Tag Archives: Writings

100 WORD SKITTLE // Lay a Chocolate Egg

Rabbit jumped onto the road and froze in the headlights.

Well, this isn’t strictly true.

He did jump out but then opened up his cute plaid vest. The inside pockets were packed with chocolate eggs—you know, like they were bombs. Rabbit spat on the bitumen and hopped over to the car, all slow and menacing.

“Your carrots or your life!”

Driver doubled over the steering wheel in fits of wheezing laughter. What was this carjacker nonsense?! And Rabbit’s squeaking voice—how could she take that seriously? Driver laughed hard.

Rabbit sighed. He was sick of eating fucking Easter eggs!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

GUEST POST // Scars and Barbed Wire by Tony Mutton

I remember the history of my first scar,
You don’t forget bullying and barbed wire
Chased by a group of Catholic and non Catholic boys,
There was little difference between bullies in those days,
They all ran fast in the thrill of the hunt
Cornered at the base of a once insurmountable chain mail fence
Fear can make a young boy do extraordinary things
Climbing the 12 feet and flipping over the top
Barbed wire hung rusty on the other side of the fence
Careless workmanship an age old story
I remember the feeling as barb caught skin and
Still visualise the trail of bright red running down my leg
The run home was fast and bloody, my grey sock turning red
I tried to sneak in quietly through the back door
But an ever vigilant mother could not be outsmarted
I’m sure I lied, never telling her that I was being chased
Life was easier to live if the bullies felt you never told
Bullying is like racism, it’s not in your genes, it’s learned
What I want to know is what were the teachers teaching
Nothing good comes with a serving of barbed wire

by TONY MUTTON
© All rights reserved 2021

hana

needle always points
this way, not the other way
life, straight and simple

tapping glass facade
with a time-worn forefinger
for something has changed

north has gone astray
besotted with fragrant air
cherry blossom front

thread follows needle
pilgrims wander to the east
archipelago

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

100 WORD SKITTLE // Dungeons & Dudgeons

Maybe if I put the box on that switch over there, it will unlock this treasure chest over here?

Or is it better to draw a red line on the floor? Perhaps around the chest itself?

Do I need to play the right musical notes on my ocarina? Will that open it?

Our lucky ancestors! They just hid keys inside corsets and pantaloons, and didn’t concern themselves with strong passwords, magic runes or occult biometrics. Why must I sift through each and every freaking dungeon with a fine tooth and comb just to claim the Furadore’s mystical hairpin?

Completely unfair!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

life and death in khánh hòa

the cereal killer died as he’d lived
slaying bowls at a time with cold precision
of course, it wasn’t his decision
it was an early childhood trauma
(as is usual with these kinds of people)
he’d build mounds of corn flakes like a steeple
’til mother beat him for playing with his food
so he grew to hate milk and processed grain
carried all his life this exquisite pain
he thus learned to be an agronomist
well actually, he poisoned the earth
from corner to corner, along its girth
and he tied the cows’ tails in bundles
so they mooed and lost their milk
then life from that point went smooth as silk
until one fateful day in vietnam
he thought he saw a bowl floating in the cream storage vat
but it was his boss’s wife in an oriental rice hat
having a soak, if you please, to nourish her skin
not realising this, he moved in for the kill…
then her voice sounded, agonised and shrill
then the boss busted into the barn with a big gun
boom! boom! then blood flowed like red cordial through a sieve
that stupid cereal killer died as he’d lived

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021