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Idiot Balloon

6/26/2016

 
By JUDYTH EMANUEL
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Photo by Natasha D'Souza / Flickr

​And here we are whoopee in our rented house, a merry shambles of sticky shot glasses, torn condom wrappers, scrunched tissues, holes in the curtains, stains that nobody wants to clean. You do it. No you do it. Both of us young, foolish, and greasy with plenty of time to take afternoon naps. Like now my boyfriend Punch is asleep on the sofa. I leap about with excitement. It’s the perfect time to use my powers because the recipient of any spell must be unconscious or sleeping. An electric thrill ignites the sitting room. It illuminates the mess. Oh God I should tidy up. No. No distractions. I must spellbind Punch by turning him into an inanimate object capable of great love. Of course he does really love me. I think he does. But not enough. Though he frequently shouts,


“Kiki, I goddam loves ya babe.” 

He’s such a ham. He adores ham. He eats too much ham. This boy is thick as a ham, which bothers me. I often tell him,

“I am different from you.” 

Punch has cute dribbles of ketchup on the front of his T-shirt. He wears strange musky cologne and has filthy scarecrow hair.
​

“Yeah right,” he blinks bleary eyes. “Youse got a few marbles loose in the top paddock.”
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E Pluribus Penguin

6/19/2016

 
by ARTHUR WHITAKER

​I'll tell you what today so far has been a real prize winner. First Miriam calls us into her office for a meeting, to tell us our new goals for the semester: a five percent increase in attendance, a ten percent decrease in student discipline. I'll be sure to let the kids know I need a one-hundred-fifty percent reduction in BS. That my job depends on it.


Someone forgot to send the memo to the Mopother kid. I'm beside the water fountains in A Wing, looking for stragglers, when I hear McDuffy's voice in between static emitted from the radio I wear clipped to my belt. He tells me Ms. Dunlap has a non-compliant kid that needs babysitting.

By the time I get to room 245 there's ten minutes left in the period. I open the door and everyone is looking at Mopother. He's sitting there with a satisfied grin on his face, like he just thought up an invention for horizontal bungee jumping. Over his jeans and tee shirt he's got a pullover sweatshirt that's black except for a white oval that spans from navel to collar line. On his head is a mask that leaves his face exposed. Above his own smug face is a yellow beak that flops when he turns his head. On either side of the beak, some google eyes are sewn into the fabric. 

I know better than to ask the problem, plus I already know the problem. I tell him to come with me. He protests, and I clarify that I'm not asking him, I'm telling him. Which shuts him up, for a minute anyway. Walking to my office we encounter some of the special needs students who leave class a few minutes early. They all look at the Mopother kid like he's some alien life form. To me that about sums up the situation. 
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Last Human Survivor

6/12/2016

 
by ADINA DAVIS

​Pond water laps Rachel’s knees as a trio of hydrophobic zombies grunts at her from shore. It’s the last day of the shoot, mid-April and already hot. Rachel sweats inside her roommate’s orange fur jacket. She’d been anticipating getting her brains chomped early on, but then Frank, a film student whose last name really is Speelburg, changed his mind. It’s you, kiddo, he told her. The last human survivor of the zombie apocalypse. It makes her kind of giddy.


Although they only travel in threes, the zombies can rip her apart with horde-like efficiency. They’re land bound; for now, she’s safe. But she can’t stay in the pond forever. So unless she’s not really the last human survivor, unless someone else comes bumbling along in all their flesh, blood, and mortality, she’s screwed. 

#

Not leather, Frank said.

But why not, exactly? said the prop girl, who also does makeup. Rachel watched her try not to roll her eyes. The three of them clustered on the quad, the day before the shoot began.

Frank’s face tilted toward the sky. He stared so long both Rachel and the prop girl followed his gaze upward. There was nothing there. Not a bird. Not a plane. Not even a cloud. Frank lowered his head back to earth. We’re all meat, he said.
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Questions Alex Asked His Wife Before She Left

6/5/2016

 
BY ANNE ANTHONY


​“How’d you get in?”



 “What’s with the suitcases?”


“Isn’t that green one mine?”


“Who’s sitting in the truck outside?”


“When did your brother get so fat?”


“Does Ben know, I mean, what happened?”


“Did you leave out a few details? Don’t Catholics frown on adultery?”


“Are you packing all your clothes or just the ones that fit?”



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