Monster Mouth
Flash Flood 2023
Kaijus and Beasts of Burden. My mind’s gone all monster collage this August 2025.
The meditative flow of creativity hits me more immediate with collage. With writing, the state of nirvana takes time to achieve. Once I begin laughing, it’s my one sure sign I have reached transcendence. I have subverted every grammar rule learned in every English class ever taken! I become one with the pure joy of written expression.
With collage, I suppose rules exist. Layering texture is worthy of discussion, I would suspect. Having never received formal instruction, I have no preconceived notions to hold me back, to cause me to think you’re doing it wrong. My imagination runs unconstrained, unhindered. I think also, it’s the immediate connection with the materials.
My hands are in the mix. My brain goes kinesthetic. I’m in the zone.
The work - whether written or collaged - is alive.
“Monster Mouth” needed a couple bolts of lightning.
The story concept was based on a childhood incident where five-year-old Sheree fell through a flimsily covered heating vent and into the furnace. Fairly tramautic and particularly weather-foreign in general as my family moved from where the weather is always warm to live short-term in (brrr) Wyoming.
As a writer I found my words clumsy with the bitter cold weather references. As an almost native Floridian, it’s highly unlikely a child will fall through a floor laid on a concrete slab once the electric heat clicks on when the two weeks of “winter” arrives.
This creative nonfiction piece was anything but creative. It struggled in memoir quicksand.
I couldn’t get out of my own memory bank.
I had to lose my version of the story.
I had to write myself out.
After three years of trying, the story finally took on a life of its own.
“Monster Mouth” was published as part of Flash Flood 2023 on National Flash Fiction Day, June 24, 2023 @ 1:20 (BST) here.
Thank you, editors.
For collagists with monsters at the ready:
Kolaj Institute invites collage artists to make a big orange monster collage for an exhibition at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans. A selection will be featured in a small publication. The exhibition is being curated by Ric Kasini Kadour.
All collages must be received in New Orleans by September 4, 2025. Keep in mind, the mail does not deliver on Labor Day.
All collages are included in the exhibition.
Read the details here.
Monster Mouth
Monster Mouth fans his flames with ragged accordion breaths. Hisses. Grumbles. Shimmers yellow, trembles orange. Coughs up a Barbie, her zebra swimsuit charred.
The girl loved that doll. She gives the heater a good kick.
It bellows red, red, red, then red hot red with spits of blue, like hot flames on a gas stove pop pop popping fried chicken in an iron skillet.
She scoots back fast against the chilly concrete block.
“Now you’ve made him mad.” The boy tugs a toy soldier from his pocket. “Heads up,” he calls.
She looks at him looking down at her from where the flimsy floor vent gave way beneath her feet.
“For protection,” he says and drops the combat commando through the hole.
A box of tissues drops next, followed by a cookie. Oatmeal with a hint of cherry chocolate.
“Monster Mouth, he’s got a cold,” the brother tells the sister. “Give him the cookie and maybe, he’ll let you wipe his nose.”
The heater snorts. Snuffles. Sniffs back a sneeze.
“You wipe his nose,” she yells back and throws the cookie inside the monster’s mouth. She smells toasted oatmeal. Melted cherry chocolate. Browning brown sugar.
She imagines being swallowed by a bakery.
***
As always, thank you for reading Shared Madness.