New flash fiction, and as is my custom, it is all B.S.

Cosmetic Advice

D' Americans, day come to us and say, "how you people have such smooth and lustrous skin?"

O, ho, ho, ho, dat take us all many huntings and gatherings of fact to answer. Da' wily goddess, Truliheinous, she quip, "No hope, baseball fans, you people born ugly." She say simple answer beat circuitous explanation. We have primal beauty, you have the heart break of psoriasis. You have crags and bags, we can't help you. But not so fast the unwillingness to be of service.

You have no octopussiroot, an herb we use in our ceremonies. Without this herb we all shrivel up and lose teeth. We no get psoriasis. No bags. No crags. Your life expectancy is pitiful 85, ours is 142. And dat include infant mortality and spouse poisonings. You bozos calculate without bullshit, you're all no good for more than early fifties. But my people, we understand your insecurities. Television say 'Wring around the collar,' and everyone turns to Whisk detergent, as if that could make you half of us. No sweat on the collar of our Brooks Brothers. We no dry clean Armani suits. Only da' baseball fan freak about invisible barriers to bliss.

But it seems our radiant skin you envy. Da gold and diamonds you wear resemble a zoot suit on a pecary. We wear gold and look fab. You wear gold, you look wrinkled. There is no hard feelings. None at all. We will help you with your baneful cuisine, your cosmetic tragedies. Ask away, honored tourists. We have time. We have time for your bullshit. So ask.

Sounds and Herbs

Wingo nonis proverbo, octopussyroot. We have sustained our youth and beauty with herbs and incantations. You silly Americans have no understanding of sound. Even your teensy jagged morphemes fail to change molecular structures! It's your language, and not ours, that has sent Manateena into this kind of bitter rotation. She drills the Earth to Ulan Bator and back, if you will pardon my outrage. On her return she pronounces her sentence on America. "You get the orange Cheeto, you assholes," she wailed.

I've given you the name of that herb that can fix a slack jaw. It can repair a spastic colon. It will undo your failed cosmetic surgery and your parts that passed their warranty. And it will increase longevity, if you find acumen for avoiding the slip and fall. If you don't get eaten by feral hogs. If you avoid country music in a gun free zone. If all that, our octopussyroot will help you. Do not be timid. The herb is swallowed, en masse, after an incantation, without which, you still have a double chin. Repeat after me, and keep repeating till your toque floats:

Ooogie raga, octopussy, big one, horny apex. Ooogie raga, nonis proverbo ratso nofuckum. Ooogie raga.