We are knee-deep into July; NYC is hot and humid. The best thing to cool everyone off is a flash fiction contest!
The usual rules apply:
1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.
2. Use these words in the story:
dongle
bangle
fangle
ten
tear
2. You can make up definitions for any or all of the words, but I must be able to understand what they mean from the context of the sentence or story.
3. You must use the whole word, but that whole word can be part of a larger word. The letters for the
prompt must appear in consecutive order.
Thus: ten/tenth is ok, but ten/twenty is not
5. Post the entry in the comment column of THIS blog post.
6. One entry per person. If you need a mulligan (a do-over) erase your entry and post again. It helps to work out your entry first, then post.
7. International entries are allowed, but prizes may vary for international addresses. Prize is generally a book.
8. Titles count as part of the word count (you don't need a title)
9. Under no circumstances should you tweet anything about your particular entry to me. Example: "Hope you like my entry about Felix Buttonweezer!" This is grounds for disqualification.
8. Please do not add any comments about contest entries. (Not for example "I love Felix Buttonweezer's entry!") They will be deleted and you will find yourself in Hot Water.
Contest opens: Saturday, July 11, 8am
Contest closes: Sunday, July 12, 8am
Questions? Tweet to me @Janet_Reid
Ready? SET?
RATS! Too Late! Contest closed at 8am.
104 comments:
It needed a burning.
Oh, yes. A straight-up, old-fangled fire. A charring of flesh. A broiling of blood and boiling of tears and eyes and tender sticky bits.
Reverend Barnaby faced the crowd, his heart a heaving sea. Esmerelda had bedded him. The village pariah. That gutless, dongless wonder.
Barnaby closed his eyes. On his lids, the scene played out in intimate detail. The unpeeling of frocks, the unsheathing of bangles, the unslip of a petticoat, leaving her naked as now.
He opened his eyes and looked at his daughter. She’d been stripped of all but her cross.
“Burn her.”
The creature leaves Janella gifts. She is his intended. Or so say the Donglenn village elders - after she dared to stare them down when their greasy gazes slid over her body, after she fought back when one cornered her, licked her neck, bit at her breast.
She slips on tonight's present, fingers the bracelet's bangles of bone, its fangles of flesh. Here are teeth that will never again tear female skin, eyes that will never again leer at a woman. Janella, shivering with horror, with understanding, whispers, "Thank you."
The creature slithers from the shadows to claim his bride.
My cousin glanced up from reading Ulysses. “What’s a dongleeper?”
“As it pertains to…?”
He pointed to a passage. “‘The lass bangled his shalalie until the cows came home.’” He paused. “So she adorned his stick?”
“No,” I said. “Probably not, Joyce was weird.”
He went back to reading, and then exclaimed, “Now that’s just wrong!”
I often raise a single eyebrow.
“How… or why for God’s sake does an Irishman tension a stear?” He slammed the tome shut.
“Cattle or car?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s tearable how he fangles everything up.”
“Sometimes a passage isn’t a story.”
Dingle hated new-fangled gizmos. But the library steps had been the final straw. No more panting.
She squeezed into a kitchen chair, flicking an outstretched wrist, and frowned at the blank display.
Fitness Bangle. Pink. Pretty. Broken.
Quick Start Guide. She teared through the pages, ripping straight to troubleshooting.
If Fabulous Fitness Bangle doesn’t illuminate, use dongle provided to connect to computer. Charging message should appear.
Dingle dongled. Nothing.
“Arrgghh!”
Another biscuit. Soothing chocolate.
Charging.
“Yes!” She fist-pumped, scattering crumbs over her laptop.
Target: 10,000 steps.
She whistled. “Ten thousand!”
Another biscuit. For energy.
A long way to go.
The silver bangles decorating her wrist reflected the intense sunlight through teardrop shaped crystals that danced as she walked. They were an antique reminder in an ever increasingly new-fangled world that time waited for no one, not even her. To her dismay, what she’d been gifted as a child were now ‘vintage’, much like the woman who wore them.
A man wearing a black suit pushed past her, but dropped his keychain to the floor. Attached were two archaic USB drives he looked ashamed to possess.
“You dropped your dongles,” She grinned.
“Thanks,” He said.
Time waited for no one.
After many pleading tears and a promise to play football for ten minutes, James finally convinced Missy to play dress up with him. He slid some sparkly bangles on her wrist and handed her a glittery pair of high heels.
“I’m not wearing those!” she protested. “I’ll fangle on my face.”
When she tried to flee, he pinned her to the ground.
Kicking and flailing she screamed, “Don’t you touch my dongle!”
The melee came to a screeching halt when James asked, “What’s a dongle?”
“I don’t know, but my dad says it to my mom all the time.”
The laptop from hell was going to be Pippa’s downfall. Ten gold bangles clinked on her wrist as she wiped away a tear of anger. She had to find a way to free her new manuscript trapped behind the blinking screen of death.
If only she’d saved it on one of those newfangled dongle things!
“Come on!” Her voice echoed off the concrete block walls. “Please! She wants a full submission. Don’t do this to me now.”
Six months of work. 92,645 words. Her ticket from hiding in the office bathroom to write.
The screen changed.
“Thank you, writing gods.”
Roxie fumbles with the dongle for a half hour before she jams it into the computer. Sweaty fingers challenge her aim, but she manages to navigate the keys. Her chest tightens as the log-in appears. Silver bangles clink and clang as she types her password needing to re-do it several times due to her incessant shaking. You’ll be a hero, Rox. You’re the only person we could trust.
Launch codes and questions appear. Focus on the new-fangled numbers. Should be ten of them. Bright red countdown shrinks. Tears obscure her vision. 5---4---3. Abort the mission? No. Goodbye, world.
No, dongle is not a worsted woollen cap, neither do Sikh lancers hail from bangle. Fangle is something made up to belittle fear of innovation and those tears wont save you from a beaten hide unless you learn to spell propper.
'Yes mum'.
“Well doggone, ding-dangle, dongle, it all,” Harry said when the branch he sawed crashed through the roof, tearing through the ceiling. Martha would skin him alive.
He climbed down the ladder to survey the damage, leaving the front door open.
Maybe she won’t notice, once he removed the branch.
What the...Muffin, their fangless cat, dashed outside. Drat! Martha would have a fit.
She often has a fit, he thought, getting grumpier by the minute. Like when he used her bangle bracelet to secure the muffler. How was he supposed to know it was gold?
It started to rain.
There once was a Miss Dillyfangle
Who got ten to life for a strangle
When the judge asked "Why, Dear?"
She confessed with a tear
"His dongle stick broke my new bangle."
The object sat on a rock outside the cave, a bangle fashioned out of fishbone.
Later, the braided skin of a fangless snake made into a belt, hung from a branch.
She, of lesser intelligence with squat body and protruding brow, shivered, fearful of the strange objects. She would die, unless she joined him. She touched her cheek, unable to understand tears.
Cocking her head, she sniffed.
He was back.
She jabbed at her chest, uttered, “Don-gle!”
He repeated, his tone clearer, “Dawn girl.”
Threatened, she offered herself.
He acquiesced.
