Fred Aiken Writing

April 27, 2023

Creative Suicide, or The Real Evolutionary Reason for Mustaches

It was February when Darby killed himself. February 22. That date used to not mean anything to Cathleen, Darby’s sister. She found him hanging. She couldn’t believe it. Darby hung himself by tying a noose from his mustache. She doesn’t know how he did it. But she can’t get the image out of her head.

He wore a bright-red plaid collar shirt with his favorite corduroys—Who can kill themselves in their favorite corduroys? she thought—and he had grown out his mustache for fifteen years. Had he been planning it that long? Had he been miserable all those years?

April 27, 2023

What a Flock of Flamingoes is Called Can Be a Good Conversation Starter

i looked over to my wife during dinner

and realized i didn’t have anything meaningful to say

and feared that she might not love me anymore,

though i would probably never ask her that outright,

in fear that she might lie

so instead i tell her that a flock of flamingoes is called a flamboyance,

which she didn’t believe,

so i pulled up wikipedia and she saw that i was right,

even seeming a little impressed,

and i think i saved my marriage with that fact, for just one more night