Howdy there, my imaginary friends!
I've recently completed a new short story. It's called The Periodic Table, and can be found at my short story site (which you can find by clicking the second link at the top right sidebar). Please do check it out, and I hope you enjoy it. Good day.
Lazlo's Krazy Shack
A clinking clanking collection of caliginous claptrap.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Short Story Swap NOW!
Here is a fantastic tale by my friend, the writer, Russell Huneke, who can be found at his excellent blog Nighthawk Short Fiction. My contribution to the Story Swap can be found there too. But first, sit back, and enjoy...
The Hot Night
by
Russell Huneke
I lay here
in the heat. It's hot tonight, just like it has been all this summer. The damp,
saturating humidity makes it feel like you're walking through a sauna the whole
day through! I toss and turn, feeling the sodden sheets stick to my bare, slimy
skin. I have no air conditioner and the heat is merciless for a man my age! I'm
seventy-nine for crying out loud!
A raspy
cough rips from my throat. I'm sick on top of everything else!
I suppose
the fan shall have to suffice for now. All it does is blow the swampy air
around, but its better than nothing...I suppose.
My eyes
shift and roll in the darkness. I close them, trying to will myself to sleep,
but the oppressive heat feels heavy in my lungs like inhaling mud. I close my
eyes and feel the darkness press in on me as I hear the errant clinking sound
of the metal fan at the foot of my bed as it rattles on in a slightly uneven
cadence. Then suddenly comes another sound. This one faint and distant, and
slightly muffled, but there nonetheless. I recognize it immediately. It's the
sound of the hallway elevator coming up. The aching sound of the doors opening is
familiar. I look at my analogue clock on my bed stand.
12:30 it
reads.
Probably
some drunken reveler returning from a night of shameless debauchery. Although
I've lived in this complex twenty years, I never keep much track of the comings
and goings of faces and people. I'm a bit of a recluse.
I listen
for the slam of a door to certify that one inebriated derelict has found his
destination, but I hear no slam. What I do hear is knocking. It sounds like the
door across the hall, but I can't be sure. Knocking. Steady and trenchant
enough to be irritating and...even more so...down right aggravating!
"What kind of crazy sumnabitch comes calling
on folks at half past midnight?" I grouse to myself as I peel my
crumpled body from the sweaty sheets and shamble on down the hall; a loose,
phlegmy cough rattles in my throat as I go. I reach for the light switch and
then decide better. I go for the more clandestine approach and peek through my
peephole into naked hallway that is only faintly illuminated by the bare,
sallow glow of the weak hallway lighting. A man stands in front of the door
directly across the hall from me, his broad back faces toward me. He is wearing
a long, dark trench coat and continues rapping at the door with a regular
rhythm. A trench coat! In this heat? I shake my head as I peer from my peephole
and remain as quiet as I can. I want to wrench the door open and lash out sharp
brays of protest, but something about his figure is ominous and fear chills my
bones with an odd little shiver. I keep watching and after a few minutes, the
figure turns and walks toward the elevator, pushes the button and gets in. The
door closes so rapidly behind him that I have no chance to see his face in the
circular window before the car drops and whisks him away from my view. I peel
my gaze away with a shrug. Slowly I shuffle back to my bed and return to my
attempt at sleep. The damp bed sheets feel sick against my narrow bones and my
shirt is caked to my chest with a tight sheet of pungent perspiration. The fan
rattles in the muggy silence and I close my eyes.
I swim up
from my brittle slumber. An hour has passed. The faintly numb drowsiness is broken
by thumping sounds emitting from the hall outside. I rise again, eyes bleary
and mind swimmy and feel my way through the pithy void of night. I peep through
my peephole again, looking out on the hallway. The strange, dark figure is
back. I didn't hear the moan of the elevator this time, but it is the same
man...or at least what appears to be a man. And now my fear and weariness is
replaced with a slowly burgeoning rage. I flip on my lights and a thin wedge of
light seeps from below my door and splays out sharply into the hall. The figure
must have heard the snap of the lights or my movements inside because it turns
about rapidly like some kind of jagged shadow shifting over the walls in the
sickly yellow hallway light. It looks directly toward my door; directly towards
me! It's face is still shrouded in
shadows. It's hair is a dingy mop of electric gray mangled on its head, and the
face is obscured slightly by its upturned collar. Lame yellow eyes peer out,
connecting completely with my line of vision, as if he...or it can see through walls! I blench away
from the peephole as fright tightens around my neck. That was a creepy dark
gaze if ever I'd seen one! I don't want to confront whoever or whatever lurks
under the hoods of those malign yellow eyeballs. I just want to sleep. I just
want him to stop that infernal pounding and go back to wherever it was he came
from! Far away from here, preferably!
