Greenbeard magazine © 2009
A literature and art rocket space. An internal swimming pool for self-made insomniacs. A virtual playground for adamant dreamers.
| Summer |
| 2009 |
New Contest Announcement:
Our new contest incorporates three elements: plastic bags, betrayal,
and bugs. Build your molehill
around all three, two, or just one of
these zany subjects. It’s not a theme; rather, we want to see your
powers of concoction.
.
Our new contest incorporates three elements: plastic bags, betrayal,
and bugs. Build your molehill
around all three, two, or just one of
these zany subjects. It’s not a theme; rather, we want to see your
powers of concoction.
.
To GET Greenbeard's Print Edition
click on cover
click on cover
Janice - Part I
NEW
by Mariana Sabino
INT. WAKE - NIGHT
A funeral service with SEVERAL MOURNERS milling around, sniffling and comforting each other. They take turns making the rounds to look in the casket. Then a WOMAN in her mid-fifties storms in, crying hysterically. She heads straight towards the casket.
SANDRA
Oh Sammy. Oh Sammy!
She throws herself at the casket to lean over the BODY of an ethereal-looking young woman. She then reaches in to touch the departed’s cheek.
SANDRA
(in between sobs)
You were something special all right!
From their various places:
BIANCA
The sweetest!
SETH
The kindest.
SANDRA
Brilliant!
continue reading >>
NEW
by Mariana Sabino
INT. WAKE - NIGHT
A funeral service with SEVERAL MOURNERS milling around, sniffling and comforting each other. They take turns making the rounds to look in the casket. Then a WOMAN in her mid-fifties storms in, crying hysterically. She heads straight towards the casket.
SANDRA
Oh Sammy. Oh Sammy!
She throws herself at the casket to lean over the BODY of an ethereal-looking young woman. She then reaches in to touch the departed’s cheek.
SANDRA
(in between sobs)
You were something special all right!
From their various places:
BIANCA
The sweetest!
SETH
The kindest.
SANDRA
Brilliant!
continue reading >>
Categories: short stories, poems, screenplay scenes, one-act plays and essays. The word limit should not exceed 3000 words, sent in a Word file attachment to greenbeards@gmail.com, with the subject box listing it as
“The B Competition.”
Ah, and yes, there’s an entry fee
for our hard work: $10 in the form of a donation to Greenbeard
magazine.
All winners will be featured online and in the 3rd print issue of
Greenbeard, planned for the winter. Additionally, print copies and some token cash will be offered, the exact amount contingent on how many submissions we receive.
Deadline: August 21.
The 2nd print issue around the Symmetry of Flaws theme will be out by late August
“The B Competition.”
Ah, and yes, there’s an entry fee
for our hard work: $10 in the form of a donation to Greenbeard
magazine.
All winners will be featured online and in the 3rd print issue of
Greenbeard, planned for the winter. Additionally, print copies and some token cash will be offered, the exact amount contingent on how many submissions we receive.
Deadline: August 21.
The 2nd print issue around the Symmetry of Flaws theme will be out by late August
Rebuilding Society - Part I
NEWNEW
by Allan Shapiro
That night I was too happy to not fall asleep. That night I was convinced the world was coming to an end. I was watching Night of the Comet and it reminded me of when I was bar mitzvah’ed and how I thought such an event would be the catalyst for the world’s end and how disappointed I was that it wasn’t. The world was what it was and continued in earnest up to this point.
So that night I listened to a woman loudly moaning outside before I fell asleep. The moans consisted of unintelligible words, just a collection of meaningless tones rising from her gut and scratching through her throat, over and over, the same sound over and over, until a man yelled out a window, “Will you please just shut the fuck up!” and the woman stopped, and when she continued again, her meaninglessness was much quieter.
Then I smiled as I continued to watch Night of the Comet because I knew it was coming soon, and before I knew it, I was asleep, dreaming of being in a place I had never been before, and in this place I had never been before, I was frantically searching for a place to live.
continue reading >>
NEWNEW
by Allan Shapiro
That night I was too happy to not fall asleep. That night I was convinced the world was coming to an end. I was watching Night of the Comet and it reminded me of when I was bar mitzvah’ed and how I thought such an event would be the catalyst for the world’s end and how disappointed I was that it wasn’t. The world was what it was and continued in earnest up to this point.
So that night I listened to a woman loudly moaning outside before I fell asleep. The moans consisted of unintelligible words, just a collection of meaningless tones rising from her gut and scratching through her throat, over and over, the same sound over and over, until a man yelled out a window, “Will you please just shut the fuck up!” and the woman stopped, and when she continued again, her meaninglessness was much quieter.
Then I smiled as I continued to watch Night of the Comet because I knew it was coming soon, and before I knew it, I was asleep, dreaming of being in a place I had never been before, and in this place I had never been before, I was frantically searching for a place to live.
continue reading >>
Two Stiffs in Lovelock
by Eric Spooner
The day was already warming up as we rolled into what looked like a dusty hellhole of a desert town around 8 am with the windows rolled down. As I drove east from Reno on the interstate, the first couple of “Two Stiffs Selling Gas” billboards had heightened our expectation of some hilarious or unusual point of interest to break the monotony of the trip. But after a hundred miles and a dozen more sightings of the same billboard, our arrival in Lovelock was pretty anti-climatic. The joke about two stiffs passing gas had long ago ceased being funny and the town itself looked fairly dead.
