Endless guilt, pain, death—one hundred ninety seven, now one hundred ninety eight—tired, hungry, sick, sleepless…this is my beat; fifth and sparrow street, the bread and butter of my life on the devil’s seat. They call me Happy Jack; a name I inherited from busting the heads of a Russian mafia run drug ring that lead to my Robin Hood debut of stealing from the rich and giving to the street urchin bums that could use a little escape from their own names.
Tonight’s the night, judgment hour, time for those sweet talking murderers of law to feast on sour bullets. Every Tom, Dick and Sally knows the law, its common sense; right and wrong but most of the time the right is made wrong to ensure a good nights rest; people in my city call that Jack’s Law—but I’m far from my city…
I hear the tick, tock of Grandfather’s clock and I know that it’s time for someone to die.
Hi I’m Matthew and I guess you could say that I’m the writer of these stories—I say I guess because sometimes I believe the stories write me more than I write them.
I’m currently studying film and marketing a comic book series called ‘Forty Tales’; I grew up in Uniondale NY and I write something every day of my life.
Matthew David Fishgold
“The time: is inconsequential, the place: your mind, and the reason: …to get this damn kid some readers.” Whispers a distant voice toward you.
“I know this seems like a ploy…and well I’d be lying to you if I said it wasn’t. I’m a Yeggman, a safecracker…no I’m not talking about the guy who’s picture is up on this About the Author page, I’m talking about myself…I can see how this is going to be difficult.” An amorphous thought in flux and the rhythm of imagination tips a newly appointed and manifested brown fedora hat, the very instant you thought of it and smiles before continuing to speak. “There…now you got it. But if for some reason you don’t…you are after all trapped within a multi-corporate controlled reality known to yourself and believed by most others as the ever popular ability to imagine. I’m sure that one of the most appealing factors to reading this profile was the thought that you would be given a chance to manifest the caricature portrayed in these paragraphs within your own mind and in your own fashion. Unfortunately despite your possible rejection of the idea that some corporation has implanted hidden psychic messages within this and every other profile, storybook, cookbook, magazine, etc. it still undoubtedly exists. They want you to think that you are the one creating the vivid images within your mind, but in fact they are the ones showing you what they want you to see. So if you by chance happen to visualize a familiar marketed soda product idly sitting upon a park bench or maybe a hemorrhoid crème in an obese mans purse, just keep in mind that if you go and buy the product the visions will go away. Well…maybe.” Slightly chuckling, the Yeggman shakes his head from side to side and winks at you. “Apologies, I have a way with getting carried off on snarky rants.”
As you read, you begin to notice something forming...or un-forming within your mind, like the click of a safe's falling tumbler echoing somewhere unknown.
“Now don’t be distressed…I told you I was a safecracker. What am I opening? Well hopefully your mind. You see, it’s my job here to put something inside there. What am I putting in your mind? Well the idea to read the stories of that handsome guy in the picture up there.” The Yeggman smiled. “Well enough with the preliminaries, let’s move on to something that will keep your interest long enough for me to crack that safe. How about a story? And not just any old story about some maiden whose name is a depiction of the racist and ethnocentric behavior of its time and seven men who live all alone in the forest. Nor is this a story about increasing the population of vegans’ by making people feel bad about eating little talking architecturally gifted piggies...this is a story about a kitten!”
It is said that Heaven has a place on Earth
Where wonders of God are given birth
It all took place on a quiet little road
I traveled there to seek fortunes untold
But what I found was a quandary of the lord
One little kitten with a flaming sword
“I’m filling in for the angel of death,
He took the day off and gave me his fiery breath!”
Said the kitten with a wink
I was so puzzled I just could not think
“Why would a kitten be a wonder of God?
I thought I would be enlightened…are you eating a cod?
This is ridiculous I demand to see God; I demand more for my journey and wish"
Then kitten walked over to me and said with a gulp of his fish
“I’m also filling in for him, he went on a break
I think he is attending a chipmunk’s wake.”
“So right now you’re God?”
Simply he answered with a nod
Then he picked up a stone
And turned it into a phone
“There's your wonder, now you can leave.”
At this point I began to huff and heave
“That’s it! If God won’t show me wonders and leaves powers with you
Then I want to speak to the Devil, maybe his wonders are true!”
“Yeah he’s also on a break,
Guess he’s tired of the fiery lake.”
“So who is in charge…no wait it’s you I guess.”
“It’s true, I must confess.”
“That’s it I’m done with it all, no spiritual power cares to show me a wonder
I came all this way for nothing but a blunder.”
Then the kitten’s telephone rang
He answered it, nodded, then put the phone down with a clang
One last hope, I allowed myself to believe
That the call might be the answer I came to achieve
“Was that God or The Devil to give me my wish?”
“No it was God telling me that it’s okay to turn you into my next fish.”
