"My weakness exists only in your head!" answers the girl, but they cook a soup from the potty, and the hot liquid seals her mouth.
It's afternoon. The family is pouring coffee, boiled from black flies, into small cups. When they throw the sugar cubes into the streaming drink, the father recognizes his daughter’s sweet look in one of the lumps. It gives him an idea. He steps to his daughter's bed, and drops sugar cubes into the girl's empty red eye sockets one into each.
"Now look at that! My daughter is so beauteous!" He cheers, pointing at the girl's new sugar-eyes. She just blinks and blinks, but still, she can only see the moving insides of a cow.
"By choice, I would put her into a show-case, and just gaze her from dawn to fall. Of course, now and then, I would wipe the spider webs off of her, but that's all – the prettiest birds need to be secured in a cage!"
Night falls. Bad luck oozes out from the horseshoes. The father lies in his bed, his long beard floats around his face as he snores. In his forehead, like a tiny ballerina, spins his shrunken, two inch long daughter. Her toes nearly touch the wrinkled, old skin, it's like she's floating between her fathers closed eyes. The sugar cubes are shining in her eyesockets.
"Oh, father, dear father!" moans the girl. "I have begged and begged for that ugly cow to give me back my eyes, or just puke them out and kick them far away, but it's such an evil and witless animal! At daylight, I almost accept my cage, but at night time, father, I would bite your throats, and bath in your blood! Doesn't every animal feel the same about their keepers? All birds hate fowlers."
Her sugar eyes cry sweet honey on to her father’s mouth. She just cries and cries, until the man can't swallow any more and he begins to choke from the golden liquid.
"Father… Oh, father…" cries the girl. The old man squirms in his bed, rumpling the sheets with his kicking legs. Then he dies. A wind arrives, picking up the girl. It carries and puts her down onto her mother’s forehead, and soon the honey fills her mouth too.
Door handles made of dead bees – rotting feathers in the pillow, somewhere in the night a long sausage, like a deadly snake, coils around a steak hammer. The blind girl keeps prodding the walls, and soon, she finds the door – crawling outside into the freezing night, she leaves her footsteps in the snow.
"How sweet is the air, how big is the world!" she yells. Her long, blonde hair reaches up and tickles the clouds’ bellies. The sky laughs up two flying horses, which begin to chase the girl from above.
"Look, what an ugly pale mole crawled out from her hole!" neighs one of them.
"Don't be so rude, Freckles, look, she brought us presents!" They slope downward, and kick the blind girl with their hooves, who falls on to her back.
"Bon à petite!" whinnies Freckles, biting out one of the sugar cubes from the screaming girl's face.
"The lord's supper can't be better!" says the other, the sugar crackles between its teeth.
"Such a sweet girl, I hope she doesn't catch a cold!" laughs Freckles, coughing dark worms into her face.
"A little chill not ever killed someone!" tells the other. Then they spring to the air, and disappear in the sky.
"Oh, father. Oh, mother." stutters the girl, watching the insides of the sleeping cow, trying to read out her fortune. "The ugly germs found me, like you always said they would. My throat… It hurts. And fever set my thoughts on fire. I wish I had just stayed in my room, I wish you were here to take care of me…"
The girl doesn't stand up, she just lies there, as if she were in her comfy little bed. The snow begins to fall. Soon, a cold blanket grows around her body.
When morning arrives, she's just a bulge, a puckering on the white canvas. Her eyes inside of the cow are not glinting anymore, they are motionless marbles. The cowbell rings sadly on the animal's neck, like it wants to call the villagers together for a funeral. But no one comes; everyone stays inside their warm, comfy homes. In the sky, the old boards of Heaven’s wooden floor crack, as a ghost keeps knocking on it with its weak little fists from beneath.
OLD TRICKS
IN THE MORNING, a salesman greets me at the door. He’s not willing to leave until I watch what his vacuum cleaner is capable of. Eventually, I let him in to do his work. He carries a giant suitcase; I assume the machine is inside. But when he opens the case, a wounded woman crawls out from it. Her head is bleeding; the left arm hangs motionless beside her injured body. She looks like someone who got hit by a car.
“Please, call an ambulance!” the woman whimpers, but the salesman kicks her in the ankle.
“It’s the newest model, you’ll see what it’s capable of, watch! Come on, clean!” What could the woman do? She begins to crawl on the floor, moaning painfully as the broken bones crack inside her body, and puts every shag pile she finds into her mouth. She chokes and coughs, while trying to swallow them. Blood is dripping onto my carpet.
“That’s enough, I’m calling the police!” I say.
“There’s no need for it, if you don’t like the product, then I’ll just leave!” he stutters, grabbing the woman by her legs, dragging her out from the house. Outside stands his car its front is damaged. I know there’s only one way now to save the woman.
“Wait, I’ll buy!” I yell, and the salesman begins to smile. As I give him the money, I curse myself for falling for the good old “hit a woman, and sell her as a vacuum cleaner” trick. The car drives away, and I call the ambulance. As they put the injured woman on a stretcher, the ambulance man asks if I got a warranty card. When I say no, they shake their heads and leave.
Returning to my house, I watch the blood stains on the carpet. How will I clean all this mess up? Soon, someone rings my door. It’s the salesman again, this time offering a stain-remover. As I give him the money, I curse myself for falling for the good old “hit a woman, sell her as vacuum cleaner, who will mess up the carpet, so we can sell our stain-remover” trick.
PLASTICAT SURGERY
SOMETIMES, AS A favor, I perform cosmetic surgery on my friends' animals. Well, I don't have a license, or proper tools for this, and not even a clean operating room, of course, but I have many, many clients. Most of them want their pets to look younger, or want them to have longer tongues, maybe less protruding ears, perhaps prettier tails.
But today, the old neighbor lady rang my bell with a fat cat and an old photo in her hands. She wanted her pet to be more look like his dead husband. I gazed at the vintage black and white snapshot, measuring the face of a young soldier, his perky mustache, then I looked at the dull cat, and I nodded. It was a huge mistake. The surgery was a harder task than I imagined. I was carving the face of the cat for hours and hours, but no matter how hard I tried, it wasn't anything like the soldier in the end. Its head was a messy, red mass. In my final despair, I picked up some yarn and a needle, and sewed the photo to the animal’s head. I also tied a toy gun to its back. The lady picked up her pet with a grim look on her face.
"It doesn't look like him at all." she said, and rushed out.
On the next day, I tried to placate her with a box of chocolates. I rang her bell. I heard some kind of army music coming from the house. Wild trumpets. The cat opened the door. It said: "My wife's not home."
But it took the chocolates, and slammed the door in my face.
FUEL
I NOTICE A strange symptom, so I decide to consult my doctor. My urine smells like gasoline. The doc doesn't believe me, so I have to produce a sample in his office. Puckering his brows he tells me: "Well, I admit. This really smells like fuel. But I'm gonna send this sample to the lab, we should wait for the results to come back."
A few days pass, and I'm still waiting. Then the doc calls, and tells me that the sample was lost, and I should bring another one to his office. More this time. Then this happens again. And again.
Later, the doc takes off for a few days, and I start to suspect that all the piss I gave him landed not in the lab, but in his car's fuel tank. I call his cell phone. He denies it, of course.
&nb
sp; My friends are beginning to act weird too. There's not a day, when one of them doesn't ask me to come over for a drink. And when I ask them about the bathroom after a few beers, the answer is always the same: "Sorry, bro, broken pipe, use this can instead."
I stop visiting them, but I also can't go home anymore. Someone broke into my apartment last night, and packed my fridge full of drinks. I'm sauntering in the streets. Not drinking a single gulp. But strangers come to me, asking if they can buy me a drink. I must escape from the city. Faceless people follow me all day, catheter tubes quiver between their fingers. I woke up drunk. Someone must have poured beer down my throat, while I was sleeping in the alley.
