It was one of those days, thought Quigley, when the world really just gets on your tits.
Waking up and finding they'd run out of coffee. Then the puddle of dog-piss in the kitchen. Then Jacko, the eldest of their three changelings, refusing to get dressed. Then the picnic stuff refusing to fit into the trunk. Then the car refusing to start.
“Let it rest for a spell, sweetie, you’ll flood the engine,” said his wife, Miriam.
Quigley allowed his irritation to get the better of him. (As usual.)
“Why don’t you do your job and let me do mine,” he snapped at her.
...
...
Continues in FIENDS AND FREAKS now available at Amazon.com FIENDS AND FREAKS and serpents, dragons, devils, hell-beings, anguished spirits, wraiths of wrath, anti-gods, gods and other horse-thieves you wouldn't want to meet in a dark cosmos ...
Three and thirty twisted tails so outrageous you'll split your belly open shrieking with satanic laughter, or your money back. Fraught with bizarritudes, peculiaritisms and strangelings Mature content, adults only. Now at Amazon.com! HOME
NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously illustrated by over 20 grotesque images you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.
AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?) We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.
MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS A disturbing repository of quotably quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.
MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS, ILLUSTRATED: an unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms
FIENDS & FREAKS Adults-only Tales of Serpents, Dragons, Devils, Lobsters, Anguished Spirits, Gods, Anti-gods and Other Horse-thieves You Wouldn't Want to Meet in a Dark Kosmos: 4th Edition
HAGS TO HAGGIS Whiskey-soaked Tails of War-nags, Witches, Manticores and Escapegoats, Debottlenecking and Desilofication, Illustrated
So far, 2010 has been one of those years that really just gets on your tits. Hopefully the next ten months of it will be some sort of an improvement.
CM, Thanks for your comment. Not much longer to go before the next great extinction event. That's something to look forward to, isn't it? ;)
You never know what you've got 'til it's gone. Well played.
I'm going to start using that phrase, "really just gets on your tits."
Purdie Pyrate
That reminds me of the Cheesmesiter's story about the restaurant for zombies.
wicked story. love how you pieced it together around that phrase...nice.
Hi Brian, it's a technique I picked up from Stephen King's writing. Repeating a phrase in different contexts to help build suspense and keep the whole narrative together. Of course, I can only hope that one day my writing will be even one hundredth as powerful and efficient at story telling as SK's. Thanks for stopping by.
Restaurant for zombies -- excellent concept on which to hang a story. I must look out for CM's: I find her work invariably grabs me by the throat and rattles my brain! Tom, thanks for stopping by.
Hi Nessa, it does kind of punch you in the head, the phrase you mention. But I have to admit that in hindsight I wonder if it's not perhaps too crass, even for me! Thanks for your comment.
Great last line.
Actually, Steak Through the Heart is sort of a coinvention between me and the Cheesemeister. Certainly its co-proprietor, Hamster Brittney, is mine, and its name. I did think of that Bistro/Grocery's friendly Rotten Ralph, the butcher/chef, when I read this.
Hi Weirsdo, thanks for stopping by. Although not explicitly named in the above, the friendly family butcher yclept Putrid Paul.
Weirdso did invent Steak Thru the Heart. I just took it and ran with it! I also generally run from Steak Thru the Heart very quickly after buying my week's supply of Whoop Ass there.
Cheesemeister, I think it was Newton who said words to the effect that if he had seen further, it was because he had stood on the shoulders of giants. Making Weirsdo a giant!
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