Sunday 2 August 2015

Triple Decker - Flash Fiction




Angular and cursive. Square board, looping calligraphy. Rounded shoulders a curse. Since the wood kept slipping from them and dragging heavy on his arms (though nothing akin to those shoppers cat-cradling stringed tote bags between the crook of their arms). Yet his was a small sacrifice when you had the burden of the whole world to carry. His load was doubled, since he was double timbered. Above his head, the seat of the rational, the prophecy that the end of the world was ‘nigh’, a suitably arcane and archaic word for an imminence. Below his chest, like a tumescent fig leaf, a ligneous chastity belt, was another board exhorting the repenting of sins as advisory avoidance behaviour. 

Bulbous and blockish. Dimpled gutty covering the gut spread of the host, paint wash pointed directionality. The man’s encumbrance further augmented by a hand-held placard proclaiming a ‘Golf Sale’. But the urban gallery he was playing to were giving him the bird(ie) as they dodged and weaved his bunkered down sand-trap. The cardboard rondure was more millstone round his neck than albatross. Weary of dropped shots and shouts of "fore!", the caddie decided his location was shanked and conceded the hole. 

He felt in good shape on the green, when the oncoming end of the world approached him personally. They bumped wood and began gesticulating with arms restricted to moving only out at their sides, rather than able to jab and poke their adversary. "Hey Ball-ache, this is my patch" expostulated the man supposedly without a future or any stake in one. "People don't want to hear your doom and gloom Bub, they just want to enjoy themselves". “I herald the end of the world, what do you presage other than bad taste plus-fours and single mittens?” They began to lock horns, 'nigh' man bending at the waist to try and swat the other with his second storey board, while the Bogie man countered by wedging his hand-gripped sign to ward off the blow. 

"There ain't room for the both of us and I was here first. I am the Alpha and the Omega, so you need to go stand on the other side of the road Heathen!"

"Sorry to apostate the flaming obvious, but I've got a giant arrow daubed across me. If I stand on that side, then I'm pointing potential customers away from the shop not to it".

"That ain't my problem Fuzzy. I don't have me no arrows, though even if I did its heading would be clear no matter which way I was facing, since it would point straight down, to Hell!”

God’s aegis began shinkicking, but since the handicapper used his board as a shield he could not make a clean connection. Then they started belly-bumping, wood clacking on wood like bushido sticks. 


Polygon frame and stencilled. Cut off corners, mottled pizza runes. Deep crust stuffed with human being in lycra base and felt hat toppings. Another sandwich board enters the territorial fray. Ostensibly he comes in pizza. The boxed-in scrappers don’t want to know, just what they kneaded like a hole in the head. They both round (well one squares up, the other does indeed round) on the interloper. They quickly dominated him, his soft felt dough providing little protection as they proceeded to dole out one hell of a mozzarella kicking. “Ow for focaccia sakes!” he screamed as the other two threw themselves on top of his flatbread form and slowly started pureeing him. Passersby snickered at the triple decker sandwich boards with flailing limbs. 





 

5 comments:

Denise said...

I lolled at "ostensibly he comes in pizza" :-D

Helen A. Howell said...

LOL I could just see the three of them on top of each other!

Li said...

Loved this Marc, especially the exchange about the arrows.
Just once I'd like to witness a public altercation that includes something more than the f-word used as noun, verb, and adjective with "bitch" thrown in for variety.

Cindy Vaskova said...

I'm laughing and I'm also hungry! We don't have sign spinners or people dressed to be ads around here, or I haven't seen any, but man oh man would I pay to see this triple decker squabble.

Tim VanSant Writes said...

The end of the world is nigh and we can all die laughing. Nice work.