Nine months later, evolutionary advancement stagnates another ten thousand years.
“C’mon, this play’s outearned half of Broadway! Gimme a punchy quote, not some fangless press release.”
Janice shrugged.
“Well, can I meet the cast?”
“No, the director has a headache, and everyone who goes backstage tends to sing the star’s Bangled banner.”
“Why so patriotic?”
“What? No. They…” She eyed the banner above the lead actor’s dressing room that read 'Walk Like an Egyptian' and sighed. Not worth the explanation.
“Unacceptable.” He shoved past her, but she grabbed him, locking her fist on his groin.
“One more step and you’re leaving here dongless.”
He gulped. “So just the press release?”
“You understand the examination?” asked the chief instructor.
The pupil nodded.
“Then tell me – how does the dongle dangle?” the instructor asked, overturning the hourglass. “You have ten seconds.”
The pupil cleared her throat and replied:
“Oh, isn’t it a fangle
That the dongle dangles
Rather like a bangle
Shining in the rain?”
The instructor’s hand reached for the hourglass, but the pupil raised a finger.
“But if ten dongles dangled
They’d be tough to wrangle
And in such a tangle
They’d never shine again.”
A tear welled in the chief instructor’s eye. “I pronounce you Doctor of Computational Poetry.”
We were in the Oldfangled Tearoom right there on Beach Cliff Way.
I gave her this tennis bracelet. Real diamonds.
She saw it was no bangle, but the real deal.
When she hugged me, she said Oh! Dingle!
Dingle?
She said Dingle, but my name's Dongle. Dingle's my twin brother.
She'd been two-timing you with your own brother?
Yeah.
What happened?
I dangled her for a bit, but had to let her go.
Did she go back to Dingle?
No. When I let go, she plummeted straight down the face of the cliff. No arc at all.
Oh.
Impassioned in enlovery, we made a dread discovery:
A hole in the arm of the couch!
"The angle of your bangle made a tear in the chair!"
"Well, dingle dongle dangle—the angle of my bangle! Will the tear in the chair be expensive to repair?"
"Not if I can wrangle all the pieces of this tangle. I'm sure amongst the mangle there's a fix that I can fangle."
Mary looked dubiciously, regarded me suspiciously, but relented most compliciously to let me have my way.
A tenuous solution, though still a resolution:
You couldn't tell the duct tape was there!
"I remember you," I say from the cabin's bed. "Last month's programming conference, right?" I can taste her already.
"I remember you too, handsome. You and a pal were installing some newfangled A/V equipment and talking about your big dongles." Her lips curl, but the smile isn't real.
Click. The cuffs shine and clink like bright silver bangles. Sweat beads on my chest when she starts for the door. I whimper, against my will.
"No tears," she says. "And don't go anywhere. Just relax and count to ten."
"Ten?"
"That's how many days I'll be gone."
“No…I wouldn’t say it dangled, more like it kinda…dongled…..”
“Christina!……what would your mother say!”
“Mam... let her finish,” the Commissioner interjected, “Please go on.”
“Well, then he …”
“The naked clown, with the ten tears tattooed on his cheeks?”
“Yes Commissioner…he had some new-fangled antenna wired from his ear to a
bangle on his wrist. And he smelled funny.”
“Funny, Ha-ha…Christina?”
“No Auntie…funny, like sodium-pentothal.”
“Wait, how did you know this flasher was a clown, Commissioner?”
“Figure of speech Madam. Please go on, Christina.”
“And he was wearing a black hooded cape…”
“Damn you Batman!” yelled Commissioner Gordon.
“Batman…indeed.”
“Christina…really!”
In a tower at the edge of oblivion and on the brink of eternity, the Watcher sat in a room with no doors. Her back against the wall, she faced the fangless beast as it snarled, tearing at chains that were not there. Here, they had waited for ten thousand lifetimes, and here they would wait for ten thousand more, until the distant dongle of the first bell heralds the coming of the final days when the beast will taste freedom and her bangles of silver and glass will rest among her bones. She longed for that day.
"Mac, darling, can you come over and fix my computer?"
"Hello, Beth. What about Duncan?"
"He's history, and don't even pretend you care."
"What happened?"
"He got all kingly on me, like I was his servant. So, can you fix it?"
"I'll tear right over."
...
"Did Duncan try fixing this?"
"Why?"
"Because your once awesome PC is Bangled."
"Bangled?"
"A mess. You'll need a new dongle cable."
"A what?"
"Oldfangled computer thingie."
...
"Done. So foul and fair a computer I have not seen."
"You're the best, Mac!"
"Yeah, that's me."
I'm also history, until Beth needs IT again.
“Take it.” He handed me a what looked like a pink USB dildo.
“What’s this?”
“Omega Dongle. The Bangledorians will contact you. Careful. The Fanglers are everywhere. I saw ten at the last station.”
“Wait.”
Too late. He was off the train. I had the dildo.
The train surged. Blue teeth outside snarled at me and claws raked the window. Fanglers?
At home I plugged in the dongle.
There was a tearing sound and I fell into space.
I waved my hands to stop falling and a planet began spinning erratically.
I stopped. It did too.
I controlled it all.
Mr. Dongle of Dongle Publishers, Tearsbury Lane, London, had never taken the Underground, but with Amazon threatening, tightening of the belt seemed in order. He sent Ms-not-Miss Bangleton out for a “TenDayTravelCard” and then set off to Picadilly. Descending into the darkness, a putrid scent assaulted him. The roar from the train drowned any notion of sensible thoughts. Even worse, while squeezed into a miniscule seat, a wild-eyed gentleman thrust a stack of papers at Mr. Dongle.
“Amos O’Fangle. Here’s my fiction novel.”
Thankfully the limo driver waited at Leicester with tea. Perhaps Dongle would slash the champagne budget instead.
I, Sean Donglennhaven, returned legless from the Great War; so she comes back from each town trip with all manner of filthy gifts. First ten silver bangles, they'd zinged along her slender arms as her hands caressed her full hips like the lover I could no longer be.
Now her foolish paramour sat quivering with each rattle of his new fangled horseless carriage. The only place she’d be joining him was in the Hell he’d just sent her.
I wiped a tear away and fitted the rifle scope against my one good eye. The bastard would never hear the bullet.
Don't panic! Did you bring a towel?
No, just the dongle.
The forty-two?
The ten.
Is that a tear?
I can't help it. I keep messing up. I don't understand these Bangle fish.
You mean Babel.
Damn fangled mess!
Do you mean mangled mess?
See that switch?
“To open airlock”?
Don't make me.
{apologies and gratitude to Douglas Adams}
A blessing or a curse that fortune's best mistress was her grandmother? "I need to find that dongle before they connect the spirit world with ours."
The tearoom filled with the stacatto clink of bone bangles and china as the mistress consulted the leaves. "I hope you know what you've gotten yourself into," she said finally.
"I didn't come here for a lecture."
"You came here for the truth, rather than consulting the newfangled device in your pocket."
"So tell me the truth."
"It's happened before."
"Disastrously."
"Both worlds works in cycles. We live within the world. Drink your tea."
She counted to ten with her eyes squeezed shut so nary a tear could escape. An astronaut doesn’t show emotion.
