TurtleGameMaster

Phil Harwell

Jay Knowles

Marta P

Sean King

Benjamin Chandler

Jacob Sherman

Paz Waz

Chris Dodds

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Chris Baroody

Zoe Becker

English

A long time ago,
In a land called Kentucky,
There once lived a man,
Who wasn't very lucky,
And one day he fell,
Right into a well,
And his situation was very yucky.

‘Twas a lovely spring day, with confidence I say, and the well was crumbling apart. His woman had said, “Our love is now dead,” and this statement broke the man’s heart.

It turned into fall, and she built up a wall, to keep the poor man away. He gave out a call, asked her out to the ball, he just wanted her to stay.

She was appalled, as he was completely bald, and nothing he did could hide it. That is why on the floor she was sprawled, and completely enthralled, by the shine his hairless dome could emit.

“Yes, Madam,” he said. “I am proud of my smooth shiny chrome dome. I embrace my hairless head. My secret? Moisturizing sunscreen applied four times a day.”

"Just what I wanted to hear," she said. "I'm a photographer & I have a series in mind: art's greatest sculptures reflected in a shiny bald head. It will involve lots of travel, but I'm willing to pay every expense. Will you work with me?" He nodded, sun gleaming off his noggin.

This man must be crazy! In fact she was so shocked by this proposal that she immediately accepted it, and off they went snapping photos of great works of art reflected on his shiny bald head all over the world. It went viral on social media, with many replicating the duo’s deeds.

The idea was so outlandish and funny that as originators they made millions. Before long he was spending thousands of dollars a week getting his bald head waxed and shined so that the reflections remained sharp. On the downside the skin on his scalp was now thinning.

As it thinned, the capillaries in it slowly began bursting. This initially left him looking a bit like a young Mikhail Gorbachev, but as time went on the red deepened in color and the entirety of his scalp from his eyebrows up was the color of port.

The colouration didn’t stop there. Over the following weeks it permeated downwards, the pigmentation changing colour every day. Some muted, some pastel, some lurid. Eventually, when two small circles of original skin on the balls of his feet finally closed up the process was over

Full-sheathed in kaleidoscope skin, heart throbbing painful under coils of panic, he steps forward but staggers, slips - now lands, one knee in mud. Like this, he stays. Day becomes like a flashing strobe. In time, his skin becomes keratinous and jagged, but ever more vibrant.

He sheds his crusted skin in a flurry of motion, and all at once his creamy center is exposed. He is now a squishy baby, ensconced in a slimy finish, with wide, wondering eyes, and mouth agape. His metamorphosis is complete.

The Art of the Bald Head

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Damaskox

Megamanisgod

Aan Oberoi

Alex Ramir

Once upon a time (which was actually 2 weeks ago) I had woken up to the sound of explosions, and I look out the windows to see someone robbing a bank!

“Everybody hands up! Get on the floor!” The scene would be so much different were it on the dancefloor. But this was no dancefloor. A masked man brandished his pistol. “Give me all your money! All of it!”

"I don't mean to be a troublemaker," said a woman in the back, "but how can we give you our money while we are laying down with our hands up?" Others slowly agreed, "Yeah! How can we do all 3 at once?" "This is bogus!" yelled a kid. "Totes bogus," agreed the woman. The robber did

curse out loud while pulling one of the captives up.
"Keep a lookout, men!" he yelled to his team of other robbers.
"Show me where the money is, do it quietly, and no funny business, or you won't be able to see how far my shotgun will make your head fly!" he threatened a captive.

The bank teller directed the robbers towards the safe. “Okay, now open it!” “I can’t, I don’t have the password! Only the guard knows the password!” “Don’t you play with me, boy! Open the safe!” Sirens blared across the hallway. Turns out someone pressed the button. “For Pete’s-”

Coffee you have some pretty serious security!”, the robber said. “Sir, this is a bank! And is that gun you’re waving a nerf toy?”, the teller asked. The robber’s eyes went wide, he cursed, and sprinted for the exit, only to find…

There was a large crowd of police outside the door, all wielding water guns. The robber was wearing his most expensive ski mask, so he surrendered immediately. At the holding cell, he was alowed to make one phone call, and the robber called...

his mother, sobbing with tears in his eyes, he exclaimed to her, “Mom you were right, I was not destined to be a robber, See Mom, I have been caught and am at the mercy of the policemen,”he lamented. He knew in his heart of hearts that his last attempt at robbery had been foiled.

