Whoever did this to me was nice enough to leave me a laptop, a bottle of water, and a box of Cracker Jacks, so I think I can survive till morning. Hopefully I’ll be able to use some MacGuyver-like skills and fashion the removable unicorn tattoo from the Cracker Jack box into a lock pick.

Anyway, this month we have some prose by Carolyn McGovern, Eirik Gumeny, Micah Cratty, Stephanie Kraner, and the collaborative tag-team of Jeff Crouch and Christopher Woods. We also have poetry by Daniel Gallik, Jason Barber, and Jonathan Kessler, and an all-new Defenestrati strip by Eddie Grant. It’s a great start to the year, and I’m sure you’ll agree.

—Andrew Kaye, editor-in-chief

A. Are you trying to insult me? Do you think I make a living from my odorous work, my holy cause? Let me tell you something. All that I have done in the odor field has been funded from my own pocket. I was fortunate, in some ways, to have a trust fund from my family, who owned a large fertilizer concern. That is what funds my work. I can’t possibly compete with the odor collectors of Europe , who have been in the field longer and who received generous government grants. I am one man, doing the best I can.

Q. No sir, I am not trying to insult you at all. I am simply curious as to how people manage to fund their pursuits, and well, I have my answer now. But I hope you understand my point.

As a culture, I believe we let our fiction fail us because we do not ask ourselves such questions as-can Superman really afford a loft apartment with his newspaper job? And if we don’t force our fiction into the neckbrace of economic realism, will we bother to question anyone?

So, you have funding. It must be nice. Tell me a little about those odor collectors in Europe .

A. They are all spoiled rotten and lazy. They do not care about odors. Oh no. For them, it is simply a job. None of them has the dedication that I do. Now I hear that the EU will soon build an odor museum. That has been my dream for decades. But without funding, I must store things in my garage. My wife left me two years ago, and took half our estate. She’s also turned our children against me. None of them understand my passion. (pause) Are you even listening to me?

Q. The way I understand your plight with your children is that one of them is a huge Kurt Cobain fan, and Kurt Cobain was a huge fan of the Patrick Süskind novel, -please don’t interrupt me, I’m nearly finished-Perfume, and well, when you caught your kid reading this book, you had a near seizure and went on a relentless cursing spree, cursing everything in your life for three days straight. What’s your story, really?

A. All that is in the past. It hardly matters now. My son is dyslexic and cannot read. His mother paid him fifty dollars to carry that inane book around the house. Now, as to my temper, yes, I do have a problem with it. But that has nothing to do with collecting odors. You would rather dredge up old family history. I am trying to catalogue every odor in the world. By myself. The odds of it all

Q. I have it that the inspiration for your collection is Voltaire. Can you elaborate? 

A. To a degree, yes. The master, truly, was Condillac. You probably know the story of his conceived statue. Think about. Our sense of smell came about because of necessity, to find food. Sustenance. It meant little else early on. Over time, we learned to grow our own food, to hunt with firearms, and so on. The sense of smell was relegated to the back of the senses, in a way.

You must also realize that smell is associated with pleasure, and with pain. My devotion to the sense of smell originated with displeasure, with pain. My step-father, a medical doctor, used to force me to inhale ether. I was maybe two, three years old. It is my first memory. The rubber smell, the clamminess, the blackouts. I shudder to think about it even now. But ether was one of the first odors in my collection. After that, I knew the best course was body odors. That pursuit, collecting body odors, is dear to my heart.

Q. You know, of course, that I spoke with your wife before I interviewed you; please don’t glare at me-I’m not going to pursue that issue right now.

Yes, she mentioned that you were selling her body odors, and yes, you don’t have to make that gesture. I understand completely that you deny the accusation. I wasn’t going to that topic.

Your wife mentioned that you abandoned your family on a vacation to Paris some years ago, that you went on a truffle hunt in the Périgord region of southwest France , and that when a member of the party donned large rubber gloves, you stripped naked and began doing somersaults.

Was there anything to this behavior? You see, I’m not familiar with truffle hunting parties, and I am quite curious about the abuse you suffered as a child.

Yes, I will try to refrain from discussing your family.

A. My wife likes to talk about my nude truffle adventure. It was good, organic fun. Later, I joined a nudist club. We travel once or twice a year to exotic places. I had no choice. My wife is a very nasty woman. In her salad days, she was a mainstay at Plato’s Retreat and other orgiastic clubs. She has no morals whatsoever. But in response to what you said, yes, her body odors were quite interesting. Her odors were like a roadmap of all the places she had been, and of all her different partners in debauchery. My wife’s body was something of a United Nations in those randy days. So I do owe her something, I suppose, for the cornucopia of unusual odors.

