I’m second car at the light, the first a police car. The officer fusses with his hair in the rear-view. He fusses, he musses. Slick the sides back and repeat. Playfully he arranges his forelock, and then plucks it forward twice more. No, three times.
The light is green, should I blow the horn?
Doug Mathewson
The good folks at Chicago Literati put this piece of mine up on their site for their magic realism issue. It’s a tighter edit (at the suggestion of my friend Catfish McDaris) of something I wrote a few months back called “Passing Through”. Thanks, much appreciated to all.
Chicago Literati November 30, 2016 Current Issue, Feature Issues, Fiction, Magic: The Magical Realism Issue
Coyote, Moving On by Doug Mathewson
Buckshot holes in her pack and the shoulder of her jacket told a story I didn’t want to know. Her being so hungry, ravenous you could say, and having dirty hands and matted down hair you could see she’d been living rough. Had more hair about the face than most women, starting out light on her cheeks and getting redder as it went back. Bright black eyes, not like a regular person. Now you could ask about a tail and find out just how sharp that knife on her belt was. Find out how quick she was too. Damned quick I’d say, from the look of her. With troubles up north some people, especially people who were part something else were making their way south. Keeping to themselves. Being real quiet about it. I’d done that trip a couple or more years back, run across a few other folks who had too. For now, I’ll just buy her two more burgers with fries and be listening when fox-girl wants to talk.
She liked it when I called her Coyote, figured she was from someplace they still told the Tricksters old stories. She was from no-place on the northwest side of nothing, way up in Quebec. She said she hoped her two moms wouldn’t be worried. I thought she meant one thing, but then knew she was meaning was her human mom and her birth mom. There aren’t a lot of people up there. Two dozen trailers maybe, up on a big lake with nothing but forest in every direction. Some youngsters come out of the woods, and other kids get curious and want to go in. People take in each other’s children, their kid’s friends. That’s how bonds were made and families grew. I remember it too. Native kids, Quebecois, and forest kids, running like a little tribe. More winters you spend in the trailer more human your ways. Start speaking French and wearing clothes sometimes. Seeing if you liked the people part. Seeing how much you might miss the other.
Coyote was down to a smear of ketchup and a glass of ice when she asked if I knew a place she could stay. (Better she asked than I offered). Sure, maybe, I said well, maybe sure. You can stay with us. I’ll check with my wife but most likely it’s okay.” Coyote smiled natural now, not afraid to show her teeth. My wife, Claire, got native blood, the daughter of a medicine man, so she recognized me right away when we meet. It was something else, the magic we had back then. Together the two of us pulling from both the earth and sky. She thought it was funny when I asked her to marry me. Man nor boy on that whole damned island had been brave enough to ask her. We told her folks, and funny thing, they saw it as us being married was about the old ways. Spirit Worlds of man and nature combined. I know Claire misses them. I miss them too. Miss that whole way of life.
More than likely the girl staying on with us will be alright, but I’m not fool enough to be bringing home a bottomless pit of a dirty she-fox kid without asking. Couple of months maybe me and Claire be moving on anyway. Go out to the coast, get a job on a fishing boat. Be spring then and I’ll be going white to brown like I do every year. Leave here before anybody starts asking questions. Your hair, your beard, they can go all white and people just think you’re getting old. It don’t work the other way. People get funny and start to ask. Yeah, dump the job, screw the boss, screw the rent too and just leave. Won’t be first time I’ve been called a weasel.
Real short, but all you need. That’s the point of Flash fic isn’t it? From another era in American life, universal family stuff I guess.
NOTE: 4/25/17 this piece is now up online at The Literary End literaryend.blogspot.com What they do is post short fiction accompanied by a photo of someone or somethings butt. I got a pug’s ass. Thank you very much.
The Holidays
Your mother had had three drinks.
Mine just finished number four.
Soon the fur will fly.
Doug Mathewson
We are very fortunate to have a pair of young kitten sisters in our house. We adopted then in early Oct. of 2016 when they were about five moths old. They are petite tuxedo cats and bring us great joy and companionship. They are named for Canadian painter Emily Carr, and Frida You-know-who.
Meow-Let’s-Go-Anarchy
Watching our black and white kittens shred the laces out of
my black Converse high-tops. Joey Ramone would be so proud.
Doug Mathewson
Amazon
I’m glad we joined Amazon Prime so the cats get a new box to play with every couple of days.
Doug Mathewson
I was reading a lesser know Phillip K. Dick novel called “Maze of Death” and was inspired to write this. Not by the novel itself but by the table on contents where every chapter has a brief description of what to expect. The descriptions had nothing at all to do with the novel and I thought that was great.