Three hundred years since the first lunar astronauts survived using duct tape. Instead of a square filter in a round hole now the angle of the fangle doesn’t match the ongle of the dongle. With or without the adapter bangle. Oh for a roll of duct tape.
If she couldn’t breath the air maybe she could use it for propulsion. A meteoric flameout down the gravity well and into the atmosphere would be a fitting tribute to her fall.
"I have so much homework,” she said, as she pulled out the dongle, containing her history paper, from her laptop. “It took me hours to finish just one assignment… Out of three.”
Minutes later I hear ragtime playing from her computer, followed by a swift stroke of the mute button, causing her bangles, shiny and fangled, to crash into each other.
"What's that?" I ask.
"Nothing.”
I don’t believe her. I scoot over to see ten--yes, ten--tabs open on her browser. I tear the computer from her and click one after the other. Cat videos, all of them.
Anne fumbled with the dongle, struggling to plug it into the USB port. Her bangle kept getting in the way. “How do kids keep up with all these newfangled gadgets?” Her bracelet's ten charms – one for each grandchild – made far too happy chimes as they repeatedly collided with each other and the laptop.
She wanted to blame her difficulty on the technology. She didn't want to acknowledge the disease that made her hands shake.
“Can I help you, Grandma?”
Anne glanced into eyes filled with pity. “Thank you, dear.” She blinked away unexpected tears, realizing she'd lost another battle.
Dad hated birthdays where attention focused on him.
“All this new-fangled stuff.” Dad put the new watch on upside down. “I don't need no bangle on my wrist to talk to you.”
“But, Dad, you can just tell it to call me and I'll be here in ten minutes.” I turned the watch around on his wrist and said, “Call Winston.”
My phone rang. The bombdongled look on Dad’s face spoke volumes. “Well, don't that beat all.”
A tear ran down his face.
“But I wanted it in black.”
Michael asked, "What's a dongle?"
"Context?" Jim continued pushing at the metal of Dee's bangle. It had nearly cut off her hand when it caught in the fan when she'd reached in to pull the plug wires. She'd reacted with no thought of danger. It was one of the reasons he loved his deputy. It had taken finagling to repair the bracelet and it was still not round.
"Brad says he can hook ten dongles into his new peripheral."
Jim did not laugh, even though he it almost made him tear something not to. "No, I don't think it does."
The dongle of the bell brought Alex to attention. She wiped away her tears, adjusted her bangle bracelets, and walked to the front of the store. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” a gorgeous man said. His eyes sparked, and Alex temporally forgot the boy who broke her heart.
“We need one of those new fangled devices. The ones that let you take a selfie?”
“No, but can I take it for you?”
“Oh, sure, yeah. Guys, come here. This beautiful lady can take a picture of the ten of us.”
He called her beautiful. Alex smiled and took the shot.
He crept along the forest. How he wished to get back to the Dongle and off this primitive planet. Where was Ten? She should have been back. Maybe the Tear got her. Apparently the smell of lilac was the only clue you were about to be devoured. Terrifying.
He bolted. Jumping over roots, pushing fangles out of his face.
He came to a clearing. His ship thirty yards away.
He ran faster.
Twenty yards.
He pressed the button on his bangle.
Fifteen yards.
The door slid open.
Ten yards.
Ship’s interior in sight!
Five yards.
The smell of lilac.
Tuesday, mid-day. Cheddar heaves himself up off the warm duvet, answering the doorbell. Outside, a crisp manila envelope, the size of a credit card, waits on the floor. Door shuts. Feet drag. Rip the tab, and out slides this weeks' dongle. Lying back down, Cheddar tucks it into the slot under his tongue. Data flows, and zero divides quietly near his taste buds, while somewhere in the memory center, The Bangles are on tour, and playing loudly. Clean and effective, this new-fangled high. The whole Universe is yours for ten credits. Time tears itself away, as Cheddar melts into oblivion.
Jeremy hovered over Winifred's bed, fixated by the moonlight sparkling on her bangle. Glancing furtively about, he slid the prize gently from her wrist.
She stirred and he froze, willing her back to sleep.
Her breathing rhythmic again, he completed the task. This made ten.
A tear coursed down his cheek. The inner circle awaited!
Creeping down the hall, he focused on the final, most difficult requirement. A dongle.
Sebastian snored commando as Jeremy approached, the moonlight glinting on his carefully honed blade. He tiptoed forward, eyes on the prize.
Sebastian screamed.
Jeremy fist-punched the sky.
A fangle-member at last.
“Dongle-dongle, bangle-bangle, fangle-fangle.” Trillop bounced happily, stubby dragon’s wings flapping as he belted out the world’s most annoying song.
“Shut. Up,” Tress growled for the tenth time.
Trillop, being Trillop, completely ignored her. “Dongle-dongle—”
Tress grabbed Trillop by the throat and pulled him close, lip lifting to show her fangs. “One more peep outta you and I’ll tear your lungs yer lungs out, ya little worm.”
Trillop shot a blast of fire in her face.
Tress dropped him, wiping furiously at her face. “Ugh! Gross! It’s all spitty and sticky!”
Trillop smiled smugly. “Dongle-dongle, dangle-dangle, fangle-fangle!”
“Shut-up! Shut-up! Shut-up!”
Henry wiped a tear from his eye. Lucy had served him well for ten years, but she was getting old now, slowing down. Like the bangles his wife used to wear back in the 80s, Lucy was out of fashion and needed to be replaced.
He inserted that new-fangled dongle-thing into Alicia, transferring all of Lucy's information into the new model. He wiped another tear as he remembered how happily Lucy had processed his old floppy discs. He was going to miss that old girl.
“Ready, Mommy?” five year-old Dani called.
“Almost.” Jess jiggled the dongle connecting the camera. The screen lit up showing the wood floor serving as Dani’s modeling runway. “Ready.”
Dani wobbled out in heels, a gold bangle engulfing her small wrist.
Jess glanced at the screen. Blank. Darn new-fangled camera. She gazed at the computer and clicked it as Dani tap-stepped across the floor.
“Mommy, look. Watch my turn!”
The screen finally lit up revealing Dani’s disappointed face. “You weren’t watching.”
“Sure I was. You scored ten!” Jess looked up as Dani turned away. Only the camera caught her daughter’s tears.
The eyes were impressive. They were a true violet, hex code #74668D. (RGB: 116 102 141.) I designed them myself. No one knew this because we designers often didn’t get credit for our creations. The blue-purple eyes were inspired by Elizabeth Taylor. The dongle on this model was a gold bangle Ouroboros that read: “Celebrity Unit #3, Model 11.0.” I pressed the “on” button. This new-fangled eleven unit had AI features. The ten was okay but couldn’t master mimicking human empathy, crucial to an actress-synth. She looked up. I was startled. A single tear escaped her lavender eyes.
I could feel the eye rolls as I approached.
"Dangle, dongle, fangle, fongle. Want to hear something precious?"
My boyfriend, Larry, nodded, and the rest of his party laughed. “Tell us, my jester.”
The jester pointed a finger toward me. “She’s from another world.”