As for the abuse I suffered, there’s not much more to say. The ether left an odd smell on my clothes. The other children at school seized upon my different smell and beat me mercilessly.  The school authorities never investigated, naturally. So my step-father had free rein with his ether until I left home at sixteen. On my own, I found a job as a shipping clerk in a garlic processing plant.

Q. How do you preserve the odors that you collect? And how does someone experience your collection?

A. If the odor sample is rare, such as an Errol Flynn fart from long ago, the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood film to be exact, people must simply be satisfied with the label. The bottles are clear, so they can closely observe the odor. When the odor is either plentiful or can be easily replaced, I have atomizers so that the curious can spray themselves. One example would be urban pollution. One can see it too. If you should ask why you should you believe I have a captured Errol Flynn fart in a bottle, I must ask you to respect my integrity. There are things I know about this world. Things that a person like you will never know, or likely appreciate. My battle for an odor museum is not always about money. It is also about combating small time creeps like yourself. One must believe. When I say that I have Mary Pickford’s halitosis captured in a bottle for the ages, it is a matter of both fact and faith. One day, when our species evolves a bit more, the doubters will be extinct. Oh happy day.

Q. I’d like to know why you called me a creep, but before the interview turns rotten, who is your internet friend known as Cheeseball? I am referring to your www.limburgertoenail.com/ site.

A. This interview is already rotten. It’s over as far as I’m concerned. Cheeseball is a private matter. We share a passion or two. You would never understand. I must get back to work now, but before I do, I have a small favor to ask. May I smell you? I mean, very closely? I’m always looking for new specimens, you see. My creep vials are few, and I feel sure you can be of service.

Q. No.

———— 

Larry Quest, the interviewer, is a freelance journalist currently under contract with Oddities America Magazine, and his many interviews with odor collectors include a series of interviews with fart collectors including a twelve year-old named Greg, a college fraternity, and a group of dirty old men known as the Twerps. In addition to this series, Quest also produced an award-winning series on drughouse architects. But sure to read his work online: www.larryquestlive.com

Fortunately, but unknown to Quest at the time, his interview with the Bad Odor Collector was taped, and it is now online at www.odditiesamerica.com . Here you can see Randy Stargas, the Bad Odor Collector himself, attempt to pin Quest for his smell. The difference in weight and height between the two is itself comedy. When Stargas opens one of his jars and comes after Quest, Quest bolts out of his chair and manages to topple a box full of Stargas’s smells at which point Stargas becomes hysterical.

But we, the people who taped the interview, want to know: do you think these segments worthy of a TV Reality Show or of a website plagued with malicious ads? Vote online at: www.odditiesamerica.com.

————-

Jeff Crouch is an internet artist in Grand Prairie, Texas. Google “Jeff Crouch” to see where he has been.

Christopher Woods lives in Houston and in Chappell Hill, Texas. It is in the latter place that he hears coyotes cry at night. He doesn’t mind them as much as the occasional skunk that shows up unannounced.

“I don’t care if the stars realigned themselves to spell out her name,” the dragon roared, wishing he hadn’t eaten the other traveler he’d come across that morning. “I saw her
first!”

“My uncle’s pumpkin patch you saw her first, dragon,” the wizard shouted back. “This girl has been chosen! If you steal her away to fawn over your ill-gotten treasure, the world will come to grave peril the likes of which your puny brain can’t comprehend.”

Though the wizard knew that the dragon’s brain was actually twice, maybe even three times as large as his own, that didn’t stop him from crossing his arms and fixing the beast with his most intimidating stare.

Between the two foes, the princess regretted her decision to run away this morning. “What do you mean I’ve been chosen?”

“Quiet, girl,” the wizard snapped.

“Wait a second,” the dragon said. “If we’re in such great danger as you claim, I’d like to hear more about it.”

“Don’t dare question my honesty, dragon. This girl is the only person alive who can rescue the Very Impressive Amulet of Great Significance and save us all from its terrible power.”

“And did the stars tell you how she’s to find it?” The dragon raised it scaly, ridged eyebrows. “It’s possible that she’ll find it in my hoard one day while she’s polishing.”

“Balderdash,” the wizard spat. “She’ll have to go on a long and dangerous quest, of course.”

“I don’t know that I like the sound of that…” the princess mumbled.

“I’ll save you, fair lady!”

The three of them turned their heads to see a lone knight charging headlong at the dragon and brandishing his sword. All eyes were on the blade as it cut a deathly arc toward the dragon’s midsection. The princess stifled a scream; the wizard held his breath; the knight gritted his teeth; the dragon still wished he hadn’t eaten the other traveler.