The kid’s pursuer, still some ways off, slowed. Tilted an ear. A sound - to him, like a pig’s whimper when time for butchering come. Unmistakable. Lawman hadn’t savored sound like that since ages ago. Time to hunt; time to catch. Then, time enough to make a sinner learn to shriek

until it turns to breathless silence. Lawman’s toes curled in his boots at the mere thought. Pleasure stormed his veins. His mouth twisted up into a sinister grin as he savored the imagery for another fleeting moment. And then, just as quickly, he was off.

Nerfs Up

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Rietje Becker

Sam Becker

The Metapodmemes

Long ago, before television or even radio, your great-great-great grandmother crafted a story into this quilt. See the images? Here's an acorn. Here's a cardinal. Here's a bowl of goulash. It's time you learned its tale...

of the intricate tapestry depicting a cardinal holding an acorn and a bowl of goulash. He wasn’t just any cardinal, he was Cardinal Ordinemus of the Holy Roman Empire. While performing the Eucharist the wafer turned into an acorn and the wine into goulash. It was a great miracle.

Cardinal Ordinemus is my neighbour. He’s a life-changer, miracle-arranger, wine to goulash, he's a drink exchanger. And he cried for our sins. His acorn, now blessed with the holy goulash, grew into a mighty goulash tree that graced the courtyards of this cathedral.

Thus the Cardinal went about his saintly work. But where there are saints, sinners follow. Another neighbor watched the goulash tree grow and conceived a resentment: “Only a devil could make such a thing happen.” From the thought, a plan germinated: to cut down the goulash tree.

Not once did he stop to think about the implications of destroying something unique. He just got a chainsaw and felled the goulash tree at midnight. He left it where it fell, dropping its varied fruits as it died.

He woke up the next morning to see a dozen trees surrounding the stump. It appears the tree is of those fast growing hydra-type varietals, and the fruits impregnated the ground upon their fall. To the old man’s surprise, he was managing a goulash orchard come the next season.

The Heirloom Patchwork of the Holy Acorn & its Goulash Orchard

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They just announced the lineup for this summer’s Clangfest and it’s straight fire! The Seagull Sisters are headlining. Easy Peasy Squeeze Cheese is performing. Sneak Squeak has gotten back together for one night only. DJ Doofus is spinning in the Stress Tent. We need tickets!

Hey, hey chillax bro! We’ll get some alright. Let’s just say I know a few people in there. Best of all they’ll give us the tickets for free. Oh and I didn’t forget to bring the good stuff. Wink wink. A giant gate stands in front of us. “Clangfest”. Time to get this party started.

“Alright, bet” I say, and hold steady as I can. A strobe light pulses somewhere deeper in and electric bass pounds in sync with it - I know the chemicals’ve slid in past the blood-brain barrier by now. Something else: lank, gray man moving choppy, like claymation. Is it real?

Oh yes, it is real. Slenderman is carefully approaching me, carrying a stack of papers with unintelligible scribbles on them. Stranger yet, it looks like they're addressed to me.

Slenderman puts the papers in my hands & their scribbles slowly coalesce into words. "Went to school with no pants on," reads one line. "Tried to kiss Anita Flores, but a green owl flew between our lips," reads another. "Candy teeth," reads the next. "Are these my dreams?" I ask.

Devoid of any emotion, he gave a blank stare. “Well I suppose they are, they seem a little too familiar.” No response from Slendy. He then put down the eighth piece of paper. I immediately grabbed all eight and ran off into the horizon. “Seeya sucker!” I yelled, not looking back.

Candy Teeth on the second stage

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Mako Allen

My cell phone suddenly crashed. When it started up again, there was only this long binary number on the screen:
010100110111010101100010011011010110100101110100.

