My Mama Kissed a Cockroach (But Really She Did. Learn Why in My Personal Essay About Choices and Compassion, and Roaches, Don’t Forget Those Roaches, and I Ain’t Talking ‘60s Slang for Marijuana, This Is Actual Creepy Crawly Vermin, Y’all, and She Puckered Right Up)

Choice is a cornerstone of American society. The songs my classmates and I learned in grade school heralded freedom of choice—room for us all—as the unifying force that made the United States stand above other countries. “Sweet land of liberty” and “This land was made for you and me” rang with conviction from our throats as we serenaded the luminaries of our constricted lives during pageants and concerts. To an extent, that freedom has always had a one-dimensional quality, with “you vs. me” more common than “you and me” outside the walls of the crepe-papered auditorium.

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Read the rest of this fabulously intriguing essay here: 

http://www.themindfulword.org/2015/freedom-choice-compassion/

Color Blind (An Eco-Fiction w/ Extinctions, Sekhmet, Sesame Street, Cats, Apocalypse, Santa Claus & Golden Panamanian Frogs in Under 1,700 Words)

The Panamanian golden frogs died first. Extinct but for a few stray specimens stored with hermetic zeal in zoo laboratories. Scientists fretted, as did some intrepid reporters from National Geographic, Smithsonian, and the New Yorker. The Panamanians were devastated. They considered the golden frog their national emblem and put its likeness on their key chains and coffee mugs. No one else cared. After all, the golden frogs were frogs, not puppies, and other things were golden: daffodils, tomato blossoms, the sun, Big Bird. …

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Read the complete story here:

www.eclectica.org/v19n1/davis.html

PS  -Do some apocalyptic dancing with Noot d’Noot here and Purkinje Shift here.

Say When: A Short Story About a Woman & Her Neighbors, Which Sounds Boring, but They're Southern, so It's a Damn Scintillating Read, Y'all, With Plenty of Angst, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Even a Star Trek Reference

The bray of the ringer was so loud that the phone cord vibrated in a spasm barely visible to the naked eye. One ring, two rings. A third. Lura watched the phone from the comfort of her second-hand sofa late on Saturday afternoon. A fourth bell sounded, followed by a hiccup of stillness, a pause just long enough for Lura to hope for a hang-up. Then the answering machine kicked in, and a voice rasped out, “Hello? Lura! Lura Lee Biddix!”

“Shut up, for God’s sake,” Lura told the machine as she spun down the volume control to transform the speaker’s words into a low buzz. She forced herself upright, pushing against a debilitating combination of dread and arthritic knees, and headed into the kitchen for a glass of water. Lura stood at the sink and swished the water against her teeth and tongue to clean her mouth. It didn’t work. She felt coated in grime. She spit into the sink and patted her lips dry with a paper towel.

Listening to the message was pointless. Lura knew the caller was her next-door neighbor Sadie Tedder. Sadie saying: “I need cream for my coffee,” or “I need pastries for breakfast,” or “I need a load of clothes washed,” or “I need to borrow $2,000.” ...

Read the rest of this short story here:

http://deepsouthmag.com/2013/01/say-when/

Salivate: A Short Fiction of Alcoholic Weaning (Actually That Part Is True, Most of It Is Really, but My Parents Are Still Alive, so You Know, It's 100% Fiction for the Foreseeable Future Because They'd Cry if They Knew About It)

Sunday: Day 1/Week 1

I drink every day, have for years. At the age of twenty-nine, it’s my one committed activity. Wine is my thing, or gin and tonic if I go to a nightclub. I can’t just stop. I try to picture myself: one day with alcohol, the next without it forever. The image won’t coalesce. I can’t afford rehab, and Alcoholics Anonymous smacks of group activities, which are beyond me since the great Girl Scouts debacle of my youth. My options are: (1) revel Mardi Gras-style or (2) create a strategy using my own brand of steps to plod toward an alcohol-free existence.

