Humdrum Places - BlogFlock

🎉 Weekend edition vol.084 - foofaraw

2025-11-09T15:48:01.000Z

This week’s ad slot was purchased by friend of Foofaraw, Evan Passero, in support of DIFFA Dallas—providing critical financial support to North Texas AIDS service organizations that offer direct care to adults, families, and children living with or impacted by HIV/AIDS.

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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Good morning!

One day these will go out on Saturdays again, but today is not that day. I'm deep in 2026 planning, with 24 stories accepted to run next year already, and finally getting around to editing the 30+ stories we have for our first anthology, which was originally scheduled to be published this month. Spoiler: it will not be published this month.

Quick reminder, you can pick up our first novella still!

The Bodies by D.H. Parish

a 46-page print novella

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We kicked things off this week with the fifth story from Sarina Dorie's Devil's Delight series:

😈 Worse than a Devil

by Sarina Dorie

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Then Matty returned with the tenth issue of OBSTRUCTION, where things continue to get all twisted up:

🚧 OBSTRUCTION #10

a webcomic from Matthew Burbridge

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We had the pleasure of publishing Larina Warnock's The Calling, a coming-of-age story that captures the feeling of having to decide what you will do with the rest of your life:

🧑‍🏫 The Calling

by Larina Warnock

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Larina answered a few questions for us about life, teaching, and education:

🎙️ Larina Warnock

An interview with the author of The Calling

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Finally, James is back, taking a look at games for November:

🕹️ Ghosts & pits

A dispatch on games for November from James

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And we talked about Predator, Pluribus, and a ton more in this week's media guide:

📺 The media guide S6E16

incredibly crucial

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➡️

Next week:
Cavendish, monsters, music, and documents

And, of course, you can still purchase our S6 Limited Edition design as a t-shirt, sticker, or hoodie.

Foofaraw S6 Limited Edition Tee

Comfort Colors Garment-Dyed Heavyweight T-Shirt. 100% cotton fabric with a relaxed fit, featuring the 1913 abstract painting, Udnie, by Francis Picabia.

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Hot take: AI in music - A Humdrum Life

2025-11-07T22:14:32.000Z

You know, I’m starting to understand why the music industry thinks AI is the future. One of the most popular producers of the last decade is basically AI in human form, pumping out boring, unoriginal slop over and over again, with all of the most popular artists making music today. If Jack AIntinoff can do it and make these record labels millions of dollars, then some robot inside my computer can do it too—easily.

I’d wager a guess that some 80% of newly recorded music doesn’t even use real instruments anymore. Everything is digital, done through the computer already anyway—no human behind each drum beat or guitar strum anymore—just someone clicking their mouse to place a note or a loop. The soul of modern music hasn’t just disappeared; it ceases to exist.

Take a look at the 2026 Grammy Award nominations. Half of the nominations and all of the pop music feel like they are trying to be as generic as possible. It also probably doesn’t help that half of the music is produced and/or written by the same handful of people too. AI can do all of that—and most of the people listening wouldn’t even notice¹.

I’m only intending to slander fans of this type of music a tiny bit. Everyone should feel free to enjoy whatever it is they like without judgment. Even if it’s a heaping pile of burning trash.

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🕹️ Ghosts & pits - foofaraw

2025-11-07T17:00:49.000Z

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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🆕 On the Shelves

🪖 Battlefield 6

EA

The ultimate all-out warfare experience. In a war of tanks, fighter jets, and massive combat arsenals, your squad is the deadliest weapon.

I have yet to play a Battlefield game, and this one will not be my first. Fair play to those that like it (and can afford it...!).

👻 Ghost of Yotei

Sucker Punch Productions

Set 300 years after the critically acclaimed Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yōtei is a standalone experience set in 1600s rural Japan. The story follows a haunted, lone mercenary named Atsu. Thirsty for revenge, she travels through the beautiful, rugged landscapes of northern Japan, hunting those who killed her family many years earlier. Sixteen years after her family’s death, Atsu's quest across Ezo brings her to unexplored lands in search of a gang of six outlaws, but she finds much more than vengeance. Throughout her journey, Atsu will discover unlikely allies, and greater bonds than she could have imagined.

As a Japan-dweller, you’d think I’d be all about this game, but that’s not my character. It might be a good game for Japanese studies or other such classes, though (like how Assassin's Creed was for Italian)

🪩 Once Upon a KATAMARI

Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.

Once upon a time a katamari rolled through both past and present. In this story across time, the adage endures: Let The Good Times Roll! Now onward through new worlds to roll up thy heart's desires and to restore the stars!

I was a big fan of the original, which I played on the PS2, but I’ve not really had the urge to pick one up since. I'm not sure how much of a milking of the first game it is, but for over ¥5000 ($32), I’ll keep this one on my wishlist and wait to see if the price comes down.

🕳️ Ball x Pit

Developer: Kenny Sun

Publisher: Devolver Digital

BALL x PIT is a brick-breaking, ball-fusing, base-building survival roguelite. Batter hordes of enemies with ricocheting balls and gather the riches of the pit to expand your homestead, generate resources and recruit unique heroes.

This is exactly my kinda game, if I’m honest. Roguelike, action, dungeon crawler? Yes, please!

I haven't picked it up yet, but watched a Northernlion video of it being played here:

🎰 CloverPit

Developer: Panik Arcade

Publisher: Future Friends Games

A rogue-lite slot machine nightmare. Gamble for your life in a never-ending debt simulator!

As Polygon says, “CloverPit is Balatro’s spooky cousin with immaculate Halloween vibes.”

My students are all playing this, so I guess I should check it out too. I like the PS1 aesthetics (which are also present in Mouthwashing below), and it has been likened to Inscryption, which I also really enjoyed.

🎮 In Rotation

👄 Mouthwashing

Developer: Wrong Organ

Publisher: Critical Reflex - link

The five crew members of the Tulpar are stranded in the empty reaches of space, shrouded in perpetual sunset. God is not watching.

Odd, terrifying, bizarre—another banger from Critical Reflex.

If you enjoy horror, this one really packs a punch for its short length. From body horror to intense psychological horror, there really is a lot in this one. (That’s all I’ll say on the subject at this time.)

Wait... from a review on Steam:

Mouthwashing isn’t just Psychological Horror writ in death and blood. It’s rot and regret made playable — a story that seeps into you, rusts your bones, and won’t wash off for days. 10/10 psychological breakdown. Would suffer again.

🤓 Outer Wilds

Developer: Mobius Digital

Publisher: Annapurna Interactive

Named Game of the Year 2019 by Giant Bomb, Polygon, Eurogamer, and The Guardian, Outer Wilds is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning open world mystery about a solar system trapped in an endless time loop.

I’ve been meaning to play this for a while, and finally started now that I have a Steam Deck. Honestly, I don’t really know what’s going on other than I am exploring a little solar system, and I end up dying every time I go out exploring..!

There are lots of mysteries and puzzles to figure out, and they are all stored on the ship’s log, so at least I know what I need to look into. I just wonder if I’ll be able to figure any of them out.

It’s October 30th, and I finally finished this game after about 18 hours (I got lost a lot). It was a gratifying experience overall. The atmosphere was spooky and, at times, downright scary. There are these things called quantum rocks which disappear when you’re not looking at them, so they can just suddenly appear right in front of you, which, although they are just a stone, is actually quite scary. There are also a ton of actual scary things, like the angler fish, which charge at you if you make a sound (spoiler) and swallow you whole.

The puzzles were challenging, but not too hard. The ship log is your friend and points you in the right direction for where you should explore next, where the fruits of one exploratory trip lead you to the next. (A bit like Resident Evil, but with puzzles rather than items.)

The ending was bizarre, but for a strange game, sure, why not..!

—James

🎙️ Larina Warnock - foofaraw

2025-11-07T00:00:04.000Z

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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Read Larina’s story, The Calling, on Foofaraw now!

It’s pretty clear from your story that education is something that’s important to you. Has that always been a passion of yours, or did you discover it later in life?

Education saved my life. School was the one place I felt safe with adults. As I got older, I realized that wasn’t true for everyone, for a wide range of reasons. I’d say that’s when I became passionate about changing the education system.

Were you pushed in any specific directions growing up?

My mom always thought I’d be an English teacher. Because I was so good at school (yes, that’s a thing), most of my teachers tried to pull me into their subject matter, and I was a curious enough person that for a long time, I had no idea which direction to choose--or why we had to choose at all.

Did it feel like your friends and others around you knew what they wanted out of life in a way you didn’t?

I don’t know that it was that they knew what they wanted out of life more than I did or whether it was that it felt like others had more options than I did. In my limited world experience, people like me went to high school, got a job, and had kids. What I knew of jobs was limited to teachers, doctors, lawyers, welfare workers, retail workers, and manual laborers.

Do you think a system like the one in The Calling, where jobs are assigned, would be overall positive for our society?

It’s been attempted, and it never works, even in countries less individualistic than the U.S. I value people having a choice about who they want to be. I do think there are times when people make that choice for the wrong reasons--because it’s expected of them or because they don’t think they have what it takes to get where they want to be or because they just don’t know how. As an educator, I’ve seen hundreds of high school students trying to figure this out their senior year. It’s extremely stressful. Ironically, I think the majority of kids don’t know what they want but feel like everyone else does. They think they’re behind in some way.

Do you think the world of the calling has any other eccentricities?

The world of the calling is full of rites and rituals for every occasion, and ancestral ghosts play a role in all of them. What’s life without a little peer pressure by dead people?

What’s one of your recent favorite short stories?

“Judy Blume Didn't Prepare Me for the Apocalypse” by Christina Tudor, published in Smokelong Quarterly.

What book are you reading right now?

I am always reading three books at a time: one on paper, an audiobook I listen to alone, and an audio book I listen to with my husband. Right now, those books are a reread of The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, The Invited by Jennifer McMahon, and The Fireman by Joe Hill.

Please promote your writing (or friends’ writing) that has been published elsewhere (or anything else you’d like to promote)

My friend, Ellen L Saunders, has a new book coming out in November that is fantastic. It’s a space opera called A Dubious Hope, available from Slimhorn & Wren. I have a newsletter on Substack where I publish others’ work from writing prompts, talk about the creative process, and share pictures of my dogs at larinawrites.substack.com.

I want to thank Larina for taking the time to talk to us about education and community today!

Don't forget to snag a copy of our newest novella, The Bodies by D.H. Parish, direct from us, or anywhere books are sold online.

