Cockatrice Nightmare

Originally printed in Spinal Jaundice #10 – 1990

 



The grave had names and Tim Timid wasn’t reluctant to complain about it. The guy at the store follows him around like at any instant he’ll abduct the inventory. TT complained directly but the guy allied the other employees through what they called a nuance. Phone lights 1-3 were lit and they stayed lit until the manager quit. But, through numerous reference book reports and beauty academy commercials, he gained what he felt was amped theocracy. Everybody at the business schools had a good idea on this and the entire “coke-uh-triss” thing. What? It only exists on microfiche. The kind given away at a craft fair, you see, not what one might acquire from a basic retail fabricity. It was not truly fastened to a legitimate premise. That tract firmly in hand, he ignored the FCC code and denounced the whole thought. The bus driver looked right at him but sped right on by. Only, believe it or not, to advance 5 blocks and deposit 9 others at a concert by Somber Creature. Over the course of far away. The spray painting on the parking garage entrance proved too cumbersome for the latch. Now that wind had spoiled his sandy orange evening, what remained…a thought. Now we’re conversing data. So here was where they kept the lava ponies. The mummy held the scroll containing the bad-metal-band lyrics. Out poured most of the mud skeletons. With tape decks 4 and 9, we can easily seize the clatter. We were quickly interrupted by men gathering pelicans. They made it to tape too, one of them shouting about slipping. Now the unobstructed view of the pond was a relic. Visited every day and twice whenever deliveries were made. So once daily. It turns out they televised us with tape decks, interspersed with bread baking and the water rolled once more. This time with the purple aerial accompaniment lending a definite gatefold wrap. The refund for the filmstrip he ordered never arrived. I’m convinced my biting snake was once a woodcutter ruffian. He was a cloudy blue color and didn’t like gravel. During this interim the marine capacity seemed lofty. As though, in some plateau way, rain was the sea lifted and then released again. The nautilists hid eel vapor in the sea canyon when this Thumbelina aspect dissolved. But a bird family shared their cave palace with Satan’s leashed fish. The window stuck, the clouds erupt, the end abrupt. Here’s your invitation to televise…when we are all water-soluble.