wunderkammer

Telephonic Etiquette

by Shawn Huelle 

 

Our artists worked hard to capture every detail of her black fabric shade and the eeriest eyes to ever ever wrap around your tree. Whether you display this or choose the piped version with included recirculating pump, this timeless art zombie will claw his way out of Brussels for more than 300 years. Please bear in mind that our quality designer resin accepts your 60-watt bulb, attaches to your tree, arrives in three pieces, and will bring the rich palette of Egypt to your home, garden plot, office, or family room corner! Act now, and we’ll include chic knee-high boots, a trendy cocktail dress, and accentuated curves, all the while pleading for assistance!

 

Temerity & Toejam

by Shawn Huelle

Not thinking twice, she nipped off the head of the small intruder, which peeped. She sat all afternoon then, pondering her abrupt, but not uncalled for act of what some might call violence, others mercy. She sat first in the kitchen, then in the front room, finally on the stool in the pantry, lacing her fingers together, flexing them, thinking about her dexterity.

Later in the evening—an hour after a dinner of roasted parsnips and squab, over which her husband, for certain, private reasons, had openly wept—as she sat in the rocking chair in her bedroom knitting, she remembered a moment from her youth, a moment of indescribably brevity, a look her father had given her after watching her snatch a bee from its flight.

She went to bed, pulled her cap over her eyebrows, her quilt over her mouth, slept, and dreamt the following page of text from a novel, the title of which remained obscure:

again took a step toward the unmoved and seemingly immobile Lord Ratchetton. Her breath stuck in her throat as she realized she was now finally close enough to him to apphrehend his scent. She feared what it might do to her and so held her breath. 

If Lord Ratchetton noticed Sheila's nervousness, he made no sign. He remained standing in front of her, stoic and stony as only a man of his breeding and position might. Eventually, he saw her pinken, then redden. She fainted. Lord Ratchetton took one step forward, and caught her about the waist.

Later, after they were married, she would tell a story about how she was revived by a bright, clean smell. Her audience usually smiled politely or congratulated her again on her great good fortune. She always discreetly omitted the detail that her second sensation upon reawakening was one of simultaneously having her neck scrubbed with bristles and being unbuttoned—a sensation to which she gladly abandoned herself. Her audience, however, already

She awoke exactly eight hours later in the same position in which she had fallen asleep. She opened her eyes, and thought of her father, a small toad she had once kept as a pet, a cup of coffee, her mother’s corset, and her husband—in that order. She got out of bed and went to her husband’s room only to find that not only was he not there, but his bed showed no signs of having been slept in. This did not disturb her in any conventional or expected sense. Instead, it made her think again of the corset.

 

Titanium Flashlight

by Shawn Huelle

Somewhere, she thought, somewhere there is a photograph wherein people are baring too many teeth, convinced for whatever reason that this moment is the happiest—No, she thought, it isn’t happiness that people show with their teeth, at least not always—sometimes, yes, that she had to admit, but not always—no, what people usually showed with their teeth was what they thought happiness might be. 

She didn’t believe, like many of her more cynical friends, that most people were desperately unhappy; rather, she was quite convinced that people simply didn’t know what happiness was—not something lasting, but brief moments, which, now that she thought about it, could probably only be captured by a camera—and what she wanted, what she was looking for, was a photograph where too many people were baring their teeth at a singular, central character who had come to them to elicit this very facial expression. He would, of course, be wearing white gloves. 

What, she wondered, do white gloves have to do with happiness? But these are my desires, she though, I’m the one painting—no, composing this photograph which must already exist somewhere in the world.

What else? The color red? Supple leather? Yes and no. Both of these things and something more. Three shades of red, and something blue. The leather, upon further rumination, seemed inconsequential.

Fleece? Garlands? Warmth and merriment? Overhead bins? A fat man?

Then she found it. I’ve found it, she thought. In the photograph, just above the center point (which, she thought, is occupied by someone baring his teeth at something the viewer can’t see), just above, there is a balding man who hasn’t shaved in two days. He is not baring his teeth, but the corners of his mouth turn up slightly anyway. The viewer can only see his head, and he is staring directly at the camera.

 

