Sunday, May 22, 2011

Issue Thirteen, Volume One

From the Desk of the Editor,

     Hello and welcome survivors of world's end. This week at Larks Fiction we have works of contemporary post-modern. Or are they post-post-modern? Either way they are works of enthralling fiction! Be advised they contain some language.

     Starting this week @LarksMedia on Twitter.com will be a daily writing prompt project. Each day a new prompt will be given. See what you can do (and maybe submit it latter).


     Also we would like to thank Kelly at Steady Pen for reviewing us! You should check her blog out if you enjoy writing.


     Thanks for reading and enjoy!


Yours,
Daniel J. Pool
LFM Editor



A Sacrament and A Glory
By—Robyn Ritchie

     Rory found him some God the other day. Gods, I guess I should say, cause he swears there was two of ‘em. He says twin Gods, right in the last stall of the boy’s john, the one that always smells like crap. No clue why he went in that one, but anyway.

     He says he was sittin there mindin his own business, not hurtin nobody. Then all of a sudden, there was like pink smoke poppin outta nowhere, and these twin Gods are there.

     “Wait a minute, pink smoke?”

     S’what he says.

     “Sounds like ol’ Rory been smokin him some pink smoke.”

Yeah, well. Anyway, they’re pretty. Like, movie star, kinda pretty. And Rory, man, he’s like freaked the hell out cause he don’t know whether these guys are there to beat em’ and steal his money or beat em’ and rape em’, you know? He’s hollerin and all, callin for help but no one’s answerin him cause of the pep rally and he can hear us in our scream-battle gainst the freshmen but we can’t hear him.

     “Pussy! Why don’t he beat their asses? That’s what I’d do.”

     You gonna beat a God’s ass? Yeah, okay. But, you know, they don’t do nothing to him. He says he pulled up his pants and crap’s just everywhere, you know, cause he didn’t have sense enough to wipe his damn self. Damn fool lookin bout a mess in front of Gods.

 “Ha!”

     But they say some God stuff then. He stops fumblin with himself cause they talkin.

    “Say what?”

     They say something he can’t even understand. He says it was like another language, like, uh, Swahili.

     “Swahili?!”

     Hell yeah. Must be some African Gods, he says.

    “Man, Rory needs to shut hisself up. Ain’t no African Gods round here.”

     I don’t know, I’m just tellin you what he told me. You gonna shut up so I can finish?

     “Yeah, yeah.”

Okay, so, anyway. He can’t understand what they sayin but that pink smoke still there so either they aliens or Gods and Rory thinks they Gods. He tries to listen but he can’t understand Swahili and he tells ‘em that and they can understand him. Then they take their nails and scratch a message on the wall.

     Rory’s like, Woah! This’s nuts! And one of the Gods, man, they lean over and kiss the fool’s cheek. He got a rash on his face now, done took up half his head.

     “Sounds more like aliens to me.”

     Well, maybe.

     “So what’d it say?”

     What’d what say?

     “The writin! What’d the writin on the wall say?”

     Oh, that the Gods done did?

     “Yeah.”

     Some Swahili shit.

About the Author:
     The author is a college student who gets by on a lot of coffee and a little writing.


Manhattan Love Story: Dancin’ Across the U.S.A
By—Kyle Hemmings

     Zin and I are doing our version of The Bubblegum Strain before 17 million viewers around the world. It’s the show How Many Legs Have You Got? Slinking and slow-burning, we combine old hip-hop routines with improvised House four-to-the-floor. We do half-time and dubstep. Zin is kick drum; I am snare. Zin is synth-stroked climax; I am deep in spacey futurism.

     Zin is dressed as an eighties Madonna, long skirt with tie-up boots. I am a slender Hercules on diet of parallel worlds.

     The audience claps. The judges give irrelevant critiques and scores. Judge No.1 gives us a 7. He says I lack attitude. No. 2 gives us a 9. She admits it’s hard to adapt to dubstep. It’s like crashing gates. No. 3 gives us a 6, claiming that our grime was too complex and jerky. I can feel the sweat from Zin’s palm traveling through my lifeline.

     “Wait,” says Zin, “it’s not over. The second dance is always better.” She stares each judge in the face. I’m about to go Kode9. The cameramen are giving each other strange hand signals. Zin shuffles to the edge of the stage and flies. She floats over the audience, under hot colored lights. The people stand.

     The judges rise and guffaw. No. 1 says Is she Mary Poppins? No. 2 says The craziest shit always happens in front of the cameras and not behind. No. 3 asks if there are strings attached to her. Zin returns to the stage, perched before the judges.

     She looks at me with her big Barbie-Girl aqua eyes, the only thing about her that is not breathless. I’m walking on a mist. The audience can’t stop cheering. The judges stand and collectively fire themselves. In the backseat of a taxi, I hold Zin’s hand and look into her eyes.

     She smiles like a ballerina returning to her life on strings. In her eyes are miniature porcelain swans forever stuck in their orbits.

About the Author:
     Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey where he talks to disillusioned cab drivers and humble ex-nymphomaniacs. His work has been featured in Technicolor, Amphibi.us, Spork Press, Nano Fiction, Pank, and elsewhere.

Thank you for reading this installment of Larks Fiction Magazine. Join us next June 12th for Issue Fourteen for works of quirky fiction about life, death, and sudoku!

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