The Molotov Cocktail is self-described as “A Projectile for Incendiary Flash Fiction.” Understand I don’t usually write flash fiction, but something about the magazine: the look, the content, the attitude … I had to be part of it.
The perfect opportunity arrived when we had a garage sale two weeks ago, and I realized I hate garage sales. While sitting there, watching people dig through my belongings, I wrote an essay with only Molotov Cocktail in mind. Blessing of blessings, they accepted it.
For your deviant enjoyment, The Molotov Cocktail presents “You Need My Shit.” (Oh, you really do.)
You Need My Shit
by Sara Dobie Bauer
My husband suggested I keep my revolver in a little box during our garage sale just in case. It never occurred to me to be worried about people robbing my African statue that looks like it’s taking a shit.
Seven AM in Phoenix feels like living in a stove set to three-fifty. People show up and dig through piles of clothes I used to wear. Strange the things you remember, like how I once posed for a female friend’s camera in that corset with the red skull on the front.
There’s this one guy who shows up in a suit and tie. He laughs when I tell him he’s overdressed. He’s too friendly. I think about my revolver in the little shoebox at my side. Then, he goes into his Jehovah’s Witness spiel, and I think about the gun even more.
(So do I really get to shoot anyone? Read on at Molotov Cocktail‘s website, Volume 5, Issue 11.)
Photo credit: Boise Daily Photo
Classic photo! Nice hot pants…Congrats on the acceptance!
Thank you, Sara. I checked out Molotov Cocktail’s site and subscribed. You are often “inspirational” with your scribblings. A “buzz” developed into a flowing line of prose… then downstream, became a river… all based on a single term. “Robbing” brings back a wonderful scenario from my “dead-of-night” epiphanies with a white-haired bath-robed-in-slippers judge who had me sit with my handcuffed “guest” while giving me an impromptu “Paper Chase” statutory lecture prior to signing the arraignment.
“Change that term or your buddy here gets released…and a free ride home, Kiddo.” That wonderful figurative language of Arizona’s old “13” Codes…