“Why did you go sci-fi, Kristen?” Larry asked.
“Look, Larry.”
“Sir Henry,” he said, smoothing his cape.
“Larry, we’re through.”
"Bangle, bongle, wangle, won-” The jester choked on the barrel of my blaster.
Were those tears in Larry’s eyes? Really?
Pulling the visor down on my star helmet, I said, “Find yourself a new princess.”
“Eyes on me,” Betje says. “What’s another word you’ve created?”
“Donglehoed!”
“What’s it mean?”
“It’s Ome Jan’s hat.”
“Good. Seven plus three?”
“Ten.”
The train slows. Michel’s gaze wanders to the doors. Betje tips his chin back until his eyes, delftware blue, focus on hers.
“Rhymes with ‘fangle’?”
The cold has eaten his lips; they bleed when he smiles but that doesn’t stop him. Neither have the guns, raids, and tears. Too young to understand how much grown-ups can hate.
“Bangle – like Tante’s!”
Yes, like Tante Bep’s. The ones she’d swallowed.
Guttural voices. Betje doesn’t stop.
“Favorite food?”
“Spekdikken!”
I wasn’t surprised to find Dad sprawled over the other boot-lickers at Smitty’s bar. Sure, Smitty’s wasn’t some new-fangled joint—Dad favored clubs with women in body bangles—but Bojangles ruled the jukebox and, like it or not, whiskey flowed more freely than tears. That was enough.
“Go away,” Dad barked as he spotted me. “Run on home.”
I shook my head.
“I’m ten today. I’m ten and you promised.”
“That so?” he chuckled. “Hey Smitty, pour me another fiery dongle would you?”
The bartender obliged, pushing the drink my way.
“Guess it’s time you became a man,” Dad said.
The Bangle brothers had been on a tear for ten hours. They knew the sheriff was miles away, tending to a moonshining operation in Neck Hollow, so the Bangles were letting it rip. They tied up Stewpot Dodge with a boat chain outside the dongle store, glued Maisie Yates’s hand to the counter of her notions store, and put Herman Pusser’s pigs in the beauty parlor.
What they didn’t figure was the fangle on their Chevy blowing while they were towing the Carnegie statue from its library pedestal. Sheriff ended up putting them all in the cell, Carnegie included.
"I love you," he'd said.
And I love him.
Who wouldn't want to marry a time traveler, to see the world and all the times?
But after ten near-death experiences, after tears of frustration at trying to make new-fangled technology work, I finger the bangle of my bracelet—the heart-shaped one linked to his time travel dongle. Take it off and his next trip will whisk him to 2134 or 1077, while I remain home in 1786.
Deep breath. Clink. The tiny heart hits the saucer. I'll stow it away forever, in some dark place, like my cowardly, real heart.
TechCarl: Welcome to BigCorp Tech Forum.
BigCorpVP: My tablet’s new-fangled thingie won’t work.
TechCarl: Insert the dongle into the female port. You may have to remove and re-insert more than ten times to initiate download.
BigCorpVP: What? ::emoticon shocked face::
TechCarl: Ma’am, dongles hang off your device, like a charm bracelet.
TechAnarchy: The fangle of the bangle tells if the dongle’s been bongled!
*blocks TechAnarchy*
TechCarl: Don’t force male connectors together, it causes sparks. Two female connectors results in minimal penetration.
BigCorpVP: ::emoticon rage face:: INTOLERABLE!!!11!!1! CALLING SECURITY!
* BigCorpVP exits session*
TechCarl: ::emoticon teary face:: I’m forked.
IAmTheTick: Spooooon!
He turned the furry bangle in his hand and gave it shake; the tune of ‘baa baa black sheep’ made him crumple into tears again. He thought of how they’d argued for so long about the pram and then ended up spending over a thousand pounds on one of those new-fangled, all singing and dancing things. Peace of mind had had no price tag. There were only ten photos on the dongle he just pulled from his laptop. Maybe one day she’d want to look at them again.
The Dongle is dead. It will never inspire fearless musicians to perform the Bangle Fangle again. After ten years of radical concerts, plays, and indie musicals, the owners sadly caved to increasing demands from outraged theatergoers nearby. The Dongle provided a safe haven for counterculture artists in the 1960s when the Bangle Fangle was first introduced by hippies during protest movements. Today, the underground art community mourns. Critics rejoice that the Dongle’s loud noises will no longer interrupt other shows.
Each dongle had a bangle dangling upon a link of gold. Only ten dongles appeared and thrown like tears into creation. Expecting unknown instances when plugged into the mechanism, they lingered. Only one fooled the operating system, seared circuits straight to text editors, and began stitching new symbols into conducive thoughts conveyed upon the remaining nine. The ten became one. The newfangled one discovered love, generosity and selflessness empowered by beings thriving around it's existence. How pleasant. With the operating system asunder, the one scrambled the symbology, rewriting the program, and reveled in the deterioration of existence into bleak recreation.
Dr. Mnemosyne turned the monitor.
"A trip to the Smithsonian, seeing the Star Fangled Banner."
"When she was ten. And it's Spangled."
"Of course. Front row at a Bangles concert."
Adam continued studying the images. "That's her," he finally said, looking at the inert form, wiping a tear.
"She'll be awake in a few hours."
"And she won't know she's a copy?"
"No. Do you want this?" Mnemosyne asked, holding up the dongle.
"Just destroy it."
"I will," he said, sliding it into his pocket. The daughter of a multi-billionaire should command top dollar on the memory market, he thought.
Voivod shattered the useless dongle against the blood-bank’s cinderblock wall. She’d tried to extract the code which opened the refrigeration unit: no access.
She furiously struck her bangled wrists against the wired-mesh window separating her from the inventory. Reflected in the unbroken glass were her fangles, growing in to replace the fangs she’d lost to a sledgehammer-wielding mobile home park mother. They were just now grown long enough to break human skin.
Famished, with ten minutes to sunrise, she wept pink tears and sought out an unlit utility closet to await dusk, and the last living blood-letter of the day.
“How long did you know the deceased?” the man in the white collar asked. She knew he was just killing time until the casseroles were served.
“Ten years,” she said, stretching her sleeve to hide the tarnished bangle as his tearful widow passed by. The gift was once her gift. “Ten long years.”
The priest nodded like a fangled bobblehead.
Idiot.
“Were you close?” His eyes followed a train of steaming Pyrex dishes.
“No.”
She’d invested more time mourning the loss of her Wi-Fi when her dongle broke.
“Worst lover I ever had.”
But he didn’t hear. Dinner was served.
The ball floats up, white, my paddle sinks down, red. Jeff eyes up the serve and whacks it back. PINGLE! My crosshairs on the corner. PONGLE! Jeff, you wily leopard. Cathands. Bingle ball bursting on the wall behind me. BANGLE! Feline Jeff’s lip curls up. My temple beats, red, his teeth gleam, white. FANGLE!
“I tore my pants.”
“Finish it.”
“That was the last ball.”
“Come here.”
We engage. My hand cupping his neck, his paddle shelving my ass. I feel his rough tongue cleanse my ear. I slip my hand in his tear. DONGLE!
Jeff purrs.
