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My Idea For This Story / Dear Wonderful Stranger

11/30/2016

by ELIZEYA QUATE

The Feet by Alessio Michelini / Flickr

My Idea For This Story

My first idea for this story was to build a page for homicidal sentences. They would be the toughest, meanest sentences anyone had seen in a long while. As soon as the reader opens to the first page: *blam-blam*, there they are, the sentences, just going at it.

Whoah, thinks the reader. That's blood. That blood is real.

These sentences would be criminals. They would have escaped from burned-down asylums. They would want to dance the way skeletons want to dance; with their whole bodies missing at once. They would be crude and nasty. They would behave badly. And then they would die in wanton spectacles of violence.

That didn’t work out, so my second idea for this story was to make a story that was a story about writing this story itself, like a self-zapping lightning bolt that strikes itself over and over again. This would be the paragraph where you’d get a sense of whether or not this sort of thing could hang actually together.

Me and Nettie

11/29/2016

by SCOTT McCLELLAND

First Food by Jenny Cu / Flickr

January 3, 1964

Our Ma died three days after President Kennedy was killed, and I reckon Daddy must’ve thought the whole world was coming apart on him then, ‘cause he didn’t have no idea how to take care of me, a nine-year-old boy, or worse, my little sister Nettie, who’d just turned three.

When Miss Jaskey, from the County Office, come to see if we was okay, there weren’t nothing to eat in the house ‘cept three jars of baby food from when Nettie was just a little bitty. We’d had six jars the day before, but Daddy come in the kitchen and ate two jars of sweet peaches, then left us on our own, while he went down to Rusko’s Superette to get another box of beer—that he drank warm—before knocking out on the davenport again. I fed Nettie one jar of mushed peas, and then hid them last three jars in a cubbyhole where the milkman used to leave our milk and cottage cheese.

Why I Can't Fly With My Harp

11/28/2016

by BOBBIE WAYNE

Ye Olde Harp by Baptiste Pons / Flickr

I learned that Moses was dead from Fred Koller, the dry-witted songwriter who had told me his acquaintance Moses could build me a harp case. Fred called from Nashville to say that Moses had died of “bad livin’” and that I needed to get the case before it was taken and sold to repay debts. Unfortunately, the case he had built was not the light-weight one I wanted for my small Celtic harp. But maybe if I had the case I could sell it and get my $600 back.

I wouldn’t have ordered such an expensive thing if my career as a singer/songwriter wasn’t picking up steam. Having made my first recording, I was getting airplay in college radio stations across the nation. It was time for a better instrument along with a flight case. I ordered the new harp. But Moses made very slow work of the case, despite my frequent and increasingly urgent long distance calls. Eventually he let slip the fact that he had subcontracted the work as soon as he had cashed my check for $600. I decided it was time to take a firmer stance with Moses.

New App Narceexist

11/27/2016

by DANIEL ROCHE

The Rare #Selfie by Al E. / Flickr

Every year billions of people go to bed starving for attention. Born into a hard life of mediocrity, with no special skills or talents, these people have little chance of ever making an impact on the world. As a last resort, many upload countless pictures or videos in hope of mattering. At best, these people are noticed and soon forgotten. At worst, they’re ignored entirely. Unfortunately there is no cure to being insignificant, but there is a way to provide relief for suffering egos everywhere.

Narceexist makes the average person sound remarkable. Inspired by the plight of the unexceptional, Narceexist turns meaningless events into major turning points in human history. With Narceexist you can upload your favorite pictures or videos, and experience what it’s like to live in a documentary about yourself. Accompanying every upload is a celebrity voiced narration that gives your event the impact it needs to be remembered.

Here’s how it works:

This Is Embarassing

10/30/2016

BY DOUG VAN HOOSER

Embarrassed by Chris Fane / Flickr

The band was loud. Paul leaned over the bar and ordered his usual dirty martini. As the bartender turned away to make the drink, Paul turned to look over the crowd. He spotted Janice, she never missed a Clawing Maul gig. She was the lead guitar player’s wife or girlfriend. He had never asked. He waved. She waved back. She was a large woman to begin with and the pregnancy had blown her up more. Paul turned to get his drink and ordered a sparkling water for Janice. She was a real sweetheart. Never a word of complaint, much less an unkind one. The only woman Paul had ever met that he could say always had a genuine smile. Nothing artificial or forced. He paid for the drinks, and started to knife his way through the crowd.

“Hey.” Paul greeted her.

“Hey. Sit down. It’s been a while."

