Category Archives: Entertainment

Beth Whiting – GALE AND HER DIARY

Gale was writing in her diary:

It starts with me thinking about school. Then I start praying and I say please don’t let them mention that I’m ugly, please don’t let them mention that I don’t talk much. The list goes on. Then I stop praying and I lie there in bed for two hours stressing over the fact that I have to go to school tomorrow. Something that’s probably so ordinary to them is so frightening to me. And…
I’m sorry Gale.

She didn’t write that. Did someone else just write in her diary? Gale was puzzled.

When Gale went to school the next day, she was paranoid about the person who had written in her diary. She was sitting alone in the front of the school eating an apple when Arnold approached her, a boy who had called her ugly countless of times. He was a giant at 6’3 and very scary to her.
He sat next to her and confessed, “I wrote in your diary.”
She was silent. He continued.
“I’ve been hacking into diaries for sometime now. It’s interesting. It’s really changed my perspective.”
“How can you hack into mine? Mine is not even on the computer.”
“I’m not going to tell you how I do I it. But I’ve been doing it for the past month. I’ve learned that I shouldn’t have bullied you. I’ve read your diary and in the end you’re just a shy sweet girl. Really harmless.”
She didn’t know what to say, certainly not thank you.
“I guess I did it at first just cause I could get away with it. But reading other people’s diaries I’ve learned that everybody has value.”
“It’s an invasion of privacy…you really shouldn’t do it,” she stammered.
“Anyway, I’m not going to hang around my friends anymore. All they do is pick on people which is not me any longer. So I’m sitting here now.”
Arnold continued, “Do you want to know about what people say in their diaries?”
“No.”
“You should. That’s not to say that I haven’t read some frivolous diaries. A lot of girls gossip. Nothing interesting either. I wonder how many people actually look over what they’ve written. Not everyone is a writer, that’s for sure. A lot of entries that try to be serious come across as funny. Like poems about death and stuff. Some of it is excruciating.”
“Whose diaries?”
“Everyone in this school.”
How could he hack into diaries? Gale knew he wasn’t some sort of genius, not that she was either.

Later on that day, Gale heard someone say, “Someone wrote in my diary yesterday. They said that I gossiped too much.”

————————

A month later Arnold was still sitting by Gale during lunch. It felt nice to have someone to talk to.
She knew he was still a bully. He just was nice to her now. That was all.
She heard people talk about this diary fiend, that he was a degenerate.
He really wasn’t nice.
She heard about the things that he did. Like he would write in someone’s diaries that someone liked them. He wouldn’t lie either. He would make sure that they meant it in their diary.
Gale saw a boy come to a girl and say, “Gross I’m not interested in you.”
There were rumors about who this diary menace must be.
Most said it was simply a ghost who had the power to read through diaries and write back.
Gale no longer wrote in her diary in her usual way. She wrote in code and she made sure not to even write a key for it. As a result it took her a long time to read it and understand her diary. But she was sure that Arnold couldn’t read it.
He mustn’t be able to read it.
For she saw how he made fun of people who liked other people romantically. And she had fallen for him.
No person had taken the time to get to know her. It was so nice to have someone to share lunch with. He was a good person somewhere inside. After all he had apologized to her.

She wrote in code:

Dear Diary,

Arnold came over tonight and we watched The Lady Eve. He made fun of me and said, “Why do we always have to watch old movies? Can’t we watch something normal?”
So we ended up watching Back to the Future.
I was going to make microwave popcorn. But he insisted that it was awful stuff. So he made it on the stove. He burnt half of it. I lied and said it was better.

Arnold sat by her in school the next day, “Do you think that people have any clue that it’s me that’s doing it?”
“No. They think it’s a ghost.”
Gale was going to say a mean ghost but she held back her words.
“I think I make people realize their weaknesses.”
“No you’re just invading their privacy. Most people know their weaknesses anyway. Do you keep a diary?”
“No. It’s too vulnerable. People can read all about your inner secrets and stuff like that. Why would you want that hanging around?”
“My mother died and wrote all this negative stuff about my father and me. That’s a bad lasting impression. You might be right.”
“I’ve noticed that you’ve stop writing normally in your diary.”
She paused.
“I don’t want you to read it.”
“Why? You have secrets?”
“Yes. We all do.”

