Rat King

The boy was gorging himself before I ripped him from her breast. He responded with cries that only served to drown his mother’s bleating. It is well known that mother’s milk thins the blood. Going forward, the boy would be fortified with goat’s milk thickened with ram’s blood. The pink concoction would prepare him for…

Like a centipede on its back, the coarse hairs undulated rhythmically. It had grown unruly. Even his barber winced at the suggestion of tidying it. Tweezers seemed inadequate, he thought, as he reached for a pair of pliers. The unibrow would be brought to heel. After a few failed attempts at dodging his pliers, he…

Pressure was building in my crotch. I dreaded seeing Farrokh in there. Our paths crossed in that bathroom all too often. There he was, standing proudly in front of the urinal. His underwear and jeans lay limp at his ankles. Vines of black hair gripped his ankles and climbed over his large buttocks to disappear…

She locked eyes and flagged me down with a slightly raised hand. She was hunting. Backed into a corner, my muscles seized with panic. I considered and dismissed a myriad of escape plans. I braced myself for the worst as she approached. She began recounting some idiotic story, tactlessly batting aside the suggestion that she…

“Gather ‘round peons!”, Titan bellowed. He wore a pristine white tunic fastened with a belt so intricately detailed that it recounted the rise and fall civilizations. A giant by any measure, his massive square head towered over his scrambling peons. He sat atop a marble throne striated with divinely purple swirls. “Lay at my feet,…

My morning routine? Happy to share it. After waking from a long night’s sleep, I start the day by drinking a cup of coffee. Once done, I open a small walnut box in the drawer below the coffee maker. Inside, nestled in a groove covered in velvet lining, is a slightly discolored copper whistle. I…

The mid-century convertible glided down the interstate. Grinning, the driver glanced lazily at the summer haze, his silver-rimmed aviators reflecting the road ahead. The heat didn’t bother him nor did the bone-dry air. His black bolo tie dangled forward as he nudged the cassette tape into the player. The speakers replied with a simple guitar…

Questions breed Indecision. Indecision, well, it leads to faithlessness. Faithlessness…the whole train of thought made him shudder. Or was it the damned cold seat? Saddiq was at it again, asking him cutting questions about the holy text. May the All Merciful cure his ignorance. He tightened his grip on his pristine white thawb. Best it…

Does the hammer wince before falling? The bullet, does it hesitate before piercing? Tell me, does your cock flinch before fucking? No? You are a tool my son, nothing more. Go on.

Little Jimmy remembered the day he first heard of Europa, one of Jupiter’s wayward moons. His teacher tried to explain how far away it was, in her casual and condescending tone. She described how scientists had discovered water on Europa and how the giant planet’s gravitational pull disrupted that water. Little Jimmy hadn’t stopped thinking…