Glow-Bee and Me
Our implants told me and Glow-Bee that we won a rabbit in a raffle. She didn’t know what a rabbit was, and I’d never heard of a raffle before. When you’re pan-dimensional like us, sometimes it’s hard. Or that’s what we think we are anyway. Glow-Bee just says “Same shit, different day”, but I don’t agree with her about that. I call her “her’ because sometimes she appears as a very tall older woman. Mostly she looks like a big glowing iridescent bee. Twice now that I can remember she was an entire K-pop band from a hundred years ago. Mostly I’m people. I’m like a slide show and I’ll look the same for maybe a couple of days or only a few minutes. Always, always I have a beard.
Usually some fat guy with a bushy face, occasionally a bearded lady. Glow-Bee says sometimes when I’m sleeping I look like a squid with a beard (I have no idea what she means by that). Anyway now we have to find a common plane where we both have
physical bodies and go see about that rabbit. Glow-Bee is after me about something called a “ticket”, what ever that is.
Doug Mathewson
I wrote this pre-election Nov. 2016 when I and much of the country was in a lighter mood. The inspiration for this story comes from a story by Amanda Marbais called “Colossal”. It’s published in “Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet” issue #34. The story is brilliant and involves a giant squid named Gerald who is dealing with among other things his droid-porn addiction.
Getting Out The Vote
When he was nominated the business of who would be the first not actually completely human candidate for office was resolved, and Ball Joint was fantastically popular. He had good looks, a quick wit, and always seemed to be enjoying life. His appeal was universal. He was a household word, if not one spoken aloud.
Human people did not care to admit they knew him as the world’s most popular droid-porn star. Other droids would point it out with pride and hybrid or humanoid
citizens found this aspect of Ball Joint’s success story hilarious. Now he was “Candidate Ball Joint” and the world could move on towards election day.
All adult citizens got to vote. Fox people, dog people, rabbit people (don’t call them “bunnies”), all species and of course androids. Everyone except zombies because fuck them, and are they alive or what?
Droids were the first to get the vote. The old style original humans were few, and those few were faltering. Everyone loved droids. They were pleasant, polite, often charming, and always willing to take on the most unwanted tasks. The jobs no one wanted to do. Like being a poet. Who would want that, with such long hours and so little reward?
Some in the press called him “Nick Chopper”, a reference to Dorothy’s Tin Man
without a heart when he proposed major cut backs, even on oxygen production to balance a budget that had long been mired by decades of neglect and abuse. Ball Joint’s supporters came up with the slogan “Oil Can” in response. The slogan that soon appeared on T-shirts, banners, and bumper stickers.
The real clincher, the move that would be credited for his eventual win, was when Ball Joint started making his appearances in full droid porn gear with a big old fashion oil can in hand. Giving a knowing wink, he’d shoot a couple of squirts from the oil can and say; “This election,…. it’s gonna be tight”!
Doug Mathewson
You know those little features in big city newspapers called “Missed Connections”or some such? People are always describing themselves and the other party with whom they would like to connect with in terms of their expensive wardrobe or fashionable location. “You in vintage Gucci, I in limited spring collection Armani at the 92st Y members event……” Nobody is ever at Walmart, nobody is ever wearing old gym clothes with mustard stains and a broken zipper. So that is where this piece is coming from.
You – Three thousand dollar MacLaren stroller and sleeping child.
Me – Six hundred dollar car and someone else’s dog.
The light was changing, I rev’d the engine, you flipped me off,
I blew the horn, your child woke crying, the dog went nuts.
Next time, …… coffee?
Doug Mathewson
Since Wilhelm was the oldest, his job was wiping snot from Grandfather’s great
walrus like mustache. Wilhelm often waited until long drooping strands were dangling off
Grandfathers chin. Grandfather did not care for Wilhelm. Wilhelm did not care for Grandfather.
Gretchen, the youngest, just knew in her heart she’d knife the old man before she’d take over Wilhelm’s job. Her stabbing Grandfather would make their mother very sad Gretchen knew, so she daydreamed about burning their little house down while everyone was asleep.
Wilhelm’s middle sister, Little Martha, told all this to the blind man who sold postcards in front of the Cathedral. They were close friends. Little Martha picked out all the postcards that he sold. She told him they were religious paintings by Renaissance Masters depicting Saints, Holy Miracles, and Bible stories.
They were actually photos of naked muscle men. The pictures were well done, Mediterranean sunshine gave a warm tone to the oiled bodies of these young men.
Most often they posed to display their striking physiques. Sometimes they were kissing or just holding hands.
by-Doug Mathewson