromised by his affection for both of his plants. He began traveling the galaxy, bringing visitors back with him, to satiate the new plant and keep his rose safe.

Travelers beware: if you find yourself in a desert landscape and meet a child with golden hair and laughter like bells, run as fast and far as you can!

in dedication to Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Screaming Pool

December 25, 2024December 11, 2024 ~ TheDamned ~ 4 Comments

Screaming….loud… the normal swimming pool sound, the splashing, leaping kids, the developmentally disabled, the laughing old men with hairy backs boiling red round the hot tub especially at mid-afternoon… but who is that average lean fellow feeling the jet fountain spray all over his bald head? Yes, some kind of officer of the law…looks like his compatriots are here already, laughing and joking with the differently abled children. Some kind of charity service. They do it once a month. A good gig on their 80 thousand a year salaries. Must be nice.

I’m forever nervous in the presence of the police. Ten years ago, I did something. Never caught. So, every time there’s aspects of the law in here it’s scary. Are they finally coming for me? I just act like all the others, nonchalantly enjoying myself.

I was the caretaker here, you see, ten years ago. There was an accident. Something to do with the chlorine. A pipe burst and the aroma escaped and burned a lot of people. Even the insides of their windpipes. Anyway, you should’ve heard the screaming then!

The investigation blamed a faulty valve. They gave the sufferers lots of financial compensation, including me. Of course, I know the reason for the fault. I’m much closer to pipes and chlorine and the pool surface than I am to anyone. The reason’s deep in my heart, now. I wanted them to know, to know who I was. That was my primary motive. To be recognized finally, in the greatest light, as a hero. So, to be a hero, I had to cause pain, chaos, even within myself, and then I had to right it.

What’s a wonder is that I’m still the caretaker, the custodian, the only one besides the lifeguard not moving or smiling, back here behind my office window regarding all the kids and parents. How they yell in ecstasy in the water! Splashing and thrashing, kicking arms and legs. Not unlike the throes of death sometimes. It’s a miracle to still be here, free and victorious, serving the public these many years.

The itching in my eyes all the time bothers me, and my skin, too, it’s always so dry, and I carry that pool smell. Even when I go to bed at night, the chlorine lingers, a constant reminder of where I’m from, who I am. It’s like I’ve become a Neptune creature over all these forty years. I now rather enjoy the daily chemical layering, and the memories from it, and hesitate to wash it away.

Yes, they still say hi to me, the ones who know me, and remember the accident.
The others, the strangers, might turn their heads, or pretend not to notice my disfigurement. In the accident, my face burned and burned. What they don’t know is that I was very conscious of that faulty valve, and I purposely let it blow, I even tapped it a few times with my huge pipe wrench. Despite knowing the immediate pain that would follow, I looked forward to the long-term pleasure.

Life is so dull, so humdrum and low paid, that often the only way out is to tap at something. You don’t want to be caught; you just want things to change. And change they do. It takes a lot of will, but if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. At least, that’s what I discovered. So much sympathy that came my way. I rescued several children from the accident scene, despite my injuries, while fighting the noxious fumes. The parents still invite me over for visits and give me suppers. I saved an old man, and tended to the injuries of the young people, using my top notch first aid training, applying all the special breathing masks with consummate skill.

The city gave me accolades for that. My picture and story featured on the TV news, and a special medal made, presented by the mayor. For weeks, interviews and accolades, and visits to my hospital bed. So many flowers and gifts! And now I sit here behind my office glass, and watch, and listen to the joyful screamers. Wonderful to see the police helping too, heroes simply by default. I had to work for my victory, and I have paid the price, despite always, in a judicial sense, living free. My drooping mouth and misshapen face remind me of this. Every day I notice the mirrors, reflecting my scars, and more subtly and enjoyably, my deeds.

Opposites are sometimes compatible, overlapping. The bad and the good, the burning and the healing. I clean the pool, and it becomes dirty again. I release the gas, then rescue the victims. Screaming can mean pleasure, or suffering. The common sound has two opposing moods. As long as I’m here, I can decide, every day, which mood that the swimmers and bathers experience, and remember.