Dear Diary,

I came over to Arnold’s house today.
He confessed to me his secret tonight.
He said he can travel through ordinary day objects.
I asked what he meant.
He said he had been my pen a few times.
I didn’t get it.
“I can travel through computers, pens, whatever. That’s how I’m able to read people’s diaries.”
Of all the things to become in the world why would you want to be a pen?
I asked him if he could possess people and he said that he could. But he wasn’t interested in that. He was interested in becoming ordinary objects. The idea struck him one day that he could get more dirt on people in school if he read their diaries.
If he’s doing it for social status then it hasn’t worked, I mean he’s sitting by me at school. It must be something to spook people? Maybe that’s the point?
But I’ve been to his house and he treats his parents well. That’s says something.
We made brownies together last night. He helped me with my homework. I flunked the last test. Hopefully he can help me.

Dear Diary,

Arnold told me that he’s going to break the code in my diary.

The next day Gale felt that her diary was heavier.
When she opened it she saw a message written inside:

Help Gale. I’m trapped.

Dear Diary,

As you know Arnold is now part of you. I guess that he finally messed up and got stuck.
He’s figured out the code and he thinks it’s cute I like him.
We write each other so much now.
Don’t we Gale?
And when I run out of diary pages?
Just keep on attaching more paper.

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Bio: Beth J. Whiting was born in 1983 to a large family of brainy eccentrics. At eight years old she developed a love of books through the works of Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis. Beth has struggled with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder since her teenage years, and uses writing to express, imagine, and create. She currently lives with her artistic twin sister in a tiny apartment in Mesa, Arizona.

Three further shorts by Beth appear in DM 69 PRAVDA … http://www.dansemacabreonline.com

Simon Perchik – *

*
Closer to the center each palm
had grown a place :three mouths
and what they feed on

cushions your teeth the way each finger
folds around her breasts
-for a long time now

you get by with just one tongue
and the warm flow it pumps in
then out as cheeks filled with sunlight

already open fields -the three
once grazed together though your hands
were never wide enough

couldn’t swallow the Earth whole
or feast on its ancient cries
still pressing your lips apart

for the dead and grass -both fists
as if when they open there is nothing
you would say to her.

*
Another leak -this clock
is falling back again, reeks
from headwinds and engine oil

-it’s useless to move one hand
ahead, letting it touch
little by little the chimes

not yet the words its dead
are used to -what it needs
is rest, a lullaby, some dirt

to quiet those helpless cries
every hour on the hour
from nowhere, taking so long

-one behind the other! each footstep
lowered softly inch by inch
beating, already asleep on your lap.

*
And both arms more and more
spread-eagle, clasping the dirt
tearing it side to side -another sore

cut out the way a shrug
is divided piece by piece
carted away in songs about love

that no longer depend on lips
reaching across as mist
not yet sunlight or useless

-you dig two holes, one
for bells, the other no longer bleeds
is already moving the sky closer

letting it lean forward
emptying the Earth, kept open
and listening for kisses.

*
And when the tide slowly at first
though the palm underneath is smaller
girlish, clinging to sand and each other

the way all night these clams
are etched by your gentle waves
already the bond all water

grows used to :hand over hand
tasting from salt and each shell
counted as two -in the dark

it’s easy to mistake all that’s left
with a single shoreline -the sea
led down, emptied clam by clam

to close it, knee deep in madness
in some vineyard, kisses and kisses
counting as if you are still uncertain.

*
With all its weight this wall
just built and is already
tugging at your side

as if with every birth
its twin will block your path
with those same flowers

mourners still pull up
try to climb a bit longer
reach out the way these stones

half marble, half bubbling
interlocked, higher and higher
almost crushing you

with their garbled cries
as hillsides, to bring
more, to cool and one another.