When the sword connected against the dragon’s hard scales, a loud clang echoed off the distant hills. The knight’s armor started to rattle from the reverberations, and before anyone could react, a mighty burp erupted from the dragon’s throat, killing the other three the instant they breathed a whiff of the poisonous fumes.

Meanwhile, inside the dragon’s stomach, an amulet worn around the traveler’s digesting neck reacted to the force of the belch. The dragon’s massive body exploded in a shower of thick, red blood as the Very Impressive Amulet of Great Significance released its power, and everyone suddenly forgot where they’d placed their right shoe.

From that point on, up until the very unraveling of time itself, human beings walked around with only one shoe on, always muttering about how cold or hard or ticklish the ground felt against the exposed sole of their right foot.

———–

Stephanie Kraner likes shiny objects and furry critters, and she firmly believes that there’s absolutely no reason for anything to have more than four legs.  When she’s not distracted by something shiny, furry, or multi-legged, she’s reading and editing submissions for The Oddville Press.  Occasionally she finds time for her own fiction, which has appeared or will appear in Anotherealm, flashquake, The Battered Suitcase, Fissure, and Static Movement.  She also may or may not have eleven toes.

Carl Jones, Junior VP of Sales, admitted that he was still harboring resentment towards Lucy Goods, Senior VP of Sales, for losing out the promotion to her. Mrs. Goods stuck her thumbs in her ears, wiggled her fingers, and said “Pbbbbbbth!”

Bernard Collins, VP of human resources, told the group the adjustment from the Toledo office to corporate headquarters had been very difficult for him. He was very thankful to his new friends, especially Francis Pickering, head of IT, for making the corporate office feel like home. Mr. Jones responded by saying he thought he was Mr. Collins best friend, but he didn’t even care anymore because Mr. Collins was a stupid. Mr. Jones added that Mr. Collins had pooped his pants during the potato sack race.

Jaclyn Durand, VP of Product Development, left the retreat early, shortly after being told by Robert Kitchens, CFO, that she should have herself tested for cooties. Ms. Durand was quickly followed by the entire marketing department, who all received text messages from “family and close friends” that there was an emergency to attend to at home.

Patty Williams, Board of Directors, complained that people were taking her Snack Packs from the break room. Mr. Huntington reminded her that sharing was caring. Mrs. Williams responded by saying Mr. Huntington was not so generous when she wanted to borrow his company Porsche for her anniversary trip to Cape Cod with Mr. Williams last May. Mr. Huntington said that he didn’t understand her because he didn’t speak “toilet head,” and that he didn’t want to play anymore. The sharing circle soon concluded.

————

Micah Cratty waited until the last minute to write his bio, with the hope something exciting would happen in his life. He now lives in New Mexico.

Anyway, back to Hector’s highly flammable house. It was highly flammable. It should also be noted that Hector was a three-pack-a-day smoker. That’s why he had so many matches. Hector, one day, after fourteen straight hours of telemarketing, lit a cigarette and fell asleep on his couch. Hector’s head slumped backward, the burning end of the cigarette falling slowly out of his mouth, angling towards the incredibly combustible wall. It was at this point that Hector’s ex-girlfriend, Sheila, set Hector’s highly flammable house on fire with a flamethrower. This was not surprising in the least. Sheila was an arms dealer with an angry streak six miles wide and three miles tall. Honestly, Hector really should have been better prepared for arson. But he wasn’t and was instead curled up on his couch dreaming about toasters as his house quickly changed from matches and tinder and pumpkin to cinder and ash and fire. Hector was a very sound sleeper.

Kevin, the previously mentioned cement wholesaler who lived next door, was not a sound sleeper. Sometimes Hector would fart in his sleep and it would wake Kevin up. This annoyed Kevin. Hector’s steady diet of red meat and coffee certainly didn’t make things any easier, either, but Kevin wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. Especially not when a man’s house was burning to the ground. Which is why when Kevin heard the sound of a house burning to the ground, looked out his window and saw that it was in fact Hector’s house burning to the ground, well, Kevin, he hopped out of bed, grabbed a pair of pants off the floor, hung them up in his closet, hopped out the window, across the lawn, into the cab of his cement truck, and then drove the cement truck in reverse across his lawn and over to Hector’s flaming abode.