“Yea, I missed the last couple of times the Maul played. Here I got you a sparkler.” He placed the water in front of her.

She looked up with that engaging smile as he took a seat. “Forget that. It’s time for one of those.” She pointed at his martini.

Blue

10/30/2016

BY E. M. EASTICK

Blue Clown by Cristina Jiménez Ledesma / Flickr

When baby-blue walls are the only thing separating you from the degradation of humankind, it’s hard to stay calm. But what choice do I have? My attempts to escape, to continue my plight, have drawn the walls tighter. The threat taunts me in my prison. The memories eat at my conscience.

A line of silly string—pukey green in the yellow light—squiggled down the alley and disappeared behind an industrial bin. I crept forward and tried not to breathe in, but the stench tugged my nostril hairs and threatened to call up my cheeseburger dinner. Nevertheless, I pushed on. I had him. "GIVE IT UP, BOZO.”

A chuckle erupted from behind the bin. A rainbow smelling of popcorn rushed past me. Ill-fitting shoes flip-flopped down the alley, and I chased, my clown extermination kit, cleverly disguised as a briefcase, swinging at my side. When I reached the corner, he’d gone. No circus smells. No flip flops. No crazy blue hair that marked him as a member of the Clown Uprising.

Clarity

10/29/2016

BY J. D. GRAVES

Margarita by Kim Manly Ort / Flickr

I recently decided to quit drinking. No one browbeat me into it. No one heaped platitudes or used twelve step double speak to steer me towards the wagon. I arrived at this choice of my own free will and with a somewhat sober mind.

Last month I'd gone out again with Jeannie. That toe headed squaw who you remember works at Peterson's grocery store. Jeannie and me started the night sensibly enough. I picked her up and drove into Longview for Tex-Mex. We each had a margarita.

And then another.

After that we wanted to pace ourselves so I ordered a round of beers. By this time, Jeannie wasn't feeling good and excused herself to the ladies room. The waiter, this pimply faced kid in chinos, came over and apologized for the delay of our food. He gave some half-acorn excuse about being short handed in the kitchen.

He offered us another round and I nodded. I mean I wasn't going to offend the guy. A hispanic boy came over and refilled the chips and salsa.

All was right with the world.

Incident at CritterLand

9/11/2016

by DAVID HENSON

Slow Critters by Rachel Stelmach / Flickr

"Computer, dictation mode: It all started when one of our bees buzzed too close to one of our dogs. The dog snapped at the bee, which then stung the dog's nose. It couldn't have hurt the dog because of our safety protocols. But it apparently scared him because he started howling and barking."

Fudgeknuckle, don't begin so abruptly. Give some background.

I thought we agreed I'd do this report, Shockrocket.

Yes, but at least explain what CritterLand is. For the record.

If it makes you happy. "Computer, insert at beginning: CritterLand is a new amusement, which I'm in charge of, at Teleportation World."

You're just in charge of technical. I handle the business side.

Please stop interrupting. It's going to be hard for me to dictate this report with you surfacing your thoughts in my mind.

For the time being it's our mind.

boots

9/11/2016

by MONIQUE QUINTANA

Saturday Night by Meg Nicol / Flickr

Here’s the problem-- everyone calls them her puta boots because they’re so slick and shiny. It’s not cliché, not with her. It’s not that shit she watched on TV, that movie they show sometimes on Saturday afternoons where a streetwalker ends up meeting a man and getting to Rodeo Drive. It’s not even like that, and she leans against the wall like she’s the most brilliant mannequin. If she could count the stars she would, but they’re not even there. Still, there’s all kind of lights on Blackstone. She’s short, and her boots fit her like snakes are eating up her legs, and they buckle and pinch, and they gnaw at her kneecaps.

No, wait. She’s not really on Blackstone or G Street. She’s just walking down the halls of her elementary school. Crystal’s in kindergarten. The first time she saw the boots in the store window, she fell in love with them. Her mom bought her the boots because at that moment in time, she thought that they were rain boots, or at the very least, would pass for rain boots. At first it was ok. Crystal would just wear the boots to stomp around the house, up and down the stairs, and all around the porch. But then, she got so attached to those boots she wanted to wear them to school. She would beg her mom, and sometimes she would even cry. She wouldn’t let the subject go until she got to stomp out the door with her boots on. That first day she wears them, all the mothers are standing with their children at the gate, and they look at the boots, and then they look at each other, whispering behind their hands, like brown paper fans.