∼ Harrison Kim

You Have Always Been Nothing

September 25, 2024September 12, 2024 ~ TheDamned ~ 2 Comments

When you’re dead, it’s forever. There’s nothing at all, and you won’t even know. You will know nada and be nada just like before you were born. Like every cockroach and worm and yes, human, that has ever lived. And there’s nothing you can do about it, except choose the time and place of your demise. I am here to facilitate that.

The forming of the Universe, the birth of the sun and the planets, the development of life on earth, were all unknown to you before your existence. For practically forever, for billions of years, you were nothing. The Buddhists say that to be in that state is Nirvana, the absence of thought and feeling and consciousness.

Now you’re aware of a tiny slice of that consciousness, and this experience isn’t even real. Consciousness is an evolutionary illusion, and according to scientific theory, formed to help you survive. Aliveness is purely a physical phenomenon. Even your awareness is a lie, to help your body avoid enemies. You may ask “but what about memory, isn’t that the story of the self?

Well, if you were only as old as what you could remember, you’d still be a child. These memories are not real either, because the time that they happened does not exist anymore. Your memories are all mind illusion, imagination. What I said three seconds ago has disappeared, except perhaps in your short-term recollections, which as I’ve said, are perpetually trying to grasp onto what no longer is.

I bring you these straight, true words to assist in the choices you must make today. I would advise making the right decision, because pain is all your mind is experiencing. You’re suffering from a terminal illness, causing you useless suffering, and a few more weeks of hurt is all you’ll know. I see you’re feeling the symptoms right now, even though you’re on an intravenous morphine drip. We have the liquids and the instruments right here, to offer you a way out, a way back to nothingness, where we all came from and where we’re all going. Even myself.

I fear too, the end of my life, but as it’s inevitable, my fear is useless. There’s no running away. I focus on other things, for instance the placing of morphine needles in ancient, diseased bodies, for which I am reasonably paid. My goal is to relieve suffering. I help others discover their true nature and the true meaning of existence.

Other people may briefly grieve your departure, but they’re living in illusion also. They’ll die too, and within a few years nobody will remember that you or they ever existed.

My words may seem stark, but they are merciful. Why not cut that suffering short?

Why not end it now? It’s the freest decision you’ll ever make.

Do I take pleasure in discussing this subject? Not at all, my smile is merely a reflection of my brain’s chemical processes. Everyone must capture some sense of the absurd, which we could call humour, in order that we not go completely mad. I want to stay sane. My chuckle is not personal.

What about God, you ask? Well, we all came from the womb, where all our needs were met. Food, touch, rest, we waited for birth, in the meantime we floated and grew. Memory feelings of that time and place underpin a longing to return, and we make up heaven and God as substitutes for our mother’s belly. Yes, we all want to go back to the heavenly womb. But that time will never occur again. The best times happened before we were even out of that place. No use in calling upon God because God was your Mom. She’s passed away, gone into the void. God is dead.

It’s time for me to leave, my shift ends in fifteen minutes. And it’s your time to go also. You’re not capable of helping anyone, or making the world better, all you can do is lie in bed. You need help rising to use the bathroom. It’s not your fault, but your life is useless.

There is no need to weep, but if you must, have a good cry. Tears are dripping with toxins, and it’s natural for our body to force those out. Even in our last moments, our bodies still want to keep going. They are hardworking machines, aren’t they? Indeed, I am smiling again. That statement tickled my funny bone.

Yes, I can make you a final appointment. Tomorrow morning. I commend you for making up your mind. So many people dither until they’re no longer capable.

At ten tomorrow, I’ll be here for the final time, and we’ll end all your worries and suffering forever. Your life will rise to enter Nirvana, the void where all your individual desires and sufferings disappear. That is as close to heaven as you will ever get. Into the emptiness of non-existence and disconnection, forever and forever and forever.

All things must pass, as now-deceased Beatle George Harrison wrote in his song of the same name. George is gone, too, as he predicted. And to quote another deceased Beatle, “there’s no hell below us, above us only sky.” Nothing to look forward to, literally he he.

When the nurse comes to check on you, give her your last breakfast order. I recommend decaffeinated coffee and maybe a slice of rye toast. Try and focus on the taste. Round ten, I’ll bring the needle and the death juice. Wipe away those tears, maybe try and count your heart beats, one way to pass the time.

Have a good night, my friend. Remember, we’re all living this illusion together, at least until tomorrow.

