Red Tomato Rage

His face showed flush amplified by the streak of ketchup across his cheek. She chuckled as she took a bite of the wicked weapon. He had been slapped with plenty of gloves, many belts, and the occasional haddock, but never with a french fry. She chewed defiantly in the face of his glare. The smell of the ketchup rose to his nose. He slowly wiped it away without breaking his stare. She broke first and turned to chat up some other sap. He glanced to his hand smeared red. Some tomato gave its life for this, he thought.

He looked back to her. Red permeated the air between them. Not anger, he thought, not rage; he knew those well. This dug down some deep new place. He could always slap her back with one of her own french fries, a slab of his steak, or a good handful of mustard. Insufficient options every one: he needed more.

He could drench her in sauces of all colors: reds, browns, yellows, the green stuff with the funny name. She would be sopped head to toe in savories and sweets. Her clothes stained all colors of the rainbow. Her hair dyed ten tones of gourmet accoutrements. Her eyes, her ears, her nose, her mouth all filled full with ketchup, salsa, mustard, hot sauce, syrup. He could empty the table of its complimentary condiments in the name of vengeance and leave her a sopping, sobbing mess.

He could do all that, but he wouldn't. In angry days vengeance was swift. This time, however, all he could do was look. She slapped his face with a french fry and paralyzed him. She could glow tomato red and grow potatoes from her head and he would only sit and stare. She made me useless, he thought, pointless and useless.

She looked back at him and recognized his immobility. Neither said a word. She arched her brow. He swore he saw her float for a second, just a second. She looked back to her plate of french fries and half-eaten chicken club. He took up his bill and walked to the register. He paid, left, and never ate french fries again.

Gluey Lips

For all her effort and will, he would not open his mouth.

Speak to me, she pleaded. Just a word is all I need.

Neither teeth nor lips parted for her. He would not budge.

Is it peanut butter? she asked. Or glue? That has done this to you.

He gave no reply. His mouth stayed firmly shut.

I'll pry you open with my crowbar, she warned him. I will go sooooo far to get you to talk to me.

He said nothing. He sat and stared.

She ran circles around him shouting, TALK TALK TALK! Till she tired and slowed to a walk.

He was mute.

Do you have nothing to say? Just give me a nod, she told him. Please, God.

He looked at her and pushed out a tight little smile. He opened his mouth the tiniest bit and pushed out, Sorry. His mouth closed again.

She stared at him for a moment and then sat next to him. They stared off together. Neither one said a word.

Play Me Songs

He plinked out notes on an upright piano.

Play me songs, she said. Songs I can sing to. Songs I know.

He played a brief melody that she thought she knew. Just as she caught it and began to hum along, he went right back to plinking.

I knew that one, she said. Play it again.

He played a new tune that she knew she knew. She caught it quick and hummed right in. Then he changed it. He changed keys. He made it minor. He smothered it with dissonance. She lost the tune and he went right back to plinking.

That was my favorite, she said. I want to sing to something. Play me something good.

He played a tune she never heard before. She sat and listened, imagining she knew it.

I don’t know this, she said.

He kept on. He repeated phrases. He came to the hook. She hummed the bits that stuck with her.

Who is this? she asked.

He made it to the bridge and paused. He plinked for a second.

That’s not a real song, she said. Is it?

He plinked a bit more and then into the bridge. She swayed. She hummed. He hit his crescendo. He resolved. He stopped. She stared.

Play me a real song, she said.

He looked at her. He looked at the piano. He plinked a note, then another and another, plinking note after note. She sighed.

