prompt: find, title: title drop in "the next big thing" flash fiction

The scientist’s healthy-but-radically-altered form as a female sasquatch turned out seven-feet four-inches tall. Taller than Frank but not so much it underlined his own relative shortness too much, something his ego appreciated, Frank at six-eleven nearly a midget by their standards.

There’s sexual dimorphism in yeti, differences beyond the usual mammalian primary sexual organs and traits, but not as pronounced in his race as ours. An average man, six inches taller than an average woman, weight difference around thirty pounds. I don’t know what that is in their measures. I was a film major for God’s sake I couldn’t find that difference in metric, let alone in bigfoot. An average male three inches taller, maybe fifteen pounds heavier.

When Frank awoke from the brink of death, the last thing that he expected to smell was another yeti, let alone a female. It wasn’t a thousandth as surprising however as discovering how before Mitzi’s bargain, Ben had been a human male, the scientist willing to sacrifice Frank to regain his health. But Mitzi’s deal was with Y-H-W-H, the legendarily mercurial Lord of Jews, Christians and Muslims, whose logic can only be charitably described as “beyond our understanding”. Her request “Fix it!” indeed fixed things from a certain point of view, Mitzi conventionally beautiful, the scientist certainly healthy, Frank no longer alone. All “fixed” in manners not as intended, but by God accomplished. For a certain definition of “accomplished”.

There are those who say Los Angeles is evil, a place of darkness and depravity. They’d probably be even more on board with that notion if they knew about the Curse of the Thirty Mile Zone and believed it. But as much as I left it the first time a little bit broken inside, as much of the pain and suffering I witnessed predicated on the broken promise of a city of dreams, I don’t believe that as actually the case. In the end, the curse can’t do much more than lure you there then tell you what you want to believe about yourself. A mirror of all your worst parts, maybe, or at least your most grasping desperate parts. An opportunity to stare into the numb hole at the center of your ego and slowly, surely feel the void stare back. Nothing the T.M.Z. does to you, to me, involves anything more than what you brought along. If there wasn’t something gnawing inside, demanding to be considered brilliant or beautiful, to compensate for something else missing, it can’t manifest to rip you apart. If you aren’t nursing massive narcissistic injuries already, the Curse can’t call you to begin with. Call me there to begin with.

But one thing’s for sure, ask Mitzi, ask Ben, ask Frank the now-former last of his kind, any of us could tell you true: L.A. does change you. Sometimes you get discovered at some soda fountain, sometimes you die in a gutter and sometimes, like that desperate scientist, you instead end up as the next big thing.

Last updated June 20, 2022