I move to
my leather couch. The cushions are cracked with age and the cracks fan out into
a spidery web formation. I sit there, unable to bring myself to look through
the peephole again. Suppose this time the malevolent face was right up at the
peephole, peering at me with its hideous yellow glare? Suppose it was a
murderer!
Now I flop
back onto the couch in a supine position. I mop my face with my large bulky
hand and try to will away the terror I am feeling in my bones. I cough a little
more, but try to subdue it as I have no idea if the strange person is still
lurking in the hallway or not.
The leather
couch feels slightly cool to my clammy skin. The cracks pinch a little but not
too bad. My head lolls back on the rounded armrest as my hand remains over my
twitching eyes.
"I'm
sorry to bother you," comes a voice that stabs the silence and sends a hot
sear of panic through my being. It is the man from the hall. He is standing in
my doorway, having crept my door open. Had I forgotten to bolt it the last time
I was there? Of all the foolishness!
"What
d-do you want?" I yelp, trying to sound aggressive, but the words rattle
in my throat in a shaky stutter, betraying my nervousness.
"Sorry,
I didn't mean to alarm you-"
Coughs! They are stronger and broken up
with ripping fits of gags.
"What
right have you to come barging into a person's private apartment in the dead of
night! I have a good mind to-"
"Please
forgive me. I meant no harm. It's just that your door was ajar and your light
was on. I've been trying to contact the party across the way and..."
"You've
been jack hammering that damn door half the night and..." Coughs! "disturbing my rest! Isn't
bad enough it's hot as Hades, I need this racket from you! And now breaking and
entering to boot!"
My coughing turns violent and I grapple for
breath. Suddenly I seem not able to catch my breath! The room is going swimmy
as I hack and wheeze and the last thing I see is the dark figure running toward
my kitchen and a hissing sound. A sound like rushing water...and
then...blackness!
I awaken,
my chest feeling tight and my throat feels like it's been burnt up. The man in
the dark trench coat is patting my head gingerly with a cool cloth. The cold
dampness of the cloth is refreshing to me. He has a pitcher of ice water on the
coffee table next to me and has poured out a glass. The cubes glisten in the
clear water and are refreshing as well.
"Easy,"
says the trench coat man. "You passed out! That's quite a bad cough you
have there. Sounds almost like pneumonia?"
He hands me
the cubed glass of water and I drink.
"Could
well be. Could be a lot of things for that matter," I say as I sip briskly
at the cold water, it soothes my throat and feels good going down. "I've
been sick for a while..."
"Well
just rest easy. I didn't mean to get you so upset! Are you feeling better
now?"
I nod and
say, "Yes, a little bit."
I look
toward the door and then back to my secret guest. Suddenly his face doesn't
look as malevolent as I had first thought it was. He looks stern, but not
really threatening. His eyes are piercing, but subdued. The yellowish look must
have been a trick of lighting. He is a slightly scraggly looking fellow, but
more innocuous than I had first thought.
"What
was all the banging and big deal about getting into that apartment across the
way?"
"Oh
that," says the dark man, rising to his feet and then taking a seat in my
recliner across from the couch. "I had a critical appointment with the
party across the way."
I slug down
more iced water. The cubes tinkle against the glass like a song.
"What
could be so all fired critical that you have to pound away in the middle of the
night like this?"
The dark
clad man throws his head back, and swipes his hand through his snarled mess of
hair and tips his head up again, gazing at me.
"Well,
you see his time is up. I have to claim him."
I cock a
perturbed eyebrow at Mr. Trench Coat.
"What?
Is he a criminal who has broken parole or something?"
"No
no. You misunderstand. I have to take him.
It's his time to go. That's my job.
I'm the Reaper you see."
I chuckle
at this nonsense. The chuckle almost trips another fit of coughing, but by dint
of my will I suppress it.
This guy's fucking GONE, I think to
myself. My first impression was right. He's a loony! I'd best humor him to get
him out of here!
"Now
wait just a minute. You mean...Reaper...as in the Grim Reaper. Angel of death
and all that?"
Mr. Trench
Coat smiles placidly and nods slowly. I shift up on my elbow and straighten my
back.
"Ok.
If you're the Grim Reaper, then why did you save me? I thought bringing death
was your stock and trade? Least that's what I always heard."
"It
wasn't your time to GO yet," insisted the stern faced man.
"Well,
then how 'bout that gent across the hall? Why haven't you just stormed in and
taken him?"
"Well
I'm not allowed to just storm in. He's a stubborn cuss and refuses to believe
it's his time. Usually when people are near the end of their lives, their will
caves in and I just go in and claim them. But this here fellow. Well, he's
giving me a devil of a time surrendering to what is obviously the inevitable!
