A Belzer’s milk bottle, of Belzer Dairy Farms Incorporated, appeared in the Los Alamos desert. 900 feet tall, nearly 300 feet wide. The best description? It materialized. However, since no one saw this, a shimmering prestidigitation cannot be accurate. Simply put, one night the bottle was not and one morning the bottle was.

According to official records, Air Force satellite photography spotted the object at 0700 hours. Before that, swarming dragonflies and several black-eyed lizards gave witness. The first human eyes on the bottle were Bill Kipp’s, a closeted technician repairing phone lines. He pulled his pickup over and stared at was supposed to be the vast nothingness of Los Alamos. He twitched his nose, once, twice, picked up his walkie. “There’s seems to be, what looks like, some biggoddamnbottle out here.”

The bottle was an exact replica of the Belzer’s from the 1920’s except bigger. The glass sparkled, beckoned, and Bill Kipp couldn’t tear away. There was no milk. Just the residue, a few gallons, which slowly swirled and curdled through the day. “Big milky love,” he mumbled. He watched until sunset and tanks arrived.

Orange level security, they said. General Berndt watched the milk bottle through binoculars and bit down on his cigar. He scanned the rabble—the lookyloos, TV vans, liberal media—and bit harder. “Belzer’s?” he said, “Isn’t that some Jew company.” Jew Hoax, he thought.

Anthony Tutton, current owner of what was Belzer Dairy Farms Incorporated, looked at the Pennsylvania Gazette glumly. Why Alamos, he thought. Tutton was neither Jewish nor a mastermind, and Belzer’s no longer produced milk but a type of dehydrated cheese dust used on certain potato chips. The bottle was perfect though, rounded and with the logo he remembered from childhood. They sandblasted it onto bottles back then. Tutton thought it was something from Hailwood Farms, another producer of fine cheese-like powders, meant to disgrace. Marvin Hailwood Jr., three states away, thought it was a photoshopped illusion.

Physicist Paul Whiteman, with the President on Air Force One, believed it a divine symbol. The Pope believed it was carved by Masons. The only holy man at the bottle was a televangelist, Gray Irby. He wanted to touch the bottle with his meaty palm and go to paradise. And get checks. And praise Jesus. “Praise Jesus!” The Irby girls sang. Oh, the checks.

The crowds grew to thousands and the National Guard kept them at bay with stony looks and buzz cuts. Everyone said something different. Last Judgment. Aliens. God. Gamma Rays. Bottlecular mutation. Jesus. Hollywood. Terrorists. Kipp licked his lips and pushed forward.

A reporter looked deeply into the camera with the soulful brown eyes she was known for and said, “The divine or the deception? We may never know. Reporting from what’s being called God’s milk bottle, Charlotte Hughes-Alveraz.” Except she didn’t think a thought.

“Hey, Ma,” Pa Kettle yelled from the TV to the kitchen, “God likes milk.”

“Well, of course, he does, Pa,” Ma said.

Man and Spider-Man

I took two tabs of E at a party in Wheeling. They were small, hard, and blue, and looked much like pills I have enjoyed before. They were not them. The little blues were liberally laced with coke or acid. We danced, Martha and I, and I felt an itch in my right hand. That’s where it started. I noticed webbing between my fingers, not a vestigial duck webbing, but like a spider’s web. Martha danced away, sucked into the crowd, as I hyperventilated. Little Moosie asked if I was OK. I fingered my palms, fat with an inflated gland and said, “Webs.”

The webbing splurged from my wrist, thick gray gobs almost hit Moosie’s shoulder. She sucked deep on a sour apple Blow Pop and let it rattle off her teeth. “Ha,” she chortled

I shot string after string, it hurt but kind of felt good like a burnt cherry on my wrist. I swung from the ceiling and felt the breeze lick my scalp. Thwip and swing. Thwip and swing. The weight of my entire body all on my right arm, both cracked my shoulder and burned my armpit. Then there was that moment of weightlessness, that moment with no web at the apex of the swing, just you and the air and the criminal elements below.

“Just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” I shouted.

I swung from wall to wall, clung for a second, the heavy bass of the techno beat vibrated my fingertips. Martha was deep in a crowd of Green Goblins, surrounded by rubber smiles and her red hair thrashed from side to side. A look of kidnapped joy on her face. Did she want the Goblins? Did she need the Goblins’ pumpkin bombs pressed up against her?

Before I could swing down and reign my spider fury, I noticed Moosie dancing like an Egyptian, all arms and hips, and arms and arms. Moosie wasn’t so much a moose, named for her thick hips and dark mascara, but an octopus with metallic tentacles. I squeezed and scurried through the first wave of tentacles, but the fourth hit my face hard. No Spider Sense sizzled, just stars and blackness. My nose was bleeding and I choked.

Doc Moosie said, “Sorry, I think I got you with my bangle… INSECT.”

We fought. I dodged, I ducked. We danced. I dodged, I ducked. Then we kissed. Doc Ock’s thick German lips were cold, but became tender. I could still taste the apple and failed fission experiment that left him a wreck of a man. Moosie’s tentacles wrapped around me, not hard clutches, but eight soft strokes, and my Spider Sense finally tingled up and down my body.

Martha shouted, “What the fuck!?”

