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Tips For Survival in China

1/31/2016

BY PHILLIP WENTURINE

There it was. Delta Flight 8843. The open doors were waiting for me to walk through them. They were waiting to take me away from my future. They were waiting to take me back home. But it wasn’t home anymore, not really. Here was home, is home.

I walked forward with the rest of my group. It was a forced walk. Head down, shoulders slumped, forcing my feet to keep going. Right, left, right again. At the top of the stairs I looked over my shoulders taking in one last inhale of smog. I made it through the door and found my seat next to Kelly. We both plugged in our ear buds and gave each other a solemn look. I reached to buckle my seat belt and hesitated for the inevitable click.

Chinese Fun Fact #1: Disregard all things polite—pushing and shoving is a way of survival.

“Passengers on Delta flight 7603 with service to Beijing, China, we will begin boarding those seated in zone one momentarily. I repeat, those seated in zone one only. Please stand by.” This is finally it! I can’t believe it--BAM. I didn’t even have time to take in the moment that I was actually going to China—CHINA!—before my luggage was knocked over and I was dragged and trampled across the airport floor by a pack of feisty Asians. Who knew momentarily boarding zone one meant a free for all for anyone waiting to leave the country?

Chinese Fun Fact #2: China is cheap, but everything has a cost.

What You Want To Know About My Firsts

1/24/2016

BY KENNETH NICHOLS

How’s this for a first memory? I was four years old, sitting too close to the TV in the living room of my parents’ starter home. My father, a construction foreman, was out on the job. My mother whistled while she cleaned and cooked.

Mom told me every day to scoot back from the bulky black-and-white TV and sit in one of the comfortable chairs a safe distance away. Every day, I ignored her. I was happy to swing my pigtails and to flop onto my belly and to rest my head on my arms and stare at the pictures on the screen like a zombie. The garish shag carpet clashed with my pink My Little Pony overalls, but it was soft, and the pile was long enough to pinch between my tiny, stubby fingers.

As usual, Mom popped in a video to keep me occupied while she made dinner. I watched Bambi and Thumper frolic in the forest. They got all twitterpated and spun around on the ice. Just as Bambi and his mother were looking for food, enjoying the change of seasons, my mother said a word I had never heard her say before. The big black cake pan and the pot roast inside clanged to the floor as she dropped them and ran into the living room. She dove to stop the movie and took the tape out of the VCR.

When I asked my jus-covered mother what was wrong, she just sighed, smiled and told me that was the end of movie. Mother and son spent the rest of their days eating berries and roaming the forest.

The End-Times at Landesdownesville High

1/17/2016

BY BENJAMIN TEDOFF

Melting Toilet by Justin Gurbisz | Flickr

Mr. Timmons is having an affair with Miss Chang. If you listen, even now, you can hear the heavy breathing. In the halls and outside in the parking lot and in the janitor’s closet and under the piano in the music room and in the motel outside of town along the freeway, you can feel the temptation and the carelessness in your inner organs and in your nether regions. It can’t possibly end with anything but public humiliation, divorce, and forced resignations, but for the moment, everyone is just too embarrassed and no one is sure what to do. Mr. Timmons is a handsome, silver-haired man. A married man. A heavy breather and a secret affair-haver. Some have said that Mr. Timmons is just too handsome to be a high school English teacher, but not too married for the janitor’s closet.

***

PA: “Good morning, students. We’re pleased to announce that this year’s bake sale raised over a thousand dollars towards our Landesdownesville High School junior college-a-thon field trip, but despite some great work by Mrs. Kleinhorst and the student council, we failed to match last year’s total of $1,200. We’d like to thank Mrs. Kleinhorst for the lovely oatmeal-raisin recipe. Her cookies taste of hope. Wholesome raisins and patriotism. A touch of vanilla. It’s just sad that the world can’t even bring itself to acknowledge what we’re offering. Just a little hope. Selfishness leads to ingratitude and ingratitude is the road to Hell and, well, there’s really nowhere to go from there.”

Pierced

1/10/2016

BY ALLISON SOBCZAK

63 by me and the sysop | Flickr

I shove the needle through her navel and ignore her painful cry.

“Ow, ow, owowowow oh shit that hurts!” Melissa’s voice, loud and shrill, is doing more damage to my eardrum than the needle is to her skin.

“Well hold still then and it won’t hurt as much.” I feel bad when I notice the diamonds squeezing out of the corners of her eyes and try for a more soothing tone. “Just relax, it’s almost over.” I pluck the lip of her belly button with my thumb and index finger and press the needle’s tip further into her flesh. Blood begins to flow, but I don’t ease my grip.

The needle stops moving. I give it a jerky shove and Melissa lets out another breathless shriek. Something’s wrong.

“What did you do?” She tenses as I try and wedge the needle deeper into her skin, but it’s stubborn and won’t budge.

“Ah man, it’s stuck. I think it’s caught on something.”

“Caught on what!?”

Amuse-Bouche

1/3/2016

BY RON BURCH

Your kid rolls around on the marble floor of the Italian restaurant. He has been screaming now for at least five minutes. He pulls the red table cloth off the neighbor's table, sending their filets with broccoli and potato crashing to the floor. A couple of the patrons laugh, quieting themselves when the three waiters in matching outfits scurry to clean it up, disappearing as fast as they appeared.

You laugh and think this is nothing but this is where it begins. This is where it could all go wrong, one thing leading to another leading to another leading to another.

My date and I don't know what to say; it's our first date; we awkwardly eat our free appetizer. You and your wife ignore your kid, a thin blonde boy who is probably six or seven. Instead you and your wife are drinking white wine in bulbous glasses, checking your matching phones to show each other pictures of your day. Your kid then throws himself in the middle of the restaurant, rolling around the tile floor and screaming as if he's been shot. Your kid climbs up the back of a chair occupied by an old man in a brown out-of-date suit and dances on his table, stepping in his soup and splashing it on the rouged cheek of the old man's wife. Your kid grabs the French bread off the table of a plain woman who is eating alone and hits her over the head with it until it breaks. And then he makes what he thinks is a cute face.

﻿Tips For Survival in China

What You Want To Know About My Firsts﻿

The End-Times at Landesdownesville High

Pierced﻿

Amuse-Bouche﻿

Monthly Archives

Tips For Survival in China

What You Want To Know About My Firsts

Pierced

Amuse-Bouche