Free The Best of Electric Velocipede by John Klima

white-headed pimple. The white something slid out and onto the faux-finished counter. Elorraine crouched down for a better look. It was a tiny half circle, reminded her of a Spaghetti-O. She pressed her thumb against it, expecting it to smush into a flat puss blob, but it did not. It slipped onto the side of her finger, stuck there. She raised her hand up to her eye. Odd, she thought. But rinsed her finger under the faucet anyway, watching it slide down the drain. When she scrubbed her hands with a small Ramada soap before bed, she craned her neck to see if the blemish was worsening. It had disappeared. She thought little of it until the next morning when the lump had returned.
    She ignored it as best she could during foraging but by four o’clock, the lump was as big as her fist and it pulsated, throbbed. The noodles were on the stove and Elorraine could take it no longer. She leaned over the kitchen sink and squeezed the baseball-sized protrusion. She heard a series of thumps and felt an immediate relief of the pressure. Glancing into the sink, she noticed what appeared to be eight pieces of penne pasta. She nudged one with her finger. Was it cooked? She smelled it, rinsed it and was certain it was. She slowly bit, chewed, swallowed. It was pasta. Elorraine decided to keep this incident to herself—curious whether it would continue.
    In the ensuing days, Elorraine was thrilled to learn that this was not an isolated incident. Each morning the lump would appear and then grow exponentially throughout the day. She began snacking on her homemade/self-made pasta after her tiring foraging trips. She found that the more often she squeezed, the more pasta she produced. To her delight, she also realized that squeezing the lump, which she thought of as her pasta spigot, at different angles would produce different types of pasta.
    The first night she served her pasta to the family, she was filled with apprehension; she dared not tell them the origin of the feast as they would likely judge her and force her to seek out treatment for the problem. The boys and Iken and even Kimber were delighted with the change in the usual schedule. She served a hearty helping of ziti with ketchup and sugar sauce from her foraging. The next evening she served elbow macaroni and even splurged on a block of cheddar to melt for macaroni and cheese. Her family’s eyes glowed and they ate furiously, daring not to question the seeming adjustment in Elorraine’s behavior.
    She spent her days secretly harvesting the various types of pasta her neck would yield, preparing multi-coursed meals for her family. Pasta salad made with tri-colored radiatore to start. A side of angel hair. Even cheese tortellini and ravioli. Each night was a feast for the eyes and tastebuds.
    Elorraine’s freebie-foraging fell by the wayside as the pasta harvesting took up much of her time. The lump pulsed and she was compelled to drain its contents into a strainer, which she would rinse and then deposit in a container, sealed tight with a shower cap. She began purchasing more products at the grocery store. Needing only to provide sauces and dressing for her pastas, she felt she could indulge and buy some regular goods without much further expense.
    In the post-meal euphoria of a Wednesday evening Cavatelli Caesar salad, followed by Fettuccini Alfredo, with a side of linguini and garlic sauce, Elorraine suggested that the family dine out the next evening. They all cheered and licked their plates clean. They ventured out to the local Olive Garden the following night, where they feasted on bread and salad and of course, pasta. Elorraine was at once disappointed and overjoyed to realize the superiority of taste and texture of her self-made pasta. Iken paid the bill and Elorraine was surprised by how little she worried about the cost.
    The next morning when she squeezed her neck in preparation for that evening’s dinner, nothing emerged. She tried again, and again later, bloodying her