Ten Very Short Stories
Charles de Gaulle and JFK
Veins convey Arrivals, arteries Departures. Limbs morph into runways; digits into terminals; hearts into control towers. Intestines ramify to become conveyor belts; esophaguses de-differentiate, then redevelop as baggage claims. Skin cells are re-purposed as restaurants, neurons as information kiosks.
Through convulsive rituals of construction and transfiguration, one kind of life is transmuted to another.
Great men don't really die.
***
Dear Lord
I bet You think this Psalm is about You.
Don't You?
***
Lice are My Spirit Animals
Scratch, they urge me.
Deeper.
***
Remedial Toilet Training for the Legally Dead
I had never wanted to teach this course. After completing my degree, I had wanted--as we all want--to shape the minds of aspiring scholars.
Instead, as my career foundered, this dream had been superseded by a second--and more unrelenting--ambition, which resided in a more primeval section of Maslow's Pyramid of Dreams:
Not to starve to death.
Almost, I tell my students.
You are getting it, I say.
Next time.
***
I Only Ever See One Side of Them
How? she demanded, exasperated by my derivative poetry. How are my eyes like the moon?
And I said...
***
Some Are Born Dead, Some Achieve Death, and Some Are Struck Dead by the Lord
It is too late to belong to the first category.
Nor does my constitution predispose me to great deeds, or to selfless ones.
I have, however, a vandal's toolkit: an inexhaustible spray can (and a matching vocabulary); an itchy nose, with no handkerchief, and a rabid readiness, in its absence, to make thorough use of any cloth I may find at hand.
And I am at the door of Your Temple.
***
"I Have Never," She Said, "Been So Aggressively Assigned Thoughts and Emotions I Simply Wasn't Experiencing."
Hmm.
Well.
"I'm sorry," I repeated, "that you are feeling so overwhelmed and so intimidated."
***
Death is the Best Nursemaid
He slept like an angel, she assured us.
***
Notes on the Antiquity of Testicles
Adam had 'em.
***
On One Bank, Everyone is Dead. On the Other Bank, Everyone is Alive. In the Middle are Hippopotamuses.
There: Skulls and stillness.
There: Animated expressions, accented with sunlight.
In the water, swaying and squelching, are Oscar, Lawrence, and Olga. Noncommittally pleasant (provided I do not get too close), they demand neither my solemn eternity nor the enervating burden of sustained eye contact.
I choose.
Author Bio
Rachel Rodman's work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Dreams and Nightmares, Brilliant Flash Fiction, and many other publications. Her latest collection, Mutants and Hybrids, was published by Underland Press. "Six Very Short Stories" appeared in Issue #75 of The Cafe Irreal, and "Theories of Oz" in Issue #88. You can find her online at www.rachelrodman.com.