Super Frog by Alan
Super Frog ducks the angels. He doesn’t have time for that kind of stuff. Sure, they spy on him with their holy surveillance mechanisms, but Super Frog doesn’t pay them no mind. His missive is to fight crime. Evildoers beware. S is for Save. F is for freedom. In the dark alleys. In the moral ambiguities. In the in between. That’s where Super Frog lives. Wherever there is injustice, you will find him. Wherever there is suffering, he’ll be there. Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find…Super Frog.
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Francisco by Johanna
The desert rains came hard and fast that spring, a sudden rush of precipitation that flooded cracked wash basins and resurrected arroyos in one day. The Salton Sea splashed over the lip of dykes and sent the salty farm chemical waters into the Borrego. With it, tiny tadpole spawns that knew nothing beyond murky puddles, dripped into the arid back-country where they settled in the shallow indentation of an old pack rat's hole. There amongst the shiny things – a sequin from a baby shoe, a chip of abalone, a vending machine ring – only one tadpole survived the evaporation of lengthening days. Not merely survived, but evolved as if the universe depended on such things. There is no way to know for sure if that frog realized it was different from any other. He had no parents, no mentors, no examples, only an urge. But the first day that frog spread his reptilian wings and took flight, it rescued a coyote from a rattlesnake advance and Francisco the Super Frog was born.
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I Spy with My Little Eye Something that Is Gold by Lyle
A bell, he responded. Around that flying toad. Dumbass.
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Tunnel by Forrest
My son and the milk carton viewfinder. These two were never meant to be separated. Because the kid won’t let go of it—that is, he won’t let me wash his head during bathtime out of fear of loosening the duct tape around his head. He sleeps with it on. He goes to school with it on. He eats meals with attempted precision of fork-to-mouth. But, of course, I’m more than welcome to navigate him through our home while his peripheral vision has been completely negaged.
I’ve reached the point where I want to confess to him, “We never talk anymore.”
I’ve reached the point where I want to call her and say, “Look, our son has given over his life to a milk carton viewfinder—what do I do here?” And probably she’ll only say, “Your problem.” And unlikely she’ll say, “Therapy.” Though most assuredly she’ll say, “Your problem, and you’re welcome to it.” She knows my feelings often succumb to the occasional validation.
“Your mother says you’ll go blind with that thing on,” is what I want to say to him instead. To instill a slight fear. Then again, he may already be blind. I can’t tell what’s going on in there.
I put up some crazy-looking paper mache flying frog in the living room, an Indonesian clearance item from the World Market. I want to test a theory. The kid parks himself underneath and trains the viewfinder on it. Stays there for hours on end. I go to bed before him that night, and he’s still there in the morning, sitting cross-legged in perfect contemplation of the object.
“What do you think of the frog?” I ask him while looking up from my cereal. “I might get rid of it—looks too silly up there.”
He gets up awkwardly. A moment to stretch his legs. He swings the viewfinder at me with my spoon suspended in mid-air, and I, unable to take a bite with him watching, search for anything moving about all the way at the end that will let me move again.
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AMP'D by Bill
The seas dark and reminding the mirrors of the great old ones slumbering. Back is forth, hands circle light inscribing fourth walls all falling down. It’s so relieving in the seattle scene, off and odd then off and on and off again working in a factory making coal-fired political pottery. The call for the ticket, dropped into the fish tank outside to hide from the sharks. The trains are lonely; three back of the line in a bad order - an incontinent old man leading off. The loss is in the heart and the mind seeks out the phrases and the hymns that cast down the eyes.
The street with the soundtrack of life in the ear, tiny little spheres of the future wedged into ears granting mood and atmosphere, but only ever reflecting what is and what was sacrificed, cut from the core, carved from the heart, leaving the scarred wings and the gnawed legs on the plate instead of taking them home for the dog.
