Fish Who Answer the Telephone

In 1937 Yury Petrovich Frolov conducted a scientific experiment to see if fish could hear. He used a ringing telephone. Of course, the experiment concluded that fish can hear. He recorded his findings and published a book. The title: Fish Who Answer the Telephone. I haven't yet read the book, so I can't officially review it. What I can do is speculate that a book with this title could be much more interesting with a different subject matter, so I present to you a short excerpt of Fish Who Answer the Telephone: A Fiction Novel.

"I was asleep when the phone began ringing. The day had been long, so I hesitated getting out of bed. It stopped after the third ring. Relieved, I rolled over to finish the night's sleep. That's when I heard talking in the living room. It was nothing more than a soft murmur but I was the only person in the house. I got out of bed and slowly creeped down the hallway toward the voice. It sounded like a one sided conversation, but I couldn't make out exact words. At the doorway to the living room I poked my head in, but it was too dark to see. I flipped on the light. My beta fish looked at me, held out the phone, and said, 'Hey Jon, it's for you.'"

Do any of you guys have thoughts or a different story? Let me know in the comments how you think this book should go.

Debauchery at Rockefeller Plaza by B. V. Boyer

Nicholas shivered with rage as he gazed upon the antique figurines through the display window. Imbeciles! The image humans had dreamed up for him was truly disgusting.  A fat man in a red suit -puffy cheeks and white beard. Absurd! He'd had enough of this! Tonight they would see his real charm.  Tonight  he would ruin all their ideals, all their happy faces.

Half the city stood at Rockefeller Plaza waiting for the big Christmas tree reveal. Nicholas heaved himself off the store facade and began making his way through the crowd.

Once at the stage, he began preparing for the reveal. He pulled out the megaphone to ensure he was heard by all. The acoustics would be wonderful here.

Just as the lights came up, he jumped in front of the tree.  Screams of shock echoed through the crowd, as Nicholas rose to his full height. Nicholas stood naked, the veins stood out from his muscles pulsing green against snow white skin. "Today, you will all know the truth of your Santa Claus!" He shouted as four additional penises and arms sprouted through his left flank. He began jerking off as people in the front trampled each other trying to escape. It was no use. The explosion of acidic green jiz began spurting hundreds of feet into the air, raining down on the crowd. Screams of agony filled the night. As a final touch, Nicholas bellowed, "and to all, a good night!"

Christmas Layaway Bluetooth Blues - Russell Holbrook

Jacob went to K-Mart to buy an antique daydream. Because it was so expensive, it had been on layaway for a century. His job sweeping bones out of the ballroom didn’t pay very well. He’d been saving for so long. Even now he knew he was two dollars short. He planned to use his charm on the cashier, hoping that she would let it slide, or let him perform some kind of immoral and indecent act to cover the rest. Anything, anything… he would do whatever she asked. Jacob was sure this would work out for him. It had to, it was Christmas.

And then, it was his turn and there she was, smiling. He paid what money he had and explained, telling his story in all its utterly sad, reprehensible, pathetic glory. And she smiled and said no. She was sorry but there was nothing that she could do. Jacob’s eyes fell to the floor, his hands went into his pockets, and then hundreds of tiny Chinese throwing stars were pelting the cashier and all the customers and screams and blood filled the layaway department and the manager shuffled out of the back and sighed. I knew this would happen one day, he said as a throwing star stabbed him in the eye.  

Bradley Smith - Carolers

Justin heard from the kitchen. Damn Carolers, he thought. Come by every year. Nothing but annoying noise.

He'd prepared this time. 

For the last month he’d bought cartons of eggnog, let them spoil, until they smelled like fungus-ridden toe-cheese; a true antique by now. He poured them into a large bucket, ready to be thrown on the unsuspecting visitors.

He opened the door just as "Silent Night" began and threw the putrid nog in their faces. 

They didn't respond. 

The smiles remained, even as the white dripped off their chins. All eyes were on Justin, unblinking and full of joy.

A sound that resembled the screech of brakes came from each of the Carolers’ mouths, starting very low, increasing in volume by the nanosecond. Their faces split down the middle, as if the were opened from inside by some invisible zipper. Underneath was darkness, nothing but. A cold breeze, like the air that escapes a freezer, came, making the already frigid air that much colder. Ballroom music oozed from the pit.

Justin couldn't look away. He felt compelled to look into the empty faces; it was like bait. As if in a daydream, he walked closer, peering in, until he was crawling through, just as a child will climb into a toybox to get to the best toy at the bottom, all the way to his burial.

Then he was gone.

The faces all zipped back up into their facade and they glided away, onto the next house of debauchery.

