Think Sink

[thinksinkwords]

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE FUCKING HOUSEFLY IN MY KITCHEN

Listen, that spilled sugar on the counter is very lickable, we all acknowledge that. Everyone likes spilled sugar. So I get that. You and I actually are on the same side here. Yes. Lickable. It’s a word.

And while I guess I agree with all of your “buzz buzz” blather, someone needs to actually step up and deal with this goddamn mess. Yes, the pile of sugar is distracting. I get it. But can we please focus on the problem at hand?

No, not the sugar on the floor. Damn it, you have to listen to me. Do you hear that sound out the window? No, not the buzzing sound, the hellacious gunfire. I think the buzzing is coming from you. Yeah, buzz buzz yourself too.

And yes, you little buzzing asshole, I broke open this pallet of that sweet sweet refined sugarcane goodness because I carjacked a fucking Domino truck and playacted being the Incredible Hulk in my kitchen AND SMASHED IT SMASH SMASH 

Anyway, please keep it down. I’m trying to sleep.

[thinksinkwords]

Throwdown: Atlas Anatomy

Getting the invite to play up in Parksville was a big deal to us back then. The band would be "on tour" for the first time and we could even try out some of our new songs on folks who weren't strictly our poor patient and supportive friends. I had been up to the venue, Moose Hall, before and knew it could get busy on the weekends. We were ecstatic. There was also this gig we had up in Cumberland at the Treetop Tavern, which I had half convinced myself was a practical joke but Danny swore was real. The town was rundown even by 'couver Island standards and the stage we would be playing on had chicken wire in front of it, like that scene in the Blues Brothers movie. I kept imagining that same scene except with only five guys sitting there throwing the bottles at us, three of which were too old or drunk to even loft them all the way to the stage. I had driven up and down 19 enough to know there was nothing and no one there. The excitement drained away before we even entered the building for the Parksville gig, which was disastrous. There was a minor rat scare before we went on. Some guy rushed the stage and tried to club Vin with his own bass. The electricity cut out at one point. Two women started shoving each other halfway through our second set before taking it outside, only to take it back inside and ultimately onstage. Worst, Cooper couldn't keep a beat for shit the whole time. Cooper had moved to Duncan and met all of us a few months beforehand. Coincidentally he played the drums, but I always wondered if he hadn't just said that to keep hanging around us, though if so, he was committed to the lie since he had the equipment. Our previous drummer Kyle had unexpectedly shot himself the week before we met Coop, so we let him join, mostly out of convenience for everyone. Danny blamed himself for Kyle's death because of his depressing lyrics, but I'm very confident Kyle paid no more attention to Danny's singing than I did. I didn't know what the hell the lyrics were and neither did Kyle. With the Parksville gig failure still so raw, our date with Cumberland took on a hefty importance as we packed the gear into the van. Well, focusing on the gig helped relieve at least some of the palpable tension everyone in the van was feeling with Cooper anyway. I was pissed about his drumming too, but mostly couldn’t escape the dread that Danny was already writing a terrible song about it in his head. Cooper wasn't helping, complaining nonstop about how the fighting women had tumbled into his trap kit without ever acknowledging that it had largely made no difference in his performance. I was driving and really thought Vin was going to lose it on Coop just when the shepherd suddenly appeared. I may have been distracted by the argument, but I still swear that dog just materialized on the highway before us. I braked hard and braced for the thump, leaped from the van and ran to where she was lying, whimpering in a snowbank. Her back was broken, and the problem clearly ran deeper than the vertebrae given how her hind legs were jerking around. I hoped Vin had packed his 20 gauge just to make this easier. Glancing back to the vehicle to call for Vin, I instead found Cooper at my side. He leaned down and petted the dog tenderly before retreating quickly to the van. I shrugged and waited, vaguely wondering if it was possible to drown a dog in snow, before Coop returned with an armload of items: drumsticks, guitar strings, a jacket, some amp cables, and I swear I remember him with a cupholder from the van. God knows what else. Vin offered to be creative even without the 20 gauge, though I assumed he was just speaking metaphorically about Cooper. I would have been fine with it either way, but Cooper managed to utilize his unconventional tools to secure the girl's spine and make her feel comfortable enough to ride along with minimal whimpering as we kept heading north. It was hard to stay on Coop's case after his impressive display of highway veterinarian skills, which obviously annoyed the hell out of Vin. Danny was still scribbling in his notebook, no doubt composing a double album about dogs and spinal cords. And of course the show was awful, somehow worse than the night before. The Treetop had even fewer people in it than I had imagined, which may have been why no one complained when the dog started barking nonstop after our third song. I was still feeling strange about the whole encounter with her on the highway and how she was lying there onstage, but then I noticed something about the intervals between her barks: that dog had more rhythm than fucking Cooper did.