I totter to my doc's house, spitting profanities and I piss down the corner of his house. A few drops land on my trousers too. Then I light a cigarette.
CONFETTI TEARS
THE BOY DISCOVERS a book deep in the closet. The Magical World of Origami – the title says. He opens it. The first page shows how to fold a lifelike pigeon. He grabs a piece of paper, and follows the instructions. When he's done, to his surprise, the bird flies out from his hands and out in the open window.
He gets excited, and turns to another page. This time, he folds a deer. When he finishes, the animal stretches it's long, thin legs, and begins to scud up and down the room. The boy then creates a hunter – a crabby looking paper guy, who immediately points his gun at the origami deer, and shoots it. A loud bang echoes through the room, and the animal falls to the ground. Real blood oozes out from the tiny torn paper hole.
The door opens and the boy's girlfriend enters the room. She screams and tries to take the book from the boy's hand with a worried look on her face, like if it was something the boy shouldn't see. He jumps back, and turns to the other page. It shows, how to fold a lifelike boyfriend. The paperboy on the picture looks just like him.
There's a lot of silence that afternoon. At night, the girl hugs the boy from behind, and whispers in his ear: "What if I folded you from paper? I still love you!"
The boy sighs. They make love – the boy's paper penis soaks, as he enters her girlfriend. It dries by morning. He wakes up all crumpled. The little hunter still runs up and down in the house, shooting tiny paper bullets into the corners. The boy is now standing in front of the mirror, examining himself. He begins to unfold his arm, and discovers word written on the paper. Bread. Cheese. Sausage. He can't believe his love folded him from glued shopping lists and bills. What a shame.
He steps to the open window and jumps out. But instead of hitting the ground, a fresh wind picks up his light body, and carries him over the city. His blue confetti-tears keep streaming from his eyes, and they fall down onto the passerby’s' heads.
They brush the confetti out of their hairs, muttering: "Looks like someone's having a very good time."
THE WORKING OF WALLS
THIS IS HOW walls work:
Some guys play the nastiest game ever possible. When you walk on the street, they stand tightly to each other, blocking your way, telling you (look, even their mouths move together) that they are the wall, and you must break through if you want to continue your journey.
Of course, you try to by-pass them, but it's simply impossible, because they move so skilfully aligned together. You just stand there all helpless before them, when an idea hits you in the head. You quicklystep aside, next to the winger, pushing your shoulder to his, joining the line, saying, "We are the wall then."
The guys look confused. Then they nod, and repeat the sentence.
So you stand all in unison. Waiting for someone to arrive.
And this is how I work the walls:
There's a wide wall in front of me with a cavity in it. I'm deepening this little pit for quite a time now, hitting my head to the concrete again and again with the monotony of a metronome.
Yesterday I stopped, to size up the crater I have made.
I see someone's bleeding forehead in frontof me. Maybe it belongs to God.
