THESE ARE SOME BRIEF MISSIVES FROM MY VILLAINOUS LAIR, ATOP MOUNT VILLAIN, WHICH IS A NON-DORMANT VOLCANO SHAPED SURPRISINGLY LIKE A SMALL SUBURBAN APARTMENT. WRITTEN FROM MY OFFICE, WHICH IS NOT TERRIBLY SURPRISING, SINCE I PRETTY MUCH USE THESE ROOMS FOR WORKING, SLEEPING, WORKING, EXERCISING, COOKING, AND WORKING MORE, AND SO I CALL EVERYTHING MY “OFFICE” EXCEPT THE KITCHEN AND ONE OF THE CLOSETS. (YES, OF COURSE I’VE WRITTEN IN THE OTHER CLOSET. IT’S A BIG CLOSET.)
As some of you fine monsters might know, I’m putting together a collection of villainous microfictions. Some are what I would have called “short-short” stories in my scifi days; some are bits of poetry; some are both. Here’s a couple of little ones; they’re bite-sized, and, in fact, if you’ve a big, fearsome, toothful mouth, you can probably swallow them all and come back for more, which is fine… I’ve got more coming. Each of these is a teeny, teeny tale, almost (but not all) in rhyme, each one with a Moral. All of these Morals are, of course, Poor Life Choices…
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Bitten By A Fairy
Lifted aloft by Faerie wings
then dropped like a rock (it rather stings).
Moral: The Fae are kind of busted.
They love you as little as they should be trusted.
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Choosing The Right Heart
A heart of stone can break with ease
Just need a drop (worse than a squeeze)
A heart of steel can quick be rusted
A heart of flesh cannot be trusted.
If you’d have have your heart no ill befall,
you must needs have no heart at all.
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The Only Monster
I tried being sort-of normal once. But they tore off my human skin to reveal the monster underneath. I feel bad for them, all of them, each of them. Because each of them knows that they, too, have a monster under their flesh suit, and each thinks they are the only one; that everyone else’s suit is real, all the way through. So each one lives their life believing they might, at any moment, be exposed to be just like me.
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That Sexy “Recently Broke Out Of Imprisonment” Look
Hate me, former darlings; bleed me;
Villainpunk Jeff Mach frequently seeks new, interesting ways to rewrite this part, and then often ends up just shifting a few words around and hitting “Publish”. Don’t tell anyone.
Jeff is a writer and creator who has long aspired to be the sort of person who neither needs to promote his other work at the bottom of his short stories, nor need speak of himself in the third person. Sadly, in both regards, he has failed.