Refuses to let me in. And we can't take him until we've broken his will to
live!"
All I want is to get this guy out of my
apartment, I think to myself in thick determination. I have to do something to
pacify him and get him moving on out of here or I'll never get any sleep!
"Okay,"
I say, determination rimmed deeply in my words. "Then how about a..."
Cough! COUGH!!!
"a substitute!"
"How
do you mean?" asks the dark trench coat man, sitting forward.
"Well,
take a look at me. I'm damn near eighty...and in failing health. Maybe dying of
pneumonia soon anyhow. You said so yourself!"
"Hmmmm.
Very interesting. Never been done before, you know. But certainly nothing in
the books against it! And one does have to balance things out, and after all a
soul is a soul. But you would have to we willing, of course!"
"Oh
brother, am I willing," I say, sitting up ramrod strait. "I tell you
what if you can take my soul, you're welcome to it. But if by some chance you
CAN'T, you vamoose and let me get some sleep, right?"
"It's
a deal. But you'll have to shake on it and accept all consequences that would
have been applied to the other party. Do you agree to that?"
"I do
indeed," I reply and shake his somewhat callused hand.
I also believe you should find yourself a
good shrink ASAP, pal!
"One
moment then, please," says the dark trench coated man, standing up and
then turning around. His hands reach in back of him, but they are not hands any
more. His hands have become craggy, alabaster white bones! SKELETON HANDS! The
hands reach toward what appears to be a hood and drape a cowl over its head.
Then he turns around and his face has transfigured into a skull! The skull has
sunken eyes and nose as well as a twitching mandible rocking on its joints as
it speaks! It brings forth a hooked scythe in one bony hand!
"Let
us be on our way, shall we?"
I look at
the being, thinking it some kind of trick of the eyes. But as I look at it
harder and harder it becomes more apparent that what seems insanely impossible
is real! I am looking at the GRIM REAPER!
I look at
my glass of water and see now that all of the ice has melted. It is hotter than
usual now and the remainder of water left in the glass is beginning to steam.
It can't possibly be THIS HOT!
"Oh,
one last thing I forgot to mention," says the skull face figure in
insidious delight as it begins to laugh. "The man whose place you are
taking? He was a very BAD man. His place is HELL!"
The heat
intensifies! The walls begin to melt and I feel myself descending as the fiery
vision of the dark skull faced phantom cackles before me; his crazy twitching
skull mandible seeming to arc in a grinning rictus! The smell of sulfur and
brimstone rise into my nostrils like poking fork tines as I look before me at a
bleeding lake of lava and fire.
And then I
hear the cries of the damned!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Literary Cross-Bloggination!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Notes Toward an Unhinged Manifesto vol.2
ipso facto
Stilted I walked
A twisted mass of grey
Shot through with color
At odd points
But unpainted by the flames
And untainted in their eyes
Made was I and broken
By the hands of a laughing god.
Stilted I walked
A twisted mass of grey
Shot through with color
At odd points
But unpainted by the flames
And untainted in their eyes
Made was I and broken
By the hands of a laughing god.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Notes Toward an Unhinged Manifesto
canto unum
Such were things
That the weight of the world
Lifted me not
From the strings of fire lost
Or the hills of desire and lust
For that which had dissolved
In time.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
5172006
ALLITERATION A LITTLE WRONG
A body in a barrel,
On a barrio by the bay.
A token from Hoboken,
Who was broken night and day.
A-frighted and a-frazzled,
And a-frayed, flayed, and filleted.
A baby with a bottle,
And a bore in a bidet.
A toady in a tussle,
With a tidy tan toupee.
A tin ear in a tunnel,
Taking time to die today.
A-stupid and a-stunted,
And astounded by the stay.
A tuna tin torpedo,
And a tutor to betray.
A penny in a pocket,
Which a piper plans to pay,
A pauper with a paper,
And a puzzle to parley.
A crazy ass acrostic,
And a crumpled clump of clay.
A pimply paparazzo,
Pops a top and stops to pray.
---Lazlo Azavaar
Friday, October 8, 2010
572000
WONDERTIME
Once in the Wondertime,
Runs in the snow.
Wants, when I stop, where I laugh,
Will I go?
When will I,
Want was I,
Wish where I will?
Miss what I hit,
Standing stop,
Running still?
Find what I fake,
Fool a fish in a fray.
Fly like a flay through a flue,
In a tray.
Sing, screwy songs, sucking pipes,
Piping hot.
Pray for a plan, Peter,
Pan full of pot.
Think thinky thoughts,
Thick 'em through, super swell.
Cry crashy crap,
Laugh it up,
Go to hell.
----Lazlo Azavaar
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