Christmas with Charles - Justin Burnett (Stories by the Fireplace)

When he was younger, every year after the wee hours of his annual Christmas Eve debauchery, your great grandad Charles would take us kids out to the fountain. We'd follow him, with his daydream gaze and ballroom stagger testifying to an inhuman indulgence of eggnog and vicodin, to the garden out back. Despite his inherent charm and intoxicated holiday spirit, we always noticed an aura of abstract malice in his bloodshot eyes and messy grin. 

I still have nightmares about Christmas and the facade of Charles’ sloppy face, barely concealing a savage cruelty somewhere in an engorged, black abyss. 

All of us kids would trudge to the fountain in the center of the garden with a sickening dread. It was always in the early morning, we were always exhausted, but Charles would bait us with his usual spiel. “We have to punish the naughty or Santa won't come.” 

A burlap feed sack was always propped up against the antique stone of the fountain. Charles would open a stained leather satchel and pass around long sharpened knives. “Inside this bag” he would mutter, “is the devil. The very devil who killed Jesus Christ himself.” 

And in a sudden frenzy, Charles would brandish the bullwhip.

The leather would sing against our backs until we sunk the knives into the sack. 

Every Christmas we walked back to the house, bruised, cut and weeping. The fountain would run crimson at our flank, and Charles would disappear into the underbrush to prepare the burial. 

On Christmas morning, we would listen to the adults share the sad news of another missing child. 

Charles was always distraught. 

Stories by the Fireplace

Welcome to Box of Bizarro's first annual Stories by the Fireplace. This year, I invite the bizarro family to gather around the hearth, find a cozy spot, grab their mugs of whichever warm beverage they choose, and tell a nice, weird story. Nothing major, just a 250 word or less story that includes at least 4 of the 12 words listed at the bottom of this post. The stories will be posted on the Box of Bizarro website and readers will vote for the winner. The story will be posted without edits within 24 hours of submission, so the sooner you get it in the more time you will have to promote your story and earn votes. The winner will receive a $15 Amazon gift card and two gifts. Please send all stories to submissions@boxofbizarro.com with the subject line "fireplace." If there are any questions about the rules or any other issue, you are welcome to send an email.

• Each Facebook like and positive comment on a post directly linking to the story will be counted as 1 vote. 
• Positive comments on each original story posted on the website will count as 1.5 votes. 
• Sharing a link on Facebook will count as 2 votes for the shared story.
• Author's may vote on their own stories and up two others.

Each person that votes on a story will be placed in a drawing to win a $7 Amazon gift card and one gift. 

• Each individual like and comment on the Facebook post linking to a specific story will enter the voter's name one time. 
• Each vote by comment on the website and each story link shared on Facebook will be entered twice. 
• Voters can vote on a maximum of three stories, but can vote for those three stories on the website and anywhere on Facebook that their links appear. 

The winners will be announced Dec. 26. 

Choose at least 4 of the following words:

1. abstract
2. bait
3. egocentric
4. debauchery
5. charm
6. flank
7. antique
8. ballroom
9. daydream
10. acoustic
11. burial
12. facade

You may use these words in any order you wish. In the spirit of pushing your creativity, for each word you choose over the 4 required, you will receive 0.5 votes.

Book Review - Planet Mermaid by Leza Cantoral

Planet Mermaid is short and fast-paced. It was over before I could blink and never boring. The book uses a basic fairytale formula similar to Disney films as an initial basis for something much darker and more unique. It begins with Lilia the mermaid who is dissatisfied with her mundane life in an underwater paradise. Lilia's sisters are content with their lives that pretty much consist of socializing, mating, and pawning their babies off on her. Lilia, however, dreams of traveling to the mysterious surface above, meeting the land walkers, maybe even hooking up with one. A cliche setup for sure, but thats the point. The familiarity works as an instantly accessible introduction and as a perfect dichotomy to what follows, drawing out the following events, giving them more oomph than if the story had come out guns blazing. I’m not just talking about the violent and sexual content. This isn’t an adult fairytale. Whether or not that's what it's trying to be, I’m not sure, but I feel calling it that would be doing it a disservice.

After its brief intro segment that lasts only a few pages, the story itself transitions along with the protagonist. Lilia makes her way to the surface and emerges from her fairytale cliche. She enters a new world that is much harder to define, it's a little sci-fi, a little horror, and extremely unpredictable. At this point, in complete contrast to what it initially had you believe was in store, the element of surprise becomes it’s greatest asset, and talking about any specific moment, even the smaller ones, would be a massive spoiler. It hits you with a barrage of super cool imagery, grotesque cruelty, and thought provoking plot. The final scene in particular is a complete surprise, almost seeming out of left field, but is actually a perfect way to wrap things up, bringing the ideas from the beginning back around with a twist and giving meaning to everything that happened in between.

Planet Mermaid can be effortlessly read in one sitting and will stick with you long after its short runtime. It establishes a surprising amount about its characters and world, and while closing the loop on everything major pertaining to the specific story it’s telling, it leaves you (Much like Lilia) wanting to know more about it’s universe.

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