Fun Things You Can Do Around Town with a Corpse

You can name him Angus and dress him in combats, Ray-Bans

and a low-slung fedora

to hide

his orange-peel eyes

from the ants

crawling

through his toes,

and the crowd of swingers

at the rally

who dream of making love

in the nuclear war room.

You can wheel Angus

in a trolley across town

to the deli

where the morning clubbers

flock,

as they ride their comedowns

with cream cheese lips,

and rhythmically sweat.

You can chat up some girls

who want to know

about your mysterious mate

and his avant-garde look.

Then, you can board a bus,

place a smoke on his tongue

and fire up the foul leaf.

You’d be so cool, right?

And kids would be jealous ‘cause they’re

stuck with their vapes

and their sticky sherbet fingers

jammed up their noses.

You can explain to Angus

how your father never listens

when you say that the sun

is a lantern

and that all of the trees

will fade to blue

when the sky’s had enough.

Angus might not move

but he has heard you

no doubt

and everything feels right.

But he is starting to smell—

maybe you need new friends

with their own set of teeth,

with supple muscles,

and holiday homes

in quiet parts of Spain.

As Angus’s nails blacken,

you think to yourself;

he is actually a bore,

he can’t even sing

like Stevie Ray Vaughn

or watch kung fu flicks

while swigging fake coke.

So, you can return the corpse

to where you first found him—

beside the river

by the moored tourist boats

and let someone else

have a turn

to play dress up

and dance around his cart

like a bipolar shaman

setting him free

to live

an entirely new life.

Graveyard Mouth

In the haunted rubble

that is my

bleak backyard playground

where spirits burn the turf

like acid rain

I bury Aunt Jane

under a blanket of wet rocks and dead

e-cigarettes.

Her skin is as soft and supple as thick minestrone soup

coiled with matted hair

and green teeth.

She fed me sweaty eggs as a child

and for that she had to die.

From the burgeoning burial mound

I hear the kitchen ventilator

clap like a snare drum.

Above me, clouds spew rainbows of dirt and

coat my bruised lips.

The clapping seems to call my name, so

I leave Aunt Jane

with her hands exposed

like deflated pink balloons—

I’ll carve her gravestone later

maybe plant a geranium in her honour.

Up close,

the ventilator shaft smells of

baby formula

and trench foot.

I peer into the gloopy abyss

and there is movement—

not just the swinging flap

but something like squirming oval eyeballs, in saline solution.

“Hello, hello?” I say.

Shrill shrieks, cracked shells.

“I still love you,” says a voice, sounding distinctly like Aunt Jane.

Warm yolk swamps my tongue,

the thrill of murder

repeats and repeats

in the shrivelled

ocean of my mouth.

“Have one more egg, darling,

for old time’s sake.”

How can I refuse?

Two Psychopaths Sitting on a Bus

Two teenage psychopaths

sat on a bus

weaving through the city,

plotting which commuter to kill.

The teenagers analysed each passenger—

their clothes,

their jewels,

and their facial tics.

The psychopaths were young but experienced,

well-versed in the art of blood

and split bone.

As a yuppie stepped on board,

the youths decided he would be

the perfect victim.

He looked like every other yuppie;

assured

strangely clean

with sun-kissed mahogany skin

and it didn’t matter if he was a family man—

kind and giving—

the psychopaths wanted

him dashed

against the concrete

like a baby

ripped

from a madwoman’s breast.

One of the youths

stabbed the yuppie

with a twelve inch blade,

but the yuppie only suffered

superficial

wounds, and fled

into a busy high street,

leaving a pool

of blood

on the cracked pavement

by the bus stop.

So, the teen who was particularly bloodthirsty,

decided his friend needed to die

instead.

The psychopaths

were close;

they’d shared good times

chasing drunk clubbers

outside McDonald’s,

and hunting the homeless in quiet

side-streets.

But the bloodthirsty youth

needed his kill,

he wanted to stain his hands

with clotted chunks of flesh

and lick them dry.

It was settled,

he would hang his friend

from an old oak tree

in a secluded park outside of town,

and carve

elaborate spirals

in his victim’s chest.

Then he’d drink

twenty Red Bulls,

and celebrate

with a high-class whore.

“What you doing tonight?” asked the psychopath

who was soon to die,

breathing giant vape clouds

and glaring out the window

at MILFs.

“I dunno,” said the bloodthirsty psychopath, “I might just have a TV dinner

and watch The Bachelor with my mother.”

Tim Frank’s short stories have been published in Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, Rejection Letters, The Forge Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. His debut chapbook of experimental prose poetry is called, An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press).

Twitter - @TimFrankquill