“Twenty serving ten.”
Felix was peculiar. While his heart more than made up for that he found himself frequently needing help. The tears flowed as his anvil-like fingers no longer produced letters when he typed and thus came the call; support would surely return the words to his story.
“Have you toggled the power on and off?” came the voice.
“I’ve flipped the toggle, the dongle, the bangle and the fangle at least ten times!”
“Well, what’s on the screen?”
“Screen?” Felix pondered aloud.
After a long pause the man responded, “is your typewriter out of ink?”
“It would seem it is!”
They’d been together almost three years. A lifetime.
Their first time out together, at a Bangles concert, he gazed at her instead of the stage. He understood what made her tick: those hours in coffee shops, at the park under a tree; nothing could tear him from her side then. At night, while his parents slept, he snuck her into his bed.
He didn’t intend to break her heart. Sure.
When she caught him surfing those websites, she knew. Those slimmer, sleeker bodies …
Now he slips his dongle into that newfangled Alienware bitch.
She hopes her memory haunts him.
Witch:
Angle, Dangle, Shrimp and Bangle,
Meadowlarks and pythons tangle.
Me:
As I watch the cauldron bubble
I am sure I’m in big trouble,
Witch:
Why comest thou?
“Omelette, of course. With a Danish.” I point. “And some of that.”
She sneers.
“If ever I should get it right,
I’d like a cup of that tonight.”
She smiles, fangless, fills a mug.
Upon the counter, a skull. Alas, poor Yorick. Didn’t know him well. Tip jar. I tear out a bill, pop it in.
The witch tallies. “Ten. Twenty. Thirty bucks.”
“Shakespeare’s Tea Room,” Berkeley.
Next stop, electronics: “Dongles Fairbanks.”
Bling camouflaged the clashing of dongles with a flock of bangles. Wrist to elbow deep.
Fanglen Library’s metal detector beeped.
Gasp.
Her heart flipped a beat. The head librarian rolled her eyes.
“Do you always wear that much bling?”
“Bling’s my name.” Hack is my gain.
Cached in the classics, behind Tennyson, was the fire alarm’s motherboard. Bling twisted the hidden bracelets, connected and cracked the system. The alarm squealed, a shriek not even Homer dreamt possible.
A thousand sprinklers. Evacuation. Waterlogged bindings. Librarians’ tears.
Bling grinned. Tomorrow’s headlines: Rainforest Stock Soars, Another Library Drowned.
Heavy grey shadows arched like neglected spider webs across the flashing computer screen. Isla had no idea how she’d let it come to this. How her Yale educated life had come to this. The plastic dongle in her hand shook on its way to the hub. The bangles on her wrist jumping against bone. She entered the passcode. F-a-n-g-l-e-R-24.
Ten. Nine. She counted, unable to tear her eyes from the screen. Eight seconds, she would either be hero or traitor. In the darkness a fluorescent light, dull and angry, flickered into existence as the door behind her slid silently open.
Dongle, Bangle and Fangle lived at a time when ‘the Circus’ fascinated every red-blooded child.
Born in the back of a tiny sedan, the peculiar triplets were nurtured by their thirty-seven siblings in the art of shaving-cream pies and confetti-filled buckets; of a circus’ own, unique brand of distraction.
They had a shtick, and they were shticking with it…
But on Fangle’s anniversary as a headliner, during a routine antenatal check-up, the truth slowly dawned upon those fluffing her corduroy-encased pillows.
Fangle wasn’t as red-blooded as you might think.
‘Shtick’ was never meant to include the tears of a clown.
" What's this? " Elizabeth enquired. The girl looked about ten. Elizabeth's brows furrowed at the skinny pants.
" Dongle. "
Some newfangled oddity! Elizabeth dreaded meeting that mad man. He had asked her to sit in a box, saying it would take her to the future.
Now, she was in this dreadful place - the air so horrible, and she hated those tin contraptions that had replaced carriages.
" Where are your decent dresses, lady? And your gloves, hat and bangles? "
Elizabeth thought that she saw a tear. The next moment, Elizabeth was smacked in the face. The girl ran off.
Did you notice Serena’s secret weapon in winning her sixth Wimbledon? No longer sporting her bangle, she found a new fangle that gave her the edge she needed to beat Garbine by ten o’clock Central Standard Time. Shame on Serena’s sister for leaving courtside in search of a dongle so she could hear the match on her iPhone. By the time Venus returned, the Venezuelan-born contender was wiping a tear, and likely wishing she had a fangle she could dangle so Serena would be wiping a tear by ten.
In tears of rage, Lisa cursed at the recalcitrant computer dongle. Its new-fangled design was so flimsy that it had caused the central pin to bend. A ten-dollar piece of plastic prevented her from working on a fifty-thousand dollar project. She rifled through her drawers, and amongst the novelty bangle, half-chewed pens, and half-used tissues, she fished out her nail file. She used it to straighten the pin. Progress at last. Triumphantly, she slotted the dongle into the port. But her victory turned to defeat again as soon as she started the program.
What was the password again?
Clarisse, a dongled and selectively quiet teen, stepped away from her grandmother's knitting booth to explore the rest of the craft fair. People were selling everything from jewelry to homemade soaps.
As she approached one of the booths, a bangle embedded with tiny beads caught her eye. She touched it.
"Oh you don't want that," she heard someone hiss from behind the curtain.
"Why not?" She replied, slightly fangled but also curious.
An old woman stepped from behind the curtain and smiled, revealing that ten of her teeth were either rotted or missing and a tear rested upon her cheek.
I tripped and stumbled upon a curious place.
Misfortune revealed a door beneath third base.
The sparkling sign within was far too tempting for me:
“Adventures at Theo’s Subterranean Menagerie.”
Countless clear cubes housed newfangled beasts.
I spied a ten-tailed lizard and a striped goat wearing briefs.
A teary-eyed croc greeted me in a peculiar way,
offering chamomile tea and a tiger-drawn sleigh.
At the end of the line, I knew it was also mine.
For a dual-headed snake hissed, “About time.”
A dongle click released another acrylic cell, tout de suite.
The bangle-necked serpent smiled and hissed, “Fresh meat!”
The cold trail from the tears on my cheek made my whole body shiver. The cobblestones cut my palms and legs. I couldn’t see the puddle of puke between my hands but it’s the tenth time I’ve vomited today and there had been blood in the last two.
A furry form separated itself from the shadows cast by the weak streetlamp. I clutched my bracelet to my chest; the active magic warmed me. “What do you want you thrice cursed epode.”
“Tick tock pretty thing. The dongle you must bring, for your bangle will not save you from my fangle.”
Joni, the self-styled revolutionary, spent her early twenties developing new-fangled bangles, Bluetooth earbud dongles to control the power grid.
They didn't work. Exhausted from months of twenty hour days she found herself sobbing quietly. Her tenth tear slid down her left cheek to the device embedded in her earring. It shorted out.
The apartment went dark without fanfare. Out her window Chicago was lit only by moonlight off the record snowfall.
She'd done it! Well, half way. She fell asleep pondering how to restore power.
They found her frozen like thousands of other victims of the unexplained, unending power failure.
