The Odd and the Strange Quotes

“The television set then came after her, chomping its teeth.  Upon reaching the living room, the television succeeded at eating her body bit-by-bit: first the legs, then the body, and finally her flailing arms.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“After the front legs emerged, what looked like a quartered and bloodied cut of steak followed.  This piece of steak had rich and dark fur, wet with the mare’s internal membranes that covered the whole body, but it did not have the look of a horse at all.  And yet from the steak’s center came this pulsating heartbeat, as though its pace-setting qualities tried in vain to pull away or escape from its thoroughbred side.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“At first, she bucked like a wild stag beneath me, and she tried to scream, but the pillow did a good job of muffling her voice.  Before long, the bucking stopped, and my wife’s corpse, blue without oxygen, appeared below me like a hideous phantom.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“The orderly brandished a hunting knife from a sheath at his waist and sliced open the prisoner’s throat with it.  Warm blood cascaded out of the prisoner’s throat, some of it spraying the captain’s uniform.  The orderly waited for the prisoner to bleed to death before cutting the head clean off.  Within a few minutes, the muscle that the prisoner built on his body was carved out and thrown on the grill.  After the meat cooled, the orderly put the human steaks in front of the captain for dinner.  As the captain ate each buttery piece, he couldn’t help but compliment the orderly for a job well-done.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“She tossed him a small mirror so that he could see the results, and what he saw horrified him.  The boiling concoction left a deep trail of burnt skin that stretched from the crown of his head all the way to his chin – almost like an artificial sluice that burned his flesh to form a large rivulet that ran down the center of his face.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“He wasn’t sure if his parents would be proud that their child had served his country or not.  There had always been something unnatural about parents burying their children.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“She likes me.  I can tell.  Problem is, she won’t admit that to the boyfriends she brings over.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“It seemed as though he would never pull free, until he awoke one morning feeling kind of awkward, as though his hands had been lopped off by some Arabian sword during a routine druggie blackout, and in their place, pale and membranous hands that had been fit to his wrists by aliens that took him up while he slept and then brought him back down – all of it in an effort to help him move up to where he belonged in society.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“She is the kind and friendly sort, but I’m an old man at this point, so it would be useless and somewhat illegal if I asked her out.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“She put all of her weight against the sill of the balcony, her lovesick heart ready and willing to join the man she loved.  She closed her eyes and pushed herself forward.  From three stories high, she plummeted to the earth.  Before hitting the ground, she swore she saw him, racing down from the heavens and lifting her up towards God’s domain where lovers never ceased to rule.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“Once inside my skull, my doctor added some salt, just to taste.  He also poured some fruit into my skull – an apple, a pear, a few seedless grapes, and a ripe banana.  He then used an electric blender set on its highest speed to create what he had termed ‘a yogurt parfait.’  After he finished blending the ingredients, he beckoned the other doctors and a few of the nurses to sample his new concoction.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and the Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction