Mehmet was astounded how lax Gatwick was once he had passed through the airport security. As he’d been trained, everything he needed was available in the duty-free shop.
For propellant, he’d purchased five three-ounce cans of a pungent men’s cologne. The materials from the lithium-ion battery would ignite once the condom of water burst over them, the chemicals’ reaction astonishingly explosive.
He’d assembled the bombs in the family restroom, using the diaper station for a workbench.

Mehmet smiled. By far his favorite part had been his choice of shrapnel, the sawn-off spikes from the crowns of miniature Statues of Liberty.

Friday Fictioneers

Jeffus took me and Petey-pie down the kitchen stairs into a basement that smelled like wet cardboard.  Petey-pie was acting smartass like he does when he gets nervous.

“You ain’t gonna show us your dick room, are you Jeffus?” he said. “Your Temple of Terrible Porns?”

“Fuck you, PP,” said Jeffus. “You don’t want to see this shit, go home to your drunk mommy.”

Jeffus flicked on a light.  The room looked like it hadn’t even been stepped in since the 70s. Gold carpet, warped wood paneling, a beat-up tiki bar in the corner. Petey-pie went over and picked up a bottle, popped the cap and swigged it.  “Cat piss! Or, as it’s commonly known, Cutty Sark.”

He tried to hand me the bottle, but I was watching Jeffus unlock a metal cabinet in the corner. He got it open and flung the door wide. He bent to grab something, turned around and held out a Jap flag, waving it in front of him like a matador.

“Holy shit!” I said. “Is that real?”

Jeffus nodded. “Pops was on Okinawa. One time he got drunk and told me how he killed a Jap come into his foxhole by sticking his finger into his eye until he poked his brains out.”

“That’s bullshit!” yelled Petey-pie. “Impossible!”

“Oh yeah, smartass? How do you explain this?” He reached to the high shelf and took out the skull.

“Is that real?” I asked.

Jeffus nodded. “Pops cut the Jap’s head off with a Kabar. Then he paid a cook to boil off the flesh. He carved the scrollwork on the ship home.” Jeffus held it out at arm’s length like the guy in the play. “His most valuable possession.”

Moments can be burned into your mind forever.
You ever see that wall in Hiroshima, the one with the shadows of the people standing there when they got vaporized?

It’s like that.

When the bomb went off, it was like everything turned slow motion.
What had been a peaceful market was transformed into something hellish and surreal.

No fire, just people blown asunder.

Those who had lost something like a foot or arm walked around, looking everywhere for their missing pieces.

One little girl found she was still holding her daddy’s hand, but her daddy was gone, blown in half.

Oh, he was a card. You might say that jokes were his mother tongue. He couldn’t see a ladies hat without donning it an prancing about, pretending to drink tea with his pinky out. He was always hilarious.

That’s what must’ve happened. He slipped away freshen up and came upon Lord Hastings’ diving apparatus. I imagine he thought he’d have a lark by putting on all that gear and walking slowly thorough the parlor like it was the bottom of the sea. What fun!

When we found him hours later his face was a lovely shade of cerulean, poor dear.

Look, she said she wanted to. It’s not like I made her. Things just got out of hand, that’s all.

Maybe I handled it bad. Sure. I admit it. I ain’t perfect. I never meant to hurt her. Honest. I just wanted her to quit hollering.  And then, like I said, it got out of hand.

It was over before I knew it. Seeing her lying there like she was just sleeping made me sad. I had hoped so much this would be perfect. Then she had to go and ruin everything by hollering.

But they won’t never find nothing.

I was down to the shoreline crabbing and it wasn’t so good. When the water murks up like that the crabs stay away. Ones that wash up dead ain’t worth the trouble. Nobody I know ever eat one, but you hear the stories about what happens. That’s enough warning for me.

I saw that man with a gunny wade in up to his thighs and toss the sack far as he could. He was in a hurry to leave. I could see that sack moving like it was alive.

Soon as the man was gone I waded in after it.

Friday Fictioneers

Me and Shorty Jim pulled into Mt. Pleasant on the Burlington about three in the morning.  It was flat January, needle snow blowing cold enough to freeze your words right to your tongue so you had reach up and break ’em off to say anything. Usually we don’t go near a station, but it was that or die in the blizzard. In big cities like Chi, us road Joes ain’t welcome indoors, but little towns tend to be a might more friendly, especially when it’s life and death like it was that night. Stationmaster had that potbellied stove glowing red.

He sat on the river bench going over all of it again, wondering what he had missed. He had of course checked the timers, tested them until he was sure. He knew that the failure could not be because of the timers. The explosive, then. But he had tested that too, made certain the ratio was correct, double-checked and even done a trial run out in the country, far from curious eyes. It wasn’t the explosive.

He was interrupted by a series of blinding flashes across the river, silent for the split second it took the sound to reach him.

Friday Fictioneers

Jimmy Jimmy saw messages in the way them birds would clot together on a wire above our head, say they spelled out messages only he could read and that them messages was all full of death and bad futures for anyone who saw it whether they could read it or no and he wasn’t shy about telling me often as he thought I needed to hear it, point at the birds on them wires and shake his head and tell me that if I could see what he saw I might think twice about ever getting up in the morning.

Friday Fictioneers

The Goodwill don’t hardly ever have clothes big enough to fit Earl.

Since he hurt his back, he ain’t been out at all.

That leaves me to pretty much do everything.

Most our spending goes to keeping him fed, of course.

There’s my Social Security and Earl Senior’s pension, but usually there’s too much month and not enough money.

Earl complains if it’s mac and cheese more than twice a week.

The boy always had an appetite, and it  seems to get bigger right along with him.

His uncle Bill made him that bed.

Made it out of rail ties.