Six by Jeffrey S. Callico

THE FEET

She planted a tree but it wouldn’t grow so she planted another but it
wouldn’t grow either. She kept planting trees but none of them would
grow so she stopped planting trees and tried planting her feet instead
then one day discovered she was dropping leaves all over the lawn.

THE SYRUP

One day a man woke up covered in corn syrup. He found himself staring
at the ceiling and trying to understand why he was covered in corn
syrup. Of course at first he was not aware that he was covered in corn
syrup and did not know what he was covered in. At first he thought he
had awoken and discovered that he was covered in only something sticky
but soon he determined by the smell and taste of what he was covered
in that indeed it was corn syrup. With some effort he was able to rise
and leave the bed then make his way down the hall to the bathroom
where he commenced washing off the corn syrup. When he finished he
went to the kitchen and made some breakfast but when he discovered he
was out of corn syrup he said Oh no.

Steam Film

The problem started when he discovered that he had no problems to
speak of and that any problems he had had before were now caput and
that his former problematic life was now non-problemic.

But then one day a problem came along and tied him to a chair. It
gagged him and smacked him across the face and told him in no
uncertain terms that he was going to die, and soon. It was just a
matter of time, said the problem, smiling in such a way that he knew
it wasn’t joking.

The problem got a beer from the fridge and drank it down in front of
him then went and got another. The problem drank all the beer and then
smacked him again, but this time harder, making his nose bleed and
cutting his lip. It just stood over him and laughed, drunk.

Soon the problem fell asleep, leaving him to himself. He pulled at the
cords the problem had used to tie him to the chair but they were taut
and he couldn’t get them off. He yanked and pulled, fought and
struggled; he could feel his wrists burning and could tell that they
were bleeding.

He watched the problem as it slept on the floor in front of him. He
cursed it and screamed at it and called it names he had never thought
of to call anything. The problem didn’t wake; it slept right through
his vocal mayhem, and soon he got tired and fell asleep too, tied to
the chair.

It was just him and the problem. There was no other way to look at it.

Interposition

He was always confusing laughter and murder. When he walked down a
street and heard someone laughing he thought they were being murdered
so he ran to their rescue and told them he was there and that
everything would be fine. They always looked at him as if he had left
his mind in a glue factory.

There was one night he heard laughter coming from all different
directions. From over there, and behind him and then across the street
and then some coming from somewhere else. He panicked and thought that
people were being murdered all around him and he didn’t know what to
do. He couldn’t save everyone from their horrible deaths so he killed
himself instead and the laughter finally stopped.

tea head bullet

One morning he woke up and drained himself then switched on the tv. A
man was talking about life after he had been shot in the head by his
wife who then shot herself in the head and died. But the man had
lived, as he was on the tv telling about it, and everyone had been
amazed he survived.

“It’s bizarre. You just don’t hear of something like this. Somebody
gets shot in the head and they’re dead,” he said.

The man who had drained himself listened to the man who had been shot
in the head by his now dead wife. The drained man ate a bagel with
plain cream cheese and sipped some tomato juice to wash it all down.

The man stopped talking about the bullet that passed between the lobes
of his brain without causing major damage, saying that he had been
helicoptered to a hospital and soon was smiling for the cameras.

The drained man switched off the tv and washed the dishes. It was time
to start a new day, he thought, telling himself that he was ready for
anything.

How to eat grass when no one is watching

Please don’t drink the water until the butterflies flutter out of your
head like they have been trained. I will not speak these words again
so don’t tell the banker he’s a big fat drunkard with a third grade
education his mother never let him in on. If things turn out to be bad
then a bad day will occur and you will be left with nothing but the
bad day yet again. Your guts will spill and on the concrete walk they
will spell GUTS.

Two men hand over money in the dark of night and the women who take
the money run away and pick dead tulips off gravestones the ghosts of
the dead have left behind for boredom. Well, boredom rules in this
place, buddy, so don’t look at me as if you’re looking at someone like
someone looks at someone like that.

Ubiquity follows envy. The ship sails westward and here we are with
nothing to do but smear reams of deadly makeup all over our blank
faces.

Jeffrey S. Callico has been published in a variety of online and print magazines, including Johnny America, Frigg, Origami Condom, and several others. He recently released a self-published chapbook entitled Early Trouble, which was part of the Outsider Writers chapbook swap. His collection of short fiction, Fighting Off the Sun: Stories, Tales, and Other Matters of Opinion, is available on Amazon.com. While he doesn’t have a website, he can be reached at wiredwriter26@gmail.com.

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