————————————————————————————————————

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review,
The Nation, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at http://www.simonperchik.com.

Jim Meirose – CAMERON’S ON CALL

The beeper goes off. Plunge out of bed into slacks and a shirt. Planners. Given the facts they can do well. Given lies they will not. Hurt it off. Cry. Bring the teats to the Phillies. Get in the car, go! Go on really doing it until Tundro stops you. Tundro say do dis. Tundro say do dat. Hurry hurry hurry eels. Catch a big, squirming eel. Handle the damned thing. Be not afraid as you would be now. They come up out of the can. Can of eels. The Sorrows of Young Werther. Kraken the deep; hurry, hurry. Go up the hill. Come down again. Hang the men from the lamp-posts. George. George Goethe. Break the studs. Rattle the thing. By god, she said—what the hell are you doing. He stopped hammering and looked up, hammer lifted. What? he said. What’s wrong with doing this? And again he began to hammer the thing flat. Go to hell! He shouts. I have a right to do this! I can destroy this as well as do anything else, so why not destroy it? Hammer. Stick it up the shin. Give the less for the more will follow. Give the more and the less will follow. Cry out in the thing, while you are riding in the thing, in the midst of it, tamper free and waterproof, it stands; give more to get the better one, and ask for the best they have. Hung up on this thing, he throws the fit of an age. Grow liars up the friendly place. Throw the crap all over the goddamned place. Worry the handlers of the cat in the river bottom embedded. Up in the corner. What the hell are you doing, she says—why are you hammering on that? That’s mine! Give the bad one for the good one any day. Ride the car. Violets. Violet is her name. Purple is darker—plus the good ones have all been given away. Harry rode up on his white horse and came into the place like he owned it. Beer! he shouted—Beer! Tamper free the next one and we will serve you up the best foods, but tamper free none and starve. Bean the man. Put on the beanie and spit in the food—freshly sliced and all, the head cheese lies there. A platter of head cheese sandwiches. Gone in the river of time is the cat, gone on the waves of the fresh bait in the world and the winter is the snow has the cover it mound. Fresh bait, he cried! Fresh bait! he cried. Wolf down the food and swallow it whole so as to get past the taste quickly. Friday. Make a run on it. Give the dryer the fart. Buy your appliances online, sight unseen. Five hundred is about to be broken. Do the thing up right. Close the platter, wrap the food saran-style. Beanies. Beanies. Bean bag beanie man. Do dat, said Turf—Do dat an den we will see. Cry out! Cry out in style! Pull the legs of the common man. Crank the gears of the gizmo contraption. Don’t take any crap—don’t! Reilly Roman. This is his name—Reilly Roman! The Ballad of Reilly Roman! is the title. Pound the disk drive with a five pound sledge. That’ll do it. And fry the other side. Do it up frog. Race for the finish—for the finish of the race. He ran. And he ran and ran. Able to run. Sweaty. Cocky. When you were able to run, you ran. He moved quickly to the stern, the bow was awash. So—Reilly Roman, eh? You expect us to believe that’s your real name?
Yes—yes it is—
So what were you doing sneaking around the place?
I wasn’t—
Yes you were—you didn’t belong there—
I did belong there I—
No you didn’t! Don’t lie! Why were you there?
I work there.
You expect us to believe that?
Well, yes—check the register. You’ll see I signed in—
That means nothing—anyone can sign in.
I am an employee! Call extension 3579! They’ll tell you—
There’s nobody here at night. Listen, why don’t you just tell us why you were really here.
I am an employee!
There are no employees here at three in the morning.
Well I was—I am! Come up—I can show you my desk—
We can’t let you go back up. The cops will be here soon. We’re turning you over to them.
The cops? Why?
For trespassing.
Look—listen—I got to tell you—I needed to get some things ready for the morning, that’s why I came in—
Oh and you expect us to believe you are planning to come back here in the morning?
Yes I am.
That’s unbelievable.
It might be unbelievable—but its true.
Reilly Roman—you expected us to believe that’s your name—
You know you two are going to be in big trouble in the morning.
Oh? How so?
For not believing me.
Let me in let me in let me in NOW!
No way—now get out of here before we call the police—
I’m on call—I need to get up there—
On call for what?
On call in case of trouble with the tables.
What tables?
The system tables.
What are the system tables?
Never mind—just do the damned tables okay?
Christians. Good christians gone bad. Rub around the stick. The ballad of Reilly Roman. Crusts on the plate. He eats around the crust, like a child would. Well—he will go down nonetheless. Age free are you. Tundish. Grow up now. Grow up and take the music like a man. You don’t belong here—you never did. Why did you lie to us about it? The wart makes the man you know. The wart makes the man. Go back home and out of the slacks and shirt and go to sleep knowing you have solved another problem.

