Tough All Over

Harry B. Sanderford

What I'm talking about are people who genuinely believe they are struggling because the antique Persian rug they do their yoga on is made of wool and therefore is too scratchy. The economy being what it is, they fear they'll take a beating trading it on the silk one that will not chafe Mistress's knees. I'm talking about people with crab quiche on their breath and cars that never had a payment book or leaked important fluids on the driveway, looking me straight in the eye and telling me about hard times.

The gentleman of the manor has an insatiable penchant for fine art and times being what they are, now regularly calls upon my services. Telling me his story about the economy is his soft effort at driving a hard bargain. I just keep looking him in the eye as I help myself to a Cuban from his humidor, light it with the silver lighter next to it, and put the lighter in my pocket.

Tangerine Unforseen

by Zelda Martin & Harry B. Sanderford

Sadie was outside looking for the newspaper and cursing the cold December wind when she spotted a bright orange tangerine lying in the middle of the snow-covered driveway. Like a beautiful painting the incongruent image of the citrus in the snow seized Sadie for a moment eliciting laughter even as tears formed in her eyes. Her heart swelled with what she would later decide was joy then quickly sank with what she knew to be sorrow upon realizing that the pretty perishable was cradled not in the snow as first thought but rather perched just above it on the frozen tips of a man's fingers. Her mind raced wildly wondering if she should brush off the snow and see who the man was or if she should dial 911 or just grab the tangerine and run back into the house and eat it. Sadie's deliberations were settled when she broke into a run, arms flailing, yelling, "Shoo, GO-Wan, SHOO!" at a great black crow who had swooped from the power line landing inches from the fruit. More amusing than frightening her feathery foe she slipped on a slick spot and slid in a butt-first beeline towards the frozen man, the crow and the vitamin C. She hit the crow with one cheek sending him cawing into the air and the tangerine with the other cheek sending it rolling down the driveway. Then she ground to a halt stuck on those cold stiff fingers. Horrified, embarrassed, verging on hysteria and to be honest just a little turned on by the cool fella's glacial grope, Sadie whipped around to see if her indignity had been observed. Finding the crow her only witness, she watched him peck twice at the frosty fruit before abandoning it to resume his post on the wire. Then she screamed and nearly joined him there when she felt those fingers move.

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Give And Take

Harry B. Sanderford

Having found himself incapable of affecting the necessary reparations, Malkovich resolved to dismantle his alley prize. His intention was to harvest the laser and some of the many small motors from inside and reassemble them as a kind of mutant kinetic laserium. He envisioned a robotic configuration that when placed beaming and whirling beneath a mottled glass bowl would transform his ceiling and walls into an extragalactic extravaganza. This new idea excited him even more than the original prospect of once again listening to his small CD collection had when he first discovered the old Sony. Sadly just as he commenced calculating counter cohesion coeficients, (hammer selection) Bradley "the brain" Buzzkill dropped by and informed him that the lasers he sought were not to be found, "in the belly of no ordinary alley audio." Deflated, Malkovich wondered at the conspiring forces of the universe while Bradley, not usually known for his glass-half-full disposition, passed a joint saying,"Good place to hide your weed though Dude."

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

May your Thanksgiving tables overflow with good cheer!

The Future: Heartbreak Is Epidemic

Harry B. Sanderford

Death by broken heart has become so commonplace that the accumulating corpses of the unrequited are now nearly as ordinary and invisible as the homeless. Busy bluetoothed brigades of moving, shaking, go-getters kick ass, take names and absently text URGENT missives while merely stepping over and around the weak of heart. Recreational shoppers deftly steer overfull baskets in the direction of much, much, more with only a peripheral perception of the heaped up hopeless for whom the motto "shop till you drop" was just never enough. In the know hipsters have figured a clever loophole that allows them to hate the game and the players by only having sex with people they can't stand while listening to separate IPods. Survival of the fittest focuses a blind eye on a guarded heart and this too is evolution. Cobalt splashes on aftershave and cranks up Roxy Music's Love Is The Drug on his antique stereo, knowing full well the risk but unable to staunch the flow of cartoon hearts that stream embarrassingly from his head in Gina 3.7's presence.

Rebel Ravel

Harry B. Sanderford

Jericho eyed the tiny cockroach marching boldly down the tiles behind the filthy urinal he pissed waveringly over. No attendant to brush imaginary lint from his shoulders fishing for tips in this joint. It was Bike Week in Daytona Beach and he was a rebel running free. Screw the corporate stiffs! Not the first second thoughts regarding hastily made and perhaps poorly reasoned decisions chewed the edges of what remained of Eliott Bernard Gerard's better judgement. He knew real rebels rarely kept up payments on fourty thousand dollar motorcycles or riverside condos, and he knew he'd be passing out apologies and excuses to superiors in the morning, but for the moment, deadline and duty were only pestering gnats the Cuervo spared his swatting. Tonight Jericho was calling the shots and right now he had a pool game to lose, another round to buy and his eye on a skinny little tatooed lady with a foul mouth, fake tits and dirty feet. He zipped up, spat in the direction of the bug missing by tiles and kicked the flush handle with a Ferragamo heel.

Winter

Harry B. Sanderford

An untended Ferris wheel turns slowly against a smoke streaked sunset. The tattered sails of beached sailing ships wave cheerless gray and brown party flags over soldiers of every stripe. Ragged throngs too weary to separate by uniforms sit on their helmets rolling tobacco or passing unlabeled bottles; the bitter local spoils of a global contest no longer possible to score. Some drink greedily thankful for another day, others drink just as fiercely regretting the very same thing. One soldier considers a childhood memory of snow falling on a boardwalk that no longer exists. The snow he knows will still fall. But this cannot be my life, he thinks, to melt into a puddle, swirling in the gutter like so much dirty snow.