But Chip was the perfect prophylactic for boredom: someone who was constantly entertaining himself and anyone around him. Practically his every utterance was part of a perpetual performance of unscripted satire in which he was the star. He was almost always in character yet constantly changing character as warranted to suit a change in scene.
“You know, most counties in Nevada have legalized prostitution,” Chip said in his normal persona, or at least the one I associated as being the real Chip. He checked my reaction as he broached the subject for the umpteenth time. “With a name like Lovelock, this town” he said gesturing through the windshield “has to be the Grand Central for hookers. So keep an eye out for the local cathouses. They always have names ending in ranch like Mustang Ranch and Cottontail Ranch.”
“Tell me you’re joking. I remember you saying how you wanted to avoid getting into trouble in Nevada - just drive straight through and stop only for gas.”
continue reading >>
by Eric Spooner
The day was already warming up as we rolled into what looked like a dusty hellhole of a desert town around 8 am with the windows rolled down. As I drove east from Reno on the interstate, the first couple of “Two Stiffs Selling Gas” billboards had heightened our expectation of some hilarious or unusual point of interest to break the monotony of the trip. But after a hundred miles and a dozen more sightings of the same billboard, our arrival in Lovelock was pretty anti-climatic. The joke about two stiffs passing gas had long ago ceased being funny and the town itself looked fairly dead.
But Chip was the perfect prophylactic for boredom: someone who was constantly entertaining himself and anyone around him. Practically his every utterance was part of a perpetual performance of unscripted satire in which he was the star. He was almost always in character yet constantly changing character as warranted to suit a change in scene.
“You know, most counties in Nevada have legalized prostitution,” Chip said in his normal persona, or at least the one I associated as being the real Chip. He checked my reaction as he broached the subject for the umpteenth time. “With a name like Lovelock, this town” he said gesturing through the windshield “has to be the Grand Central for hookers. So keep an eye out for the local cathouses. They always have names ending in ranch like Mustang Ranch and Cottontail Ranch.”
“Tell me you’re joking. I remember you saying how you wanted to avoid getting into trouble in Nevada - just drive straight through and stop only for gas.”
continue reading >>
The Perilous Puppets of
Doctor Praetorius - an
excerpt from the novel Scarabocchio
NEW
by Grace Andreacchi
I had not been back at the hotel more than a quarter of an hour when there came a knock at my door and I opened to find Dr. Praetorius stooping over a guttering candle that lit up his white wisps of hair like a demonic halo.
‘Won’t you come and observe my little experiments, Professor?’ he said, and then added in a singsong undertone, ‘Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, Will you join the dance?’ to which accompaniment he executed a species of shuffling dance. He then laughed a singular dry little laugh that was more like a cough than anything else. Somewhat taken aback by this display, I nonetheless accepted the invitation - indeed, to have done otherwise would have been awkward and I had, after all, a certain curiosity as to what manner of ‘experiments’ the strange little Doctor would prove to be engaged upon. I confess it had occurred to me that he did not appear to be a suitable guardian for his sensitive young charge, but this need have no bearing on his aptitude in the field of pure science.
I shut the door to my room but neglected to lock it (an omission I was to rue later in the evening), and followed him up the broad staircase in the dark, guided only by the fitful light of the candle. We had climbed to the attic storey before he turned down the narrow corridor and stopped before a heavy oaken door identical to my own. I was wondering to myself why, in an empty hotel, he had been given rooms so far out of the way, when I heard a low sobbing and the sound of someone or something thumping at the wall.
continue reading >>
Doctor Praetorius - an
excerpt from the novel Scarabocchio
NEW
by Grace Andreacchi
I had not been back at the hotel more than a quarter of an hour when there came a knock at my door and I opened to find Dr. Praetorius stooping over a guttering candle that lit up his white wisps of hair like a demonic halo.
‘Won’t you come and observe my little experiments, Professor?’ he said, and then added in a singsong undertone, ‘Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, Will you join the dance?’ to which accompaniment he executed a species of shuffling dance. He then laughed a singular dry little laugh that was more like a cough than anything else. Somewhat taken aback by this display, I nonetheless accepted the invitation - indeed, to have done otherwise would have been awkward and I had, after all, a certain curiosity as to what manner of ‘experiments’ the strange little Doctor would prove to be engaged upon. I confess it had occurred to me that he did not appear to be a suitable guardian for his sensitive young charge, but this need have no bearing on his aptitude in the field of pure science.
I shut the door to my room but neglected to lock it (an omission I was to rue later in the evening), and followed him up the broad staircase in the dark, guided only by the fitful light of the candle. We had climbed to the attic storey before he turned down the narrow corridor and stopped before a heavy oaken door identical to my own. I was wondering to myself why, in an empty hotel, he had been given rooms so far out of the way, when I heard a low sobbing and the sound of someone or something thumping at the wall.
continue reading >>
