About Red Tales

Here's an evolving electronic collection of short prose pieces, with a poem contributed occasionally. Brevity guides. Although sometimes a piece will run to 900 words, most pieces are much shorter. Here one may find erotica, flash fiction, brief observations, and modest improvisations. Another rule is that each piece must have something to do with"red"; at least the word has to appear in each piece functionally. . . . All pieces are numbered and titled, so there's a de facto table of contents running down the rail below, under "Labels" (scroll down a bit). Browse for titles that look interesting, if you like. Thank you for stopping by. Look for some red today, tonight.

"Flaming June," by Frederick Lord Leighton

"Flaming June," by Frederick Lord Leighton

Monday, November 30, 2009

96. Marx And Home Repairs


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(image: Karl Marx, reaching for his copy of the Manifesto)
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I imagine a window in Karl Marx's apartment going all wrong--dry rot in the sill, a crack in the pane, the framing so loose that Winter rides in on a howl and a whistle.

Marx has his wife hire workmen--two. One's a beet-faced beer-drinker with sausage-fingers and a bull's neck. Marx thinks this one's the carpenter, but he's the glazier. The carpenter's a thin, bearded, sallow fellow who takes measurements as seriously as scripture or theory and wears red suspenders.

The men bring an odor of sweat and onions to Marx's life. They tighten the window, which silences Marx's toughest critic, the wind. When it comes time to pay, Marx thinks the men charge too much. He quibbles. This is never recorded in dialectical history.

The men aren't surprised. Professors are tight with money--well known. Outside, putting their tools away in a cart, the men marvel at how many books Herr Marx owns. "You'd think one or two would be enough," says the massive glazier. "I'm told he writes about workers," says the slender carpenter. "What about them?" asks the other. "I don't know. Probably something fanciful."

"That window should last a while," says the glazier. They look up. Marx's wife is looking down at them.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

95. Cherry Moles

The dermatologist calls them cherry moles and says they're harmless even if they look alarmist.

They are moles tired of living in a how-now-brown-cow-town, where everything from boots to diner-toast seems kind of, you know, ordinary, and the red sound of a siren is such a welcome change, and the mayor, Mr. Angioma, is deranged.

The cherry moles are ruby red and seem to mark special places on the skin's map; however, the skin's map points to nothing but itself, and you cannot use it to find treasure. It is no map in truth. It does not represent Duluth.

With a magnifying glass, the dermatologist travels across the country of the skin, sometimes stopping at a bright cherry mole and muttering, "Harmless."