It's stupid, it's disgusting, it's what's in your damn head, it's Creep Box!
Matthew D. Fishgold and Jason A. Kreiger give you a nasty and funny blog with web comics and more, presented to you by cartoon characters themselves. Look inside the Creep Box!
They say space is the place for a kid like me, so that’s where I’m headed. It’s a real eye opener when you wake up one day to the one drip life of a broken faucet that you can’t afford to fix and then suddenly someone comes along and says: Hey kiddo how would you like to meet God? Well who needs a plumber when somebody offers you that? So good riddance to it all, I said and here I am. They told me to say goodbye to my family and friends, because it’s the right thing to do; well I don’t need to read between the lines, I know they don’t expect me to return—God’s not into sending us back. Anyway this shouldn’t take me very long; after all, how hard is it to say goodbye to one little sister?
Click (Read More) for a silly poem :P
Autumn’s final week was cold and silent on Joshua Street; slow, shivering winds entwined the crisp dead leaves upon the neglected street within a spiraled foretelling of the winter to come. The miniature tornado abandoned its company far above the pockets of trash which covered the street’s body like a blanket—no life was seen in the black starless sky.
The houses on Joshua Street were connected like pieces of an old puzzle no one cared to finish. Each home seemed to have something missing from it yet was strangely similar to the one to its left or right. The unkempt homes were unintentionally designed by its improvident inhabitants to have the same bedraggled features: Dusty unwashed windows, lock after rusted lock upon their front and back doors, a brownish black tint of dirt and neglect upon the wooden, brick or stone exterior walls. And an empty essence within, despite the wandering eyes pressed upon each window hoping for some sign of change.
Pressed upon a dusted attic window were the wandering eyes of a young boy searching ardently for a wish. As he searched he found no stars; only a handful of dead leaves in the cold wind. In the small light brown eyes of the young boy a tear began to form. Reflected patterns of mocha skin and short black hair upon an empty face, were the visions the tear gave away to the eye. But to the heart, it showed an unanswered prayer, an empty stomach and a dying mother.
“Dream-walking…it could be the journey you need to find your true love, it could be the answer you seek to end a lie or even become the question to discover your journey. But sometimes, dream-walking can be something to write your name in a cloud and bring the attention of God.
My life has not been what I sought for as a child—bringing to the streets a handful of tears and looking to trade them in for some compassion. But the world does not think the same way children do, you see—children think with their heart; the world thinks with its greed. So my handful of tears was instead traded in for a service of running drug routes past the local police and sending me home with a handful of dollars.
We put the dollars to good use; my papa and I and although most would argue trying to save something already dead is useful only in hopes and dreams—fortunately for my papa and I we have always been the living hope in such dreams.”
“Excuse me mister—“Came a small voice from behind a bleach white hospital bed. “Who are you talking to?”
Sight was found in every burst of gunfire, firefly flickers in the mine shaft. In the firefly light Mint could see the motionless canary and wished it was the gunfight that claimed the creature’s life—but he knew better; Mint’s gamble was simple—outlast the six gunmen in the poisonous gas until they decided to turn tail.
Mint had wrapped his shirt around his face, peering through two tiny holes like some mummified pharaoh. "Would be a damn fine tomb to fit the reason…" He thought to himself.
*Crunch*, Mint heard them trying to move closer as they stepped on a broken bottle of whiskey he had purposely shattered and returned gunfire. Earlier one of the miners had tried to clean a path in the narrow passage that was littered with the glass and Mint shot the man in both hands. If he had killed the man they could have used him as a shield to advance, Mint wasn’t sure if they would have thought of that but he wasn’t taking any more chances than he already had to.
“Damn you Sheriff! *Cough, cough, wheeze* you gotta run outta bullets eventually!”
"It’s starting to take effect, good." Thought Mint as he touched the soft wet of his shirt underneath his mouth and fired another shot while looking at his fingers. "Blood…damn."
“Calm your nerves.” She had said with those thin black lips rolling over the sarcastic words like they were sweet candies. She was a Swiss talker of the Third Reich, so there’s little else for a Jew to expect.
Her nerves stiff like the whiskey on my breath, laying warm under that puddle of blood—even after two hours…maybe it’s this summer heat.
Nazis act super-human, I guess it’s an ego their born with—they all die the same though.
Don’t get me wrong, most Nazis deserve it—though mostly I’ve been waiting for David to finish turning her into some kind of…art piece? I guess that’s what the monkey is doing.
Saying monkey might not be politically correct and if the Baboon can read my thoughts I hope he doesn’t want to turn my own corpse into a Star of David once I’m underneath my own puddle of blood…
Yeah…you’re not the only one who’s lost.
I found David the Baboon sometime last week, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you the day. Time goes by like a snowman in the oven when you’re in Nazi America.