∼ Harrison Kim

The Concubus of the Palms

June 26, 2024June 13, 2024 ~ TheDamned ~ 4 Comments

Checking the palm of my hand, all those lines leading where? If I stretch back the skin, I can open things up, peer between the cracks. I perceive nothing but a white screen. There’s pros and cons with every addiction. Mine keeps me alive. I need new parasites every seven days. I’m weak and shaky now, and if I don’t find and absorb more, I’ll fade and die. I need to shock and rejuvenate my body. Sure, it’s in exchange for absolute dependency, but I make my own choices.

I close my palm line opening, drop my hand to my lap, then fiddle with my computer as my first client enters, a tiny wrinkled up woman wearing several layers of ragged clothing, pulling a cart filled with garbage bags. She leans to one side as she limps into the room, lowering herself to the chair using an intricately cut wood cane. I can only hope she’s infected.

“I was pushed into the road by a crazy woman. She spat my face, and I hurt my hip and back,” her voice quavers.

I look up from the computer screen.

“Ms. Bonella, tell me about the pusher.”

“She came running and screaming towards me. A blur. She spat in my face. I know I was her target.”

I nod and write something on a piece of paper. The clients always like that.

She adjusts the various kerchiefs draped round her neck and head, multicoloured cloths of blue and white. “The bank echelons sent her. It was a warning.”

“Yes, she’s their agent,” I reassure. “She was carrying infective parasite cells in her body like so many maggots and passed them on to you with her spittle.”

I take a kleenex and wipe drool off my mouth. I smell the high already, but I’ve got to play the counsellor game. Ms. Bonella wipes off the edges of her own mouth too, using a filthy brown tissue and eyes me up and down. “Are you a witch?”

“No, Ms. Bonella. Like my card and website say, I’m a palm reader who helps individuals with their difficulties.”

“I am an old woman,” she continues. “What am I going to do?”

“You are already infected,” I tell her. “From that pusher sent by the bank echelons. You must obtain treatment.”
Mrs. Bonella pulls her topcoat layer around her, then leans forward some more. She pauses before speaking. “Mistress Cindy, the infections are rolling around inside me. Giving me random electric shocks.” She rubs her side “Those evil bankers are stealing from me. I am a good person. In my will, I want to give everything to my grand nieces, for their university education.”

“That is very generous of you,” I say, and I mean it.

“Hold up the palms of your hands,” I tell Ms. Bonella.

I walk round my desk and kneel before the client.

“Look at the ceiling,” I tell her.

I trace along one palm and proceed to open a riverline of skin with thumb and forefinger. As I suspected, one milky blue eye shows in the line gap. It passes by slowly. Then I see another. Mrs. Bonella winces. I wipe my mouth off again, for I’m drooling with want. The echelons are in her system, those so-called electric shocks are their liquid forms pulsing through her veins. They’re keeping her decrepit body alive by circulating, but she doesn’t know that.

She holds her side tighter. “They’re prodding me right now, Mistress Cindy.”

“It’ll be okay,” I reassure her again. “I want you to place your palms in my palms.”

She sits and I kneel, and her tiny hands push into mine. I close my eyes and feel the bulbs of the parasites through her skin. I move my knuckles along Ms. Bonella’s fingertips, making note of every whorl and line.

“Don’t be alarmed, Ms. Bonella,” I say. “I’m going to suck out these invaders.”

I put my lips on her left palm and prise open the central palm line with my teeth and jaws.

My tongue slips between that line. I stick the tip, then the rest of it into Mrs. Bonella’s palm, deep and deeper. As they parasite eyeballs go by, I grab them, lick them up into my mouth and swallow. It’s a warm, satisfying drink.

“What are you doing?” asks Ms. Bonella, “I feel so weak.”

“You are being drained of the echelon energy,” I tell her. “It’s natural to feel that way.”

I go back in with my teeth and jaw, this time for the other palm, prising it open and sticking my tongue in the opening.

Ms. Bonella slumps back in her chair.
“You can move your fingers now,” I say as I devour the last of the parasites.

Ms. Bonella tries to stand. She holds onto the chair for a moment

“That was very strange treatment, Mistress Cindy.”

“Go home and rest,” I say. “Tomorrow you’ll throw away that cane.”

“I feel so weak.”

“No charge for the treatment,” I say, as I experience a few seconds of guilt.