Red Candy

Rolling softly between her fingers a pair of Twizzlers waited to meet their destinies. She made them wait for nothing more than to glare at him standing just a ways away. Finally a nibble came and they felt no pain, no more than he standing just a ways a way. She never cared much for Twizzlers -- the feeling was mutual -- but she needed whatever she could find to roll soflty between those fingers and nibble just to make him wait, make him squirm, make him keep away just a ways away. She swallowed down that bit of Twizzle -- still feeling no pain -- and reached to bite again, when, he started towards her, moving in a bit of his own, closing in a bit too close. She stopped mid-gape, glanced to her Twizzled friends, whom she had never much cared for and the feeling was mutual, rolled them softly between her fingers, and looked back at him closing in a bit too close. She let her fingers fall lax and the partial pair of Twizzlers fell softly to the floor, feeling no pain, approaching their destinies. He closed in a bit more. She never once glanced at the floor. She never cared much for Twizzlers, and so they went and their destinies they met.

Richard the Ninth Dreams Big

As a child, Richard the Ninth dug three holes to spend in his time in for the three whole days that he was grounded. The first hole was Richard the Ninth's least favorite until he spent time in the second hole, which then became his least favorite, though after spending time in the third hole, Richard the Ninth dubbed that his least favorite. He could not say what made every hole his least favorite, but knew right awway that he loathed worms more than any other legless creature found in nature, even more than the snake, the skank, and, yes, the crisp. On the fourth day, Richard the Ninth filled the holes and vowed never to speak to another worm again.


As an adult, Richard the Ninth built a home at the bottom of a valley from the belief that landslides and earthquakes affected only those who lived atop mountains. What Richard the Ninth failed to realize was that the valley was a public park and, also, located just beneath a flood plain. Fortunately, out of habit, Richard the Ninth waterproofed everything he touched. Unfortunately, out of fear, he had never learned to swim. Richard the Ninth spent many nights atop the roof of his valley home until one night he made a crucial decision and abandoned his abode. Learning as much as he could from this life lesson, Richard the Ninth built his next home on the edge of a desert cliff many miles from civilization.

Notes From the Journal of a Pensive Park Visitor

They fed on self-satisfaction, applauded themselves till their hands revolted, dreamed of being low because they had brought themselves to such lofty elevations. We looked on in despair thinking that nothing could get so high as these on high telling us how on high they were. Then we stopped looking at them and saw the mountains, quiet and resolute in their peaks, formed over millennia, their apparent stillness belying their constant motion beneath. We found we preferred the mountains, if nothing else for the fact that they let us climb them, leaving gravity to be our only judges.

You’re awfully quiet for an auctioneer, she told him. When I got nothing to sell, he assured her, I got nothing to say. Say something fast, she implored, real fast like you mean to sell something. I ran out of words, he muttered, ran out so I couldn’t – he stopped. He really had run out of words and she wasn’t worth the sell.

Flowers aren’t all for giving. Some flowers are for taking. Some flowers are for eating. Some are even for grinding up and stuffing into pillows to make people think they’re sleeping in places other than they are. Spend an afternoon talking to a flower and before long you’re liable to think you are a flower. You won’t just be for giving, but for taking, for eating, for grinding up and living inside someone’s pillow, making them think they’re sleeping in a place other than they are. So much for talking up the flowers.

Two Lanes

The drive down took forever, she thought. To him it was a good chance for time in the car, time moving, out of stillness. The music didn't hurt either, but neither was listening much to it. Several times he forgot to pick a new song and only the sound of the tires, the engine, the sparse traffic gave their drive a soundtrack. She wanted another song. He just wanted to keep moving. Something to kill the silence, she thought. So much noise in the bustle along, he noticed, never a moment of silence when we move so quickly.

They passed a sign promising plastic surgery without the scars. He laughed. She missed the sign, but heard him clear enough. No help that. She would have preferred some Coldplay or that other band that sounded a lot like Coldplay. She'd even settle for Styx at this point, anything to fill the dead air. He wondered what he'd look like with a scar on his chin.

He turned to stare out his window and began to hum. Still no help. She wanted to turn to her window, too, hum an indistinguishable tune, but she was stuck behind the wheel, their lives in her hands. With so much responsibility, so much angst, the least he could do was pick a song, a real song, a song that she knew and actually liked. She gripped the wheel to blanched knuckles hoping for a cow to smash into. He wished to himself that the drive would never end. Seventy miles to go and not a cow in sight.