Down the Toilet Hole (Lux Æterna)

by Andrew Novak


Hey, did you hear?

They found the singer of Led Zeppelin dead in a toilet bowl.

Yeah, his whole body, but probably not in the way you're thinking.

See, his body had been shrunk to the size of an action figure, but his head was still normal-sized, more or less.

Right, right.

So his body was down the toilet hole, but his head was resting in the bowl, facing upward in the water.

I know, right?

Yeah, they think it was a suicide.

They say he looked so peaceful when they found him.

Michael Jordan 1992

by Andrew Novak


Yeah, I was at that game, the one where he broke his collarbone.

I dunno, people say he was trying to somersault onto the court at the start of the game, like Willy Wonka.

Yeah, remember in the movie, when he first appears to greet everyone outside the chocolate factory?

Right.

So he was supposedly trying something like that, but he didn't quite pull it off, landed right on his collarbone. The crunch was sickening. Echoed across the whole arena. I heard it clear as day and I was up in the nosebleeds. And that shriek.

Jesus Christ.

He lay there screaming on the court for damn near a full minute before anyone came to help. I think people thought it was part of the act. I knew it wasn't though. I could tell by his scream. I could see his eyes from where I was too, pure white, wide as saucer plates.

Shit.

Yeah, sometimes I still get nightmares from the memory of it.

Like, I'll see his face, close up though, and hear that terrible scream. I usually wake up in a cold sweat with the sound still reverberating in my mind.

Principal Beekeeper

by Andrew Novak

I was in fifth grade when the new principal gave a talk about his favorite hobby, beekeeping. 

The man was much nicer than the previous principal. He brought some of his bees to school with samples of the honey he harvested. As part of his presentation in the fifth-grade atrium, he donned his beekeeping hat and sprayed smoke into the air with a bee smoker.

“This is what I do for fun,” he told us. His hat wobbled on his head.

We all clapped.

After the presentation we ate oyster crackers dipped in the different varieties of honey.

Even the bad kids were smiling and having a good time.

As the event wound down, I lingered around to see some of the principal’s bees up close.

The principal spotted me, my nose only inches from the glass of one of his bee boxes.
           
“You like them?” he asked.
           
I nodded.
           
“Take a look at this one.”
           

The principal reached into a breast pocket on his khaki vest and withdrew a clear glass vial. He lowered it to my face. There was a bee inside.
           
“Look,” he said.
           
It seemed like any other bee, and I think the principal knew that’s what I was thinking.
           
“Take a closer look,” he said, smiling. “Go on.”
           
I squinted my eyes. I saw the bee’s wings twitching, and its legs moved a bit. Then I focused on the head, which also twitched. That’s when I noticed.
           
One of the bee’s eyes closed and reopened.
           
The bee had winked at me.
           
My jaw fell into a sort of gaping smile. I looked up at my principal, who simply grinned back, nodding.
           
I turned to see if anyone else was around. Nobody was.
           
I looked again at my principal. Still smiling, he raised his index finger to his lips.
           
“Our secret,” he whispered.
           
I nodded yes, okay.
           
Then the principal began dissolving into thin air. He waved at me. I waved back as he faded into nothing.
           
I never saw that man again.
                                                         

END