For the record, Kevin was a kangaroo. It’s not really important, but it might help to explain the hopping and the lack of pants. Maybe not so much the truck-driving, though. Kevin didn’t like to talk about the truck-driving. He didn’t like to talk while truck-driving, either. Which was alright, because he was in the cab by himself in this particular instance, so there were no awkward silences to negotiate. There was, however, a pissed-off ex-girlfriend strapped for murder to negotiate. Kevin, though, did not know this and, instead, simply backed the cement truck into Sheila.

Sheila, for his part, saw the oncoming truck as an opportunity to wreak havoc from a higher footing. He hopped up on the back of it and did his flamethrower thing from the bumper. It was only when Kevin lowered the drum and released the cement, drowning Sheila in wet clay and gravel, that he saw the folly inherent in this plan. But by then it was too late and Sheila was dead. Sheila was also a wall. Hector was simply asleep.

Kevin was going to wake him, see if he was okay, but then Hector farted and Kevin decided instead to recast Hector’s smoldering pumpkin house entirely in concrete. Kevin may not have been one to hold grudges, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t enterprising. He tucked the bill under Hector’s pillow. Eventually Hector woke up, saw the bill, panicked upon the realization that he hadn’t made a sale in weeks, calmed down upon the realization that he sold paint and was in need of quite a bit of it, sold himself that quite a bit on credit, cashed the ensuing payment to himself, and handed it over to Kevin in small bills because he knew that Kevin enjoyed small bills. This wasn’t a kangaroo thing or anything, just a personality quirk of Kevin’s. Kevin used the money to buy lunch and start a low-interest checking account. He also used it to move to the far side of town, away from Hector’s farts and psychotic ex-girlfriends. Unfortunately for Kevin, the other side of town consisted of twenty-three airports and his apartment building. But that’s neither here nor there. This was about Hector Van Ort. He lived in a pumpkin.

———–

Eirik Gumeny once scaled the Empire State Building, only to be murdered by several bi-planes and a pretty girl. He was not happy about it.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!! GREETINGS TO ALL!!!!! (How was that? Did I put enough exclamation points? I put everything in caps and bolded it so the feelings were conveyed properly.) Okay, lets move on.

As you know, Linda has traveled afar this year, a one-way ticket to that cloudy place in the sky. Peaceful and restful, that’s for sure. Can’t beat the Kelly’s Cayman Island trip, though (wow, dolphins in the ocean, that’s something alright! Dolphins, AND a 60-foot slide! I’m sure it WAS awesome.).

You know, there’s really a lot of similarities between the year we had, and the year the Kellys had. For instance, little Brian Kelly’s tooth fell out. My little Jimmy’s heart fell out. Well, actually it was ripped out, but that’s just semantics. Both things, a tough part of life, right?

Little Shannon Kelly is taking ballet lessons (quite the little dancer!), and Liam Kelly starred in his high school musical, “Oklahoma” (I agree, we will be seeing his name in lights some day!).

Along similar lines, my Jimmy and Karen are both in psychiatric therapy, also showing some real promise for their future. Sure, Jimmy still needs some work. It probably isn’t polite to call your therapist a fucking asshole just because the therapist sputtered one of those lines people have been sputtering all year long since Linda went to “be with the angels in heaven,” like: Things happen for a reason…She’s in a better place…

And then Jimmy calling me a fucking asshole was uncalled for, just because I reminded him that “People mean well…He should have respect for his elders…his mother would want that…” So yes, Jimmy still needs some work.

But hey, the therapist says Karen has seemingly reached closure on the whole mommy-dying thing, even though I can’t figure out how the heck that could be possible so early in the game. I mean, I thought there had to be some grieving involved first. I’m not sure that locking herself in her room 24/7 is part of the grieving process or not, or that not talking to me in two weeks is part of the process either. And I’m sure the whole Head-to-Toe black thing has no meaning whatsoever, nor the fact she carved the words hate and die on her arm with a razor blade. I mean, what the heck do I know? I’m not a therapist. Maybe I have a “star” on my hands too, and Karen is an advanced griever.

Maybe I’m just the fucking asshole father who in no way comes close to replacing that beautiful human being that was snuffed from our lives. But hey, the Kelly’s know all about a Star-mom, having Completed yet another exhausting year! Phew! Right, Sarah Kelly?

I can relate to you, Mom-Kelly. All that carpooling you’ve been doing, the activities and events. They WILL find you dead on the side of the road! I mean, who DOES have time to breathe? Not the Kellys!

Well, same thing with our family this past year. One chemotherapy treatment after another chemotherapy treatment. Carpooling Linda all over the place, one doctor to the next . One experimental treatment after another experimental treatment. Trying to save one’s life isn’t an easy thing. Phew! Exhausting. Utterly exhausting.