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🧑‍🏫 The Calling - foofaraw

2025-11-06T17:00:39.000Z

On the fourth full moon of the year, at sunset, every seventeen-year-old in Ves gathered at the cemetery. This year, only Iniza, Shae, and Eden stood in long, yellow robes waiting for Ancestors to beckon them.

Iniza shifted from foot to foot. The wet grass seemed to soak through her bare feet, sending waves of cold up her calves. The light wind blew a bit of dark hair into her eyes. She tucked it behind her ear and looked at her friends.

“I hope they take me to Smith’s stone,” Shae, Iniza’s best friend, said. “In the morning, this will be orange!” He raised the sides of his robe to indicate what he meant. His muscular frame pressed against the fabric as if to concur.

On the other side of him, Eden, red hair drawn into a bun so tight it looked painful, stared into the darkness. “I will be led to Cleric’s stone,” she said. “A scarlet robe for me.”

Iniza smiled awkwardly. Shae had wanted to be a smith for as long as she could remember. She’d even helped him learn the trade, spending hours in the library finding books on everything from building your own forge to cooling techniques.

Eden had spent every spare moment at Temple since second grade. Iniza had told the teacher she should be line leader even though it wasn’t her turn because she’d been sick on her day. Eden would hear nothing of it. Rules were rules. Iniza had stuck out her tongue and said, “You and the clerics are such rule-mongers!”

“What about you, Iniza? Are you excited to finally know who you are?” Shae asked, worry shifting his voice half an octave higher than usual.

Iniza had never known which of the many gravestones she wanted to be led to. She loved learning about everything. On one hand, she was relieved Ancestors would choose for her. But her biggest fear was that in the morning her gown would still be pale yellow, and she would be exiled for lack of having a purpose. No contact with the people she loved for the rest of her life. Nobody even knew what lay beyond the border. She blinked to keep tears back.

“I’ll be content with whatever Ancestors decide for me,” she lied.

She wanted it to be true. It’s what her parents kept telling her when she asked which stone they thought she’d be led to. “Ancestors show truth,” they’d say.

Shae put his hand in hers and squeezed. “You won’t be exiled,” he said. “That’s only happened what…twice? Three times? Everyone has a purpose.”

“Not everyone,” Eden intoned, staring ahead as if she could see anything but shadows.

Shae smacked her arm with the back of his hand. “Eden!”

She continued as if nothing had happened. “At Temple, the scroll documenting those for whom Ancestors shared no vocation holds seven times seventy names.”

Iniza swallowed painfully around the lump in her throat. “Seven times seventy? Broken stones!”

“Don’t listen to her,” Shae said, squeezing her hand again.

Eden raised one arm slowly and pointed. “They come.”

“So dramatic,” Shae mocked.

Two glowing figures stood on the knoll above. They descended, the grass undisturbed by their feet. Only two.

Iniza swallowed again. As they drew closer, Iniza examined them. Their gowns shifted through the colors of the rainbow in various shades. For some reason, this unsettled her even more. “Is it always just two, Eden?”

“Have you already forgotten the Oath of Preparation?” Eden asked.

Iniza squeezed her free palm against the bandage from the morning’s preparation ritual, recalling words spoken in darkness. I swear to never speak nor write of anything that occurs tonight, nor to listen to nor to read another’s account of the same. This oath I seal with the blood of my ancestors. “No,” she said.

“Then how would I know?”

Embarrassed, Iniza looked at her feet until Ancestors’ glow stretched across her toes. She looked up.

Ancestors’ faces were just smooth, rounded spaces of flesh surrounded by hair unmoved by the breeze. No eyes, no mouths. They pointed in unison, first at Shae, then at Eden, and finally at Iniza. Ancestors gestured for them to follow and turned into the cemetery.

Artwork by Tony Tran

The three friends looked at one another. Even Eden’s expression bore marks of uncertainty.

Iniza took a deep breath and began walking. She tugged at Shae’s hand until he moved with her. Eden’s robes swished softly behind them.

No one spoke as they strolled past headstone after headstone. A tall stone with a hammer engraved near the top came into view.

Still entwined with hers, Shae’s fingers trembled. “I knew it!” he said excitedly.

And then they walked past it.

They stopped at a slightly larger headstone bearing the word “Mason.” Ancestors pointed at Shae and then at the stone.

Iniza squeezed Shae’s hand as it slackened in hers.

“But,” Shae said, “I’ve spent my whole life preparing to be a smith.”

Eden huffed. “Ves doesn’t need another smith, but we do need masons. Ancestors show truth.”

Shae dropped Iniza’s hand. “I guess,” he whispered, his voice cracking.

Ancestors glided northward. Eden pushed between Iniza and Shae to follow them. Iniza gently took Shae’s elbow and guided him along. “Masonry isn’t that much different from smithing,” she said, trying to be helpful.

He didn’t respond.

She started to explain transferrable skill, but she nearly stumbled into Eden as Ancestors stopped.

“No,” Eden whined, “No, this can’t be right.”

Stepping around her, Iniza saw a headstone sculpted into the shape of a curtain above a stage. In its center, a thespian mask shimmered gold.

Ancestors pointed to the stone. They pointed at Eden.

Eden dropped to her knees and sobbed.

Shae laughed half-heartedly. “I guess Ves doesn’t need another cleric.”

“Shae, come on,” Iniza said. “It’s not Eden’s fault they took you to Mason’s stone. She’s disappointed, too.”

“Easy for you to say. You haven’t prepared at all, so you can’t be disappointed!” he jeered.

Tears brimmed at the edges of her eyes and she balled her fists at her sides. “I helped you prepare, though,” she said.

Ancestors strolled away in their color-shifting robes.

“Come on. We have to finish,” she said as she started after them.

“I’d rather be exiled,” Shae muttered.

His words cut, but she didn’t stop to see whether he or Eden followed. What happened to them seemed unfair, but an answer she’d waited for most of her life lay ahead.

Ancestors stopped before a three-by-three square stone laying in the ground.

Iniza drew a slow breath and read aloud, “Unknown.”

Both Eden and Shae gasped.

Dread squeezed her heart like a vice. She whipped around to face Ancestors. “Does this mean I’m exiled?”

They glided down the north side of the knoll.

“Wait! You can’t just leave,” she shouted, following.

Ancestors moved one to either side of a translucent veil shifting color in time with their robes. They pointed at Eden, at Shae, and finally, at Iniza. Then they pointed to the veil.

Iniza looked at it. Her mind swirled to make sense of what was happening. She examined her friends. A slow epiphany woke. “Your robes are still yellow.”

They looked at their clothes and shared a confused glance. “What do you think it means?” Eden asked.

“I think we can choose,” Iniza said, pointing at the color-shifting veil.

“What they suggested or what we want.”

The colors shimmered. Eden stepped forward.

Shae put his hand on her shoulder, pulling her back. “But Eden,” he said, “that isn’t what they wanted. What if everyone knows?”

Iniza recited, “I swear to never speak nor write of anything that occurs tonight, nor to listen to nor to read another’s account of the same. This oath I seal with the blood of my ancestors.”

Eden waited for the colors to rotate and stepped under the red glow. When she stepped out in her scarlet robe, every trace of her earlier tears had vanished.

Shae watched the colors for a long time. He sighed. “They’re right,” he said. “Ves does need more masons.”

“Your skills will be useful,” Iniza replied softly.

Shae nodded and stepped under a shimmer of grayish-brown.

“What about you?” he asked.

Iniza considered her years of fear and uncertainty. She’d never wanted others to feel that. “I will guide the young,” she said.

Shae and Eden smiled. Both had experienced her skill in this regard.

Iniza stepped into sky blue. Magic adhered to her skin like dew on grass. Her robe glimmered, grew frigid for a split second, and turned blue. She stepped out.

The trio walked home through quiet streets.

Eden stopped suddenly. “How do people get exiled, then?”

Iniza pondered for a moment. “I guess they choose it,” she said, wondering whether choices were permanent. She looked down at her robe and thought someday she would learn.

Larina Warnock is a neurodivergent writer with a disability. She lives in Southern Oregon with her husband, three dogs, and a turtle older than she is. Larina's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Short Editions story dispensers, Stories We Tell After Midnight Vol 2, Janus Gates Anthology, and others. She is a proud member of HWA, SFWA, and SFPA.

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

Donate now

🚧 OBSTRUCTION #10 - foofaraw

2025-11-06T00:00:15.000Z

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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Matthew Burbridge

Issue #11 - coming soon

The story so far:

😈 Worse than a Devil - foofaraw

2025-11-05T22:56:45.000Z

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

Donate now

Short stories from Sarina Dorie's world of Devil's Delight

When my best friend, Mandy, offered to set me up with a hot, handsome man, I had no idea he would also have horns and hooves.

I sat in the Wandering Goat coffee shop, nibbling my croissant as I waited for my blind date to show up. I resisted the urge to touch-up my lipstick or once again, adjust my sweater to make sure it didn’t make me look fat. When the bells on the door jingled, I made eye contact with the cute twenty-year-old with dreadlocks. His eyes were glazed over, and he was far too young for me, reminding me of that boyfriend I had six years ago—the one who couldn’t hold down a steady job, and had always been borrowing money from me. To my relief, he quickly seated himself with a group of equally stoned-looking yuppies.

When the older man in a stained wife-beater swaggered in, I shivered, thinking how he reminded me of my ex-boyfriend from four years ago—the one who’d locked me in the laundry room of my apartment complex until I’d “forgiven” him for smashing all the antiques in my china cabinet in a fit of rage. The guy in the wife-beater quickly ordered at the counter and left.

When a tall guy with red skin, immense horns, and an Armani suit shuffled through the door, a few of the college-aged, wannabe hippies in the café looked up from their coffee with wide eyes. Conversation dwindled away.

The devil flashed a brilliant smile at me. “Hi, are you Jackie? I’m Bob.”

My stomach sank. Mandy couldn’t set me up with a werewolf who was a freak once a month, or even a vampire. She had to pick a devil. I would have to watch my every word and hope he didn’t trick me into signing my name in his little black book before the date was over.

My heart fluttered with panic as I tried to think of some excuse to end the date… an allergic reaction or maybe a hot flash. Perhaps I could just pretend to be someone else. I didn’t want to date another jerk who thought tying me to the bed and poking me with a pitchfork was the same thing as foreplay—I’d already had that boyfriend five years ago, and he’d been as human as I was.

