ANDREW BISS

This is an extract from the fifth story from The Impressionists . In this one, a woman in the viewing room of a funeral home addresses the body in the coffin before her. This is a very short one, hence the short extract. I hope you enjoy it. Organ Failure Well, well, just take a look at you…all scrubbed and polished and ready for inspection. I have to hand it to them, they really did a good job on you. Who could imagine seeing you now that such a short time ago you were lying in a pool of your own vomit, your organs finally having decided to give up on you…just like everyone else. Except me. What did they stuff in your cheeks? Cotton, is it? Or some synthetic stuff? No, I think it’s cotton…the look, the feel of cotton. Cotton mouth – how ironic. Well, whatever it is, it’s a good look for you. You were always so gaunt and drawn, but now you look…well, quite lively. What a shame. Still, it’ll make for a good send off. And like they say, you never get a second chance to make a last impres...

I've decided that my next project will be to adapt my one-act play The One-Eyed Guru into a short story. Generally, my writing tends to fall into one of two camps: a heightened reality/absurdist style or straightforward realism/naturalism. I didn't decide this...it's just how I write. The One-Eyed Guru was, at the time that I wrote it, the most naturalistic play I'd written up until that point, which was still very early in my writing career. I have no idea where the idea for the story came from, but it appeared in my head one day and I wrote it all out. For whatever reason, I never really pushed that play in any marketing sense, though its had several productions and still generates interest from visitors to my website. But I've never really given it the attention that I honestly think it deserves. Part of that is the onset of the "anything longer than 10-Minutes will not be accepted" trend in one-act festivals that has taken place over the past decade. ...