Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Flash Piece, "Ambien Beatle," published in Oddball Magazine

     I'm grateful that my friends at Oddball published my story (click link >>>>), "Ambien Beatle," but I want to talk about the evolution of how my mind moved in order to write that story. It's a long strange trip.

      Let's talk about the sleep aid, Ambien first. It can make you do funny things while you're supposed to be asleep, such as binge eating, walking across town, and as in the Rep. Patrick "I wasn't drinking" Kennedy case, become a zombie and crash your car.
There is a funny comic online which satires the Ambien experience called The Ambien Walrus.  

I love this comic!
  

 When a friend spoke about insomnia, I recalled these stories when she spoke of perhaps needing a prescription for Ambien. Which led me to singing. Funny, how puns and wordplay become things to sing, but I found myself singing the words ambien walrus to the Beatles "I Am The Walrus."










  
     So I expanded this wordplay forming a flash fiction piece for which incorporates a truck load more lyrics from Beatles songs, written in a dream-like state. I bet you can find at least 10-15 different songs in the piece.

     It's not the first time I've played with lyrics in flash fiction. In 2009, Monkeybicycle published Pretty Flamingo, and in 2012 JMWW published This Tornado Loves You. And to think, I took my first poetry course to improve my own lyrics. 

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