Like I Always Do

9/11/2016

by JENNIFER HERALD

I am Hngry by duncan c / Flickr

I have caught every single red light from Cold Spring to Cincinnati and this one, at the corner of East Liberty and Broadway, coming off the exit is no different. Another red light. Seriously. I’m not running late but it still perturbs me. I’m sipping my caramel mocha and enjoying a sausage biscuit when he catches my eye. Guiltily, I put the food down in my lap.

He stands here every day or at least every day for the last two years. When I worked at the children’s hospital up the road a bit, he was there and if he wasn’t, I wondered where he went, if he was okay. Now I only come over to teach or attend class so I don’t see him as often. He is tall and lanky, he is of medium build, neither fat nor thin. He has a long face with perpetual grey stubble and a baseball cap is always perched on his head. Today, he has a gauze pad duct taped to his leg and there is blood seeping through. It couldn’t be good to have duct tape holding gauze in place or for a wound that is clearly pretty severe to be outside all day. But, he seems as pleasant and kind as ever, offering me a nod and a wave which I return.

I wonder if he has a schedule for waving, as ridiculous as that sounds. When I drove to the hospital, it was much earlier, just after seven in the morning. He would already be there, set up for the day. At that time, he would hold a sign and give a warm nod to each person. I nodded back each time but never rolled down my window. The exit veered suddenly and in the autobahn that is Cincinnati rush hour traffic, one is expected to make the right on red turn the nanosecond it is feasible lest the person be regaled with the horns of a thousand angry commuters.

God

9/11/2016

by ARSHIA EGHBALI

All God's Children by Phil Warren / Flickr

"Dinosaurs... Religion... And now Humanity! What's wrong with you God?" Rob burst as he threw the bunch of reports to the corner of his large desk and looked at God from above his glasses.

God nervously ran a hand through his long beard. He never quite understood why every manager in Heaven Corporation had to grow a beard 7 inches long. "Come on. It's not all that bad." he objected. He had decided to play it cool. Whatever happened, he had been working there for such a long time, and everybody would agree that he was a pretty creative fella. “Look at all those nonsense projects by everybody else. Jupiter, for example, or Torcularis Septentrionalis – how is it even spelled, for Heaven’s sake?!”

“How many times did I tell you that Mr. Heaven doesn’t like that silly expression that’s running among the people in the office?” Rob rolled his eyes. “Listen God, I know we’re friends but this is serious. The numbers from Humanity are awful! We have to shut it down any time soon – it’s only a matter of centuries… Oh God! Are you listening?!”

The Seven Verses of Grief

8/14/2016

BY MICHAEL McCLELLAND

Painting by Casey McClelland

As the door shuts quietly behind Christopher I throw my bowl of raspberries and cream at it, hoping for a cathartic explosion of porcelain and blood red fruit pulp. But our damned loft is so huge the bowl arcs limply and thuds onto our wine-barrel floor, a single crack down its center releasing the little raspberries. They skitter across the floor like hermit crabs searching for a new home.

After fifteen years, Christopher has just announced he is leaving me, saying he didn’t want to, but it was what we need for our next album to thrive.

“We’ll be like Fleetwood Mac,” he said, casually, like saying “we’ll be like the Thompsons in 2B.” (We won’t actually be like the Thompsons in 2B. They smell like asparagus and are worth a hundred million.)

“They were all breaking up and fighting when they wrote Rumours,” he said, staring at his phone screen, not me, “and it’s one of the best albums of all time.”

“Their next album was Tusk, which means cock!” I screeched back at him. “I take it you’ll be writing that one?”

Some context: We are the world’s first and only chart-topping gay-husband pop duo. I write the music; Christopher sings lead vocals. I also play the piano and sing back up. His job is to look and sound pretty. Our first two albums both went platinum. Our third, an ill-advised folksy tribute to our attempts to adopt a child, had flopped. Hence Christopher’s decision to join Grindr and move into our country house, leaving me alone in our Soho loft to write our fourth album, which was supposed to be about going back to our roots.

Mrs. Feigenbaum

8/14/2016

BY MICHAEL FRYD

Cinema by hundrednorth / Flickr

The Surrey was packed with people eager to escape the stifling August heat, and luxuriate in air-conditioned comfort for 39 cents. The crowd dressed just south of modesty, reeked of sweat that impregnated the worn cloth seats. That smell, and not the sand, surf, sun and bikinis of Sandra Dee-Troy Donahue California beach movies, was what Jake associated with summer.