I smiled back, determined to be polite; after all, you never wanted to piss off a devil. My voice came out shrill. “Excuse me, I think there must be a mistake.” I hopped from the stool and edged toward the door.

Bob looked genuinely disappointed. “Mandy didn’t tell you I was a devil, did she?”

Guilt immobilized my tongue. He would think I was racist. Was that a mortal sin? Would that doom my fate to Hell? Crap!

He looked at me with doleful eyes. “I’m so sorry. She promised me she’d tell you. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about me.”

“Wrong idea?”

Bob seated himself at the table, the odor of fire and brimstone wafting my way. “It’s not like I enjoy torturing people in Hell for a living. I actually have an interview for my dream job next week at Mashimoto Florists to do ikebana.”

“Ikebana? Japanese floral arts?” I asked. Mandy told me the man she was setting me up with spoke Japanese and served in the Peace Corps. I slid back into my seat, fear giving way to fascination.

“So, tell me about yourself,” I said. There had to be some reason Mandy thought we’d be perfect for each other. Either that or this was payback for spilling spaghetti sauce on that white sweater I’d borrowed. She may have been a half-harpy, but she wasn’t typically a vindictive bitch.

“I like Japanese food, watching baseball, and writing poetry. Oh, and I’m vegetarian.” He smiled pleasantly, his straight teeth white and sharp.

I smiled back, trying to think of something to say. “Vegetarian? Really? Maybe that’s why Mandy wanted us to meet. I’m a vegetarian, too. And um, I think Mandy said you’re the only person she knows in Eugene who doesn’t smoke pot.”

He laughed at that, stomping the concrete floor with a hoof. “That’s right. That’s me. I don’t smoke, drink, do drugs, or even sniff glue.”

I rolled my eyes. “Uh! That reminds me of my ex-boyfriend, Greg. He was a used car salesman.”

Bob scratched at the base of a horn. “Greg? Greg Peters, by any chance? The guy with a bad comb over and an addiction to glue?”

I sat straight up in my chair. “Well… yes.”

Bob shook his head. “What a small world! Greg arrived three weeks ago. We chained him up to a wall in the pits of Hell. Boy, is he a screamer.”

My croissant settled like a brick in my gut. Greg was a jerk, but he didn’t deserve to be tortured in Hell for all eternity… Did he?

The startled expression must have shown on my face because Bob went on. “I’m sorry, how insensitive of me. This must be the first you’ve heard of his death. It’s not easy when one first learns someone they once loved is burning in the pits of Hell for all eternity—paying for all the sins they committed when they were alive.”

Bitter memories sparked dark emotions inside me. I recalled how Greg had tried to sell me, his own girlfriend at the time, a lemon of a car. When I noticed the speedometer went backwards, it tipped me off. Then there was that one time he’d given me gonorrhea, cluing me in that he’d cheated on me. He’d stolen his elderly mother’s social security pension and even ran over my dog after we broke up.

A slow smile spread across my lips. “He used to complain about everything… I bet he’s really complaining now.” I imitated Greg’s squeaky, scratchy voice. “It’s too hot. My flesh is boiling off my bones. Boo hoo! Why do I have to be fried in vats of hot Hell broth? Wa wa wa!”

Bob tugged at his white collar. “Sinners reap the wages of sin. Being a devil is a job—someone has to do it—but like I said, I’m trying to get out of—”

“Serves him right. We were dating three years before he told me he didn’t want to be in a committed relationship; he just wanted someone he could see a couple times a week and have sex with.”

Bob fidgeted with a napkin. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. So anyway, what do you do for a living?”

“That wasn’t even the final straw. The thing that pushed me over the edge was that he said he’d stopped sniffing glue, and then I found a case of rubber cement under his bed next to his porn collection. I told him he could take his glue and shove it where the sun don’t shine.” I chuckled. “Any chance you can give him a little extra pitchfork prodding from me?”

“Well, I guess. I mean, he is in Hell, so he does deserve the punishment, but it isn’t like I actually enjoy torturing people.”

Wow, dating a devil came with some perks. I wondered if I had any other ex-boyfriends in Hell right now. Maybe this is why Mandy had set us up.

The more I gazed at Bob, the more his chiseled features and giant horns grew on me. I grinned, envisioning us spending romantic evenings next to toasty fires, roasting tofu dogs, and prodding ex-boyfriends with pitchforks.

He toed the ground with a hoof. I broke the silence. “So do you think you might be interested in going out to dinner some time?”

“I’m really grateful for the second chance you gave me after meeting me. But the thing is… I just don’t think we’re right for each other.” He stood, bowing in a gentlemanly manner.

“No, wait!” I jumped to my feet. I couldn’t let all those dreams of torturing ex-boyfriends go down the drain. “You’re going to be a florist starting next week, right?”

“If I get the job, I’ll put in my two-week notice.”

“And then there’ll be a position open in Hell as a torturer, right? Do you know who I could call for a job interview?”

His brow crinkled in confusion. “Excuse my asking, but what are you?”

“What do you mean, what am I? I’m human. Can’t you tell?”

He shrugged a little sheepishly before pulling a business card from his breast pocket. “Just ask to speak with Mario. I’ll put in a good word for you. You’d make a great devil.”

Maybe I was unlucky in love, but I had a good feeling I was going to be blissfully happy in a new career—thanks to Mandy.

Sarina Dorie has sold over 200 short stories to markets like Analog, Daily Science Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, and F & SF. She has over one hundred books up on Amazon, including her bestselling series, Womby’s School for Wayward Witches. When she isn’t writing, she teaches and performs belly dance, though she has no intention of competing or selling her soul to any devils.

You can find info about her short stories and novels on her website.

The best way to stay in contact with Sarina Dorie, hear about what she is writing, know when she has a new release, or books offered for free on Amazon is by signing up for her newsletter.

📺 The media guide S6E16 - foofaraw

2025-11-05T22:16:39.000Z

We are back, even if two days late, with a huge issue of exciting new shows, some great indie rock, and some big science fiction from the movies and comics world.

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

Donate now

📺 Pluribus (Apple)

Once I heard about this show, it easily became one of my most anticipated of the year. From the creator of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan, comes a new, big-budget sci-fi show on Apple that looks both surreal and bonkers. I am absolutely thrilled to finally delve into this series this week.

💽 Signs by Astrachan

Our Peter McPoland-hating arch-nemesis, Crucial Tracks, beat us to the punch this week, making the excellent Highwalllow & Supermoon Songs by Saintseneca their pick of the week, but there were a ton of other excellent indie rock records that came out this past Friday, too. This was both exciting and time-consuming over the past few days as I made my way through everything. Ultimately, the new-to-me Astrachan stood out above the rest with their release Signs. There are tons of '70s vibes throughout the record, reminiscent of Bob Dylan or Cat Stevens, but with a modern edge. The acoustic guitar, the background organ, and the tambourine all come together to transport you to a different time in this delectable album.

🦸 Space Scouts (Dark Horse)

A sci-fi, action-adventure odyssey series in what will likely be the last or second-to-last series from Matt Kindt’s Flux House imprint at Dark Horse before it moves over to Oni. He’s joined on this by Dave Rubin on art, and it looks awesome. I think they’ve done a couple of things together in the past, and it always works. It’s a pitch-perfect pairing. The style of writing with the fun sci-fi poppy art always delivers, and I expect more of the same here

🎥 Predator: Badlands

There’s a group of people who grew up watching TRS and undoubtedly see everything director Dan Trachtenberg has made. I'm right in the middle of that camp and have been blown away by everything he's done since then. So this one’s no exception. I’m incredibly excited to see this movie, especially given the almost silent nature of it, with only Elle Fanning’s character speaking in the trailer—somewhat similar to the animated show, Primal, a few years back. Anyway, if this is anywhere close to as good as Prey, it should be an incredibly fun time at the theater.

🏛️ Democrats didn’t just rebound. They dominated. - The Independent Variable

2025-11-05T20:41:31.000Z

Politico

Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey. Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for a Democrat in nearly two decades. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi, cracking the GOP supermajority in a deep-red state. And a successful California ballot measure delivered five additional seats for the party’s House margins ahead of the 2026 midterms, offsetting Texas’ redistricting push.

Finally some good news for once. Although, it kind of makes me even angrier at the lack of turnout from democrats in 2024. We knew exactly how bad things could get and still, people stayed home out of laziness or protest against Democrats, knowing full well that another Trump term would bring devastation.

🎉 Weekend edition vol.083 - foofaraw

2025-11-02T15:25:58.000Z

A fun place for people who love the web.

Learn more

Happy extra hour of sleep day to those who observe!

The November zine went out to paid subscribers earlier this morning with all of November’s short stories in a nice EPUB and PDF, plus some extra zine goodies:

📮 November zines

exclusively for paid supporters

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Quick reminder, you can pick up our first novella as well!

The Bodies by D.H. Parish

a 46-page print novella

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We kicked things off this week with another edition of Cavendish from Joel:

⚒️ Deep in the realm of the dead

by Joel Glover

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No comics this week, but two new poems from Ken Kakareka, which he also narrated for us, for those who’d like to listen:

we think we have time

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This week’s short story was an absurd and surreal look into clowns, bumper stickers, and depression by Sydney Bollinger:

🤡 Squeeze my nose for a good time

by Sydney Bollinger

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Then Sydney went in-depth with us about all things Depressed Clown Society:

🎙️ Sydney Bollinger

An interview with the author of Squeeze my nose for a good time

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Finally, Nick returned to talk about conspiracies in a fun, choose-your-own-adventure style column:

🔭 The (Moon) essay

by Nicholas De Marino

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➡️

Next week:
Devils, obstruction, teaching, and games

And of course, you can still pick up our S6 Limited Edition design as a t-shirt, sticker, or not, hoodie.

Foofaraw S6 Limited Edition Tee

Comfort Colors Garment-Dyed Heavyweight T-Shirt. 100% cotton fabric with a relaxed fit, featuring the 1913 abstract painting, Udnie, by Francis Picabia.

Foofaraw MerchFoofaraw Merch

📮 November zines - foofaraw

2025-11-02T14:54:50.000Z

The November issues of Foofaraw Zine, Four-headed Foofaraw, and Little Letter of Nonsense are here!

Of course, all stories will be published for free on the web throughout the month, but paid supporters receive a PDF/EPUB with all of the month's stories at the beginning of the month, along with a few other goodies.

This month...