—————————————————————————————————————

My work has appeared in numerous journals, including the Fiddlehead, Witness, Alaska Quarterly review, and Xavier Review, and has been nominated for several awards. Two collections of my short work have been published and my novels, “Claire” and “Monkey” are available from Amazon.

Kelly Shackelford – THE COIN TOSS

George had pleaded for mercy as they picked him apart, but I knew their prior meal would not stop them from hunting me. The flapping of their wings filled the dark space, beating to a weird rhythm as if humming, “ready-or-not, here-we-come.” Deeper into the cave, I fumbled, praying my last candle would not die.
Five drunk college kids had sauntered into the bowels of Devil’s Cave, getting lost in its twisted maze. Three were now dead and my best-friend, Candy, was lost. Occasionally, her screams for help echoed throughout the nearby chambers, mocking me as I frantically searched for her.
“Damn it,” I screamed, cursing myself for not staying in the dorm to study for finals or paint my nails. Anything but this hell. All to win a stupid dare.
My fingers trembled, dragging my last water bottle out of the ripped fabric of my backpack. Sipping the lukewarm liquid, I hoped to stumble on an underground river. Not to refill my wares, but to drown myself before they feasted on me. Unfortunately, no such reprieve ran through this evil abyss.
Placing the water bottle back, I jerked as a velvet wing glided by, brushing across the top of my hand. Its claws dipped down, teasing me. I dropped to my knees, and the candle flickered out. Darkness swallowed me. Sweeping my hand across the cool stone floor, my fingers searched for the candle. I flinched touching it as my fingers rolled across the hot wax. Snatching the candle up, I stuffed it into my jeans pocket, ignoring the scalding wax against my inner thigh. Crawling blindly, I pulled myself across the floor. I flinched as jagged pebbles tore through my jeans, peeling the flesh off my knees as hot pain seared up my legs.
The humming grew louder. Turning around, I gasped as hundreds of red beady eyes stared back. Chills snaked down me.
“Help,” Candy’s voice faintly echoed.
Another bat swooped down, this time slapping its leather-like, webbed wings in my face. Stinging pain shot down my neck as it nipped me. Images of our first night lost flashed before me; waking up to the monsters eating Robert’s eyes and ripping out his throat. They ate him alive. That is how they preferred their meals.
Screaming. Squirming. Hot.
Candy’s sobs grew louder. Disregarding the looming danger, I stopped, listened and headed towards her cries. Swearing not to let them eat her, my hand brushed across a loose rock. I grabbed it, ready to bash it upside a bat’s head. Tony had been the first to fight back. He crushed dozens of bats’ heads with a rock, but hundreds overtook him, tearing him to shreds.
One by one, they took us as if they enjoyed an audience; one kill, one meal at a time.
More bats circled, their deafening humming, swirled around me in the dark. My heart raced as they followed and my stomached knotted, threatening to evict the little bit of water it held. I dragged the rock with me and wondered if I could bash my own head hard enough to die. Afraid, I would only stun myself, I crawled faster. Plus, I talked Candy into coming. I had to find her.
A pair of fangs sank deep into my shoulder. Fiery pain exploded down my side. Reaching back, I snatched the bat off my back and smashed it with the rock. Blood oozed down my arm. Jumping up, I ran further into the dark, praying not to stumble into a pit.
“Please help me,” Candy begged once more, her voice growing even louder.
“I’m coming,” I screamed back. A minute later, entering another chamber, my legs flew out from under me. Pushing myself up, the thick sticky guano stuck to my hands . The scent of ammonia stole my breath. I considered sitting and letting the fumes win, but Candy needed me. Raising my shirt over my nose and mouth, once again I ran, closing my stinging eyes.