Then the car wouldn’t start. The same number scrolled across the digital dashboard. 

What the hell was going on?

In the control center a red light flashes. The technician reads through some data then immediately calls the head engineer. “We have a code 3: faulty simulation, subject is noticing the failures. Initiating protocol 7.”

The engineer enters the control room & begins tapping on an illuminated keyboard. "When the subject begins to doubt reality, make them think it's all a dream." A pink gas floods the simulation room & the subject drops asleep. With a nod, the engineer orders the simroom redressed.

“Did we have to be so literal with our gaslighting? I mean, there’s actually gas in there and that annoyingly bright lamp. It’s a little on the nose, don’t you think? Or is that a heuristic to filter out the more resistant subjects?”

“Naturally, my boy. The science of psychic infiltration is not yet advanced enough - thus, the corporeal metaphor must unsettle those minds who are yet too perceptive for our present study. I would, also, advise you to take care with your critiques - engineering is always alert.”

The amount of technobabble was too much for the poor kid. The words the “scientist” said infiltrated into his psyche and incorporated into his corporeal form to destabilise his cerebral wavelength, triggering a negative reaction from him. “What a load of baloney! I’m going home.”

Malarkey Containment Failure

LyraMadeline

KotarouKun

ayesha wells

I can’t stop thinking about the boy next door. He moved into town a few weeks ago and hasn’t said one word to me. He seems to live by himself and doesn’t talk much. I often see him playing with his golden retriever in his front yard or reading on his porch while the sun sets.

One night, I saw him looking at the sunset that evening, that of which was a vibrant explosion of purples and oranges. I imagined that I wanted to jump into the sunset with him, but then I realized that he doesn’t even know me.

I thought “one way to change that!” I walked over and introduced myself, then showed him my favorite card trick. Nothing like a close-up illusion to break the ice!

The first trick worked like a charm. With bated breath he awaited me to show him another one, and this time I decided to step it up. Halfway through one of my more impressive feats of prestidigitation, it hit me. I'd forgotten the doves for the grand finale.

The doves though, had not forgotten me and filled the room in an angry cloud of white and grey. As they began to claw at my face, I realized what a mistake it had been to not feed them for these last few days.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I cried against their battering wings and needle-like beaks. The birds settled & one lone dove approached me. It was the queen. "Are you truly sorry?" she cooed. "Are you ready for pigeon penance?"

“Oh God, my God! Please don’t!” The words quick and involuntary. But the dove queen, her eyes’ve got no mercy in them, no mercy for me. “I’ll swear on my kids, my parents, anyone: let me live, and I’ll live only to tell the world about the glory of pigeonhood!”

The dove queen cocked her head to one side and stared down at me. “Brrt brrt,” she began, and ruffled her gowns up and then down from her throne. “Your children? You’d trade your children for your, brrt brrt,” she continued, “for your life?” I glared up at her beady eyes and said

“No,” I said patiently. Now was not the time for anything else. “What I said was, I would trade my life for my children.”
“Oh, brrt brrt, I see. I like my version better. Guards! Seize the children!”

The guards lured the kids in one by one with promises of free candy, then grabbed them like a mousetrap. They wriggled and wriggled but they couldn’t break free. Then suddenly the guards took out some sweets and gave it to them. “Happy Halloween!” They all left the haunted house.

The Boy Next Door

Jerry glanced down at the photograph in his hand, then back up again at the woman sitting alone at the back of the cafe.

Hands clasped and pressed down onto the tabletop beside an untouched mug of coffee, the woman gazed straight without seeming to see. Her lips alone showed signs of movement, even if ever so slight - as if they were involuntarily giving form to her thoughts

All at once a blinding light coursed through the space. Jerry and the woman froze. And then a creature appeared, seemingly from the air itself.

Jerry had sought it out - so long, drawn towards this moment. He knew the need and the path - winding thought it was - without knowing how. The photograph came to him and then he knew: the thing inside had led him to her. “The gate is human, my God - my God.”

Chris Baroody
@chrisbaroody

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Chris Baroody@chrisbaroody

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