markthehansen (joined over 13 years ago)
Visit Website

A writer, reader, swashbuckler, former counter-spy, soda jerk, space cowboy, and honorary Professor of Not-Quite-Mad-But-Pretty-Unusual Sciences at the University of Genial Monsters (Go Smilin' Sasquatch!), Mark J. Hansen has secretly saved the universe numerous times, with more close calls than he cares to admit. He enjoys fast trips through time and space, arm-wrestling rainbows, eccentric headwear and kittens with British accents. When he is not sharing his Stories of the Amazing and the Amazingly Well-Written, he mostly hangs out in his hot-air balloon overlooking Skull Island with a root beer float and a parrot on each shoulder, practicing hypnotism and innovative shoe-tying techniques.

Stories


On the corner of Drake Street, I waited. I was waiting for a change, for something better, for coincidence to happen upon me. And I felt this would happen there, on the corner of Drake Street.
This was like the corner's corner, with multiple slabs of the ornate bank building merging with one another. With so much coinciding, I felt there must be a high level of coincidence in this spot. And would coincidence lead me to the mysterious woman I so desperately wanted to run into, merge with? Coincide?

It helped her features were angular, from her thin arms...

Read more

Dear Santa,
Hi. I'm not good at beating around the bush, so I will get right to the point. Here is my list for Christmas this year. I realize that it is April 15th, and I am late in filing my taxes, but I felt this was more important than filing my taxes. Also, I really, really, really don't want to file my taxes. Anyway, my Christmas list.
1. I'd like a pony. A plain, brown pony is fine. If you can bring one named Trigger or Lightning or Sidney Applebaum, that would be terrific, but really, just a regular...

Read more

When I was 12, I went to sea. I went to sea to see the sea. I had yet to see the sea until I was 12. Then the sea I saw, and the sea, she saw me.
We hated each other.
I had romanticized the sea, reading stories and poetry and all the great paintings of roiling waves and citrus sunsets, and salty captains and scruffy sea dogs. It got so I could smell the sea without having smelled the sea. And I couldn't wait to see the sea. So I went.
The sea, she was not pleasant that...

Read more

That is one big rock. Or a whole buttload of really, really small rocks. If you jumped from the top of that rock, and I mean off of it, not just up and down in one place or like a little kangaroo or something, but really just ran and jumped from the top of that rock and into the air and then aimed yourself toward the edge and launched yourself off of the rock and began to plummet toward the ground way, way, way far below the rock, then you'd be falling a long time, like even longer than this...

Read more

He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet. Or were his clothes pounding and his heart soaking wet? That's the great mystery surrounding the untimely death of Clive Anthony Cliveanthony.
We know that he did run into the room, based upon the velocity of wind against his person and tread marks on the carpet from his sandals. And yet, by the time his body was discovered, the clothes were dry and the heart was definitely not pounding. His liver was pounding, but not his heart. His heart just sat there with a vacant expression, like...

Read more

The pistol was cocked, ready to go. Its bags were packed, you might say. Its shoes were on, and it was at Grandma's. Its teeth were brushed, its coat on and backpack packed. With bullets.
"Reach for the sky!" Criminal Pete shouted, holding the pistol from the previous paragraph at the unsuspecting victims.
"Okay, okay," the unsuspecting victims all said in unison. They all reached for the sky at the exact same time. They were synchronized mug victims. It was a living!
"Stop that, it's creepy, like dolls or clowns," Criminal Pete said. It was a bit creepy, but less...

Read more

Gigantic was a nickname. Gigantic gave himself the nickname Gigantic. Gigantic was many things: loud, abrasive, blond, cigar smoker, and the worst golfer in the county. What Gigantic was not, however, was Gigantic.
Now, he wasn't the smallest guy you ever did see. Five foot three, which is not large, but you might say was the antithesis of Gigantic. But you would have to know the meaning of the word antithesis. And you don't.
Anyhow, Gigantic was the only person who called himself Gigantic. Everyone else called him by his real name, which was Smailey Bott. For some reason, everyone...

Read more

Let's play a little word association game. I'll start. Are you ready for the word? I'll wait.
Ready now? Okay.
Potatoes.
No, now you say something else. Let's try again.
Potatoes.
No, see, you just repeated my word again. This isn't an echo game, you're not supposed to be the Grand Canyon. Let's try again.
Potatoes.
Okay, seriously, say what comes to mind when I say the word potatoes! I know, obviously the word potatoes comes to mind, but you have to say something else. Because that's how the game works! Come on, son, you're better than this!
What's that?...

Read more

She didn't look at him. She couldn't. "Look at me!" he shouted. She didn't. She couldn't.
She did.
Then she did again.
This went on for several hours.
"Stop looking at me!" he shouted. But she didn't not look at him. She couldn't not.
Then she didn't.
He was always looking at her. It was a condition called Iseezyaz, which causes the poor soul to stare at the person closest to them for all of infinite eternity. "It is perhaps the most unsettling, and boring disease known to mankind," Dr. Jesus Katmandu, discoverer of the disease had said upon the...

Read more

It was a brave day for navy blues men. And a sad day for pirate kind. The navy blues men had defeated the pirates at their own game, the blues. The pirates were especially bluesy that day, having been attacked by navy blues men. But the navy blues men were bluesier, there was no question about it.
"Ohhhh, we gots the blues," the navy blues man named Salut sang. "We gots more blues than yooooou!" It was stated; it was true. The pirates felt the sting of defeat. Ironically, they felt bluesier now than they had before. But it was...

Read more

Follows (2)

First Five

Fans (2)

Latest Five

Contact


We like you. Say "Hi."