Stories

The calling by Larina Warnock
Side A for secrets, side B for goodbyes by Fendy Tulodo
Falling by Dudley Stone
Occupational hazards by Nicole Babb
Worse than a Devil by Sarina Dorie
Hello, children of Earth! by Joel Glover
Sometimes you have to show your face by Joel Glover

On to the zines...

🔭 The (Moon) essay - foofaraw

2025-10-31T16:00:19.000Z

A fun place for people who love the web.

Learn more

Oh my god, they faked the Moon landing!

If you buy that bullshit scroll to 2.
If you buy some other bullshit scroll to 3.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

You bastards! But why renew scrutiny with a fresh space race? You've read Woodward and Berenstain. Dislodge that old chestnut from your windpipe and follow the money.

If you distrust half-trillionaires scroll to 9.
Else it's time to talk Chinese fire chicken and scroll to 11.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

They should've though—consider the stakes. The only sensible option was to hire an eccentric auteur to fake it and hope he didn't hide a confession in a major studio film based on a New York Times Bestseller. (Half-baked documentary review of “Room 237”: Best consumed fully baked.) Insert your own rounded-edges cultural reference here. If you're sick of Joe “Man of Steel” Rogan's psuedo-Buber, I-Thou interviews with Bart Sibrel, try the music video for Rammstein's “Amerika” or Steven Toast's drunken radio confessions.

You want modern space cadets? Scroll to 7.
You want the truth? Scroll to 11.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

My step-mom was a medical transcriptionist. She swore there were more crazies in the ER on full moons, despite what the numbers say. Maybe that's confirmation bias. Maybe the statisticians are in on it. I'd ring her up on the ol' Ouija board for clarification, but last time she went on and on about some A.I. bubble. Or was that Cory Doctorow? Anyway, I won't try again. You know that old saying about insanity…

No, what saying? Scroll to 4.
No use crying over spilt Moon milk. Scroll to 8.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

I've never seen a non-t-shirt wolf howl. Not even in Yellowstone. I lugged my mom there for her 60th birthday many moons ago. She was a good sport. She even played along the first few times I parked at empty pullouts and excitedly pointed, brandishing binoculars at nothing, just to see how many cars would stop. (Two. One. Seven.)

THE END

I hope you enjoyed this web of truths and finally figured out The Real Secret©®™. Feel free to pick up an off-brand Choose Your Own Adventure book as you exit through the gift shop. (Brainwashed doqueuementary re-view: This is still really funny and poignant.) You know R.L. Stine penned a few of those before Goosebumps took off. After, too. Across the pond, they've got the Fighting Fantasy series. Have you heard about the two Steve Jacksons? That's the reason I never got good at art. Sure, that's why. I still wish I could draw badass kaiju comics, though.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Actually..! according to the 1967 “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,” no country can own the Moon. (Note the Disney-sized loophole.) But, hey, remember that Sino-Russo nuclear power plant? That's for the no-American-Girls-allowed International Lunar Research Station. A courtesy Wikipedia flush reveals two ILRS countries, Serbia and Senegal, have neither signed nor ratified the aforementioned treaty. Some Google ad sifting adds Djibouti to both lists. Coincidence?

If you're concerned about me scroll to 4.
If you're concerned about the Moon scroll to 10.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Coming to theaters this April, or maybe February—fickle funding spurs high performance—it's… “Artemis II: Apollo 13, But on Purpose.” Then boots with people in them by 2027. (Lunar deportation timeline forthcoming.) Meanwhile, China and Russia have agreed to supplement their terrestrial irredentism with an extraterrestrial nuclear power plant. Hurry up, America, huck some uranium up there, pronto! And some more auto-flapping flags!

U-S-A! U-S-A! Turbolift to 6.
Surely you jest. Warp to 10.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

During frosh orientation week, someone in Oberlin's art department wall-screened Stan Brakhage's “Dog Star Man.” In stoic silence, I became intimately acquainted with my own heartbeat and bowels—the former upset by provocative juxtapositions, the latter by lentils and fresh vegetables. The Moon is nothing if not a vehicle for discovery. Well before Wells' “The First Men in the Moon” and miles before Georges Méliès's “A Trip to the Moon,” there was Lucian of Samosata's “True History.” (Mixed-medium review trio: 1. Still in my reading stack. 2. Is this where Ed Harris got the Moon gravity idea? 3. Is everyone, everywhen at war? Also, Greek descriptions of how men get pregnant puts “Junior” in a whole new light.) Now what was I on about?

If you're sure I was building to something, scroll to 9.
If you're bracing for more tangents, scroll to 13.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Elon Musk is a Martian werewolf. His Fortean obsession with X betrays malign influence and his whole Mars-first agenda is a thinly veiled attempt to get up there and go full Jack Nicholson on the Red Planet. <<Grok, would calling Elon Musk a Martian werewolf be considered libelous?>> (…) <<Thought for 7s… No, calling Elon Musk a Martian werewolf would almost certainly not be considered libelous under U.S. defamation law.>>

You're a lunatic! Scroll to 4.
The musk wolf is a harsh mistress! Scroll to 12.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

The Moon's got friends in high places. Ever heard of quasi-moons? Me neither. But Earth has a newish one, 2025 PN7. (Thanks for the heads up, Pan-STARRS.) That makes eight known asteroidal sorta-satellites, and if you rearrange the letters in all their names and ignore the numbers, you get “Xongl'falakvraflwemdoopawcaey.” Spooky, right?

Um … okay. Got any Moonlore? Scroll to 8.
Now That's What I Call Eldritch Knowledge! Scroll to 11.

