‘Welcome to the city of lost parents - we will take care!’ says the sign.
“I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing, will they really be happy here?” I ask as we watch rabbits fester through torn tents.
A lady screams and something with curls, a red nose, and lots of white face paint chases her down the street on stilts.
“I already told you, the whistling deer head said they’ll be taken care of. I bet that lady was playing with the clown.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps we should just let them go…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on September 19, 2009 at 1:31am —
21 Comments
“It isn’t road kill,” I say, because it isn’t.
He says that if it is on the road and if it is killed, then it is road kill. But people are different than animals, you know? They have souls and spirits and stuff, Mrs. Misako taught me that in bible school centuries ago.
He gets out a black bag and some plastic gloves and tells me to put down the gun cause we need to get the hot number off the road, but instead, I make the sign of the cross with my pistol, hoping I didn’t off myself in the proce…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on August 26, 2009 at 11:14pm —
16 Comments
“Shhh…”I whispered to the voices crying around me, “Shush now."
Grabbing the next branch and pulling myself up, I thought about her stirring the fire to a perfect temperature, then turning to the cutting board and slicing licorice to stuff her meal.
How long would it take before she realized her meal escaped?
“Free us,” their little voices cried from ground, “Free us, Hansel.”
I dropped to the candy cane roof and carefully unwrapped the Atomic Fire Ball bomb; the old witch had told the other…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on July 22, 2009 at 10:30pm —
15 Comments
Yes, sir, I saw one today - a real cowboy, with real cowboy boots, in real tight wranglers, with a real Stetson cowboy hat, and an Aussie pooch running along beside him.
It was evening, Long horn bulls were loose in the pasture, and the real cowboy and his trusty dog had come out to do their cowboy round’em up thing.
The thing is, the cowboy wasn’t riding on horse.
The thing is, instead of riding a wild Arabian black beauty – he was on a golf cart.
He’d ride right up to them bull butts, and…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on July 19, 2009 at 1:30am —
9 Comments
There is a cactus growing out of my roof.
I prattle about the yard taking the sprinkler off the hose and watering down the hot pink mums that have wrinkled into dead looking things under the Texas sun.
I keep eyeing the cactus, wondering about its vivacity and durability; the way it absorbs sunrays and transforms it into little prickles upon its paddles.
As I prattle and wonder, a mesquite thorn pierces my flip flop and pokes through the soft pink of my foot (ouch!).
I bend to yank it out, a…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on July 8, 2009 at 4:59pm —
8 Comments
1. If vegetarians only eat vegetables what do humanitarians eat?
2. What do they call that thing that dangles in the back of your throat?
3. Does a comma go here?
4. Is one of my nostrils bigger than the other?
5. If talk is cheap why does it cost so much to run our government?
6. Why isn’t a cleaver called an uncleaver?
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on June 25, 2009 at 10:23pm —
12 Comments
Restless, sleepless, angry about it all, she peers into the looking glass.
It reflects ravenous black hair, harpy white skin, and dark eyes with u shaped lines underneath. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what shall I do about these? Snow White, asleep for a hundred years, her skin still flawless, nary a black eye or fine lines - curse her! It isn't fair, it isn't! The poisonous apple preserved Snow white's beauty not diminished it."
Her eyes light a violent purple, and she rushes into her labora…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on May 28, 2009 at 11:00pm —
10 Comments
There is a price for everything. What would you pay? She made a promise, and she was going to keep it – no matter what the cost.
Check out Heart To Heart
here
Thank YOU and enjoy my friends!
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on May 25, 2009 at 12:00am —
18 Comments
The school bus jumbles along the old dirt road.
Toby, Bobby, and Jill are silent in their seats; little Tina is crying, cause she's in kindergarten and she thinks we might die.
I thought the school bus driver looked strange today, I'm just a kid, how was I suppose to know he killed Mr. Cooper - the real bus driver?
The bus makes a sharp right, and my head smacks against the window, and I look up at the mirror above the murderer / bus stealer's head, and I see his eyes, the color of a drought…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on May 22, 2009 at 11:05am —
18 Comments
2012, a summer evening on the porch in that old wooden rocker, creaking up past memories like they happened yesterday. I can see Judith sitting in her own porch chair, a faded olive green recliner that had one of those gadgets that propped your feet up. Sonya, our eldest, had brought it over after the nasty divorce, and Judith savored the thought of rocking in Sonya's ex's prized possession on the dusty porch, her aching body relaxing and exulting in heroines seducing their beaus with simple, cl…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on May 19, 2009 at 6:00pm —
19 Comments
Toad glanced at Frog, and then looked away when Frog gazed at him from the other side of the elevator.