I’m starting today. Sunday is the nominal day of rest, so I’m going to stop drinking on Sundays. When I feel OK with that, I’ll add in Mondays, then Tuesdays, and so on and so forth until I’m clear seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. Doing Monday next will give me forward momentum. A white lie. I can’t face Friday and Saturday. Christ, I hyperventilate at the thought of a weekend without alcohol. The corked maw of sobriety is frightening enough. I’ll begin with the easiest days and work my way up. ...

Read the rest of this short story here:

http://www.thegreatsmokiesreview.org/2014/stories/salivate/

Saver's Delight: A Couponing Short Fiction Because Coupons Are Cool, Cooler Than Bow Ties (Thx Dr. Who) And They Punch Corporate Greed in Its Fat Little Corporate Gut

Seventy-four bottles of yellow mustard; 58 bags of croutons; 40 cans of prepared pasta; 53 boxes of dried pasta, including 19 macaroni-and-cheese dinners; 49 bottles of hot sauce; 22 cans of chili with beans; 24 bottles of salad dressing; 26 cans each of corn and peas; 33 cans of tomato sauce; 31 cans of soup; 25 boxes of grits; 17 boxes of waffles; 13 pizzas; 20 family-size entrees; 36 bags of vegetables; and nine boxes of chicken nuggets.

On TV, savvy couponers make this kind of food haul in a single trip to the grocery store, paying in the neighborhood of $39.52, including tax, on a $793.18 bill. I spent eight long months stockpiling these items in my basement, where I carved out a food storeroom by commandeering space from my husband’s workshop and the children’s play area. According to my spreadsheet, the bill totaled $442.93 plus an additional $169.38 for long-term structural investments such as a chest freezer and a metal shelving system.

Read the rest of this short story here:

http://thedoctortjeckleburgreview.com/issue-no-17-savers-delight-by-caralyn-davis/

Bunnies Bathing (aka My First-Ever Published Short Story, Called 'Quiet' at the Time, so Might not Be Good, but You City Folk Will Learn a Survival Skill to Prepare You for Any Coming Apocalypse, so Read on, Knowledge Is Wonderful/Empowering Even When It's a Little Bit Gross and Disgusting)

How to kill a rabbit:

Step One. Put the rabbit on a flat surface and hold it behind the head.
Step Two. Hit the rabbit on the top of the head with a hammer. One sharp blow right between the ears, and the rabbit will convulse and die. There is little blood.
Step Three. Slit the rabbit’s throat.
Step Four. Hold the rabbit upside down by the feet. There is some blood, though nothing on par with a butchered hog. Let the blood drain out onto the ground or into a bucket.
Step Five. Dress the rabbit:

To learn how to dress the rabbit -- and read the rest of this short story -- go here:

http://monkeybicycle.net/bunnies-bathing/

My Mama Is a Demon (A Real-Life Parable on 'Stop Being So Mean' Because Having Your Own Strong Opinion Doesn't Mean You Should Disrespect Dissenters AKA Righteousness Isn't a Good Look on You and Being Kind Is Job 1 No Matter What Religious Affiliations You Have)

Demon possession has come a long way since the days of Linda Blair and The Exorcist. Back then, possession was a messy, visceral business rife with fluids and ejaculations of one sort or another. For average folks confronting a demon, sturdy raingear came in just as handy as a Bible and Holy Water. These days, demons do a better job of blending in. For example, on the TV show Supernatural, the demons who take over the bodies of hapless humans appear to bathe regularly between bouts of evil. Nevertheless, one constant remains for demons: They do evil. Perhaps they slit the throats of schoolchildren, or take a machine gun to a crowd of fair-goers. Whatever the specifics, they are action-oriented, full-throttle evil-doers.

Consequently, I was surprised to learn that my mother is possessed by demons. She has twice been informed of this fact by fellow church members. (She’s lost count of how many times she’s been accused of not being a Christian.) Mama first experienced the sacred when she was seven years old. No one in her family had ever taken her to church or Sunday school, but one summer day, she was lying on her back under a tree in her front yard when she looked up through the canopy of green leaves and saw glimpses of the blue sky. At that moment, she knew that God was there with her. So she hied herself off to Sunday school with a neighbor family to, as she describes it, “find out what the sacred was about.” ...

Read the rest of my essay here:

http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/confession/my-mama-is-a-demon/