“Nemie,” Candy cried as I exited the bats’ lair and into the chamber she had stumbled into.
I dug my lighter out and relit my candle, crying in relief. Leaned up against a rock, Candy sobbed. Grabbing my water out, I rushed over and placed it to her lips. She guzzled it.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was the last bottle. The bats would eat us before we thirst to death.
“Don’t let them eat me alive,” she begged me, grabbing me by my shoulders. Fear filled her blue eyes.
Smoothing back her blonde hair, I replied, “I won’t. I promise.”
“We have to kill each other first,” she said.
“That’s impossible. We both can’t kill each other. We have to keep running.” I grabbed her hand, trying to pull her, but she stood firm.
“They’ll find us.” She cried, tears rolling.
Candy picked up a rock, flipping it over and over.
The humming invaded the room. They were coming for us. They were hungry.
“One of us, kills the other. We flip a quarter to see who wins.” She dug a coin out of her pocket. “Heads or tails?”
The first bat flew in, circling us like a hungry shark.
“I’m not playing this game.” I shouted, watching as two more flew in and joined the morbid game of ring around the rosies, belly full of toesies, slashes, slashes, we all fall dead.
One of the bats, plunged down, biting Candy’s cheek.
“Heads or fucking tails,” she screamed as a dozen more entered the chamber. Blood gushed down her face, pooling at her neck.
“Heads,” I shouted.
Candy tossed the coin up, it flipped over and over as the bats flew around us. Hitting the ground, it bounced and rolled to a stop. I hunched down, placing the candle over it. I shook my head.
Candy won.
Placing the rock in my hand, she pointed to her left temple. Another bat flew down and took a big piece of meat off her left ear.
“We can out run them,” I begged.
She shook her hand, tapping her index finger over her temple. “Do it. You promised, you wouldn’t let them eat me alive,” she screamed as two more bats flew down, attaching themselves with their claws to her chest.
Raising the rock up, I screamed, smashing it hard against her temple. Her blood hit me in the face, marking me a murderer, before she collapsed dead on the floor. Instantly, dozens of bats descended, making a meal of her. .
For hours, I ran. The scent of her guts spilling out as the bats dined on them, drove me to not stop. My legs ached, threatening to buckle. It had been days since I had eaten anything. Stumbling, I collapsed onto the floor, ready for the monsters to take me, cursing myself for not calling tails.
Opening my eyes, a small pinpoint of light shone above me. I forced myself up, and started climbing over the rock pile that stood on one side of the chamber, higher and higher I went. The breeze of the spring evening tickled my cheek and I cried. Only a few feet away, a small crack beckoned me to slip through. The humming filled my ears, and I turned around as hundreds of them filled the room, rushing towards me.
Frantically, I scampered up the last bit of the rock pile. Standing inches away from the opening, the first bat lunged down and tore into my neck, taking a piece of meat. I wrapped my hands around it, and pulled it off, tossing it away. Slapping my hand over the bleeding wound, I dove through the crack, scraping skin from my front and back. I emerged into the evening sun and fell to my knees.
I crawled into my car and fell onto the horn, screaming as it blared. I reached into the backseat for a towel and wiped Candy’s blood off my face, but I knew, I could never wash her blood off my hands.
Flipping the visor down, I searched for the keys. Beating the steering wheel with my fists, I realized they were in my bookbag beside Candy and darkness was descending.