They still called me Yo-yo Yigol then…
Click (Read More) for a silly cat poem :P
It was heard; “Invisible child”—gentle whispers from yellow eyes incandescent, coveting what once was warmth, an unknown lover’s touch echoing forth in a slow familiar drone—“Invisible child.”
There was rest once and at the time of this rest there lived a child, a heart, a reason. She was alone. Living little within, little without; idle solitude—forever awake, forever asleep; protest to the body by will of the mind, by will of the mindless.
A dry mouth opens, there’s a familiar crack of peeling skin—the cellar door; welcoming descent. The mouth shouts “Joshua!” and she knows she’s fading away. Thin hands speckled with auburn freckles rip satin sheets and pull bed folds of an Eternal Sleeper’s sculptured flesh, pulling, ripping, pulling… bleeding. Blood streaked; external veins running fluidly, crossing one another’s paths, connecting, faster, running over palm lines, knuckle wrinkles, fingerprints, dripping. Torn strands of red satin upon a long cavernous face—drip, dripping into its depths; Lips touching the satin move spasmodic to pain. Her shrieks last for hours while a chorus of Ly Bird’s echoing howls reach for her; “Invisible child.” their yearning darkening every creature of the night into silence.
There is a momentary scurry; stumbling and clawing to retreat from bedridden tombs. Soiled, upon belly and chin she humiliates herself into the bathroom and throws herself into the tub. Bruises form, instantly; soft brown turning blue upon edges like blooming flowers. Her thin frame fit within the tub as a shovel might fit into an empty shed.
She was alone, but she once new a voice, a voice that carried her away from herself, from the cabin, from the woods, from the prison; but the voice was gone. Lying in the tub she thought of the voice and began to cry—innocence, love, complete…gone.
A rotted knot in the windowsill grew blacker and deeper each day, the moisture from the hot bath water eating it like a cancer. A breeze ran through the knot hole; “Invisible child”.
“I told you to stay.” She pleaded. “I told you not to run, why did you run?!” An image flickered before her, innocent, loving, complete. Submerging in the escape only pain can offer; hot water eagerly masked her with its thick sting encompassing her body and finally closing upon her face to complete sharpness that deluded into a numbing network of easing muscle and thought.
She held herself at the bottom of the tub until unconsciousness—then letting go while floating above, she began to dream.
“Darlin, you must behave your interest on my matter; for what time has worth to some, I’m limited for but a few fragments. My purse has been bitten by hunger and left my mouth dry with thirst for your earnestness in my complication.
With her long slender legs crossed and bobbing nervously, a beautiful woman with fair blonde hair continued desperate and anxious in her claims of distress.
You see, I’ve killed a man and with that honesty I wish to hold, but by God must I live…for if I don’t the world will be beset by another of his kind…and I’m the only one which can see them for what they are.”
Mr. Quigley’s lips sweat with Louisiana Ice Tea, soggy up to the cigarette filter—a puff of smoke rolled into his wandering eye, laying upon the woman’s breasts and pinched it tight.
“That’s a directly queer claim, Ms. Claries. How might I take that from you? Is it that you need a boat to the Gator Bend to…dispose a man’s shell?” Quigley rubbed at the smoke burn upon his eye and sank into his rocking chair.
“Oh Heavens no Mr. Quigley, I desire no less than to rid the world of this man’s shell, but I will not harm the wildlife of Gator Bend with his damned flesh. I call it upon myself to the duty of eating that evil shell myself. It is why I need to be in Gator Bend during that act prior mentioned, for if I’m not far away from others than I may be given an act of illness upon them.”
“I see…” Quigley was bored with life, nothing seemed to surprise or have meaning to him anymore—last year a man visited his boating service and asked if he could rent out his basement for a night, the man was known to Quigley and his town as a sexual offender recently released for a series of accounts of rape; So long as you clean up and all is fair on your end, that being the money, if so I got no will to stop a man from having himself a time. During that long night of screams, Quigley sat on his rocking chair and smoked, curling gray clouds and not one word left his mouth.
The town of Gator knew Quigley as such a man that never opened his mouth to the law so long as he was given his due and many people gave Quigley his due.
Silence cast its shadow beneath the forest of mold and bone as the old woman walked in a lost thought—she was curious about the time when she could remember more than the images before her now, though as she tried to recall the past she found her mind was empty.
The dogs were in flight above the old woman, sucking on the floating spore sacks of the Primordial Glade with their toothless mouths. She watched as the older winged hounds dug their way into the loose earth for their final rest, she watched the dead ones sprout seedlings, she watched the fetuses gestating in their cocoons off of the exoskeleton trees.
The trees seemed to breathe as the mold snaked its way along their branches, releasing spores into the air.
Rhythm of the forest was fit to the old woman like a cold skin coat; its patterns left her eyes tired and mind barren.