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

Why I am in Love with Bill Orange

by Megan Martin

Because the pizza was sour.  Because the warm eggs, bread, and milk were sour and because soap foam and water in the morning is always so warm and so sour.
Because I spent all morning washing and stretching Mrs. Beck’s trousers and because her legs are swelling still.  Because Mrs. Beck has leg-veins like dead, grey worms.
Because stitch, loop stitch, her breath is diseased.  Her worn, yellowed furniture is diseased.
Because I don’t like outer space, among other things.  Because she is having another spell. 
Because sometimes when I go out each day, as I feel I should, Bill Orange is sometimes out there, too.  He doesn’t wash his hair with water, either.  Or anything.  I love him because his hair looks original, like melted plastic.
Because Bill Orange asks if I’ve ever been to Holland and asks if I want Dutch soup. I know it isn’t really Dutch soup and that he hasn’t ever been to Holland either, but in his soup I taste his version of Holland. Also it’s my version because I asked for the Dutch soup cold.  In this way, Bill Orange and I make something together. It isn’t any good, but we made it. In my mind I go around town saying: Bill Orange and I made bad cold Dutch soup together that we learned to make in Holland.
Because Bill Orange gets concerned when I want to eat cold things on a cold day.  But he does not really get that concerned and lets me eat the cold thing anyway.  In his own way, Bill Orange grants all my wishes without knowing it. 
Because Bill Orange understands that my joke about barricading the house so that Mrs. Beck, who I do not love remotely, can never come in again, is not really a joke. Because Bill Orange makes his own joke where he threatens Mrs. Beck with his finger and with police and gives me a fantasy wherein Mrs. Beck no longer exists except in a cell.  I can appreciate Mrs. Beck when I imagine her locked up; in this way, Bill Orange is the only thing on the planet that allows me to appreciate Mrs. Beck.
Because Bill Orange will never do huge, exciting things; because he will never do awful things, either.  He will never diminish me with any of his accomplishments. But Bill Orange has imaginary plans.
Because Bill Orange wears his apron every day, has worn it every day since he was thirteen.  Because his whole life he has refused to express what he is afraid of regarding mustard; in that he gives me an overwhelming sense of wonder and curiosity.
Because Bill Orange is also sour, but he has a heightened, delicious sour taste. Bill Orange tastes like lemonade although he does not believe in drinking lemonade.  Because Bill Orange’s taste is not remotely sexy and therefore unthreatening.
Because everything else was sour so I am in love with Bill Orange.  That is why anyone loves anyone else, isn’t it? 
Because Bill Orange is my mild meal, my beige cream.  

No—you go, you both go!”
“Goodbye!” Bill Orange called softly.

Because there is yet another side of life that no one can seem to express.

Janice-Katie, Both Fruit and Flower.

by Jac Jemc

Janice-Katie, Janice-bright, Janice-blossom turned to fruit.

Every day Janice-Katie is cross-pollinated, self-surprised, she stays the same and comes undone.

Janice-Katie, at twilight, can feel herself turn waterless, feel her bones bend into beams of ghost and question, can feel the transformation occur, a little backwards shipwreck. 

In the dark of night she is the ruins of ancient artwork.  In the morning, she is a mystery, even in full-light.  As the afternoon turns to evening though, she can feel herself become the ultimate skeleton fiction. 

It’s at twilight that Janice-Katie can feel the buzzing of the day embed itself in her, change her.  It’s at twilight when her stamen feels the hunger, and her pistil feels full; the sticky tip of her stigma pulling the full day deep into her.  That is when her body begins to make the apple seeds.

Janice-Katie, on the stage, under the gas lamp of faithless vision and the panic of crushed myth.  She drums closed arguments with faint questions.  She cannot shake it out.

The petals of the blossom fall as she plumps, her skin growing thinner, building layer on layer, until that epithelial first coat has knotted itself into a core at the start of her. 

Janice-Katie rising round the neck of the dying spring, shining from within like startled death, her vivid veins rushing like nothing when compared to the famous, clean poetry of the fresh curse of fruit. 

Peggy Paula

by Lindsay Hunter

Here are three things you should know about Peggy Paula:

1. In high school Peggy Paula worked as a waitress at the Perkins. Night shifts were her favorite, students from her school would come in after games or dances with bleary eyes and messy hair and Peggy Paula knew they’d been drinking and smoking those flimsy joints she’d see them passing, the girls with smudged makeup and rats nests in the back of their heads, proud unblinking eyes, scanning the dining room like I dare you, I dare you to guess what I just let Jared or Steve or Casey do to me, I let him and I liked it and I don’t care, and Peggy Paula honored to be among these girls, envious, taking their orders for French fries and Ranch, keeping their secrets and the sticky lipgloss tubes they’d sometimes leave behind, watermelon and cherry and berry and once a spicy cinnamon that burned Peggy Paula’s lips for an hour, what kind of girl wanted burning lips, poison lips, Peggy Paula’s heart pounding at the thought of such a girl, of the boy who went after such a girl in the backseat of his father’s sedan, the girl stinging his lips, his neck, moving further down, burning that boy up with her mouth, Peggy Paula going into the bathroom stall and wanting to touch herself but not knowing where to begin, wanting to begin everywhere, standing with her fists clenched and breathing hard, and then needing to be out from the stall and moving and so going back to the dining room feeling every inch of her skin, her lips cherry red and raw when she saw her reflection in the toaster, and three weeks later asking the redheaded dishwasher to drive her home and directing him to the spot she knew those girls went to, her lips aflame, when he pulled up sliding over, the stick shift digging into her hip, putting her mouth on his freckled neck, it smelled like mashed potatoes and industrial soap and sweat, her hand first on his thigh and then crabcrawling to his zipper, it was already hardening under there despite him saying, Hey hey, what, and Peggy Paula saying, Just, please, and the dishwasher quiet after that, letting Peggy Paula, letting her, following her into the backseat, holding her tight when it happened, saying I’m sorry and Peggy Paula saying Shh, stinging his shoulder with her lips and his back with her nails and feeling filled up and afraid and like her heart could kick the windows out.