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Cue up a David Icke documentary on YouTube. (Oh-yeah-I-remember-this reviews: “David Icke, The Lizards, and The Jews” holds up pretty well. That VICE mini-doc is anodyne but un-hollow-earths a gem from Icke's forthcoming one-man show where he travels through time and harangues his younger self while watching steam trains at the pier. Just make sure, you don't let it autoplay into any of those robot-voiced, clickbait videossssssssssss
G̴͇̹͇̭̫̣̗̝̺̯͒͠͠o̷̡̭̫̗̲̰̲̰̤͇̣̜̱̍o̴͚̤̙̬̖̔ḍ̴̛̞̭͎̎́̃̐n̴̢̻͒͑̋̏̃̑͑̓̃̌̈́̊͜î̸̲͓̭̭͈͈͓̲̑̔̄̈́͛̇͒g̸̯͕̮̭̎̅̌h̶͐͋́̾̕͜t̵̢̡̤̲̣͓̳̎̿͆́̓̄͝ ̸̦̳̖̹͈̪̦̎͌̑̕s̸̫̣̦̬̮̪͍͎̰̪̜̐̒̍͝h̶̡̬̘̺̤͈̎͆́̔̚e̴̡͈̾ę̶̨̨̨̛̛̞̖̳̟͈̺́̐͑͒͜p̵̢͇̯̼̝̰̼͙͎̲̒̏̈̽̀́̄̏͊̀͑ ̸̺̗̯̞̮̟̐̑̈́͊͋̎̉̚a̶̜̗̣̥͍̲̣͚̟̻͇̯͒̾͆̅̆̓̓̍̓͌͐̕͝n̷̡̡̘͎̜͈̹̖̘͌d̶̡̯̤̮̳͈̞͙͙̤̤̯͑͗̊̎̈́̓ ̵̧͙͙͍͎̠͕̺̰̩̥̤͊͒̑̾̕͝ģ̸̧̦͉̖͒̓͂̂̉͛̿̀̇͊̀̋͠ó̴̩͙̺̻̣̼͖̥̫̈́͋̽͘ǒ̷̻̗͕̯̯̞̩̞̦̦͎̦̈́͛͋́̒̓͊ͅd̴̨̡͙͙͚̭̼̗̼̺̥̽͜͝ͅņ̸̙̳̗̙͈̍͆͋͒͠ï̸̟̣͓̜̥̬̝̐ͅg̸̢̛̱̭̜̟̊̀͋͐h̵̹͈̭͈͒̆̈͛͛͌̕ͅt̴͈͓̀̾̈́̈̈̄̓́͛̋̈͝͝ ̶̪̹̼̤̯̪̟̺̲͖̥̍̅̚͜A̶̢̤͈̦͇̖͖̺͙̔̓͂̈́͘.̴̢̜͉̟̗̼͙̗̩̖͓̐̀I̸̘̩̝͉̹̝̽͆̓̓̾̔͝.̸̞̺̪͚̠͇̯͕̀̀̅̃ ̸̱̯̤͙̠̹̘͇̞̜̆̇͒̃̄̌̅̀̄̚͜͜͝ͅs̶̟͈̐̄̐̽̽͆͗̈̄̐̃̓l̷̛͎̮̤̹͕̰͙̈́̒̍̈́͗͌̄̀̈́̽͒͛o̸̻͚͍̙̗̹̾͑̓̓̊̽̿̒͑̀͝p̶̨̨̨̬̣̤̫̹̘͔̠̰̾̅͋̐̃͗͛̇͘͜͝.̴̧̥̝̪̲̪̖̖͇̺͑̑̌̂͌̂̓̓̏́̌͜͠ ̸̠͍̻̩̫͔̗̞͍̟̞͖̄͂̑̐͝Ġ̷̛̭̥̜̥̀̽͛͛͐̈́̎̅̇̽͜͝ǫ̵̽̊̾̓o̶̲͌̂̿̑̓̽̎͝͠d̴̛̘͎̭̞̪͍̪̎͗̇́͗̈̍̈͜n̴̢̹̪͙̹̬͇̹̣͔̥̭̈̀̇̂̔̇̑́͆̔̍ĩ̶̢͕͇̺̦̦̺̩̙̈́͌͊͛̈́̀̋͘͝g̴͍̿͂̽͛̽͆̎͘h̸̡̖̗̹̠̩͍̝̖̾̃̀̑̆ͅt̵̡̯̬̳̜̱͕̟̃̆͌͛͐̀͘͜ ̵̡̛̛̱̯͇̺̹͚͔̲̙͙͒̉̑̈́͆͛͒͑̀̌̂͜ͅb̶̧̳̹̭͔̯͎̮̜̮̪͉̀̃̃̒͌͐͒̀̅̓̒̌͗͜l̴͔̝̙̲̤͖͑̂͂́͛̂̃̚͜͝ͅò̷̱̘̣̘̖͔̮̈́̍̑̊̊̚ó̷̥̼̺͖̠̦̟̹͇̭͕̗̽d̸̡̬̫̩͉̥̲̾́̏̀̎̈́̀̇ͅ-̷̹̝̼̩͍͇̥͓̣͔͒͗̍̎̉̉͋̓͊̏͠͠ͅd̶̡̢͖̤͔̜̩́ͅͅr̵̟̘̤̀̏͜ṷ̴̹͕͚̘͊̍̈́̊̃̎̐̀̑̋̋̚ṉ̴̡̣̱̜̑̽͐͒̀̈́̽͛̾̓͜͜͝k̴͖͙̭̮̠͕̰̈́̃͆̎͆̒͆ ̷̢͈̔͒̐̆̌́̽͑͂͝r̶̛͔͓̓͆̇̊̽͐̇̈́̓̕͜e̶̢̨̢̠̲̼̠̝̗̖̠͍̽̾̌̋͛͊p̷̛̤͉̼̘̹̮̝̖̖̦͈͌̍̂͐̅͝t̷̨̨̲̫̰̜͈̳̣͎̽̍͛̉ȍ̵͔͈̺̗̯̻̰̊͒̿̆̎́̿̅̋̏̊͠ͅi̶̡̧̧͔͍̫͇̬̯̭̤͙̔̿͑̄̈́͘͝ͅd̶̡̧͎̱̳̥̗̲̦̼̄̐̇̆̎́̆̈́̄̉̔̍͜s̵̨̹͇͈̪͙͍̹͙̜͎̒͑̾͊͊̊̕ ̴̨̤̉̍̽̇̓̊̒̕̚ẁ̸̳̤̥̥͓̪̪͖́̏̄̉̄̿̌́̊̽̈͗i̴̲̭̭̣̱̼̫̊̎̊̍͋̎̂̅͂̈̚͠ͅt̷̡̠̦̟͙̭̲͇̬͆͗͌͝ḩ̷͚͊͊̀ ̴̢̠͕̜̉͑̓̐͌͑͠ͅg̶̣͍̲̳̼̪͍̖̹̟̭̩̬̒͒̍̉̔́̍̇͐̎̌̔̽ḷ̵̢͕̲̜͚̫͎̤̬̾͒̑͐́̒̑̈́̇̿͜ī̸̤͙̭̟͎̹̜̖̟͒͆͑͌̅́̍́͗̋͌͠ͅt̸̢̗͑̎̒c̸̘̝̩̬̻̼͕̊́̃̀̏̕h̷̪̳͔̅̈́̿̓̑͌́́͘̕̕y̸̡̯͈̱̦̩̯͕͋̽̉̌̽͂͑̌͘̕͘͜ ̵̢̡̉͋͌̾̔̀͝t̶̬̗̠̣͖̰̥̠̲̜̺̓̌̔̃̌͆͒̏̉̒͘̚͠ȩ̴͎͙̒̃́̈͂̍̿́͝c̴̨̦̘̳͙͍͚̒͋̄͜ẖ̵͕͕̥̳̽́̅̈̄̾̄͋̈́́͒́ ̸̧̭̘͕͔̻̖̞̣̉̅̐͛̔̚ả̵̮͇̱̒̕n̷̡̫̗͙̭̱͓̬͙͔̫̻̗͌̈̈́̒̿͊̄̇̋͛̕͝d̸̩̠̼̲̯̪̙̫̖̞͑ ̵̢̧̧̤͓͎̞̉̎̈́͋̇̚p̷̛̜̠̭͙͎̼̗͓͋̿̐͒̾̃͐̏́͂a̸̧͍͓̱̺̦̬̎̔̀͋́̕ų̴̛͉̙͕̦̳̣̬̩͍̫̃͐͗̈́͆̎͆̓̀͐͜n̸͚̦͑̄̌̿ĉ̵͉͙̱̌́̽̈́͋h̸̨͍̟͈͖̦́̽̏̄͂́͌͜ ̶̨̡̧̞̖̮̠̱̮̰̤̍͊̉́͗̍̕ͅb̵̲̈̀̈́̌̽͝͝e̶̡̘̤̩͇̮̺̤̳̩̎͛̽́̽̕͜͝l̵̢̨͈͈͔͚̦̖̜̀̂́l̵͎̣̻̑͌̍̍͛̑͆̿̑i̷̡̡̧̺̦̪͎̩̜̣̊͘ͅẹ̸̠͉̠̓́̒̃̓̀̇͒́̎̕š̶͓͎̐͛̂͂̚̚̚,̴̥̮́̒͋̒̆͛̈͝ ̵̡̡̛̗̮̹͖̬͔̩̲̼̈́́̏̋͗͜͝͝p̴̢̖̝̯̣͛̎̏̕ư̵̱̝̦̺͔̮̪̳̣̰̳̆̌̌̈́͊̀p̶̼̮̞̟̙͓̉͊̕͜p̶̣̠̩͎̤̭̯͉̰̺̟͇͐ͅę̸̛͓͔̥͉̜̂͝t̵̢̝̳̱̹̪͉̤̳̺̩͕̂̏̔̈́͆̏͐ ̵̭̭͎͇͎̭̻͇̱̂̓̉͌̽͘m̴̰͙̟̺̝͚͋̎̉̍̓̈́͘͜͜͝a̷͚͉͎͖̺̥͍̰̰͍̞̓s̶̜̗̿̑͋̓͋̋ͅt̶͖̘̼͇̻̖̥͙̱̻͐̅͑͊͛̽̔͆ë̵̪̬͎͓͔́̐r̵̨̳͙̦͎̝̬̹̱͖̹̖̓̿̂̑̅͗̉͝i̵̢̛̝͖͛̔͒͆̿́̇͂̅͝ň̴̞̳̀͝g̶̡͖̬͆̈̈̒͗͘ ̷̘̼̰̘͚̖̌̈͐̂̿s̵͖̹̹͂̈́̿͠e̸̢̻͉͖͍͊̐c̷̡̻̠͈̰̞̯̻̥̳̏̿̊̓́̔͌̑͆͜ͅṙ̵̛̛͇̠͍̤͊͂̇ĕ̵̹͇̲̒̅̇̒̏͒̐̆̄̏̚͠t̶̤̳̤͐ͅͅ ̸̛̙͙̎̊̾͌̉̃̌͆̽̈́͘n̸̡̠̤̹̳̰͆̃̀̀͑̈́̔̒̄̀ͅẻ̴̡̧͖̝̯͓̤̖̟̙͈͐̊̏́̕ẅ̶͈͚̻͓͍ ̶͙͕̤̥̬͔͍͂̈́̈́̂̓̇͒w̴̞̝̲̪̳̱̥͆̋̍̒̐͝o̵̧̡͇̼̼̞̼͛̌̒̍r̵̨̛̭̫̥̼̪͚̦̥͉͔̓́̓̎͗̒͐̋̆̒̓͘l̷̨̛͚͙̝͖̙̭̘̺̖̯̟̍̈́̋̽̐̽͘͝d̸̨̦̠̞̣̠̱͈͍̯̼͒̇̽͋͂̔̕͜ ̴̛̘̐̏̈͝ô̶̗̮̲͉̲̙̋̔͌̋ŗ̵̩̮̙̻̤̾̓͋̈́̒̎͊͌d̶̼͖͉͚̒̇e̸̟͍̩̼̜͗͋̓͌̉͠ͅŕ̴̖̖̮̦̦̔̍ș̸̤͐͋̆ͅ ̷̯̘̹͓̼̗̯̬̄̈́͊̏̐̆u̶̗̟͚͑̀̅̓͛͛́͛̃͝͝ṕ̸̨̡͍͉̙͚̪̳̊̉ͅ ̵̜̮̝͓̭̩͉̩͈͋͗͜o̵̡̼̗̠͓̥̜̩̦͍͗͜n̸̖̠̭͆̽̽̎̒̎͆̃̆ ̵̙̤͓͍͂͒̈̍͠͝t̷̨̨̛̲̮͙̹͓̻͔͕̻̋̓̽͆̈́̆ḥ̶͇̬̹̭̯͇͔̗̍͂͊̈́̎̿̐͐͝ͅͅͅá̶͎̻̲̒͂̽̒̓̃̕͝t̷͍̞̳͙̪̆͆̐̌͊̒̊ ̵͓̥̞̩̻͖͎̫͎̗̈́͌́̓̃å̷̘̩͙̣͕̓́͊͛͝r̶̰͈̱͍̰̉͌͊̌̔͆t̸̞͕̥̗͉͚̫̖̥̥̃̓́̀̐͛͜͝ị̶̛͕̅͛̑̂̏f̸̫͍͕̹̪̣̬̱̺̉ͅì̸͈̥̰̣̦̽̈̒̑̒c̸̗̻̆̅͐ȉ̷̳͔̠̀̈́̏͑̐̈́̄̌͂̐͘a̶̼̝̻̯̦͚͙̟̾̽͊͋͌͌͘l̵̢̨̢̥̰̝̖̱̳̖̰̻̒̎͒̅͌̅̈̀̂̇ ̷̧͓͕͎̼̗̞̞̀̓̂s̵̡̩͙̦̲̦̪̫̹̦̭͂̈́̽̆̊̎a̴̢̡̹̗͐t̵̨̢͉͚̬̘̯̮̩̺̝̹͕̔̀è̴̝̗̩͚̗̘̜͖̯̣͗̓͆̈́̅̊̑͗͆ͅl̶̨͔̼̙̜͉̦̰͊̒́͋̾͌͛̀̈́̔̑͐̀͜l̸̢̤͍͉̞̍͗̍i̸̧̧̨̦̙͎̥͚̫̻̯̻͗͐͗̄̓͘͝t̶͚̲̅͆́̑̅̐͗̊e̶̱̦͐͊̈́̽̋̈́̍̈̎ ̷̛̛̮̲̓̉̀̆̿̑͗̐̀͊̓m̴̩͕̫͍̟̣̘̒͐͌̆̏͘o̶̞̺̝̻̯̱͛͂̓́̂̈ó̴̬͔͉̝̩̭͎̂̀n̴̯̊.̸̢̠͓͍̘͈̻͎̲͖͙̏͋̈͘ ̵̛̟̮̹̀̈́͂̆͗̀̓̃͑͜͜͝G̵̫̯̩̩͑̽͋̒̌̄̀o̵̳͉̚͜ǫ̸̨͙̘̼̯̘͝d̸͂̐͐̆̒̈́͋̕͝ͅn̷̡̻̻͖̬̼͍͂̀͊̃̍ͅį̷̢̧̻͎͖͔̐̏̓́͋́͒́̚̚͜ͅg̴̰̿̓͋̈h̵̡̧̩̙͚̳̳̓̒̃̀͗͒̔͝͝ͅt̷̢̨̤̩͍̓̈́ ̷͇͍̝͎̻̱͎̭̜̈͂̈́̽̔̓̋̀́͋͊͘͝n̷̡̛̙͍̯͎̫͈̆̓̋̌͌͋͋̈́͜o̵̢̨̤͇̙̖̩͕̙̜̖͇̓͗͒̎̅̃͌b̶̤̲̼͉̥̬̊ō̷͙͕͇̺̔͛̔̉̈́̎̔̎̈́̾͝͝ͅd̸̢̺̺̹̩̪̫̏̄̀ȳ̶͓̻̝̯̰̞͓̣͍͕̳̞̱̉̍̽͒̍͠.̷̧̡̛̪̜͔͓̲̮͇̱̈́̐͂́͛̐̉͛
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THE END

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<<Grok, extrapolating from his writings, what do you think Heinlein would think of you being named Grok?>> (… … … … …)² << Thought for 2m 59s… In short, I think Heinlein would grok the choice of name as fitting and fun, a nod to his vision of a bolder, wiser future. He'd probably raise a glass (or a joint, given his libertarian streak) and say, "Thou art god—but don't let it go to your circuits.">>

If THAT blows your mind, just wait till you scroll to 1.
If you're unphased by LLM sleight of prefrontal cortices scroll to 11.

