Flash: How to Grow a Man-Eating Plant
October 18th, 2007
Read by Sheila Unwin
The secret to growing a man-eating plant is the same as it is with any plant: you must enrich the soil.
Archive for the 'Flash' Category
Flash: Questions
September 24th, 2007
By Edward Webb
Read by Ben Phillips
“Name’s Claude,” he says. “You’re new.”
I nod again, still looking out into the empty street near the alley. It’s bad enough that I’ve lost everything in my life – my job, my home, my family. But now a chilling realization splashes over me: I am going to be trapped in this alleyway, melting snow soaking into my shoes, listening to a disfigured man with breath as stale as his conversation, forever. This isn’t just another November night. It’s a pit of hell that I’m trapped in, a punishment for my unknown crimes against the universe.
“Sometimes the innocent are put in jail, and the guilty go free.”
Surprised by the comment, I turn back to him. “What?”
Claude’s face twists into a grin, his scar stretched into a new, more hideous shape. “That’s what I like about new guys. They ask questions.”
Music mixed by Navicon Torture Technologies from recordings available from ANNIHILVS:
1. “Instrument Landing System” by Propergol, from the GPWS CD
2. “Rent Boy” by IRM, from the CD, The Cult of the Young Men
3. Gutterballads Vol II, track VI by Wilt, from the Gutterballads Vol II CD-R
Flash: Brimstone Orange
August 29th, 2007
Read by Christiana Ellis
Midnight found her kneeling in grass, thick clumps of dirt all around. One by one she peeled and plucked segments of orange from its skin, then passed them between her legs. In the secret crevices of the tree, she gently tucked away the red-stained pulp. After, Cyan cradled the slender trunk, her fingers buried in its roots.
“Bear something for me,” she pleaded in her sleep. “Bear me.”
Flash: The Tomb
June 10th, 2007
Read by Ben Phillips
To see the insides of you, they will have to pull you apart. The doctor is really nothing more than a soft-fingered explorer who knows his way around the black lumps and brown chunks of the human anatomy; he knows which juices squish out from where and why. He doesn’t know what a gift it is to hold your purple heart in his latex hands.
I would like to dedicate this love poem to Alice. Happy anniversary, sweetheart!
- Ben
Flash: Famine to Feast
November 23rd, 2006
Read by Stephen Eley.
The boy’s face was a thick, fluid rendering of blowflies. They crusted his eyes like false lashes, and crawled around his chapped, broken lips, their shimmering wings vibrating against their fat black bodies. The boy’s stomach was distended; he looked like a spoon, with the bulging, swooping curve of his gut leading into his rail-thin upper body. His ribs protruded; it were as though he had swallowed a birdcage that was pushing out from within.
Happy Thanksgiving, and bon appetit!
Flash: Devote Your Life to Beauty
September 15th, 2006
By Loreen Heneghan.
Read by Mur Lafferty.
We are not a cult. Don’t allow any outsider to confuse you. We are a holy order. You’ll never be asked to give up your family or friends; not for our benefit. We only want you to stay pure. If they try to draw you into some distorted place, don’t listen. Your world is a thing of beauty.
Truth is not beauty. Only Beauty is real. How could it be otherwise?
Flash: Your Shoes
September 1st, 2006
By Bev Vincent. Read by Ben Phillips. Music by Randy Garcia. My chest is heavy, hair brushes against my neck in an unfamiliar way, and my groin… Through the unaccustomed daze, a terrible comprehension floods my mind. I throw back the sheet to reveal a body I?m used to looking at from a different perspective.
Flash: Waiting Up for Father
August 16th, 2006
Read by Jonathan Chaffin, and put to music by Instant Ambient (a side project of The Secret Life). Jars line shelves like delicacies in a shop.
Hands clutch brown water.
Eyes and ears and tongues bob lazily in their containers.
Testicles lie shriveled against cold glass.
I have seen these things many times in many ways.