There was blood on my chest and blood on Moosie’s large cleavage. I wanted to tell Martha about the ceiling and the webs. About great responsibilities. Instead I aimed my wrist, cross haired at her furrowed brow, and said, “Thwip, pwip, pwip.”

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Nobody Understands a Dungeon Master

Amy was very concerned about noses. Shape, width, nostril size, subnasion, and whatnot. She said her nose, while not perfect, was spectacular. “Just right,” she said, “like Goldilocks.” As her twin, she had told me, that my nose should be a reflection of hers. That strangers would judge her nose on the quality of my nose, flat and undistinguished as it was. Amy rated Beatty’s nose, our older sister, as the worst. Long and crooked and in proximity of a ladybug mole, definitely minus 20 HP.

Amy didn’t know Figwit, but if she did she would gasp. Figwit had a wonder nose, carved from Italian marble. Romanesque but in a feminine way. Of course, he’s a half-elf with 17 Charisma Points, so such was to be expected. Was he a charmer? Just ask the wenches of Wendigo Manor.

Figwit the Daring. Fidwit the Brave. Might? Naturally. Figwit with his Bag of Infinite Holding, his Cloak of Invisibility, a Vest of Dolemite, and, of course, the dagger of Lynnette (+2 damage). Lynnette sliced easily through Zackinator’s chain mail, scored to the gut and loosened his intestines on the lunch table. I swear there was a tear, a twinkle at least, in Zack’s eye. I sat back and drank my juice box, and basked in the accolades. “Cold blooded,” said Dustin Chen. Amy was unimpressed two tables over. She rolled her eyes and turned up her nose as the 20 sided die clackity-clacked.

Instead she drank a Diet Pepsi next to Doug Reinhold who looked vaguely like an overfed ogre. Doug had a pug nose, but it fit perfectly on an ogre face. Amy swam in his letter man jacket and puckered up on a bendy straw. She whispered something to Lynne Wilson, who laughed in turn and smiled with her overly large and lovely teeth. I crapped out on a dexterity check and took a battle axe to the shoulder. “Motherfucker,” I yelled. Mrs. Feldmen gave me a stern look and I buried my head in my character sheets.

Like all good characters, Figwit would eventually meet a grizzly death. There is no retirement for the weary adventurer. At home, I fiddled with a new character, a Ranger with a long slender nose that lined up perfectly with his bow. string Beat stormed into the Family Room huffing and puffing. I ignored her, but she paced.

“What’s up, Beatty?”

“Amy.”

“Ok.”

“She’s dating Doug Rhinoceros.”

“Ok.”

Beat screamed, “Why am I even bothering! You don’t get it, you don’t get anything! Nose in a Virgin’s Master Guide. Get real!”

I turned back to my character sheet and wrote in the margin, “Here lies Figwit. A gentleman, kept his nose to himself. Still so much left to learn.”

I’ve been exchanging flash fiction with a friend (500 words or less), this was my first offering. Enjoy.

What to Say

They say Frank Palmaro married a dog. A chocolate lab with a sad drooping mouth. They say the chocolate Labrador’s name was Jezebel, and a wanton pup to say the least. Pictures were taken, wedding photos. I never saw them myself, but I heard about them and most stories were pretty much the same. Frank beamed in a gray tuxedo, complete with top hat and tales, and Jezebel with her almost blackish wagging tongue and a pristine white bonnet.

“I heard Mr. Palmaro married a real bitch,” I said one night at a bar named The Black & Blue. An easy joke followed by an easy laugh. Afterwards, I noticed Frank Jr. two tables over, he grumbled or sneered in my direction, and I expected a sock in the month most the night. It never came.

They say Frank Palmaro was in it deep. With both the mob and the FBI. They say Frank Palmaro killed a no talent bookie with pinking shears and the blood spurted in almost heavenly raindrops. They say Frank planted the bomb in Victor Kerensky’s jacuzzi. Victor entertained two underwear models at the time, who had previously posed in the Asbury Park Press. He flip the switch for maximum bubbles and blamola, bras flickered in the wind. They say Vic blew up through his roof and ran around a man on fire.

I saw Frank once at my doctor’s waiting room. He was thin looking and sullen. He read Highlights Magazine and tittered to himself two or three time. Jezebel wasn’t with him and he was waiting for a ride. He probably had a mental examination where he “woofed” softly when asked how many days of the week. Maybe, he had rabies or ticks. A rectal exam or kidney stones. Frank Jr. arrived and nodded my way, neither friendly or angry, an acknowledgment of existence.

I saw Frank on TV. I was in my kitchen drinking a glass of water and not paying too much attention. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Frank was with his lawyer and smiling, laughing. His lawyer had been on television a lot lately, always stroking his black dyed goatee. They say his lawyer was a 1-800 kind of sleaze, but he was good and clever and rarely went to trial. They were talking in front of mics sporting various local network logos. Frank’s lawyer clasped his shoulder. Maybe, Frank and Jezebel will live happily ever after. Frank Jr. was behind them talking on his cell with only a hint of a smile.

I had seen Frank Jr. again at The Black & Blue. He stepped hard on my foot and looked at me like I was supposed to do something. I didn’t. My buddies say I’m a pussy. “Next time,” Frank Jr. said and I shrugged.

I stubbed out my cigarette and dropped it in my glass. The phone rang and startled. I switch off the TV and picked it up. It was my doctor results.