Sick Synopses or My Inner Kilgore Trout - Ideas for Short Fiction

The Torture Artist
An artist looks back at his career and is tormented by the idea that he hasn’t really been able to share his authentic self with those who interact with his art. He proceeds to commit a home invasion in a rural area, where he ties a couple up, rapes them repeatedly, and chews their fucking faces off while they still live.


The Sexual Experience
Various extremely graphic though dry and clinical descriptions of fractured bones.


A Drug Free Environment
A couple enjoys a night at the symphony and then goes home to kill their pet bird with a mallet.


The Night America Burned Down
An elderly woman does some gardening.


Wrapped In Plastic
Written advertisements for paramilitary and riot gear designed for the police: tactical shields, repeating shotguns, breaching vehicles, etc.


True
A sadomasochistic couple finds a stray dog and tortures it, finally cutting its head off. The head then begins speaking to them and ultimately bids them to cast runes from a mingled flow of bodily fluids so that it can deliver prophecy.


Hamburger Helper
A man with a botfly infestation becomes a prostitute in an attempt to obtain the money for treatment.


Women are from Venus
The President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Cydonia gives a televised State of the Union address during which he is wearing a stitched together “girl suit” of preserved human flesh ala Ed Gein or Buffalo Bill. The suit has three rows of jiggling tits and he wears it with his trademark red necktie draped between them. The state of the union, he says, is strong. He intersperses this address with anecdotes about the women whose skin make up the girl suit, such as the number of children they had or how they clenched their fists when he slit their throat. In a cutaway, a married couple discuss the speech and comment on the necktie, allowing that though the red is traditional Martian attire, the President really should have worn blue as it would make him look more dignified.


30 Minutes of Sicko
A brief history of Family Feud is followed with an example show’s polling answers being analyzed in minute detail. Among the categories polled in the example show: Something You Do After Masturbating and Things You See In an Automobile Accident.


Reality Assassin
Starting in her home, a woman walks through a series of doors and gates as she slowly comes to the realization that she absolutely fucking hates her husband and children. At the end she finds herself in a meadow surrounded by wildflowers.


The Magic of Ice
Purple butterflies follow a beautiful and gentle man everywhere he goes. A jealous husband tracks the butterflies to his home, where he catches his wife in bed with the man and proceeds to vent his rage in unusual ways.


The Rise of the Night
A would-be dictator is kidnapped by radicals and forced to undergo gender reassignment surgery in an effort to change his viewpoints. S/he maintains her fascist worldview even so. The real breakthrough comes after a fecal microbiota transplant.


Edgewater, Mon Amour
A man conducts a mass shooting at his office. Upon apprehension, he repeats the phrase “I don’t speak German,” over and over and seems unable to say anything else. A reporter who happened to be near the site of the incident has the scoop, but his editor turns him down on the basis that mass shootings have become passe and gauche and bore the public to tears at this point. So they concoct a story that involves a government coverup of a DARPA-funded experiment with hallucinogens and cutting edge time travel “Zeitsprung” technology.


The Goldfish
A middle aged couple’s life has become stale and routine. The wife takes up tennis and begins to become infatuated with the young tennis coach she is working with. She tries to flirt with him but he pretends not to notice, though she is uncertain if this is out of professionalism or if he genuinely isn't interested. One afternoon she returns home after a lesson and has an intense sexual fantasy about him. Her husband comes home from work a little early and sees her in the throes of passion, but she is so caught up in the ecstasy of the moment that she does not notice him. He quietly backs away and sits down in the living room, where they keep a goldfish, which he feeds and then watches for a time.


Furnishing
A woman must choose new drapes for the living room. She becomes paralyzed with indecision because there are so many choices and possibilities. This paralysis begins to bleed into other parts of her life and soon she cannot function at all.


Pure
An investigator begins looking into the rancid underworld where snuff films and child pornography intersect. He develops a cover identity in order to allow him to probe further. He soon loses himself and becomes complicit in the production of this material.


Babylon
A historian is cast from mainstream academia for holocaust denial and minimizing the atrocities of Nazi Germany. This is the last straw for his poor wife, who leaves him as a result of this loss of face and reputation. After she leaves, he mourns, and becomes intoxicated.  He proceeds to dress up in an authentic SS uniform, part of his personal collection. He does his best to achieve an erection by looking at a mixture of death camp footage and AI-generated pornography of famous Nazis, but it’s no use. As he passes out, sexually frustrated and covered in his own vomit, he vows to join the police.


Whitehouse
An extensive catalog of the various sexual proclivities of U.S. Presidents from Washington to present day. Gets really interesting after Roswell.


The Organ Grinder
A man tours the city with his pet mandril, who occasionally and for no discernable reason mauls some nearby person very, very badly.


Movement
A man looks out over his rice field and sees something white moving and wriggling, but he can’t tell what it is. He tells his neighbor, who also sees it, and becomes curious about it. The neighbor goes to take a closer look as the man heads inside to clean up for the day. He forgets all about the incident until the next day, when he catches a glimpse of his neighbor in the rice field. He goes to see his neighbor and the man has gone almost catatonic except for occasionally muttering about movement. Over the next few days several other people in the town are found in the same condition. The following week the man catches sight of the white thing again and goes himself to investigate it.


The Flesh of Heaven
A middle-aged detective who is sexually obsessed with his teenage niece works a school shooting and ruminates on the devastating effects of high powered rifle fire on the human body.

Sonic Consciousness

A struggling musician has a series of surgeries that slowly transform his body into a musical instrument.  His mind follows.

Babel

A man begins constructing a tower in a wing of his house.  The tower rises to nine stories and he keeps building it.  His obsession with it and total dedication to it cuts him off from his family.  Eventually the tower collapses and his obsession with it ends; he then reconnects with his wife and children.

They Float on the Surface

A woman has a calming mental routine of naming all the various capital cities of the countries in the world in a kind of mantra as she relaxes in the bath.  One day she cannot remember the capital of Macedonia, and this throws everything in her world off kilter.

Seller's Market

A catalog for a company specializing in paid intimacy, generally of a non-sexual nature.  You can have someone stroke your hair or put a cold washcloth on your forehead, or kiss your neck and shoulders.  You can talk to someone who will listen sympathetically and offer suggestions or condolences, a friendly hug, or will let you just cry and cry while they hold you and reassure you.

Thanatos Avenue

After an unnamed calamity causes global environmental and societal collapse, five drivers race across a desert where the walking dead roam.

Naptime for Scrunchie

A family cat wanders around a mansion, noting the incredibly dysfunctional behavior of its inhabitants; the dad is tuned out of everything except work, the mom continually makes not-so-subtle passes at her son, who is home from college, and the daughter dreams of one day leaving everything behind, perhaps to join the military.

Lord of This World

A day in the life of a group of nihilistic suburban teens.

The Anonymity Exhibition

A hotel worker finds a woman's corpse in a room that was supposed to be unoccupied.

The Coprophage

A man who lives alone wakes up, takes a shower, goes to his office job, has a routine day, goes to the gym, and comes home to make himself dinner before watching a little TV and going to bed.