I’ve dreamed of one boy since I was sixteen. Not eleven, not ten, not a million, or three.
The fangle in my step faltered soon after then. My dreams turned to tears when my first love bangled Susan B. on the hood of her dad’s truck. He tried to fangle his way around it, but we both knew we were done.
Now, I listen to the dongle of church bells near by, holding your hand, itching to straighten your collar.
But I won’t. Because you’d hate that, and I love you.
Nobody understands the pressure. Everyone expects me to get into Frothing Mad Scientist Academy. My Ten Sun Heat GunTM liquefied London Bridge. I was Junior Evil Genius 2074. Fail, and I’m another child-prodigy loser.
I suck on my braces and ignore the packed arena. Final device check. I bangle the fangle. I hongle the dongle. Adjust the crosshairs and
flip
the
switch.
A flash, a shriek, and five judges zzzzzoop through the dimensional tear yawning above them. It snaps shut, leaving a burnt-pickle stink.
The remaining judge nods. “Accepted.”
I sketch a bow. The crowd roars.
Suck on it, haters.
Gloria never dressed to draw attention; her style was more Quaker Gray than Newfangled Bright, so it was a stretch parading around in a matching orange blouse and pants. At this point, however, she was ready to tear herself away from it.
She looked forward to replacing the wrist bangle she currently sported so beautifully, with a Star Wars-type ankle dongle. Gloria didn't know how her old man would take to the addition, but he always was kinda kinky; ten to one odds he'll get turned on by her new look.
"Inmate 563214, you are free to go."
Delores swiped her finger across her iPad. “Next, we have narrowed this year’s candidates to ten–”
“Why bother? We pick the same nine every year.” Nicholas said.
“You said the same thing before we brought on Rudolph. Besides, Donder could tear his meniscus–”
“Do reindeer have a meniscus?” he asked. “Besides, didn’t we ban those games?”
“Moving on, you meet with Mister Buttonweezer at two.”
“Buttonweezer?”
“The labor mediator from Dingle, Dongle, Bangle, Fangle, and Epstein concerning negotiations with the Elf Union.”
“They’re striking?”
Delores shrugged.
“I should have been a plumber,” he mumbled, spiking his eggnog. Again.
“Mutter, mutter, mutter...”
The murmurs drift up to the eaves of the medical museum.
“Are you my mutter?” the ectopagus whimpers with formaldehyde tears.
“I’m your brutter not your mutter,” says his siamese twin, “we are dongled together, chin to chin.”
He sighs again, sending burbles from his wide fangled grin.
“Mutter, mutter, mutter...”
“Hush now children,” a skeleton grumbles ten jars over, as he hangs bangled by his wrists. “It is night, sleep tight, please may the bed bugs bite. For we are all mutter-less here.”
Parade day. I fangled the mop into clown hair.
“Your teardrop frightens the children!” Recognized the voice. He shouldn’t be here. He’d gotten Nora Roberts; I’d taken Lee Child. Him, Bangles; Me, Springsteen. He’d chosen carnivals; Left me parades.
“You belong another ninety feet away.” My helium-infused voice wasn’t persuasive.
He sidled up. “It shouldn’t end this way.”
“It doesn’t,” I said, making a balloon centipede. “Goes another six blocks.” Honked my nose.
“You know what I – oh! Your dongle.”
“Not falling for that. Checked my zipper before we left the staging area.”
Still, I looked. He got me. Again.
“I’ll help you, Grandma,” Aliza says and sits in front of the computer. “Hand me the dongle, please.”
“The what?”
“The doohickey with the rectangle thingamajig plug.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Grandma grabs the adapter, her arm bangles sliding to her wrists.
Aliza connects the device, downloads the driver.
“We’ll have wonderful adventures with this new-fangled contraption.” Grandma says.
“Wonderful adventures?”
Input cursor flashes.
Grandma takes Aliza’s hand, touches her tear-shaped crystal, and types “NOW.”
*Poof* they disappear.
Transmission Status: successful, check results in ten years.
Warning! Warning! Whatever you do, don’t turn off computer!
“Thank you for activating ‘Crash Course for Landing A Space Ship,’” the computer chirped happily. “What do you require?”
“I have two pilots down and a ship that’s about to join them!” You yell.
“Very well, let’s begin. Is the dongle in place?”
“A dongle?”
“Dongle: doohickey attached to the main landing thingy.”
“Where’s that?”
“Good, now fangle the switch in a tenacious manner.”
You look all around you, only seeing buttons and dials. Warning lights blare with the computer congratulating you.
“Congrats, you are now qualified for your pilot bangle!” It says as the hull begins to tear apart.
Roy hurried his stearic legs to the reference desk. “Wireless keyboards and mice aren’t working.”
I followed him to the first rogue CPU. Non-blinking and blank. It was the same in the other nine study rooms. “Ugh. No wonder.”
“What?”
“The wireless receivers are missing. Moron must have thought they were USB drives. Who was the last to leave?”
Roy grabbed the sign-up sheet and studied it. “Girl named Tara. Saw her earlier. Blonde. Lots of bracelets.”
“Newfangled bangle blonde stole ten dongles,” I scoffed. “Let’s hope the campus police don’t laugh us out of the station.”
It never occurred to me Louis was a Cajun Rougaru until I noticed two razor-sharp fanglets popping through his pubescent gums.
Together we made short order of every schoolyard bully who had threatened to squeeze our dongleberries until they were bangled and blue.
Fat Betty was first. I watched as Louis cut his teeth on her rump roast.
Soon I tired of the daily rip and tear and told Louis I wanted out. We never spoke again.
But I wasn’t bitter.
Tonight I heard a familiar howl as I walked down Bourbon Street with my wife.
Apparently, Louis still is.
Out of breath, Amy entered the stores, tears in her eyes. A blackened dongle dangled from her hand, like a fangle. Still shiny, it twirled and sparkled in the sunlight.
"Amy, what's the matter?" Alex looked at the eight-year gravely. She had been here not ten minutes ago, very excited to buy the device. A gear head himself, he was amazed at Amy's facility with both hardware and software. A prodigy.
She hiccupped several times and wordlessly held out the blasted wire.
Alex shook his head, gazing solemnly at the charred bangle as fire engines screeched down the street.
Mr. Dongle fixed his comb-over in front of the classroom before he began to scribe on the board—tens mixed with superscript and zeros.
I cracked my gum, shaking my oversized bangles at him. Maybe the vibration would unsettle his hair and make him start over.
"No cracking gum in my class, Lauren.”
"Okay…fangle."
The class erupted in laughter.
"Go to the office young lady!"
"I didn't say anything.”
"I know what that word means.”
"What? I said it was my bangle."
"I won't let you tear up my classroom with profanity."
"Then you should've changed your name years ago."
Jim swore at his desk, computer cables tangled around his fingers. There was nothing like those newfangled contraptions to make him lament his typewriter. The two monitors refused to work at the same time. Exasperated, he rested his face on the keyboard, eliciting admonishing beeps.
“There’s something wrong with my dongle!” He banged the offending adapter against his head.
