The Royal Wedding

Published in Microfiction Monday, November 10, 2014

The Royal Wedding, by Dan Campbell

Before the wedding, there were the usual preparations. The princess tried on wedding dresses and the royal maids dusted and mopped night and day. The royal secret service positioned snipers and checked for bombs in the church and mines in the street. The royal police trained in crowd control while the royal army stationed tanks in strategic locations and filled the sky with drones.  Meanwhile the prince, who was just a frog the week before, remembered his friends who croaked in the night, and he wept when the princess ordered the royal environmental agency to drain his frog-days pond.

 

Postcard from Konanga – Published in Molotov Cocktail, July 2014

A Postcard from Konanga | Published in Molotov Cocktail, July 2014.

by Dan Campbell

Having a wonderful time; wish you were here. We took a tour yesterday and saw cyclops children peering through windows of doorless houses. The natives worship the moon, it controls the flow of their urges and their blood; women carry baskets of fog all morning; there are twenty-one verbs for different ways to spit and one must bow before three-legged dogs to show respect. 

Packs of wolves make the forests dark with their black sweat; shadows are lined up against a wall at noon and shot; faces are painted blue to ward off a moth’s evil eyes and on odd-numbered days handfuls of hummingbirds are released with dreams strapped to their beaks. But no one here slits the throats of rivers and a homeless day can beg for alms without a license; tomorrow we leave on a cruise to pull up salt by its roots and then we’ll backpack to the place where storks are shaped like letters of the alphabet.

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Dan Campbell is a banjo player from North Carolina who is currently working in the swampland of Washington DC. His poetry has been published in more than two dozen magazines and he has earned $48.63 in royalties so far.

 

 

The Confession: A Thirty Second Play

Please let me know if you enjoyed this or think it sucks.  Gracias, Dan

THE CONFESSION 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned and it has been 24 years since my last confession.”  

“Sit my son, I am glad you have returned. I am the new priest here and this is my first confession.”

“Father, I knew your mother Mary years ago, someone told me you are her son.”

“Yes, she has lived here many years, she was once a nun but left the Order, she never said why.” “She did not want me to become a priest but I told her that I was following God’s calling.” “But enough about me, tell me son, how have you sinned?”

“Father, I am your father.”

Five 55 word stories published in In Posse Review

Each of 5 stories below is 55 words each:

Five Short Shorts by Dan Campbell

REINCARNATION

Middle-aged Dan sat down for lunch one day and chomped into his 5,000th hamburger. On the first bite, a tail sprouted from his sternum. Horns shot from his brow on the second bite. He tried calling for help when hooves replaced his shoes on the third bite, but all he could do was moo.

PARENTAL CHAT

“Our daughter sleeps around,” she said.
“The garage roof leaks,” he said.
“I read her diary, she does drugs, she sleeps around.”
“How can I afford a new roof?”
“She might have AIDS; she sleeps around.”
“A new roof; that will cost at least $1,500!”
“A damn she new sleeps roof around,” they said.

CAREER CHANGE

House arrest led me to a new career—collecting yawns. The best yawns, rare as pearls, are kept in Petri dishes and studied by experts on yawn anatomy. The most valuable yawns explode unexpectedly like corks from bottles of wine. When we collect a specimen like that, we break open the champagne and yawn wildly!

THE JACK BROTHERS

Remember those sickos? The anorexic Sprat that ate no fat. The anti-social Horner huddling in the corner. And let’s not forget the pedophile that molested Jill on the hill. Grown old, they are drunks now. They like to pass around bottles of homemade brew and whistle at the old lady who lives in a shoe.

LOVE SIGN

Petrified by heights, but in love, so years ago I climbed a mountain to paint the biggest heart ever, fill it with our names so everyone could see. The heart’s still there. I often think of when she’s out with her husband, she looks up, sees us together again. Yes, love’s sweet; so is revenge.