“Cheer up, Toad, I promised you an ice cream when we get to my house.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t the same. That penny was special.”
“I didn’t know the penny was yours.”
“You took it out of my pocket.”
“Well, it was worth the leap,” Frog said through the bandage on his face.
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on May 14, 2009 at 1:49am —
11 Comments
Old mother Blubbard looked in her cubbard, and before she could cry, "There is none!" Sniffed and she snuffed (but never did she puff), for her Shoe House reeked of old toe jam and fried (poor) Pam.
So after she played golf, she rang up the big bad wolf, and asked him to do his…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on May 12, 2009 at 12:22am —
11 Comments
Dark eyes pierce her soul as he brings her slender hand to his lips and whispers, “Ever dance with the devil in a pale moonlight?”
Her hand trembles at his tender kiss and offer. Grandpa thought she was reading another book in her locked bedroom…no one would ever know.Tall, dark and handsome leans into her throat, pulls her close, and they begin to sway to dire murmurs, ambulance sirens, and rat scatters that prick the night with evil.
An antler anointed truck approaches, speeds, and she jumps…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on April 29, 2009 at 7:00pm —
12 Comments
"Stop and kindly raise those hands in the air."
"You’re a…" Mr. Humphrey's jaw gaped at the little green creature holding a weapon twice its size.
"Yes," the green creature nodded, the bowed Stetson nearly falling off its oval head.
"And you're agonna…" Mr. Humphrey jerked his chin toward the register.
"Yes," the thing slid its gun to the side, leaned over the counter, plucked Mr. Humphrey's red handkerchief right off his neck and secured it on its own.
As Mr. Humphrey fainted, the green cr…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on April 28, 2009 at 5:00pm —
14 Comments
Do dolls freak you out? How about alien dolls? What if you give the doll to your toddler? And she starts to talk to it...
Check out my latest sci fi story ‘Bop Bop’ at
Ray Gun Revival (page 25 on pdf format).
ALSO,
Support your local Frog Slinger! Yes, she did it folks. She wrote about frogs....and this mag bought into it (just like you my lovely friends).
Read ‘A Lick Of Fate’ at
Absent Willow Review
And if…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on April 24, 2009 at 4:30pm —
12 Comments
Cuban's romance.
Indiscreet sidewalks hold whispers.
Hot breath abandoned and claimed.
Elbows and legs entwine.
Mouths kissing frantically; releasing.
Elegant heels replaced; tie straightened; separate ways they part.
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on March 29, 2009 at 9:00pm —
17 Comments
"Hold'er steady, lad, wait til'ee pulls, then yank o'line to'er left, then da bugger'll come flyin' outta o water like o bat outta hell."
"Aye, like o'leprachaun from'is gold!" I add, 'twas Saint Patty's day afta' all.
Da 'an I 'is fishin' fer Sea Urples, purplest in o' world, I couldn't 'magine such a purty color stealin' gold from o' green ones.
The bobber sank, bobbed, and I yank 'er left, hook it, reel it, and yell, "Da, it's a-"
"Damn purple Urple 'ith teeth if I'er see one, eatin' on d…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on March 17, 2009 at 12:04pm —
22 Comments
A humid wind blows across the prairie causing Ol' Joe to raise his eyebrows.
He smells sweet corn, clover, even Mrs. Hornsby's watermelons, but that isn't what makes him stand and lift his face to the East.
He also smells popcorn, tobacco, moldy hay, whispers, stabbings, lies– the quiet abominations that carnivals expel into a small country town.
Ol' Joe drives his pitchfork deep into the earth, flipping the dirt's green sins, white petaled weedlings, to the side.
Stopping, he raises his fac…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on March 13, 2009 at 6:30pm —
24 Comments
The man in black pours out of the shadows like smoke from a bottle, his pale face glows under a dark hat brim; skeletal fingers extend bright red tickets toward you. "Would you like free tickets?"
Intuition hits your gut like one too many chilidogs; you hesitate, looking beyond the pink cotton candy stands and dizzying swirl of rides, screaming children and sweethearts holding hands, you see port-a-potties with graffiti, used coffee cups lying on benches, coffee grounds spread like bad art agai…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on March 13, 2009 at 6:00pm —
14 Comments
"Okay, honey, move to the left of the umbrella, little more – yeah, stop there."
James admired his wife's fine figure in a little black bikini, the turban wrapped upon her head completed the
sci fi human sun bathing on mars comfortably look.
"Now, stop giggling, let me snap this picture - it'll be perfect for the book cover." She posed again, and as he snapped, their children smothered in green paint ran past knocking the umbrella and his wife into the pool; she didn't look too bad wet,…
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Added by Jodi MacArthur on March 5, 2009 at 11:10pm —
25 Comments
