Dime Novels From Oblivion

Round Up The Writers Zine an online literary publication was kind enough to include my work in their flash fiction anthology. A PDF copy of the issue can be found here. My piece is the first one and is followed by a number of fantastic stories that tell the tails of moments. Moments whether epic or seemingly benign are part of our much larger story.

http://www.roundupzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/flasher_ed.pdf

The lab of Doctor Jaggensuess was nested on a summit high up in the thin air of the Swiss Alps. It was situated among the enclaves of the opulent resting somewhere between a ski lodge and a private mountain villa.
The curious facility was planted in the middle of a  bountiful green field and surrounded by lush forests.  The compound was arranged into colossal rings constructed from space-age materials that when viewed from the air was reminiscent of a crop circle. It was a deliberate design that seemed to convey a message unintelligible to the casual observer.
It was a multinational project built as a symbol of cooperation between the nations of Europe.
 Within its confines, scientists from around the world tinkered with the building blocks of existence itself and attempted to unwind the precariously woven threads of reality. At least that was the claim.
Arthur Van Sloot, a Dutch accountant, was sinking into just one of several large leather armchairs in the reception area outside of …

John sat at a small desk in his room illuminated by the light of a solitary lamp. The boy was intently examining the palms of his hands. The color had left the flesh and thought he could still move them the feeling had gone as well. He clenched one hand then the other. He clenched his fists and dug his fingernails into his flesh as deeply as he could. He felt nothing. He looked back down the nails had peeled back the waxy white skin but no blood ran, this numbness ran through his entire body. While he could still move and function normally,  his body had no feeling left like his head had been severed.

 He looked at his wrists the crisscrossing veins had turned a dark blue and looked like they were rising from the skin. He followed the blood vessel's path up his arm and began to roll back the sleeve of his navy blue sweatshirt. Once he got to his forearm, he could see the slimy back side of a maggot. He felt the disgust he would expect, but for some reason, the experience did not …

The new issue of the Moon Magazine deals with the future of agriculture and food security in the world. It includes pieces by leaders in experimental agriculture and an interview with the United Nation's special rapporteur on "The right to Food". They have also published my essay on how the United States can become a global leader in the international fight against hunger white significantly lowering health care costs if it only saw the benefits of cannibalism. If you would like to know more just copy and paste the link below.
http://moonmagazine.org/nick-johnson-modern-proposition-2014-11-02/

If you're too lazy to read the story you can always listen to the narrated version by Jessica Taylor! Check it out here

All the curtains were drawn, and the lights turned out. He looked at the row of outlets on the wall just above the bed and wondered what it was all for. Marius had never been to the hospital before; he had never even seen a doctor before. Being immortal meant death had never been a consequence, so there was no need to worry about his health. He had been known by many names and held many titles during his tenure as an unholy creature of the night, so many so, at this point he could scarcely remember what his birth name was. Such things held significance for the living, for people who needed to be defined by something they hoped would last longer than their finite lives Perhaps it was to preserve a legacy, a way for mere humans who have no understanding of eternity to try and live forever. Marius knew a legacy amounted to little more than a memory and when you lived i…

(The costume and photo were both done by horror personality Ozo the Clown. Follow him https://www.instagram.com/ozotheclown/)

Midlothian was a small town, inhabited by only 689 people in all. The houses, barns, and fields formed an oasis in the fields of man-sized grass and impenetrable forests that surrounded the town like a moat. It stood seemingly unmoved by time's ceaseless current. It remained unchanged even as the rest of the world around it dissolved in a maelstrom of chaos and destruction. Midlothian was situated somewhere in the bowels of a country that had long since disappeared. No one there had been around when the fabled Goliath nation that stretched between two oceans existed. As a consequence, it had faded from Midlothian's collective memory and was relegated to the realm of myth by concurrent generations who couldn't even remember it's name. Midlothian had survived the death throws of the mighty civilization largely because of how isolated it was the o…

Fannon propelled through the eternal void in solitude. He watched with ceaseless intent for any sign of humanity in the endless nothingness. His ship was a lonely little dot of light racing along the surface of an ebony sheet. It was among the most lonely corners of deep space, devoid of any starlight and absent the glow of any planets. There was only black. The vessel was quiet. There was only the humming of the propulsion engines and the rhythmic pulsing of his infant son's life support system. The tubes and wires made an artificial umbilical cord that merged him with the machine; its heated confines were like it was a mechanical womb.
The machines kept the child maintained in perpetual stasis. He never got tired, and he never got sick, he never cried, but he also never grew. Their celestial life vessel could do little more than preserve the child in a state somewhere between life and death. That would only end when the equipment powered down, or the life-sustaining formula ceas…