-Adam

[thinksinkwords]

Throwdown: Atlas Anatomy

Use the following place and body part:

Cumberland, British Columbia, Canada & Spinal nerves

#atlasanatomy

[thinksinkwords]

Throwdown: Teacup

Missy looked over the layers of eyelet lace in the gilded mirror. The pale yellow curtains raised themselves in gentle waves of spring air in a much more welcoming character than what was waiting for her outside. She put a tentative hand to her hair, checking that the pins were secure enough to hold her curls in place through the afternoon and tugged the sapphire drops hanging from her ears. It had seemed unlikely like Madame would be well enough to receive guests on her 90th birthday, but in the weeks leading up to the occasion, Missy's grandmother had insisted that all her plans were in place. As per the instructions she was given, Missy saw that the gardens were tended with the roses trimmed two weeks in advance, and that the swans would be content in the correct pools. The cook staff had a full stock of fois gras and caviar, while the baker painted a blush onto the rolled fondant flower petals for the cakes. In the six years since leaving finishing school, there had been enough parties to plan that Missy was familiar enough with the routine of overseeing the staff to still be able to tend to Madame's daily needs, though she had yet to master the basics of self presentation. She had already taken too long to dress, and the melodic tinkling of her grandmother's bell rang through the grand halls of the family manor - from Madame's suite in the west wing, through the dark halls, (heavy as they were with their oak paneling), through the shimmering crystals of the chandelier in the dining hall, past the galley and music room, to the maid's room on the east wing and then on to Missy's quarters where it bounced gaily off the mirror like fairy wings. Feeling she had done all that she could with the time she had, Missy clicked open the locket she had worn since arriving at the Manor, taking a final moment of solace before rushing down the corridor to escort Madame into the garden to greet her guests. "Have you met Roland yet my dear? He's the dashing fellow over there with the gold brooch," "I haven't seen such lovely roses in how ever many seasons! Well, I'll have to find out who the Madame has been using," "Susanne couldn't make it dear, but she send her regards. She's just had her third child! A little girl, she's the dearest thing," "Will you be coming too Rhodes this summer? You have to see the new mare, what a fine beauty," "Oh! The teacup is getting away!" Missy chased the porcelain cup as it rolled from her grandmother's wicker dais over the fresh, evenly cut lawn near a grouping of lilies. "Bring it back clean, dear, with hot jasmine." The galley was empty with the wait staff tending the party so Missy scrubbed the cup, an heirloom brought back from France a century earlier and rumored to have been smuggled out of Versaille before the revolution. Through the window above the sink the perfect calm of the afternoon shone like the twinkling bell ringing in Madame's hand. With wet fingers, Missy opened her locket and lifted a dram of the white powder that had lived there quietly for the past four years, smoothing it onto the circumference of the rim until it dissolved. "Happy birthday grandmother," she placed the steaming cup of jasmine in front of Madame. "Many happy returns."

~Meredith

[thinksinkwords]

Throwdown: Teacup

An invitation to a tea party was as good a bridge as any. I knew my niece couldn't begin to fathom what had happened to her parents, or my role in their fate, or how awful all of this would make both our lives for here on. She knew nothing, but it was at least a fucking bridge. And Christ, I had to start somewhere. It was a blistering summer night and I had just been released from the hospital after having survived the incident, miraculously unscathed to boot. I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, but unwittingly staggered my way back to my brother's apartment five miles away. The nanny looked at me with horror upon opening the door, and of course she knew, though I pretended that I was just a scheduled visitor. The fuck-up uncle from Chicago. The one with the weird job. The one who forgets to call back. And now the saboteur of the household. Worst of all, presently the legal guardian of Emily, my orphaned niece. I don't remember if we even spoke, but I was past the nanny and heading up the stairs when my memory resumes. Somehow I knew she hadn't told Emily, and that it was my duty, my fault, to explain to her why her fate had suffered such a horrible earthquake. She was staring at the door when I opened it, and I honestly think she knew before I even entered the room. Emily has never trusted me, to her credit, but she seemed to let her guard down as I pulled up the chair to her bedside. With as brave a face as I could manage, I explained that her parents wouldn't be returning, and I was sorry, so sorry, but we would be starting a new, very different, project together called the future. Wouldn't that be fun? Also probably scary, but it would be real, and we would be together in it. "Should we have a tea party to celebrate the future, Uncle Tommy?" she asked, and what the hell, it was better than anything I could dream up. So we unpacked her tea wares, formally dressed up the stuffed animals and aligned ourselves per her instructions around our table, the toy chest. I was still shaking pretty badly when we sat down, and before we even reached the cake stage I had jerked my hand into my place setting, knocking the plastic cup across the table. "The teacup is getting away!" Emily yelled, and I laughed like a newly released convict. It was the funniest thing I had heard in what felt like years. And we celebrated the future, the beautiful and horrible unknown. The bridge we started may be unstable and useless, tentative and shivering, or energized and tangled. I don't know, but whatever it is, at least we started it. We had to start somewhere.

~Adam

[thinksinkwords]

Throwdown: Teacup

A piece of short fiction of any genre to include the following phrase as dialogue:

"The teacup is getting away!"

#teacupthrowdown