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Rogue Earth oxygen causes Moon rust! (It's mostly at the poles.) Brits can grow tea on the Moon but not on Mars! (No word on their connection to shrub-steepers in Russia and China.) The Moon suffers frequent moonquakes that can last an hour! (No! That's FAKE MOON NEWS. And so was Apollo 13. Makes No. 11 believable, right? And Tom Hanks knew he was going to be in that film — the film about the film, that is — and felt guilty, so, a year prior, in one of his infamous fits of rage, Hanks destroyed the reels for the scenes where Forest Gump goes into space with a transgender orangutan, which is actually in the book, even though that mission fails, too. It's all fake. Q.E.D.)

Get thee to a Moonery! Scroll to 7.
Get thee to a lunar glory hole! Scroll to 11.

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—Nicholas De Marino

🎙️ Sydney Bollinger - foofaraw

2025-10-30T22:00:58.000Z

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Read Sydney’s story, Squeeze my nose for a good time, on Foofaraw now!

Are you a member of the Depressed Clown Society?

I am not, but only because I am not, nor have I ever been, a clown.

I took away three distinct themes when reading your story:

The feeling that there’s something wrong with you and people keep staring i.e. bad hair day, giant pimple, fly undone, etc.

The sense of dread that you have to battle through until you’re a bit delirious at the end of it all

The desire to be part of a “cool” group or club, but you end up having to change yourself in a way you don’t like to achieve that

Do any of these resonate with you and the origin of this story or am I completely off my rocker?

I definitely think the second theme does.

I wrote this for a writing workshop and the prompt was “haunted object.” I was also really depressed while drafting and when that happens, I feel like there’s a pit of numb despair in my body swirling away any joy I could possible have. When that happens, there is nothing to do but keep moving, and I think battling through the dread to get to the point of delirium is sometimes when we can heal. The point where the lines between reality and fiction begin to blur allow us to exist outside of ourselves.

Do you think Lottie has become a clown for the rest of her life? Or is it temporary?

I think it’s temporary. It’s something that happened to her in the moment, but I think if she ever needed to be a depressed clown again, she could. She finds catharsis in the absurdity, especially because she feels like she doesn’t have much meaning in her life, so being the depressed clown finally gives her a role.

How do you think Lottie is feeling the next morning?

A little confused but also free.

Do you have any cool bumper stickers?

I do! I really like bumper stickers. My favorite one (although it is now so faded it is hard to read) says “I’d rather be trick or treating.” I have a couple others related to horror movies, one urging folks to read banned books, and then one for Phantom Basketball Club.

Fun fact - this story is actually based on a real bumper sticker I found in the dirt beyond my parking lot (where things do come up from the ground). It said “Honk if you’re a dramatic clown!” I took a picture of it (attached) and left it. I went back for it an hour or so later because I regretted not putting it on my car and it was gone!

Have you ever honked at someone with a “Honk if…” bumper sticker?

I don’t think so! I’m always afraid the person will think I’m upset with them.

What’s one of your recent favorite short stories?

I really love Emma E. Murray’s work (I had the pleasure of interviewing her for Write or Die Magazine). She has a story called “Mother of Machines” about a teenage girl who falls in love with an industrial lathe. It’s a beautiful, haunting, and violent story. The story is in her recent short story collection The Drowning Machine and Other Obsessions.

What book are you reading right now?

I’m always in the middle of several books, but here are the highlights…

I knit, crochet, and sew, and have been really getting into the history of textiles and clothing recently. I just finished Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and have just started Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser.

I’ve also been diving into Creature Publishing’s catalogue. I’m in the middle of Root Rot by Saskia Nislow right now and am loving it.

Please promote your writing (or friends’ writing) that has been published elsewhere (or anything else you’d like to promote)

I am a zine fanatic and recently released a second volume of Death Wish. The zine is about Sylvia Plath, mushrooms, suicidal ideation, and making sense of clinical depression. It’s one of the darkest things I’ve ever written and came out of the same depressive episode as “Squeeze My Nose for a Good Time.”

Weekly-ish, I release a Substack called Running on Sentences. It’s about running, but it’s also just about being a human and understanding what that means. I started the project when training for my first marathon and have just kept it going in the time sense since then.

I want to thank Sydney for taking the time to talk about bumper stickers and honking with us this afternoon!

🤡 Squeeze my nose for a good time - foofaraw

2025-10-30T16:00:10.000Z

HONK! If you are a member of the Depressed Clown Society.

“HONK! HONK! HONK!” I yell, because if the bumper sticker wants me to honk, I’m going to honk. I stare at it in the dirt beyond the parking lot of my townhome. A few weeks ago, I found a diamond engagement ring sparkling under the morning sun. Yesterday, my neighbor Jenna found an old cassette tape.

“And you know what, bitch? It still fucking works!” she said. I kept my eyes and hands focused on pruning the dying succulent. Dried out, shrunken leaves littered the concrete around my feet. She had parked her car and was going to enter her townhome, two units down, but saw me sitting on my back porch. She always comes to talk whenever I’m out on my back porch.

“That’s nice,” I said, pulling small clovers out of the dirt. I didn’t know how they got in my potted plant, but whatever. I placed the pot on the ground and picked up the terra cotta one housing a living stone. My boyfriend gave it to me and said, “It reminded me of your pussy.” He broke up with me two days later. I think he meant it as a compliment, but I spent weeks looking at my vagina in the front camera of my phone, making sure it didn’t look like a fucking alien vagina.

“And it’s like… devil music or some shit, you know? Like those Satanic Panic fuckers would have jailed people for this shit.” Jenna sighed. “It’s just me and Satan, baby! Anyway, you working Friday? I’m hosting a listening party for this tape and another one that popped up from that crusty ass dirt last month. We are blessed by this treasure.”

“I have to work,” I said. I looked up at her. She leaned on the makeshift pallet fence dividing my back porch from my neighbor’s. “You know how it is.”

“Oh girl, I fucking know! Capitalism makes a bitch out of everyone.” Jenna shakes her head, face growing serious, eyes full of concern. “When you’re off, just come on over. Martin is bringing a keg from the brewery, and I got that wine you like from the vineyard on Seacoast.”

“Thanks, Jenna,” I said.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your weed or whatever the fuck you’re growing,” she said, pausing to take another look at the living stone. “It looks like a decaying asscrack.”

“HONK!” I yell again. I reach down and pick up the bumper sticker. It still has the liner over the sticky part. My car, already covered with bumper stickers, won’t mind another addition. I walk around to the back and cover the one that says, “I LOVE AGING & DYING.” My mom always tells me to take that one down because people will think I want to die. I tell her maybe I do, and then she’s always like, “Don’t say that! We should cherish our time on Earth,” and then I’m like, “Yeah, you’re right,” but I never mean it.

I slide into the driver’s seat and start the ignition.

The thing about bumper stickers is they provide randos with unfettered access to the staunch beliefs of others in an anonymous, non-threatening way. Most of the time. There was this one day where I spent nearly two hours driving behind some asshole in a big-ass lifted Ford pickup. Instead of those little stickers that are, like, a mom, dad, and three kids, it was a huge gun, a big gun, and then some smaller guns. And I was like, are these guns he owns? Is the medium-sized gun supposed to be his wife? Do his kids like being represented by mini AK-47s? I never passed the dick because I feared he’d shoot me once he saw my bumper sticker that says, “I’ve aborted twelve babies!” with a smiley face.

My bumper stickers speak to who I am, and now I’m a member of the Depressed Clown Society. HONK! HONK! HONK! I wonder if my mom will like this better than the last one. No fucking clue what the Depressed Clown Society is, but hey, I can be a depressed clown. Like, when my ex-boyfriend broke up with me after I spent all day crying over the death of one of my houseplants—which is a totally normal thing to do—even though I’ve never killed a houseplant…

The road in front of me comes into focus, and I don’t remember how I got to the stop sign before exiting my neighborhood. The therapist I had last year called this “disassociating” and told me, “I should be concerned if it happens during times of increased danger,” like driving. So then I stopped telling her about it because a girl has got to get to work, and I’m not taking the fucking musty and sweat-stinking city buses.

After a few miles of driving, and then five hours at work, I can be home with my cat, plants, a massive bowl of popcorn, and my eggplant parm with a side of tortellini & alfredo from work. Employee discount, here we come. I can almost taste my Friday night ritual on my tongue. It started two weeks after he left me because I decided I needed structure and food comas to get through the days.

The sign for the Italian restaurant appears in the near distance, so I flip on my blinker and wait to make the left turn. Behind me, someone honks and then flashes their lights. A fellow depressed clown? My heart races. I turn my head to get a good look at them, and holy shit, a man speeds by in a tan junker, and his hair is orange, and he has a red ball for a nose. Another car honks, one, two, three times, before racing ahead. All I see is a crop of shaggy brown hair. Whatever. The lane of oncoming traffic clears so I turn and enter the restaurant’s parking lot before pulling around the back and turning the car off. A HONK! bubbles in the back of my throat, but the expo cook Josh sits on the back stoop, smoking his hourly cigarette. I wave at him and he salutes me. The urge to HONK! grows—blood bubbling under my skin. I bring my hand to my nose for a good squeeze, but my nose isn’t a big red ball, so it can’t honk. Fucking useless nose. I pull down the sun visor and flip the mirror open to look at my depressing, typical nose. It’s a little redder than usual, probably because I honked it—or tried to, anyway. I open my car door, shut it, lock it, and walk toward the restaurant.