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I have been published in various venues such as Woman, Black Petals, Infernal Ink, Free Flash Fiction, Danse Macabre, The Old Red Kimono, The Speculative Edge, and The Sunday Suitor. Also, for two years, I was editor of The Old Red Kimono, an award-winning literary magazine.

Stephanie McGowan – MAGICAL REALITIES

The Shadow

We sit alone and watch the world
All different but similar to each other
Not opposed to all our differences
But trying to forget each other
In this waiting room of life

The opposite of each others shadows
Which are so indifferent
Even though we try to see each other
Our truer selves be in that shadow
Disclosed on walls no matter where

We try to be magnificent
Not torn apart
And the shadow shows no emotion
Because life has no spark
And you know that we must ignite it.

We are not soulless, untrue to life
Hiding life’s passions like our shadows
Our life should be transparent and true
Not like a dream which has a smoking view
For we are more than shadow.

Innocence Destroyed

We are not from seed
But from eternal love
Spontaneously born in God’s love
Manifested in human form
The everyday turmoil
Of existence
Puts us in endless conflict
With things not from above
We are all born
To learn the ways of God
But yet turn off

When I was a child
Thinking as a child
Came close to God
Made himself manifest
Older and care worn
I rethink my path
And decide to remain steadfast
No longer confused as before

Everyone else goes their way
Not seeing what needs to be found
Blinded like Justice
With hopes of making the right decision
Only to find blinded on one side
Delusional on the other
Everyone follows each other
Like swine falling off a cliff
The pearls left behind are carnage
For ravenous minds with no bliss

The end to Apocryphal is coming
The end none to soon… they hope
The banish children reap deadly sins
And innocents torn from the womb
Find a new home
Their spirits no longer roaming

Should you not be responsible?
Should you not care?
Even the oyster respects the pearls
It is its legacy
Where is yours? Is it dying?

Supposition on Political Correctness

How do they explain their erring ways?
Or the fact that the mind sees unclearly
Or perhaps they are disillusioned by the wretched life of their wrenched selves
And continue on their persistent paths

The mind forms barriers
And blocks the sane
Children outcast from their mothers
Do not see the Sun

The soulless ones
Have no mercy
They reek and play, chaos causes disarray
Demons make sport with them all day

Politically correct they say
It is all okay
You must accept or be rejected
“I have friends to keep!”

Have you lost your soul?
Have you lost your mind?
The Emperors New Clothes
“I didn’t see that”

Why you are unopposed
You are my friend
(if we see I to I)
It is hard to kick against the Goad.

Money is no problem
I’ll buy that
You will?
I have a charity to fulfill

It’s taxing on my nerves
This President, that President
What about that?
I can run it better

All these cry babies
They want this
They want that
I am not your mother

What then shall I say?
You please one
Hurt the other
No decision is ever really good

You won’t like the solution
There will never be an equal resolution
For many selfish hands
Do make silent fools

Exhortation on Death – Not Triumphant

There are no clouds in my eyes
For I really see
The rainbow on the horizon
With all its harmony
And the color wheel is turning
Like a Kaleidoscope
And cubic forms are forming
With no end unlike a moat

The other side is not oblivion
It is not dark and harsh
Ornately forms extraordinary images
(Not with the human spectrum)
Only after Charion’s boat.
But with celestial images
With angels not so remote
Chaperoned and called, but only after deaths scheduled tour

With scythe and hood and ghostly claw
It takes the form of him who passed
And did not pay a fee
Free at last he scouts again
He is on call
He does not meet us at heaven’s door
Cause into light he cannot pass

But the guardian of your soul
Goes up to heaven fast
Your suffering has ended
While Satan sighs at last
He sees his day is coming
And to heaven’s gates he cannot past.

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I am a wife and mother of two young adults, have a dog and cat, and love to be creative in all things since my childhood; hence, I consider myself a renaissance person. My publishing credits include illustrations for a previous employer’s newsletter, and publishing technical and non-technical writings on-line. My WordPress blog address is stephaniejmcgowanwrites.com.