He had just been promoted to evening relief manager for the J&J theater chain after a year ‘s stint as an usher. It was his first time sitting in the manager’s office, dressed in his high school graduation blue serge suit, master for the night of this dark, and blessedly cool, magical domain. The job wasn’t much, but in the two years since they had immigrated to America, his father had been unable to get a steady job and Jake’s paycheck helped his family survive. Besides, it was just temporary, his first stop on his journey to a brighter future. He had passed the entrance exam for City College, and next month would take his first step into a brave new world of ideas and learning, where he would emerge from his shabby immigrant cocoon, and become an intellectually scintillating scholar, a college professor, or best of all a writer.

Loud pounding on the office door brought him out of his reverie. He opened the door to one of his ushers, a painfully thin sixteen years old with moonscape cheeks, and a proud Hebraic proboscis. Marvin was out of breath from running up the stairs.

“You must come down, we have a problem at the door” he gasped.

My Own Boss

8/14/2016

BY JAMES WADE

Dick Candy by Marc Diego / Flickr

My co-worker told me to eat a bag of dicks. I should have been appalled or pissed or offended, but instead I started imagining these boxes filled with like, mini, snack-sized dick bags. All these assorted flavors of dicks started running through my head. Cheddar dicks, sour cream and onion dicks, spicy barbecue dicks, the works. I even imagined the hypothetical Bag-o-Dicks company having one of those competitions where customers come up with a new combination of seasonings that taste like weird shit.

“Liz, do you even care that you just cost our team the Jefferson account?” The co-worker, Samantha Somebody, was still standing in the doorway of my doorless cubicle.

“Buffalo and blue cheese dicks,” I murmured, lost in thought.

“What?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing. Yes, Jefferson account, totally my fault. Definitely dropped the ball. It won’t ever happen again. Most likely. It most likely won’t ever-- you know what, it will probably not happen again. Like percentages and stuff say that it would be pretty unlucky if A) the same thing happened and, B) it was also my fault, so.”

“Do you even care about this job?” The way she asked the question made it seem like I was thirteen again and everyone had gotten their period but me.

If I Was Your Girlfriend

8/14/2016

BY CARLA SARETT

Bathroom Sign by Shelly Prevost / Flickr

First of all, I need you to understand: Glen was just an OK boyfriend. Merely acceptable. He was not, and I have to stress this, superior. For example, he never sent me roses on my birthday, which I happen to feel is a basic requirement of a “real” relationship. He felt that flowers are corny, even on Valentine’s Day, and only Midwesterners send cards.

“I am from Indiana,” I pointed out.

“You are so funny,” he said.

You see what I mean? OK, I’m an accountant, but I need more. Anyway, the problem was how to break up. There hadn’t been much of a spark in the first place, so I couldn’t exactly say it fizzled out—and we were a fixture at the office. As the song goes, breaking up is hard to do.

So one day, Glen treated me to lunch at a fancy place downtown—and Glen never picked up the tab. I had a mouthful of wild salmon when he announced, “I think you should know, I’m not a guy. Or I won’t be soon, which is more or less the same thing. I’m a woman.”

“Hey that is fantastic,” I said, and I meant it. “This merlot is fantastic, too, very well-priced.”

Idiot Balloon

6/26/2016

By JUDYTH EMANUEL

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.”

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.

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.

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?”

The American Sandals

5/29/2016

BY KIM KOLARICH

In 1970, we moved from the town of Moate in County Westmeath, Ireland to Oxnard, California. I was ten. After a few months in our new home, I realized that everything about us was different from our Southern California surroundings. Our speech, our hair, our clothes, and most noticeably, our mouths. My family looked like we had spent time with our heads lodged in a hornet’s nest, trying to kiss one of the devils. We each had tiny, pink lips that looked as if they could pop right off of our faces at any moment, and when we smiled, our small mouths housed rather large but strong choppers. My baby sister proved to have the strongest teeth, as we had to replace her mangled pacifier every couple of months. I spent a lot of time standing in front of a mirror, turned slightly, my hands shoved into the pockets of my jeans, and casually speaking to myself over my shoulder. I overpronounced each word that I spoke, and stretched my mouth to look big and American.

“Wanna play some ball?” I would say, pulling my lips tightly across my fencelike teeth. When I tried this approach at school, the other boys turned away in disgust. I decided to try finding another way to make myself look more American, and I thought that I would start at the bottom.

“My shoes…” I mumbled to my dad one day.

“Your what?” he said. The ever-present cigarette that dangled from his mouth looked like a piece of rubber when he spoke. “Your what?” he responded again and turned his ear towards me for emphasis.

“I’ve got to get the right shoes, Dad,” I said, earnestly.

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