View All Issues« Previous Issue | Main | Next Issue »
May 24, 2005
Volume 1, Issue 12
Do you ever feel like you are being watched?
Do you ever enjoy watching?
Which side of the glass are you on?
Or, do you have something original to say about today's theme word:
FISHBOWL
Michele: Room With a View
We did it right there, on the living room floor of the new house. Crazy. We were usually straight and narrow. Man on top. Fuck, come, hold, sleep. Not this time. This time I fucked her until she screamed at me to stop. I kept going until we saw the flash of movement at the window.
How long had he been standing there, pants down, hips shaking? He didn’t try to hide. He just grinned and wiped his hand on his shirt.
Welcome to the neighborhood, he mouthed. He turned and disappeared through the bushes that separated our yards.
Stacy: Fame
She stared in the mirror, amazed at the haggard lines on her still-young face.
"It's those stupid photographers," she thought. "Their lights are too bright, and they take pictures of me all the time."She preened briefly at that thought, then grimaced again as she noticed the bags under her eyes.
"I'm only 20," she mentally whinged, "why do I look like I'm 55?"
She poked experimentally at one sagging cheek with one ragged fingernail, remembered she had both a manicure and facial scheduled for today.
She finished cutting the last line of coke and picked up the rolled hundred.
Ted: The last straw
"One red fish, check."
"Two blue fish, check."
"Dude, I bet Seuss was high when came up with this shit."
"Now what?"
"Holy shit! Did you see that?!"
"Man, that is so fucked up. What the hell kind of fish are these anyway?"
"Siamese Fighting Fish."
"Good name for them. Brad, you have just proved what I have been thinking for a long time. You. Are. A. Prick. I'm going home."
"What? Aw Jenny, don't be like that. I didn't think they would gang up on him."
"You are nothing but a fucked up stoner, Brad. Don't call me again."
From the Comments: Tanya
Glass, pebbles, castle, plant. Glass, pebbles, castle, plant. Glass, pebbles, castle, plant. Not even a real plant fercrissakes. And would it kill them to turn the tv this way?
Gad, it's so boring in here. Not like at the store, where there was more room and the occasional snail to chat with. And that cool fake diver that spewed bubbles. *sigh*
Swim thru the castle. Again. Sniff the fake turquoise and orange plant. Once more. Check for food. Nope. Around and around. Same thing every day.
Hmmm. Noisy little blonde kid that's always banging on the glass. Fingers? Mouth?
Crap.
Laurence - The price of a free lunch
Every week, Chang pulled a business card out of the fishbowl and the winner got a free lunch at The Happy Dragon.
Every so often, another hand would dip into the fishbowl and draw a business card. But they never got a free lunch.
They found Mary's body in the dumpster the next day. The same with Steve, Lynn, Arthur, and Jose. Sixteen in all.
One day, the killer reached into the bowl and got his hand wet.
No business cards. Just a goldfish.
Sure, there is such a thing as a free lunch, but it's not worth the risk.
The Eschatologist: Too Sick, Don't Care
"And in fact, there are many examples in history of hogs replacing horses. In the ninteenth century, an Englishman trained swine and drove four in hand through London with these curious steeds. Altogether with its potentialism repressed as it ordinarily is, the pig is a veritable Pandora's Box of exciting possibilities." -Les Nessman
Andy: Behind the Glass
I am awake.
The same day or another one or two weeks have passed. My existence now a strobe light, vestiges of days and nights.
They’re here.
Jenny sits at the foot of the bed, head turned toward the television. I’ve watched her grow in stop-motion memories and I mourn the missing frames.
Nancy is beside me; she smiles when I look at her. Her lips move and move and move. I regret ever wishing she would just shut up.
I lie here broken and useless. Trapped. I beg for freedom or death.
No one hears me.
I am alone.
From the Comments: Jeff R.
"What's the most amazing, inexplicable thing that you've ever seen while diving?"
"That's a toughie. I guess, the time I was checking out some old shipwreck. It had a this mermaid figurehead, and I swear it moved it's head, like it was giving me the eye."
"Did you hit it?"
"Hell, no. I don't want splinters in my dick. What about you? What's the strangest thing you've seen?"
"Well, I did once see a fishbowl."
"What's so extraordinary about that?"
"You're right; it was nothing special. It never broke 180 and couldn't make a 7-10 split to save it's life."