wunderkammer

Status

mixed paint and used computer disks on wood

by Nick Gentry

 

Residual Memory

mixed paint, copper leaf and used computer disks on wood

by Nick Gentry

 

This is how I love all of you.

by Ryan Richey

With a camera in my right hand and a camcorder in my left, I document every family gathering. These people won’t be here forever, besides it gives me something to do other than talking. They’ll go to sleep and forget, yet I will not. 

After school I watch boyfriends come and go, different fashions and hair loss. Chelseah before Mom filled her teeth in. Mom hot. Mom big. Mom small. Dad sneaking away every five minutes on the hour. 

THE ENTITY D2

mixed paint and used computer disks on wood

by Nick Gentry

Janice-Katie and the Concerned Mad Scientist (part 4)

by Sarah Eaton

Janice-Katie wanted to leave.  She wanted to scoop up a handful of mini-sheep and another handful of mini-goats and take them back to the home she shared with Mrs. Beck.  She thought of the fear they must feel when the petals of the object whirred shut above their small, soft heads.  The way they would buck and shudder.  The way they would scream.
There were no windows in the laboratory, but Janice-Katie had always relied on an excellent sense of direction.  Despite the many twists and turns through hallways that had led them to this room, she felt certain that she could backtrack and escape. 
Mrs. Beck stared at Dr. Scoot, mouth agape.  “You grow these animals to their full size and slaughter them?  No wonder it smells like blood and bleach in here.  I thought it was you.”
Janice-Katie wondered why the bunnies and goats and cows and pigs stayed.  Was it similar to the feeling that made her certain her bones were turning to powder, and that if she tried to get up from her bed she would only collapse?  There seemed to be no mechanism holding them in place.  They nuzzled their companions freely.  She closely observed Dr. Scoot for a few moments, not noticing any sinister posturing or conflicts between his words and gestures.  He said he was a concerned scientist.  So what if he was mad. 
“We let them go, gently, before we put them in the Egg.  That’s what we call this contraption,” he said, pride in his voice.
“You inject them with poisons!” Mrs. Beck said.
“No, no,” he said.  “Mrs. Beck,” he said, “I do a lot of reading.  Do you?”
“Who has time to clutter her head with things that are untrue?” she said.
“But there are many true things in books.  I learned from books what a powerful emotion fear is.  And I also learned about love.”
“Oh come on, Janice-Katie,” Mrs. Beck said.  “It’s just another man who wants to ogle you.  Let’s go home where the animals are sized normally.  I’ll make some brownies.”
Janice-Katie stayed where she was.  Sometimes she felt like she was overflowing with love.  It electrified her fingers and made her antsy.  Mrs. Beck thought it was anxiety, but Janice-Katie knew that the symptoms could mirror each other.  At night, while she paced and flipped her hands, she thought of how many things mouths could do, and how much easier it was to move around than to stay still.  She wanted to love one of those mini-bunnies.  She wanted to put it in her mouth and swirl it around.  She wanted to spit it out and cuddle it against her cheek.  She wanted to kiss it and kiss it and kiss it and kiss it and kiss it.

Janice-Katie and the Concerned Mad Scientist (part 3)

by Sarah Eaton

Mrs. Beck made a wet noise that sounded like disapproval.  Janice-Katie had quite forgotten she was there.
“Don’t kiss anything!” shouted Dr. Scoot.  Mrs. Beck leaned forward at the waist, ready to make lip contact with a tiny bunny.
“But they look so sweet,” Janice-Katie said, “with their eyelashes and their smallness.”  She wanted to kiss one, too.  She wanted to kiss all of them, the mini-animals, running her lips along their fur, letting it get caught up in her mouth.  She wanted to put their small heads in her mouth, one by one, just bringing her lips closed around their small necks for a moment, just to feel the movement inside of her mouth, the cuteness, the alive.
“I’ll let you kiss one later,” Dr. Scoot said.
 “Where’s the cake?” Mrs. Beck said.
“I didn’t have you pegged as a weak person, Mrs. Beck.  Please be patient.”   Dr. Scoot didn’t allow Mrs. Beck to retort.  He said many things, rapidly, staccato, things that seemed like chants or magical mantras or incantations or prayer.  All the while he spoke he used a series of bulky metal keys in succession, on a round object that did not look like it would open.
Finally, the round object fell apart like a dream.  It hissed.
At the center of the now opened round object there was a pedestal, and perched on the pedestal was the smallest piece of cake Janice-Katie had ever seen. 
Mrs. Beck snorted.  “That’s more crumb than cake!” she said.

 

Janice-Katie and the Concerned Mad Scientist (part 2)

by Sarah Eaton

For a long time, people commented on Janice-Katie’s youthful appearance by using diminutive forms of her name, like Janny-Kate, which sounded to her like food, and by tying her shoelaces when they came undone.  “A woman who can keep her own house does not need to have her hair braided into pigtails while waiting for the bus,” she said to Mrs. Beck, her long-term companion.
Mrs. Beck stirred in her mid-day sleep, and murmured something about adolescence.  She often was the perpetrator of such diminishing actions, zipping up Janice-Katie’s coat all the way to the chin, prohibiting running in the house, blowing on her food.  Janice-Katie was not a child.  She decided to take action in a decisive way, although she usually disapproved of self-improvement plans.  She would eliminate her acne by avoiding dairy and meats, thus allowing her hormones to be her own, and dissociating her appearance with youth.  She ate a pear without brie as a mid-afternoon snack.  She used a knife to cut it and ignored Mrs. Beck’s barking protestations. 
Her stomach ailments abated by whole grain and legumes, her skin radiant from not eating the fear of tortured animals, Janice-Katie attracted unwelcome male attention.
“Men are visual creatures,” Mrs. Beck said.  “Now, as well as being a pushover, you’re a traditionally smoking-hot older lady.  You would make a good third wife.”
Mrs. Beck accompanied Janice-Katie on her daily around-town perambulations to protect her from ogling men.  Janice-Katie kept a furious pace, swishing her arms at her sides, breathing heavily through her mouth. 
“I wish I could afford to get my feet scraped,” Mrs. Beck said.  Her breath puffed erratically.
Janice-Katie sped up.  She could see a man wearing a lab coat in a field in the distance.  He held a cane and shouted with much bluster.
“I’m Dr. Scoot,” the man said.  “Please don’t come any closer.”
Janice-Katie acted like she hadn’t heard the man.
“Please stop,” Dr. Scoot cried out.  “What is your name?  What is your business?”
“I’m Janice-Aggressive,” Janice-Katie said.
Mrs. Beck brought up the rear and exclaimed, “For hell’s sake!  These are abominations!”

Janice-Katie and the Concerned Mad Scientist (part 1 of 4)

by Sarah Eaton

Irene

by Tracy Branstromm

Janice-Katie 2

by Zach Dodson