I didn’t have time to breathe either, Sara Kelly. It WAS enough to drain the life out of a person. Oh, wait a minute. That’s Linda I’m thinking about. My Bad. She was the one exhausted all the time. Can you believe she had the nerve to be tired when it was
I who did all the carpooling? So yes, I do know what you’re talking about Sara Kelly. “They will find you dead on the side of road!”

But no, it was actually Linda who died on the side of the road. Not exactly “on the side of the road,” that was just a metaphor, same as Sara Kelly’s reference. But no joke, Linda REALLY couldn’t breathe. It’s very difficult to breathe when the lungs fill with fluid. That’s no fun, Sarah Kelly, so I completely understand it when you say you felt like you couldn’t breathe this past year. I saw it firsthand for myself. All the gasping for air and what not. It’s actually quite painful.

But you know what? I think the Kellys are right. All in all, the year did fly by! You’d think that when you watch the love of your life wither away into a skeletal frame, leaving me with what could best be described as road kill (that would be my Jimmy and Karen), you’d think the year would go by slow. But no, it went just as fast as the Kelly’s year. So you can see the similarities, can’t you?

Well, without wanting to copy too much from the Kelly’s letter, I too would like to wish everyone a joyous and healthy holiday. Of course, healthy is always at the top of everyone’s Christmas list. Let me tell you this, though. If it were really at the top of the list (which it isn’t, I was just kidding there), but if it were, some of us would be in serious trouble. Of course, only if you weren’t healthy. All I‘m saying is, it’s the one thing you can’t put on the credit card or buy at Macys. They’ve got everything you could possibly think of “online,” everything except health. Just can’t buy it, that’s what I’ve learned this year.

Well, without further ado, I would like to wish everyone a permanent farewell, because by the time you get this piece of red paper, I will have joined my Linda.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND GREETINGS TO ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

————

Carolyn McGovern has been published in “Storyglossia,” “Shine,” “Clever,” “Skive,” “Delivered,” the “Chick Lit Review,” and various other publications. She is currently as work on her memoir

to be. I said I wanted to be silent.. She yelled silence
was her fortune. I asked her, pleaded with her to get
a new car. She said I was a waste of money. Then,

she hugged me and told me I was her lover and she
wanted it right then. I told her it was sex. I told her
before she interrupted that love was a bad buy. She

slapped my ego so hard it got out a gun. You like
headlines? I said. Then, she smiled and froze my
male assets right away. We loved in the middle,

at the side, along the four corners of an old bedroom.
After midnight left us, we closed our eyes and
dreamed of tv and radio and cd’s and new movies.

And food. Dreamed of thousand dollars steaks at Mac’s.

————

Daniel Gallik’s novel, A Story of Dumb Fate is available through www.publishamerica.com. Check it out at www.danielgallik.com. The book is about a child with disabilities born in a blue-collar neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. The book is a tough read because it is vile and unforgiving. The author has been published in many online and college journals. Check his entire literary credits out on any search engine.

————

Jason Barber lives, works, and writes poems in Denver, Colorado. He loves books and thinks libraries are great. He would like to work in a library someday, as well as build a house powered by a windmill and solar panels.

I told him that if he continued with this poor behavior they wouldn’t shine for him. Ever!

It didn’t matter to me because my childhood was made up of trains and yellow moons not planets and fireflies.

I sat in the night and tried the smell the stars burning up in the hands and minds of little boys to understand why the fuck we were meant to reproduce these children that burn up and burn with the fantasies of having bright futures and television realities. We really fucked them.

“Much virtue in herbs, little in men.” Benjamin Franklin

My street always floods when it rains. This morning the radio explained that in the upstate there is a drought going on. I know nothing about that. My plants are doing fine. One is basil and the other is arugula. It is also known as rocket, I am told. I bought it at the farmers market on Saturday a few weeks ago. It was little then so I repotted, you know the story. It was supposed to bring a little zing into our life, I guess going to the farmers market buying something that spell check doesn’t recognize and then hoping to write about it on your blog while listening to some obscure band is a bit too obvious or trite, or without virtue?

————

Jonathan Kessler has spent the past number of years learning, writing and teaching all over the world. Some locations include rural New Hampshire, Honolulu Hawaii, and Costa Rica. He currently teaches English at an alternative high school in Charleston, SC. His poetry and writing has been featured multiple times in The Centripetal and Kaleo.

————

Eddie Grant is a man with lots of free time, which he chooses to fill turning his dumb thoughts into comic strips. If you wish to be a part of his looming madness then visit him at his deviantART site: http://zarkonspacepirategod.deviantart.com.