Archive for the ‘Jon Hansen’ Category
Elephants
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
Two elephants carved from a black wood stand on the counter alongside a card advertising Gonella Baking Company Italian beef dogs and a small stack of flyers for Triple-A. Each elephant wears on its forehead an index card with the words ‘For Sale – $100’ in faded red ink. The handwriting is cursive, feminine, neat.
As I cover my brats with ketchup, I notice the elephants seem angry. Their eyes, inlaid disks of unpolished silvery metal located on the sides of their heads, hold a rage that threatens to ignite them, to send them marching up and down the lunchcounter, setting the flyers ablaze in an advertising apocalypse as they trumpet righteous fire. But why? Is it the plight of their great brothers and sister in Africa? Or is it simply because they have cards taped to their heads?
I remove the cards, peeling back the tape with great care, then prop them up along the elephants. It doesn’t seem to help. All I have done is attract their attention. Are their trunks quivering, their feet readying themselves to stampede?
I throw a dollar beside my half-eaten brats and step outside. Outside in the August sunshine, a car rolls by, metal hubcaps flashing. Behind me, I can feel the weight of elephant eyes watching me go.
Questions
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
We’re welcoming a new cabalist to our ranks today, Jon Hansen, whose fiction has appeared in such venues as Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Realms of Fantasy, and A Field Guide to Surreal Botany, who starts out with something small but intriguing…
After the funeral you find the box in your father’s desk. Gun-metal gray with rounded off corners, one long hinge holding on the lid, and a small dent in the front, as if it had been thrown across the room at something. On top is a faded piece of paper, held on by yellowing cellophane tape, with the single word, ‘QUESTIONS,’ inscribed on it in neat handwriting.
You pick up the box. It’s surprisingly heavy, but you can lift it. The lid won’t open, but you think you can hear faint noises coming from inside it. You hold it up to your ear and hear muffled voices: “Where were you last night?” “Who is she?” “Don’t you still love me?”
You put it back in the desk. What you really want is a box called ‘ANSWERS’.