Category: Surrealism

Trina Woke From a Dream

Flash fiction, Surrealism

Teagan Geneviene and I collaborated on a Trina story. Teagan sent visual prompts by Michael Whelan and we wrote lines based on the images.

I think Teagan may post the story to her blog. If she does, her version
may be different.

Trina Woke from a dream

Illustration of a victorian girl with fanciful moths
Trina woke from a dream

The Shadow Boy was coming to visit while she languished above a
labyrinth of verdant shrubs.

The Shadow Boy was intrigued when he saw a blond child with a bow
and arrow levitating outside the window of the monorail.

Was the blond child looking for his shadow? Could he catch it with his arrow?

The shadow boy examined the child for clues.

‘He’ had pixie ears and breasts.

This was not his boy.

Trina waved at the shadow boy and motioned for him to join her.

The boy hesitated. Trina wondered why: perhaps because the sun was going down.

The Shadow Boy shouldn’t be afraid of the dark, besides there’s a streetlight.

Trina decided it made no difference.

She still had Madison, but wait, where had Madison got to?

She was chasing a cluster of moths drawn to streetlight.

Madison out chasing moths? This was out of character.

“What’s wrong with you?” Trina asked.

“Nothing!” Madison scowled.

‘You’re chasing moths.”

“ They’re chasing me. Look at these holes!”

And it was true; Madison was full of holes.

(c) Rob Goldstein and Teagan R. Geneviene

 

 

 

#Poetry: Connections

LGBTQ, Photography and Art, Poetry, Surrealism

    You have no business

no right to

tell me how I feel.

I do what I must:

I open my eyes and pull

down the sky.

I bleed myself dry.

Here where reality is

brutal and exhausting,

we are connected by lies

and anger —

We are one again.

(c) Rob Goldstein 1984-2019

#writeprompt: Trina and The Android at Saks

LGBTQ, Surrealism, Writing

Trina first saw the android in the window of Saks Fifth Avenue.

It had golden gears, and a golden brown skin that sold separately.

Trina pulled out her bench and sat with her dolly, Madison.

‘He looks like Father?’ Trina said.

‘Your Father was shinier,’ replied Madison.

“Father twinkled like the moon on a windswept beach.”

Madison cringed and wrinkled her nose.

Trina continued: “Father was on a plane to Hawaii when the hurricanes struck. He went down like a meteor over Cher in Nantucket: poor father.”

“Why Cher in Nantucket?”

“She has the right syllables.”

Trina stood and moved the bench closer to the window.

‘The bot is browner than Father, but I rather like it.”

“Your Father didn’t have abs like that!”

Trina sat Madison on her lap. “How would you know!”

Madison giggled, “That day you left me in the bathroom; I watched
your Father take a bath.”

Trina was shocked and curious “Did you see ‘it’?”

‘What?’

“I guess not.”

“Your Father was hairy; that bot’s not hairy. Your father was old too.”

Trina opened her bag and pulled out a tea set.

Madison looked up in surprise: “Is that an elephant?”

Trina leapt to her feet: “It’s Anjana!” She hugged the elephant’s mighty trunk.

“And you’ve brought mice!

Seven mice dressed like dwarfs gazed up at Trina with quivering noses.

Anjana knelt and the mice scurried onto his back.

The android gazed at them blankly from the window of Saks Fifth Avenue.

“He looks like my Father,” said Trina.

“Where is your Father?” asked Anjana.

“He blew up during the First World War.”

Anjana raised his trunk and flicked a tear from his cheek, “How tragic.”

Madison rolled her eyes, “Some tea, Mr. Elephant?”

*

A week after Trina first spotted the android in the window of Saks Fifth Avenue he was gone.

She stared through her reflection in the window and wondered where he was.

The sky suddenly darkened and the shadow of a little boy stepped into view.

“Did you lose your boy again?” Trina asked.

The shadow boy sat on the sidewalk and sighed, “I lost my Father. He was a fighter pilot behind enemy lines in Atlanta. When Napoleon met his Waterloo; they shot him like a dog.”

Trina nodded sagely, “That’s exactly what happened to my Father.”

Madison scowled and popped a seam.

“Do you think he’ll come back to the window?” The little shadow boy sipped
his tea.

“I think he will.” Trina replied. “Let’s have a cupcake while we wait.

Rob Goldstein 2019

An illustration for a short fantasy inspired by the May #writingPrompt at Myths of the Mirror
Trina and Her Doll, Madison

I wrote this for the monthly #writingprompt from D. Wallace Peach

You can join in here: Myths of the Mirror

 

 

 

 

#WordlessWednesday: Lulu, One Million Years BC

Photography and Art, Surrealism, Virtual Photography

Illustration made in VR depicting a flapper in the Mesozoic Era
Lulu, 1 Million Years BC

Coming soon to a blog near you!

Coming in Spring-All sorts of Things

 

#WordlessWednesday linkup badge
#WordlessWednesday

Poetry: The Writer

LGBTQ, Photography and Art, Poetry, Surrealism, Writing

I whip my words into shape but they do as they please:

a lake by a swamp on a sunlit Garden Parkway–

How quickly a mood can change.

Coffee!     More Coffee!


‘The Writer’ (c) Rob Goldstein 1985
 Header image, “The Accordion”
 (c) Rob Goldstein 2019

February’s Speculative Fiction Prompt: Anjana and Trina

Flash fiction, Humor, Surrealism

Each month Diana Wallace Peach issues an image as a prompt at her
blog, Myths of the Mirror. This is my SOC mashup of a response.

February’s Speculative Fiction Prompt from D. Wallace Peach
February’s Speculative Fiction Prompt

***

Anjana and Trina

Anjana the elephant wanted to know who caused the snow.

He hated snow and wanted it stopped.

In the distance, he saw a house resting lopsided in a baobab tree.

“Is that house crushing my tree?” Anjana muttered to himself.

He lumbered through the snow until he reached the house and peered
inside.

A little girl sat cross-legged on the floor with a notebook and pen.

The little girl looked up and smiled at Anjana.

“Hello…I’m Trina.”

Anjana stepped backward and bowed.

“I am Anjana,” he said.

Trina wrote his name in her notebook.

“Are you a munchkin?” she asked.

Anjana scratched his head with his trunk.

“No, I’m a demigod.”

“Pan?”

“NO!”

“I see.” Trina smiled. “If you had fingers you could snap them
and fix my house.”

“I don’t need fingers to fix your house!”

Anjana lifted the house from the tree with his mighty trunk and
set it gently on the ground.

“Oh thank you!” Trina said. “Where am I?”

“Milwaukee.”

“Do you have other powers?”

“Well…No. I used to hold up the World, but that was when it was flat.”

“Silly elephant! The World was never flat!”

This annoyed Anjana. “People thought it was flat, so it was flat!”

“That’s a good point!” said Trina.

Then she stood and shook her pen until it stretched and became
a wand.

“Shall I stop the snow?”

Anjana stared at Trina with wide eyes and slowly shook his head yes.

Trina waved her wand and shouted: “Snowmobilus! Stoppus!”

Anjana looked way from Trina and watched in awe as the snow slowly
stopped.

When he turned to thank Trina, she and the house were gone, replaced by
seven white mice dressed as elves.

(c) Rob Goldstein 2019