30 Minutes or Less

Bill F. left behind a red and black duffel bag in the men's locker room.

Juxtapositioning

There is a warehouse full of workers wheeling wagons loaded with stacks of white and dark chocolate candy bars next door to a tandem racing water slide without water.

Patrons ride down the slide on empty burlap potato sacks.

Fashion Update

Jamie and Allana chat while wearing huge peacock-feather false eyelashes on their lower lids.

Swap Meet Search

In a swap meet parking lot next to a 50's-style diner are dozens of refurbished pink convertible Volkswagen Beetles on sale for $1,495. It's strange that they feature slim wheels and tires like those found on cars from the early 1900's.

At the swap meet, a young boy shops for a tomahawk.

Punk'd In Planes

Two female joggers (one pregnant) watch a single-engine aircraft with red pin striping buzz the park they're running through twice before it successfully flies between two narrowly-spaced high-tension power lines.

3-in-1 Show

Documentary on United States pennies mentions "zero-cent" blanks. One in our collection has a hole in the middle and is strung with fishing wire.

At a birthday party banquet, in a room with broken tiled-glass doors, there's a lenticular picture of me in a black sport coat, seated, and turning around from behind.

Attempt to distract Disney character enemies in order that the aggressor might kill the defender.

Morning Verse

Smoking,

car idling.

Spit in the air

lands on my forehead

in the fog before dawn.

DTV

Happy Cube <80%

Forklift

Broken rain gutter

Clogged toilet

Amputee Survival Stories

As an exhibitionist Chinese bisento artist I was severely injured in a battle when my opponent chopped off my leg below the knee.

Whatever Happened To...

At the occultism store in the mall, Marylin Manson tries to fill a bottle to win a prize.

I perform an impromptu Greek weather ritual by playing percussion.

Color Theory

Green and orange.

Ken visits us in the park.

I draw an orange 'JS' in the grass, on either side of a walkway, with a boogie board.

Backwards Memory

Suicidal depression.

Working backwards through the dream to the moment I lost consciousness.

Trying to compose the thoughts and feelings into a New York Times bestseller book's opening paragraph.

Spiralling blackness, then small figurines pressing against my face and solidifying impressions as my body unfolds from its fetal position.

Crawling backwards like a wounded animal through the shallow backwash of discarded anniversary gifts and a sandy market bazaar.

Two dollars to join the buskers' band.

Earlier remembering how Tim had brandished the absurdly giant steel shuriken. Another middle school boy grabbed it. In the struggle it ended embedded in a girl's upper back, missing her spine by an inch, and grazing her shoulder blade. She was mostly unharmed (physically) but I still had to retell the story to her mother.

When I did, she suffered a heart attack.

Circuitous

Walk through an empty hotel lobby.

Walk through a sleepy IHOP.

Climb a puzzle stairway with purple and gray stones in shifting patterns.

A failure slide leads back to the hotel lobby.

Feats of Astonishment

Navigating a snow-covered mountain peak, Spencer and Steve bridge a 5-foot gap by riding a recumbent bike (sans tires) across three steel cables.

Hand-me-downs

An inherited TV stand from an elementary school comes with an old 70's television.

Old textbooks are crammed into the narrow space between the CRT and the side of the stand.

In addition to the books are several slide binders filled with photos of school activities including a visit from Big Bird of Sesame Street.

Line 490

A video game character puffs on a cigar.

Real smoke emanates from the game console.

LA Traffic Jam Meetings

On northbound Interstate 405 just before the I-405 / I-5 merge there is a tunnel.

The frequency with which drivers passing through the tunnel will honk their horns is inversely proportional to the speed the cars are travelling.

D. hops out of his SUV to hand me a sipa sipa.

Where it Begins

In a German subway, a man is running to catch up to a snaking train.

The train is headed to where new beings are created.

Each being has two earthly parents and two heavenly parents.

Slide Show

Snapping photos

Blue, pink, and purple baby dragon

Pebble frog

Wasp and worm in the refrigerator

The Tall and the Small

Giants from across the street push away a lawnmower which I wanted to sell to our pregnant neighbor.

I forgot her name.

Career Change

I wonder whether to change the arrangement of my work desk: from public (facing into a corner) to private (facing out from the corner) in hospital administration.

Leaping joyfully along a hallway I notice gravity still exerts its familiar pull.

Landing on linoleum and sliding under an ironing board I stand to hug Molly.

Coffee feels floatier, however.

Code

Stuart k-12 1-on-1 tank vassal.

Lawnmower

I noticed the backyard lawn had a 3-foot-tall cowlick of grass on it.

I told an ex-coworker (who is a dream enthusiast) that for four months I have not been dreaming at all.

Outpost

A mother and daughter guard a vehicle checkpoint on a remote snowy tundra.

A man approaches alone and on foot, cautiously since they are known to him.

I'm Not A Morning Person

Neighbor's Yorkie vomited on our doorstep.

My son stepped in the dog vomit, then a pillowcase fashioned as a butterfly net.

You wash.

Underwater Home Video

Fard bought a video camera.

An apartment complex dumpster was emptied, then filled with water.

Film shows a cat swimming and diving in the water-filled dumpster.

My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad

With his steely gaze that pierces through to the bowels of your soul, my Dad will make your Dad soil himself.

Guest starring, Cake.

Bat Country

We can't stop here!

A man walks into a public restroom in a casino. He's carrying a baby and vigorously shaking it.
A second man follows the first.

The first man enters a stall and closes the door.
The second man washes his hands at a sink opposite the same stall.

The man in the stall stops shaking the baby and removes a cell phone and a $1 bill from its mouth.
The man washing his hands begins singing the tenor tag from the song, "Go The Distance".

A third man receives a text message from the first man in a nearby video arcade.
A fourth man scribbles a note on a scrap of paper, "lost $4400 hold 'em poker."

Survivor Mars

Moisture farmers K. and S. stake out a claim of land on a downward slope in the center of the colony.