Sometimes I think eyes are the creepiest part of the human body, because they’re like jellyfish that can see, right there in the middle of everybody’s face…and there are TWO of them, conspiring to either attack or breed. Thank god for the nose, otherwise they might see how close they really are to each other and then it would all be over with. And thank god the nose isn’t REALLY a bridge.

Of course, seeing eye-to-eye can be a problem, but I suspect eyes are actually racist and don’t want to mix colors. Otherwise, doomsday.

Now I know that you’re thinking they can see each other and conspire whenever you look in the mirror. But you’ll notice that whenever you look in the mirror the eyes don’t cross. That’s because eyes are narcissistic little monsters and can’t get enough of themselves in the mirror. They hate us, but we kind of make a pretty outfit for them nevertheless.

They say the eyes are the doorway to the soul. That’s alien propaganda. Don’t believe it for a minute.

You might think the blind are spared this abominable infestation. But the blind still have eyes in their sockets — they’re just the handicapped ones of their own kind.

Yes, you could punch them or poke them or fizzle them out with cigarettes. Yes, you could wear patches to debilitate them or gouge them out with forks. But you’d have to be able to see what you were doing and our dependency on them is all part of their sick master plan.

This is why the saving grace of humanity is the television set. It keeps the eyes placid.

At least, I tell myself that whenever that shiny glass screen starts to look like one of their kind, an open channel just waiting for a broadcast from beyond.

Nightmares or not, it’s only when we sleep that we truly see.

The geologist takes his old rock
chiseler to the flunky student’s skull
and then impresses upon him
the concept of earth tectonics
the hard way, mashing the plates
of his gored gaia until the crust
breaks open and a tsunami
of blood and brain splurts
out of the volcano he’s made –
lava of the learned, burning
hot red and gray all the way down
the cold canyons of his corduroy sleeves

Nightmare Gallery

Reemco Products (As Never Seen on TV!)

Urban Beasts

If the characters in Open Water drove you crazy, then now’s your chance for revenge. Play SC Stoddard’s “Mad Shark” and you get to be an insane great white shark who must feast on scuba divers before they attack you with their steely knives. Time to sink your chum or cut bait!

http://www.shockwave.com/sw/content/madshark

From the new review of 100 Jolts at SFReader.com:

“While writing this review I re-read a number of these stories and was amazed all over again by their sheer inventiveness, their razor sharp prose, and the perfectly streamlined delivery of so many of them. All of the one hundred stories presented here are entertaining. A number of them are classics. Michael Arnzen should be proud of what he has accomplished. 100 JOLTS is the creation of a very talented writer at the top of his game.”– Ray Wallace

100 Jolts is available for a little over $10 at amazon.com

A great review of my flash fiction collection, 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories, just went up at the multimedia horror review site, Creature Corner. Here’s a quip from reviewer Randy Schaub:

Arnzen