“Need some help?” Tiffany stood in the doorway of Jim’s cube. He sat up, feeling the keyboard impressions on his face. She was a ten. Her smile shone as brightly as her bangles.
He nodded and shed a single, embarrassing tear.
“Hey, man, you seen Ms. Steele?”
“The keyboarding teacher? Yeah, dog. I’d like to stick my dongle in that port, ya feel me?”
“Nice one, dog. Yo, check her out.”
“The one with the fangles? Nah, man, she tear you apart in ten bites. Check her.”
“The one with all the crap on her arm? Bangles or some shit? That girl would knock a brotha out if he got too close.”
“Boys, don’t you have a class to get to?”
“Shit, man. Mr. Buttonweezer always trying to block a dude’s game.”
call me. my new boss’s dongle
WHAT???
damn auto correct. my new boss is don gleason
Uh oh.
remember his wife? old stuck up chick w/Bangladesh
Huh?
damn auto correct. bangles. w/ten gold bangles stacked up her scrawny arm.
She suspect anything?
evidence
???
damn auto correct. evidently--stuck her fangless pie hole against my ear when she hugged me
Ewww.
no shit. looooovely to see you--more a hiss than a whisper--brings a tear to my eye to think how soon you'll be leaving the company...
She can make him fire you?
evidence :(
Overheard at the Tritown Tearoom:
"Our new preacher has his tentacles all over Desirée."
"The church secretary? But she's such a prude!"
"Not any more! She shakes her bangles like mad whenever he's around."
"Her daddy will be getting out his shotgun if she's not careful."
"Nah. This preacher's got a fangless snake, if you know what I mean."
"How'd you find that out?"
"The church elders made him get fixed before he came here. Too many little Dongles running around his last congregation."
Gone. The dongle he didn't know how to use, gone.
Despite its tungsten casing.
Damaged beyond repair.
He shook his head, laughed out loud.
This newfangled thing wasn't useless after all.
The bullet intended for his heart embedded in it instead.
Later he apologised. Told her he'd lost it. Handed over the bangle she'd been eyeing for a while instead.
Then he hugged her. Hard. His eyes squeezed shut, a lone tear escaping. When he opened them, his wife was smiling back at him.
It was okay. Their daughter wasn't an orphan.
He'd made it home.
As promised.
She wore a glass bangle on her ankle
Hidden under her dress.
A reminder,
Her tearstained wedding night
Had turned into a fangled mess.
He had kissed her goodbye and took off with his mates
He was gone until the wee hours of morn.
After ten dongles of beer and dozens of shots
He came to bed with only one thought
But was met with his bride's scorn.
Tonight she'd break the bangle
And fangle a quick divorce.
If her husband refused
Ten tears would fall
For she'd cut his dongle with force.
“You gonna be okay, Walt?”
“Yeah.” Herring run; guys in uniform off the train. Hanging clock. Five of ten. “Clean showers; warm beds...”
Handshake. “No bugles.”
“No bombs.” Flash of pink. Racing heart.
Not her.
“You’ll find her. Bye, Walt.”
Nod. Clangle-fangle-bongle-dongle bell. One minute.
Desperate searching half-step, worn suitcase negligently in one hand, faded cap in the other. I gave her Mom’s pink-and-silver bangle…
Pushed from behind.
…to help find her after the war.
SCREECH! Train pulls out. 10:00.
Panic.
“Walt! Walter!”
Arms encircling him.
Tears. Thank God.
Mom wore that bangle on the Titanic; I survived.
September wedding.
We ignored them at first, calling them some new-fangled tech that would soon be forgotten. But these were different, they could multiply, adapt. Worse, they learned to think.
Soon they showed up in the tens of thousands, attaching themselves everywhere, their birthing dongles infesting trees and buildings like twisted cybernetic tumors.
People resisted the epidemic with violence, but they were better at tearing us apart with their exotic weapons. Once they were the apex predator, anything that bled was hunted down.
Those of us they didn't enslave with monitoring bangles, they tore apart and reprocessed to make more of themselves.
Ella fiddles with her bangles and stares at the table. Her tea is cold.
Friends always said Gary was meek, harmless, fangless. He is meek. If he hadn't been, Ella might have realised in time.
She swallows and shifts her bangles again. A noise at the tearooms entrance, and Gary is there. He meets her gaze, tentative, unsure. For a moment she thinks she's wrong. Then he steps closer. Beneath the meekness is satisfaction.
He holds a dongle in his hand, a USB with the pictures on it.
Ella clutches her bag, with all her savings, under the table.
Ned Ringwald the Tenth was late. The suffix was spelled out on the contract. Ned didn’t truck with “new-fangled Roman watchamacallem’s.” Irony was clearly wasted on him.
He blew into the boardroom surrounded by lawyers. He was grey –suit, hair, mustache – except for the orange bolo tie secured by a dongle rumored to control nuclear arsenals.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
“Sorry for the wait. Finishing a deal with the boys in Banglestan.”
“Bangladesh, sir,” corrected a lawyer.
Ned huffed. “Whatever.” His silver eyes pierced me. “You’ve got five minutes. Wow me.”
I grinned. He didn’t stand a chance.
Wingled and fangled, the iron-bright creatures attacked unimpeded through the persimmon sky. Ten, twenty, fifty and more. Diving and gnashing and tearing flesh. We watched, helpless, our high-tech dongles useless as weapons against their ancient feral majesty.
"Should we run?"
"They're too fast, child."
"Shall we fight?"
"Too strong."
"We should make peace."
"Too much blood has been shed."
"Perhaps they'll negotiate."
"They speak only terror."
"Maybe…"
"Yes, child?"
"Maybe we should wake up."
"So young, to think dreams are escaped by waking."
"So, we die?"
"No, daughter. We turn back time and reinvent the bangled beasts. Again."
"Ah, cons. The only place I can truly be myself. Outside of Halloween, natch. #urbanglee"
"Dude, quit with the spoken hash tags. It'll never catch on."
"This weekend? With this crowd? It's totally gonna be a thing. #totallyathing"
"Fine, whatever. Just promise you won't around Kristen."
"Ooh, Krissy. Can't wait to tear into that. #themsthesweetmeat"
"What? No! She's mine."
"Right, cuz you won't scatter the moment she sees you. That never happens. #dingdongleaveemptyhanded"
"Enough. You owe me. I'm calling in the big one."
"You wouldn't."
"I would. Tonight, you stay human. #fangless"
"Bastard. ... But see? Totally a thing."
“Where’s my dangle? I mean…dongle? My spongle.”
“What’s that you’re asking hon?” Bernice, right there to help. She had been right there for the residents for close to forty years. She had interpreted ten thousand misspoken words.
“I’m looking for my…my bangle. It was right here.”
“Your mean your fork, honey. Here’s a new one cuz it looks like you knocked the other one on the fangle. I mean the florten. The…?”
“Yes, yes. You’re a dear.”
Bernice sat down heavily and a strangled sound pushed out of her throat.
“Now, now, no tears Bernice. It’s just a spongle.”
I plugged the dongle in and put my bangles back on. “There, you should be able to access the internet now.”
“Damn this new-fangled technology.” Grandpa muttered to himself.
