Plugs

Kat Beyer has just illustrated a new children's book, The Poet's Journey, by Amirthi Mohanraj.

Read Rudi's story "Detail from a Painting by Hieronymus Bosch" at Behind the Wainscot.

"Drowning Atlantis" is a collection of new flash fiction by David Kopaska-Merkel, published by spechouseofpoetry.com.

Sara Genge's "story Godtouched" may be found in Strange Horizons.

Luc Reid's book Talk the Talk: The Slang of 65 American Subcultures is in bookstores now and is full of odd insights.

Jeremiah's latest story is "Captain Blood's B00ty" appears in Shimmer Magazine and can be read online here.

Edd Vick's latest, "Reb the First" may be found at Jim Baen's Universe.

Trent Walters has a poetry chapbook, Learning the Ropes, forthcoming from Morpo Press

Alex D M's latest story is "Jumping over the Moon" in Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic

Daniel Braum will be reading at the Fantastic Fiction reading series at on January 19th 2007. Hear his short story Across the Darien Gap at Pseudopod.

Ken Brady's most recent story "Tagging" can be read at Darker Matter.

Jason Fischer has a story appearing in Jack Dann's new anthology Dreaming Again.

« On Darkened Lawns | Main | The City's Skirts »

Cheese

by David C. Kopaska-Merkel

A change had come over my office. I pushed back my chair, or tried to. I looked down. The floor was made of Swiss cheese and my casters were stuck. This was unusual. I gingerly made my way to the door. The door jamb, and the wall, were also cheese. I took a nibble?it was Monterey Jack. “Oh no,” I thought, “it’s that stupid supervillain.”

I squelched my way to Jolene's office. It smelled intensely of Edam and something equally pungent, instead of that nice perfume she wears.

"Hey," she said, "I hope you brought your appetite."

I tasted her file cabinet: Gruyere. "Nice," I said. She wrinkled her nose.

"I don't care for it," she said.

Then I thought of something. “The weather forecast,” I said. “It’s supposed to top 90 by noon.” The time? 11:15. Our offices are on the 9thfloor.

The elevator shaft was empty. A couple of people were looking down. I guess the ceiling wouldn't hold the weight of the elevator after the shaft was chedderized. We would have to take the stairs.

There must have been 100 people in the stairwell. It was at least 100º in there already; the smell was almost overpowering. Our feet sank into the Velveeta stairs. We had to scoot the last two floors on our asses so we wouldn’t plunge right through. Outside, police held back a huge crowd.

-----

WHUMP! A glob of Muenster the size of a dumpster hit the sidewalk.

“I’ve been fondued,” Jolene screamed. She was covered head-to-toe. I peeled some cheese away from her eyes and looked up. I could see Got Cheese Man buzzing around, and a couple of media copters shooting 5 o’clock footage. The building was starting to come apart.

"Run" I shouted, but it was slow going in my sticky yellow galoshes. I looked for Jolene?she was in the arms of a policeman, being carried to the barricade.

-----

I don’t remember much after that. The top 5 floors of the building let go and I was brained by my own desk chair. As for GCM, it was in all the papers. Apparently the backwash from one of the copters knocked him into the collapsing building and his transmuter went off by accident. Anyone want a life-size Camembert statue of the world’s cheesiest supervillain?


The end


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