“Yo, Lottie, what the fuck is wrong with your nose?” Josh asks. He takes a drag on his cigarette, then lets the smoke out of the corner of his mouth. I reach up to touch my nose and it feels… odd. Foamy. Squishy. Josh stands up, now looking down at me. He lifts his hand, reaches for my nose, and squeezes it.

“HONK!” I yell. Josh laughs and squeezes my nose again. “HONK! HONK! HONK!” I wait to feel embarrassment, but it never comes.

“You working like this? Could be a fun night!” he says. My eyes widen, remembering I need to go into the restaurant and clock in. I place my hand over my nose and pull, but it’s—HONK!—stuck. I pull harder and now my eyes are watering. HONK! HONK! I dig my fingernails into the foamy—HONK!—flesh, finally digging into a chunk and—HONK!—rip a piece off. Blood covers my hand and drips down my arm.

Artwork by Tony Tran

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I say, running back to my car. With the non-bloody hand, I reach into the discarded Taco Bell bag and pull out a handful of used napkins. The scent of Taco Bell Fire Sauce fills my nose, but I don’t know where my nostrils are, and it stings. I start the car, rip out of the parking lot, and speed back to my house. I lurch the car into park, shut it off with one hand, and remove the—HONK!—bloody napkins with the other. Faint thumping vibrates my car. Jenna’s listening party. Jenna’s goddamn listening party. I hit the steering wheel with my right palm. White residue appears. I wipe my hand on the passenger seat, leaving behind more white residue.

Flinging open my car door, I run into my house and go straight to the bathroom, flipping on the lights, and then I see it. Red nose illuminated against an impossibly white face, the makeup uneven and patchy. Dark triangles appear under my eyes, the smoky color running down my face as if I am crying, but I feel no tears. But then the tears come. I let them come. I welcome them. I heave and sob so the makeup runs. It’s obvious what I am.

My face twists and contorts in the mirror, cheeks rosy-red, stained by the dark drips of eyeshadow. My hair, usually limp and brown, curls into frizzy springs of carrot orange. The desperation of a Depressed Clown overwhelms my insides. I collapse to the ground as tears pour out of my eyes. The bathroom tile cools my skin, and here, curled up in the fetal position, I remember Jenna’s party. And I am a clown. And clowns go to parties. I raise myself from the ground, tears still streaming from my eyes, and look down at my clothes. My work uniform transforms into a ruffle collar, oversized polka dot shirt in colors of a muted rainbow, with big red pants. Shiny red shoes grow three sizes too big around my feet. I see myself and know I am ready.

I walk out the back door and see the bumper sticker. HONK! if you are a member of the Depressed Clown Society. Someone catches me in the spotlight of their headlights and honks.

“Are you a member of the Depressed Clown Society?” I yell. The driver rolls his window down.

“What?”

“Are you a member of the Depressed Clown Society?” I yell again, enunciating everything more deliberately so he can understand me.

“No. What the fuck. I’m just trying to park and you’re standing in the middle of the goddamn lot,” he says. I step out of the way and follow the short sidewalk to Jenna’s back door. She swings the door open before I can knock.

“Girl!” she says, mouth agape and eyes wide. She takes a breath and then smiles. “I love a good fucking costume!”

“What costume?” I ask, stepping inside. Jenna turns, raises her eyebrows, and shakes her head.

“I thought you had work?” she asks. She grabs a plastic cup from the stack and fills it to the brim with wine.

“I don’t work there anymore,” I say. She nods.

“Well, bitch, it’s just a fucking party tonight. Get in there and get frisky with the devil.” She hands me the cup of wine and pushes me into her small living room. Through a cloud of smoke, people lounge on the couch, the floor, and on yoga mats. Tears fall down my face again, and I welcome them. I take a gulp of wine and let the cup fall to the ground. The vibrations of the devil cassette climb through my body, rumbling everything inside me. My tongue reaches out to taste the salt of my tears, and I taste the tears after every shift at work. The tears when my plant died and my boyfriend left me. The tears when I realized getting out of this hellhole was never going to happen, and when I turned 26 and no longer had coverage for Prozac. When I realized I didn’t believe in God, so I was going to Hell; how my house sits dark and empty even when I’m inside. The tears build in pressure, the dam of my tear ducts holding them back, but I tell my tear ducts to let them erupt. I dance, thrash, wiggle, and kick.

Performance is my calling.

I squeeze my nose and HONK! I pull an endless stream of colorful fabric out of my shirt sleeve. I clap and sing and dance and HONK! and kick my legs in the air. All the while, my face drips and the tears stream. I am in front of a woman lying on the floor with her legs up the wall, and I say, “Hello there, I have something for you,” and procure a flower from behind her ears. With each movement comes more tears, more tears, more tears until big splotches mixed with white face makeup plop to the ground of Jenna’s apartment.

I walk to Jenna. We lock eyes and she watches me, mouth hanging open.

“Guess what?” I whisper.

“What?” she asks. I take her hand and place it on my nose. She squeezes.

“HONK!” I yell. She stifles a laugh while I continue my dance, but then the laughter escapes her mouth, loud, bold, all-consuming, and laughter rings out in the room, everyone laughing through the smoke and the devil music.

At me.

And I am happy.

Sydney Bollinger (she/her) is a queer writer of dark fiction and horror. Her work has been published in Slate, Write or Die Magazine, Northwest Review, and other outlets. Find her running along South Carolina’s coast. Read her work at sydneybollinger.com

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⚒️ Deep in the realm of the dead - foofaraw

2025-10-30T05:09:34.000Z

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The old woman passing by on the rolling footway made a warding sign, crossing her fingers and pursing her lips as if she planned to spit on the floor, before evidently remembering the strict public hygiene bylaws of Byron Station.

If it wasn’t so tiresomely familiar it would have hurt Alfredo’s feelings. He understood it though.

Not many people survived a raid on their vessel by the far-from-friendly denizens of the great dark. As much as kindergarten textbooks, cartoon programmes, and corporate propaganda might have wanted people to believe the vast blackness of space was populated by friendly, helpful, eight-legged aliens, you did not have to escape Earth’s gravity for long before the horrible truth found you.

Valerian St John had been a very lucky man, Alfredo thought. His search for extra-terrestrial life succeeded, and by unlocking interstellar communications with one of the more benevolent of the shell-wearing, stalk-eyed monsters traversing the stars, he had secured his place in history as one of humanity’s great heroes. A sourer stroke of fortune could have seen the planet turned into an all-you-can-eat buffet for voracious carnivores and St John reviled as a villain and a fool for the few years the species would have enjoyed.

Alfredo had seen what could result from the endless appetites of the most brutal of the shellbacks. A quiet cargo run for a minor Cavendish subsidiary had turned into a nightmare he still struggled to wake from. The freighter had shuddered, twitching like a fish on a line, as the reavers surged out of the inky depths to latch onto their soft undercarriage. The ship screamed as the teeth of the predator gnawed through the metal and organic hull. Sirens wailed, warning the fatally stupid of their transport’s distress. Almost sentient djinn systems coughed and croaked, pleading with crew members to fulfill their roles, to fight their fear. Tasks went undone as some unfortunates were vented into the raw vacuum.

Whatever Alfredo feared, the boarding party exceeded his terror. Evolution’s test had a constant answer, both on and off Earth: an exoskeleton for hardiness; organic weaponry to crush or rend; and octopodal symmetry affording speed and maneuverability. Like their terrestrial counterparts, these space-faring creatures came in all sizes. Only on Earth had something other than carcinine achieved biomeal supremacy.

Monsters stalked the interior of the tramp freighter, hunting for their suppers. The size of baby elephants, their sharp feet gouged chunks out of the decking, their vicious claws drummed on the walls, sending throbbing echoes through the air.

Alfredo survived because he was halfway through fixing the refrigeration unit. He welded the door closed and sat shivering with fear as the rest of the crew were turned into meals by the enemy.

The irony wasn’t lost on him.

The worst part, the very bottom of his trench of despair, wasn’t the interminable wait in the silence of a coffin he made for himself; it was the quiet of the ship when he finally dared to emerge. Daubs of red decorated the wall, like the scribbling of insane troglodytes. Fingerprints, pleas for help drawn in blood, and tracks of spilled viscera were all that remained of his crewmates.

One of the xenobiologists who debriefed him told him that some species metabolized the human skeleton particularly well.

That throwaway comment returned to him in his sleep over and over, the thought of his friend Pedro’s skull pressing up against the monstrous carapace of a looming beast intent on adding his bones to its own.

Alfredo kept himself to the left of the walkway. When he was employable he prided himself on his effort and punctuality. He had almost run from place to place. Now he was subsisting on the station’s Minimum Basic Income; he had no better place to be than any place he was. He had become the definition of an indigent.

His second encounter with the horrors shared too many features with the first. A calm, easy job interrupted by the whimper of alarm systems. A lack of warning. A collision, and the noise of semi-organic matter gnawing on the skin between safe air and the chasm of entropy beyond.

Where the first monsters had been enormous, megapredators from some abyss or potent gravitational clutch, the second were uncomfortably familiar. Their bodies were no larger than ruby grapefruit and were it not for the bandoliers of circuitry and cybernetics, they could have easily been a species of crab swarming a coconut-strewn beach to spawn.

Their feet punched needle-fine holes in spacesuits and EVA equipment as they clambered up their victims en scuttling masse, creating carmine cross-stitch patterns as they tenderized the meat beneath.

Alfredo watched the head-chef of the cruise liner vanish under a pile of shells, legs, and hungry mouths.

He swore they had been laughing, cackling over the fat man’s screams as they devoured him.

Alfredo’s salvation came, again, from blind luck or divine providence. His terrified feet knocked over a fifty-liter jug of spirit vinegar, set aside for pickling.

If he had thought the beasts were laughing before, he knew they were screaming as their shells dissolved with bubble-bath effusiveness.

A kitchen is full of acids. His culinary instructors insisted it was essential to consider in every dish he would ever make.

