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.