She’ll never throw away that cane, without the energy from the parasites. When she sleeps, she will never wake up.

As she totters out the door, I feel my strength rising. The parasite electric impulses whirl within me, merge into my brain. I lift my palm and pull back the skin. No white space now. An eye stares back, then rolls by, and another one peeps out. I whirl my arms around so fast they blur.

I’m alive again, in full strength and vitality, resurrected by the very parasites that consume my soul, even as they crank my body high.

“I’m sorry Mrs…,”

I pause and then flail my arms again. My legs kick out. I’m wild and high. All I remember of the old woman are the lines on her palms, widening, opening, showing me inside.

∼ Harrison Kim

In the Presence of Aramanius

March 20, 2024February 22, 2024 ~ TheDamned ~ 1 Comment

Albert’s apartment neighbor Karl wore a big ratty grin. He banged on Albert’s walls, just when he knew Albert wanted to nap, or use the backscratcher. The whiskery guy must have his ear to the drywall, Albert thought, to know exactly when he’d be home, or wanted a quiet moment. Karl was intelligent, just like a rat. Albert complained to the landlord, Bald Jose, and Bald Jose said “Karl tells me the only noisy thing he’s done in the past month is drop a few cantaloupes.”

“He’s a liar,” Albert said. “He’s laughing at me, there’s no cantaloupe rinds in his garbage.”

Albert’s apartment was his sanctuary. Everyone out in the world moved too fast, always staring, he saw the craziness in the eyes, the disdain behind their faces. Their rolling tongues held back spit and sarcasm. Now even inside he couldn’t relax, could never find stillness, because of Karl.

All Albert wanted: to lie in peace on his bed, unmoving in beautiful lonesome quiet, and recall the best moments in his life. He craved the emptiness of space, the dropping away of stimuli. No thrashing around tormented by Karl and the hellish other people in the world. Just the thoughts of the girl he almost kissed forty-five years ago back in high school, or the time he sang karaoke at the night clubs and everyone clapped and he got first prize. Albert popped another sedative. Almost out of that prescription.

“Jealous,” said Albert. “All jealous of my singing.”

He would sing in his room, as loud as he could, just to show Karl he wouldn’t be intimidated. He was never happier than when he sang. A simple way to be happy, he thought. But so many people didn’t want him to be that way. They wanted him to suffer.

He checked under his bed. He’d smelled a strange odour the past few days and thought it might be fir cones. He took his broom and tried to pull some cones out. A banging sounded from behind his fridge.

“Damn you, Karl!” Albert yelled, and turned up his T. V.

Mighty Mouse was on. A tiny mouse with the strength of Godzilla. The rodent irritated Albert with his high, squeaky voice.

“There is no way a mouse could lift an entire building,” Albert thought.

He changed to the wildlife channel, but it was way too quiet, something about grasshoppers. He started to sing, as loud as he could. Karl’s wall kicking stopped. Albert sighed with relief.

Time to be still again. He turned off the T. V. and lay back on his tiny, folded cot with the sheets arranged just so. This world might be a mess, but Albert’s sheets were always neat.

He felt his eyes close as the sedatives kicked in. He thought of Connie, the girl he almost kissed. One of the few things of beauty in his miserable life.

He opened his eyes to an overwhelming scent of evergreen, and there on the floor wriggled a giant rodent… rat, beaver, spider, some kind of combination. Eight wiggly paws upturned and the body rolling around on the floor, smelling like a fir tree.

“You have such beautiful splintery hardwood!” cried the creature, in a high pitched, squeaky voice.

Albert watched the critter spin. Perhaps it would go away like a dream and leave him alone. But no, it kept rotating around and yelling. Albert flipped back his curtains. Across the open courtyard Bald Jose’s bathroom window lay open, the landlord rubbing his face with a towel and laughing across at him. Albert shut the curtain fast, his heart pounding with fury, and rolled back to the floor view. The creature was still there, chirping and spinning.

Albert addressed it.

“Are you the one who stuffed pine needles under my bed?”

“Nothing to do with that.”

“Then why are you here in my room? Did Karl send you?”

The creature stopped thrashing. Its white-skinned, triangular shaped muzzle upturned and the red mouth yapped “I’m actually here to help you with your neighbor problems.”

“Why would you help me?”