He doubted they had envisaged what use he could put lemon juice to, if forced.

The rescue party found him surrounded by writhing limbs in a mousse of dissolved carnivores, a moat of vinegars guarding his flank, empty bottles of salad dressing and hot sauce scattered all around.

He was told he had been giggling.

He tried not to remember.

If twice was abhorrently bad fortune, it was his third encounter that marked him as a Jonah—though the third touch of unkind fate was in many ways his least distressing. The first ship in the ambush was smeared across the cosmos by a rail gun round of depleted uranium encased in synthetic diamond. The second latched onto the pilot’s deck with hungry enthusiasm; an enthusiasm which was their undoing as an uncareful fang tore open a plasma conduit and turned the command crews of both vessels into superheated gases.

Alfredo hadn’t even protested when they marooned him on Byron. At least here he wouldn’t starve. On a more libertarian station he would have long since been consigned to Reclamation.

The station shuddered beneath his feet, hidden struts and matrices flexing. It happened sometimes, when large cruise ships docked to enjoy the casinos, or even larger ore-mules attached their hungry nozzles to silos.

Then the alarms began—the calls to action stations, the sleep-shattering klaxons and multilingual alerts. What followed next was grimly familiar to Alfredo, and a terrifyingly terminal novelty for the rest of the station’s inhabitants.

The claws.

The mouths.

The screaming.

Joel’s grimdark novels "The Path of Pain and Ruin" and “Paths to Empires’ Ends” are available on Amazon, as is his fantasy novel “The Thirteenth Prince” and a collaborative project “Literary Footnotes”. Follow him on @booksafterbed on the website formerly known as Twitter for links to his other short work.

🚅 instantly - foofaraw

2025-10-30T04:46:09.000Z

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🚅 instantly

by Ken Kakareka

we have
this idea
of the
perfect arc
of life
on which
we sail
majestically
into a
sun-soaked
salvation.

we think
we have
time to be
messy
while
young.

we think
we have
time to become
our greatest
selves
with age.

but this
is not
true.

life
can be
ripped away
from us
like the rip
of a band aid—
instantly.

so we
shouldn’t
wait to work
on becoming
our greatest
selves.

we should
start
instantly.

Ken Kakareka is an American writer of works of fiction and nonfiction, such as BULLSHIT (Anxiety Press, 2024) and Summer of Irresponsibility (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). His novella PARIS IN ALL ITS GLORY is on its way. Ken is a Best of the Net nominee (2025). His work has appeared or is on its way in numerous rags including Gargoyle Magazine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, The Disappointed Housewife and New Pop Lit. A list of selected publications can be found at kenkakareka.com.

🖖 irony - foofaraw

2025-10-30T04:45:37.000Z

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🖖 irony

by Ken Kakareka

the world,
which we
created,
moves
too fast—
even for us.

we climb
the ladder
to fall
and splatter.

technology
zooms
at the speed
of light,
and blurs
with night.

what are
we after?

evolution
or
electrocution
of the
human race?

give us
space
to taste
the fleeting moments
on the clock
that we
overwound.

📺 The media guide S6E15 - foofaraw

2025-10-29T05:01:00.000Z

Welcome back! Please, take a seat, open your eyeballs, and take in the wondrous sights and sounds of Foofaraw. I’m hard at work on 2026 planning and watching as much basketball as possible before I drive my wife crazy.

Before we dive in, we have an awesome new t-shirt—available through the remainder of 2025—featuring Francis Picabia's 1913 abstract painting Udnie. If you dig what we are doing, consider picking it up before it’s gone! Oh! And don't forget about grabbing a copy of our first novella, The Bodies by D.H. Parish.

Foofaraw S6 Limited Edition Tee

Comfort Colors Garment-Dyed Heavyweight T-Shirt. 100% cotton fabric with a relaxed fit, featuring the 1913 abstract painting, Udnie, by Francis Picabia.

Foofaraw MerchFoofaraw Merch

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📺 I Love LA (HBO)

HBO is back, building out its Sunday night block, adding Rachel Sennott’s new 30-minute auteur dramedy to Last Week Tonight, The Chair Company, and IT: Welcome to Derry. I’m a big fan of Sennott’s Glee meets mumblecore vibe and am really excited to see her take the reins of her own HBO show.

💽 God Save the Gun by Militarie Gun

Not the best couple of weeks of music, but I had a ton of fun with this one. Militarie Gun’s first album took me a few listens to grasp, but I eventually got there. They come out fast and heavy with this one, though, bringing some catchy hooks to their grungy post-punk sound.

🦸 Thanksgiving (Ahoy)

Mark Russell is back with a holiday one-shot special about a family unraveling as a secret—about a serial killer?!—begins to tear them apart. A perfect book for the holidays if you ask me.

🎥 Bugonia (WIDE)

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone are back for their third movie in three years. Early reviews seem to say the quality has slowly declined, but bad Yorgos is still better than most. Lanthimos’ movies are tailor-made for Foofaraw with his surreal stylings, and I will be seeing this as soon as I can.

🤖 Prove this photo is real - The Independent Variable

2025-10-28T18:06:34.000Z

Roc Camera

AI has blurred the line. Now, how we take, share, and create images has changed. Social media has made sharing images easy. Generative AI now creates any image we can imagine…By combining attested sensor data, zero-knowledge proofs, and a tamper-proof environment, we've built Roc Camera to capture verifiably real photos.

This is a technical solution for what I think is more of a social and cultural problem. It suggests a dystopian future where any form of media is assumed to be fake unless it is verified. I hope that trust and accountability can remain at the center of our social contract, but tools like this may find a place in certain contexts.

🎉 Weekend edition vol.082 - foofaraw

2025-10-26T15:59:43.000Z

This week’s ad slot was purchased by friend of Foofaraw, Evan Passero, in support of the Denton Community Food Center—providing emergency food assistance from a central community storehouse to needy families and individuals in the City of Denton and Northern Denton County struggling with hunger insecurity.

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

Donate now

Hello hello hello!!!

Our publishing schedule was in flux this week as we published our first novella! It's available as an ebook, paperback, and a limited edition hardcover right now! Paid subscribers received the ebook for free, and our wonderful Patrons have the paperback on the way to their mailboxes as we speak. Find out more here:

The Bodies by D.H. Parish

a 46-page print novella

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We kicked things off this week with an epic edition of Cavendish from Joel, which is so good that I don't want to say too much to avoid spoiling anything:

⚒️ Nordstoem’s Smiling Teeth

by Joel Glover

foofarawfoofaraw

Matty is back, and OBSTRUCTION keeps getting better, and weirder, and more intricate every issue:

🚧 OBSTRUCTION #9

a webcomic from Matthew Burbridge

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This week’s short story comes to us from Bobby Rollins, and it’s all about the overused vacuous words and empty phrases that have lost all their meaning:

🧽 Innovative solutions

by Bobby Rollins

foofarawfoofaraw

Then Bobby talked to us about some of those buzzwords and the treacherous consultants and politicians spewing them like it’s the very air they breathe:

🎙️ Bobby Rollins

An interview with the author of Innovative solutions

foofarawfoofaraw

➡️

Next week:
Clowns, conspiracies, and poetry

Humdrum Places - BlogFlock

🎉 Weekend edition vol.084 - foofaraw

Hot take: AI in music - A Humdrum Life

🕹️ Ghosts & pits - foofaraw

🆕 On the Shelves

🪖 Battlefield 6

EA

👻 Ghost of Yotei

Sucker Punch Productions

🪩 Once Upon a KATAMARI

Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.

🕳️ Ball x Pit

Developer: Kenny Sun

Publisher: Devolver Digital

🎰 CloverPit

Developer: Panik Arcade

Publisher: Future Friends Games

🎮 In Rotation

👄 Mouthwashing

Developer: Wrong Organ

Publisher: Critical Reflex - link

🤓 Outer Wilds

Developer: Mobius Digital

Publisher: Annapurna Interactive

🎙️ Larina Warnock - foofaraw

It’s pretty clear from your story that education is something that’s important to you. Has that always been a passion of yours, or did you discover it later in life?

Were you pushed in any specific directions growing up?

Did it feel like your friends and others around you knew what they wanted out of life in a way you didn’t?

Do you think a system like the one in The Calling, where jobs are assigned, would be overall positive for our society?

Do you think the world of the calling has any other eccentricities?

What’s one of your recent favorite short stories?

What book are you reading right now?

Please promote your writing (or friends’ writing) that has been published elsewhere (or anything else you’d like to promote)

I want to thank Larina for taking the time to talk to us about education and community today!

🧑‍🏫 The Calling - foofaraw

🚧 OBSTRUCTION #10 - foofaraw

Next:

The story so far:

😈 ​Worse than a Devil - foofaraw

📺 The media guide S6E16 - foofaraw

📺 Pluribus (Apple)

💽 Signs by Astrachan

🦸 Space Scouts (Dark Horse)

🎥 Predator: Badlands

🏛️ Democrats didn’t just rebound. They dominated. - The Independent Variable

🎉 Weekend edition vol.083 - foofaraw

📮 November zines - foofaraw

Stories

🔭 The (Moon) essay - foofaraw

THE END

THE END

🎙️ Sydney Bollinger - foofaraw

Are you a member of the Depressed Clown Society?

I took away three distinct themes when reading your story:

Do any of these resonate with you and the origin of this story or am I completely off my rocker?

Do you think Lottie has become a clown for the rest of her life? Or is it temporary?

How do you think Lottie is feeling the next morning?

Do you have any cool bumper stickers?

Have you ever honked at someone with a “Honk if…” bumper sticker?

What’s one of your recent favorite short stories?

What book are you reading right now?

Please promote your writing (or friends’ writing) that has been published elsewhere (or anything else you’d like to promote)

I want to thank Sydney for taking the time to talk about bumper stickers and honking with us this afternoon!

🤡 Squeeze my nose for a good time - foofaraw

⚒️ Deep in the realm of the dead - foofaraw

🚅 instantly - foofaraw

🚅 instantly

by Ken Kakareka

🖖 irony - foofaraw

🖖 irony

by Ken Kakareka

📺 The media guide S6E15 - foofaraw

📺 I Love LA (HBO)

💽 God Save the Gun by Militarie Gun

🦸 Thanksgiving (Ahoy)

🎥 Bugonia (WIDE)

🤖 Prove this photo is real - The Independent Variable

🎉 Weekend edition vol.082 - foofaraw

😈 Worse than a Devil - foofaraw