AFTERWORD: THE DEATH OF ART
BLANK PAGES PLAYING tag in an empty alley – behind a dustbin the homeless watches this strange waltz – long forgotten writings, the ghosts of unfinished stories they are dead all right – a writer with his pen draws a straight line to his wrist – red ink spouts out from his hand – while the movie director hangs himself with a roll of film – small images stretch on his neck – they show the evolution of a smile which belongs to a half-hearted actress – she's at home now sitting in her bathtub still feeling the projector's heat on her face – swallowing the letters of a script with expensive wine – r, a, s, f, j, c – the hooked letters need at least two drams but when they go down the poison slowly begin to take effect – a scriptwiter's bitterness is deadly
a lifeline torn down from the palm – steady little string there where people who hanged themselves with it – in a studio the soul's untarnishable firework still sparks on the wet canvas
the painter works on his self-portrait after it's done he throws it on the fire and he himself turns into ashes with the picture – somewhere a ceramist forms and bakes his own heart then dashes the whole thing in to pieces while the graphic artist is drawing another nude – his pencil tears off the model's clothes – after that the skin and the flesh
black insects marching down from the score and devours the musician – his last scream is one enormous musical note – vehement connoisseurs try to chase it down – their long toad tongues dangling from their mouths and yes, there were people who hanged themselves with these – an architect destroys the city with a single upstroke – the writer just realizes that only with hooked letters can he catch a muse – …r, a, s, f, j, c… – the caught muses are squirming in the corner – silver scales keep dropping from their bodies – this is the only payment poets will ever get
"the happiness of every artist fits into my palm" says the homeless with no arms "when i had my hands i wrote beautiful pieces of poetry the poems were nesting under my nails i just had to snap with my fingers and rhymes were born"
there is a small drop of ink in the corner – it must escaped from the wound of a poet – a poem forms from it and begins its search to find the death of art – God knows why
INFO & ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ZOLTÁN KOMOR WAS born in June 14, 1986. He lives in Nyíregyháza, Hungary. He writes surreal short stories and published in several literary magazines (Caliban Online, Drabblecast, The Phantom Drift, Gone Lawn, etc.). His first English book, titled Flamingos in the Ashtray: 25 Bizarro Short Stories, was released by Burning Bulb Publishing in 2014.
Contact: [email protected]
"Cayman-cradle" and "The Other Half" originally appeared in StrangeHouse Books' "Strange Story Saturdays", "Slaves in a Closet", and "Old Tricks" originally appeared in Bizarro Central's "Flash Fiction Friday", "Crotch-couch" and "Secret Skull House" originally appeared in "The Strange Edge Magazine", "The Violin-fishers", "The Wild Bull", "Gloomy Sunday" and „The Working of Walls” originally appeared in "Caliban Online, "Horses from the Sky Ate Her Sugar Lump Eyes" originally appeared in "TheNewerYork, "Fuel" originally appeared in "Chrome Baby, "Mall-head" and "Nipples of a Soda Automat" originally appeared in "The Breakroom Stories" online journal of audio fiction.
MorbidbookS is a grotesque Bizarro ballet where the most profane things occur. An impious and perverse dwelling of dark revulsion. A cozy cottage where torture porn and brutal bible tales are devised. A quiet place to relax and spin tales of depravity and wickedness. A halfway house for the disturbed where rules no longer apply. A safe haven for deviant serial killers to hatch their wretched schemes.
Bring your pets.
The tasty ones are always welcome.
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Rae is her name.
Our support group of embittered and most likely deranged women are going to kidnap, torture, disembowel and finally kill the woman who has ruined all our lives
. As foul and as grotesque as she is, she acts like she's Queen of the Bean.
Rae, her buck-tooth grin and rosy cheeks of middle age acne reflected winter sun. Straw-like blonde hair obscured by the veil and tiara she enjoyed parading around in. She walked past our window with sickening confidence oblivious to us and our weak tea.
Rae believes she is above the pain she has caused. Beyond the whimpering of her victims. Out of reach of vengeance. Our support group of women do not agree. Judgement day is here for Rae.
Rae has got it coming.
“No! You will not move. You say I am a fucking clown, and so I will be. And I will fuck you until I can fuck you no more. And when I am done, perhaps I will take you down to the cattle car and watch while the other clowns fuck you one by one until you are so full that their juices run down your thighs. You will learn to show respect for me. For my art and my craft."
Pinning her hands to the bed, he entered her quickly and roughly. She screamed and spit in his face. He slapped her again and left her ear ringing as he wiped the spittle from her face and continued to pound her hard and fast.
“You hate clowns? Well you have a clown inside of you right now. How does that feel? A fucking clown is raping you and he’ll continue to do it until it pleases him to stop."
~The hands of the girls were inside of each-others zip front grey boiler suits and they sat in the blood from where Sonny’s face collided with the surface. The brunette had a finger smear of it next to her mouth.
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