“Because I don’t like Karl either. He’s got it in for us wall creatures. All that pounding.”

“What’s a wall creature?”
The mouth that split the muzzle smiled, showing little razor teeth.

“We’re the ones who keep the pipes running, the electricity on, the gas burning. Ever wonder why your bath never runs over? Because we’re there to turn the taps off.”

The creature cackled and abruptly stood up, balancing on a thick tail, like a beaver’s. The strange being seemed about three feet high, with the ears of a mouse, for sure, but eight tiny spider legs and a long white snout ending in a thick black nose similar to a Labrador dog.

“You can get rid of Karl?” asked Albert.

“Sure. He’s always banging, right?”

“Yeah.”

“With your co-operation, we can turn that pounding right back on him, send the negative vibrations up to his heart and stop that heart on a dime. All you have to do is feed me from time to time. And maybe sing a few karaoke songs.”

Albert thought of Karl kicking the wall and dropping dead to the ground. A smile came to his face, though part of him thought there was something wrong with that smile.

“What do you eat?”

“Cantaloupe.”

The beast began cackling again.

“How did a big rodent like you even get in here?”

“I’m not a rodent,” said the creature. “You can call me Arimanius.”

Arimanius flopped onto his stomach and poked at a tiny hole in the floor. As he poked with four of his spindly long legs, that hole became larger and larger. Armianius stuck his snout in there and opened his mouth, until his mouth was as wide as a kitchen table. The hole stretched to show the pipes and wires and two by four studs between Albert’s wall and Karl’s place.

“Come on in,” said Arimanius, wriggling forward into the gap. “Check out the inner apartment sanctum.”

“There’s no way I’m going in there. It’s probably some kind of trap.”

Just as he spoke, a pounding rose from the other side of the wall.

“Looks like Karl’s on the torment trail again,” Arimanius stated. “He’s upping the ante now, because he knows you won’t do a darned thing.”

The pounding increased in volume and tempo,

“Boots from hell!” Albert shouted.

He felt the banging in his own head now. He leaped from his bed, ran past Arimanius and tried to turn on the T. V., but he couldn’t find the switch.

“Look,” said the creature. “Karl’s foot’s almost coming through the gyprock.”

Indeed, Albert could see the wall buckling here and there.

“You want me to start drinking again!” Albert yelled. “That’s not gonna happen, you monster!”

“Just say the word,” Aramanius’ squeaking could be heard even above the pounding and the T. V. “And I’ll send the negative vibes into Karl’s heart!”

“I say the word,” Albert said. “Stop that beating!”

“On your orders,” said Aramanius, “But you have to sing loud while I conjure up those killer vibes.”

Albert opened his mouth. He started with some R. E. M., “Losing My Religion.”

“That’s not loud enough,” said Aramanius.

Albert continued with a number by Celine Dion, for which he’d won first prize at the “Super K”
Karaoke competition in Lubbock, Texas many years before.

“Louder!” said Aramanius, who was yelling himself now. “Let’s hear you do the scream from Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

Aramanius waved his eight legs around like a whirlwind, screaming the Zeppelin words along with Albert.

Albert’s head thundered now, even louder than the walls, in time with Karl’s kicking and Aramanius’ yelling. Albert caterwauled at the top of his lungs, and the lights went out. Aramanius vanished, and Albert felt his body falling, back and back and back into his beautiful neat, blanketed bed, falling into a deep and peaceful silence.

He awakened with daylight streaming in his window. He wanted to close the curtain, but his body wouldn’t move. He lay there on his back with all the noise around him. He felt a kicking on his chest. Looking down, he saw Aramanius. The creature was now about the size of a teacup, but the feet felt like sledgehammers. Aramanius bared its teeth, danced and laughed “I was working for Karl, you fool, didn’t you get the clue about the cantaloupe?” He grinned some more. “Karl wasn’t crazy about your singing, but he can keep a beat.”

Albert lay there. Frozen hands, numb feet. His vocal chords couldn’t stir to scream.

“You’ll be still from now on,” Aramanius cackled. “Just like you wanted. Unfortunately, you’ve suffered a massive brain aneurism from all those negative vibes you gave off your whole miserable life.”

Albert lay staring up at the ceiling. Echoes sounded inside his immobile head as the pounding on the wall began again.

∼ Harrison Kim