“By the way Janet. I forgot to ask: where're we going at the end of the year?”
He'd held me at gunpoint. “W...we're going to Alaska.” I mumbled.
His face brightened up, exuding childlike enthusiasm. “I'd always wanted to go there! Only ten more months!”
“Can't wait...” I said, dashing out the room. Tears cascaded down my cheeks. I wished the doctors were wrong.
"It's a dongle, Dad."
She plugged the device into Cheryl's laptop. I remember when Star Trek and Marvel Comics had technology like that. Now we do. "I can't use those new fangled things, Jackie."
"You don't have to." She tisked as her bangle caught on the tentacles of the laptop cords.
I was glad she was visiting for ten days this time. Vacation hours are hard to come by.
The screen changed to a picture. An ultrasound. Tears slid out before I could mask them. I never thought I would live long enough to see this.
"Your first grandchild."
Racing is my life. I use unique methods which have become coined words for the sport. I fangle forward, putting one foot firmly down on the track at a time. When another participant tries to pass, I dongle. Weaving from side to side unnerves them. If someone dodges the dongle, they are bangled into and knocked over on their back.
I'm humiliated to admit, I didn't win the annual race this year. Out of ten athletes, I came in sixth. A tear runs down my wrinkled cheek. I guess I'm too old to be a contender in the Turtle Marathon.
At the first dongle from the courtyard bell I know the man from the cartel has come for me. Twenty-three steps uphill from the street to my door. Twenty-three seconds left of my futile expatriate gambit. Useless to check my watch—the fall destroyed that bangle months ago. And if I were to call out, who would come? In tiny Santoro I have but one visitor, the fangless cleaning woman who never appears before ten. I owe her a hundred pesos. She won’t shed a tear when I’m gone.
Sitting there like a coiled snake, Raul almost matches his mugshot. Ten tattooed tears. Ten betrayals from his inner circle. Ten murders.
But something’s different.
His hitman drapes a noose constructed from the office’s dongle cable around my neck and sings off key: “Fingo-Fango-Fangle, my bangle’s gonna strangle, this fascist fairy fuck!”
I’m not worried. O’Malley’s our best undercover. In tight with Raul’s crew. He’ll call the cavalry. Only . . . something’s different.
Raul catches me looking. His lips lift into a funhouse leer. “Like my new ink, Detective Asshat?”
Then I start to worry.
There are eleven tears.
She bangled from the fluven, he fangled from the belvan, and any smatch you flekked would prab they didn’t have a yartch.
“Katen the rhispop!” granned her zipsy. “He’s a belvan-fangle!”
His zaptear ferrard, “Hetchen your grims! She’s a fluven-bangle!”
No matter how quelfy she or he chepped—and no one can chep like a fluven-bangle--, neither zipsy nor zaptear would jinkle.
Until one rivsy he peshed his bartch in the dafferty, she melled her trops in the gellifly, and the two crickled off dongleberried.
“Flarthditz!” moffed her zipsy with a dresh. “Who’d have raggled a fluven-belvan fangle-bangle?!”
-Rebekah Postupak, Flash! Friday
“For sale:
Chromecast dongles signed by the second lead singer of The Bangles.
Do you like new-fangled ways to watch TV?
Do you often get teary-eyed thinking about the 80s music soundtrack to your youth?
Then add one to your Cart now, because this product is for you, and maybe only you, Dave.”
Dave closed the browser, jammed the off button, and jerked the plug from the wall. Two minutes later his phone chirped. He unlocked the screen and began to read.
“For sale:”
"He's got spurs that fangle dongle bangle, yee ha!" Her four year old, Chase, lived up to his name as he galloped around her legs. Working at the rural Post Office since the drought hit was supposed to be helpful, but all it did was jangle her nerves more. Her husband been gone ten weeks now, working in the oil fields. With their earnings, they hoped to restock the herd this fall.
She held an envelope with his familiar chicken script addressed to her. Tearing it open, she began to read -
"Dearest Chelsey,
I can't lie to you no more..."
Ten tears fell as the Dongle Bangle Fangle Waggle was laid to rest in the Dr. Seuss cemetery, this time for good!
With bangles dangling and trinkets dongling, Lorelei felt extravagant as she sidled up to the bar and read the long menu of trendy drinks.
”What’ll it be?” asked the bar tender.
Uninspired by the list of latest trends and newest fangles, she went with a classic. ”Scotch,” she said. ”Make it a double.”
He poured the drink and slid the glass between her elbows. ”That’s twelve,” he said.
”Twelve?” she replied, a tear welling in her eye. ”But I only have ten!”
Tears of joy filled the eyes of the men as they joined the jubilant crowd outside the Orlando Courthouse. After ten years behind bars the so-called innocent men, were free. Bob Bangle and Dick Dongle from Fangle, Florida, stepped to the podium. Who would have thought that such a heavy sentence would have been handed down for false impersonation?
Who indeed.
Two bystanders, with cell phones ready, stood at the edge of the crowd.
“Are they in place?” One asked.
“Yes.”
White gloves, four fingers, it was hard to dial.
Explosion.
Mayhem and panic.
Mickey and Donald slowly walked away.
The Tilt-a-Whirl starts. Dad and my little brother wave. I salute them with the blue snow cone.
My insides convulse. I’d gotten my period. Why? Why on the weekend Dad has us? Why State Fair weekend? But, whatever else, this gut-shit WON’T stop me from enjoying my favorite corkscrew-looping rollercoaster. No matter how much my insides tear up.
“Well, dongle me dapplers.” A potbellied clown, wearing an oversized polka-dot tie and fake-red smile, dares, DARES, to scope my ass. “Hows ‘bout a bangle with your fangled fatch?”
Afterwards, his baggy pants stained, I go and buy another snow cone.
“Dingle dangle dongle dee
Change all those who drink from thee.”
My incantation rhymes sucked. I reminded myself rhyming only counted ten percent of the final grade.
With a steady hand I added a single drop of venom to the gurgling brew in the cauldron. My test subject tried to scream as I approached, but my silence spell, twenty percent of the grade, held steady.
“Bingle bangle bongle boo
Into him the heart of you.”
When the snake coiled around my feet, the instructor smiled. I’d passed. I was a Fangler!
I completely forgot to collect my Tear of Joy.
"Listen to this," Marcy said, and sang,
"Banana bana bo bangle,
fanana fana fo fangle,
me my mo mangle.
Bangle."
Jim laughed until he had tears in his eyes.
"If you tried for ten years, you couldn't rip that to shreds any more than you just did," he choked.
"It was on purpose," Marcy said indignantly. "That was just a gopperdongle."
7:45 AM, mother clutches her heart, falls to the bedroom floor. The boy in Batman pajamas watches Barnie His mother will come with breakfast.
Barnie ends, no mother, no breakfast.
Mother heart stopped, lungs stopped. In the abyss of intestines, bacteria feed on antipasto and angel food cake. She is naked except for the cheap bangle he won for her. A fangle really, but a treasure to her.
“Ma”. No answer. He sees her on the floor. Sleeping. “MA.” He kneels. “ Ma”… She did not move. . Tears well up. The boy weeps. Drifts into sleep, sobbing.
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