 

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Dan Campbell

Dan Campbell works for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Washington DC. He has served in the Peace Corps in El Salvador, and worked in more than 20 countries. His poems have been published in The Exquisite Corpse, Rattapallax, and other magazines. One poem, “The Bus Rider,” was written into a song and performed at a chamber opera for the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art in Washington DC.

 

Micro Memoirs by Dan Campbell is available online at Barnes & Nobles

Micro Memoirs is a collection of 200+ six word stories that I have written. This is a form of Flash Fiction made popular by SMITH magazine (smithmag.net).  Many thanks to Larry Smith of Smithmag for writing in the Introduction to the book.

The most concise and widely cited example of flash fiction is the story Ernest Hemingway penned, allegedly to settle a bar bet: “For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn.”

I hope you enjoy these short memoirs, most are from the imagination but others reflect daily life in all its pathos and glory. The book can be ordered from Barnes & Nobles and there are several reviews about the book.

Samples of my Micro Memoirs:

• Runaway bus ended my midlife crisis
• I prefer wearing armor to suits
• I keep rehearsing my final bow
• My 72 virgins are octogenarian nuns
• Glad birds don’t need singing contracts
• Took Put On Pants off bucketlist
• Wife’s future tombstone: “I’m with Stupid”
• Like shooting stars, we blaze briefly
• My scarecrow finally admitted he’s hay
• Winter memory, nurse describing the snowfall
• Wife’s deleting paragraphs from my eulogy
• Left cocoon, but still no wings
• My race horse is nicknamed Shortcut

Grief – published in 50 Word Stories

Grief – Published in 50 Word Stories, June 2014

Grief is a cowgirl. She is beautiful. She rides me, pulling on the
bridle, telling me when to kneel and weep. Her long fingers guide
tears down my cheeks. She was here all last month, she’s with me
today. I’m afraid to ask how much longer she’s going to stay.

Photo: http://www.pinterest.com/lilstevie/weeping-willows-honeysuckle/

The Drive – A 100 word story

Here is a 100 word microfiction story I wanted to share and I welcome any suggestions and constructive criticism. I am off this week and my goal is to write one story or poem per day. 

The Drive 

I didn’t even remember getting into the car and I was shocked that my wife was driving; she really hates to drive. She was weeping and ignoring me, what had I done to upset her? I asked her over and over what was wrong but she never answered. She drove to one of our favorite parks but left quickly without a word. We drove along in silence and it surprised me when she turned into the cemetery and stopped beside a tombstone. But when I looked and read the name on the tombstone, then, then I knew.

Junkyard journeys

JUNKYARD JOURNEYS – May 2014

Brother Billy and I would play marbles in the junkyard’s dirt driveway while chewing on sticks on sticks of black licorice. It was our father’s junkyard, his inherited kingdom of rusted rejects. He would sometimes sadly proclaim how it would all be ours someday. We honked the horns of tireless clunkers, many of them named after Dad’s ex-girlfriends. We trampolined on hoods, slid through the shattered windshields of scavenged Chevys. We stared through steering wheels, looked over hubcap fences and listened through the howls of our mangy dog King to the mute roar of dead engines that would forever take us nowhere.

My inflatable girlfriend – published in 100 Word Story

My Inflatable Girlfriend

 – Published in 100wordstory.org – May 2014

Today she’s a hot cheerleader, the next day she’s dressed like a nun. She knows me, she’s a mind reader. Yes, plastic dolls are lots of fun. I’m hoping she lasts till December, that’s when the warranty expires. If not I’ll date her twin sister who’s stored away beside the snow tires. She’s happy with cheap perfume and she doesn’t talk all day. I’ve met the perfect woman, there’s nothing more I can say. My castles and girlfriends are inflatable and my backyard swimming pool is, too. Friends say my tastes are debatable and I tell them to kiss my taboo.

Short-short stories – In Posse Review

These short shorts were published in the 10th anniversary issue of “In Posse Review,” and here is the link.