Writing

Fallout by Zev Torres

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

To choose. To believe
that to choose matters. To
believe that to choose matters so
we choose. Then we hope that choosing
really does matter so we watch with our
attention spread and scattered and we listen
with acuity dulled by gadgets and
devices plugged into our ears
and we wait our awareness
fading our convictions
soaked and wind-torn
for a revelation
that confirms
our faith
or
at least
justifies our
apprehensions.

 

Zev Torres’ poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications, including Estrellas En El Fuego, Maintenant 6, and the June 2012 edition of Bare Hands. He has published three chapbooks and is the founder of the Skewered Syntax Poetry Crawls. Since 2008, Zev has hosted Make Music, New York’s annual Spoken Word Spectacular.

Double Stuffed Oreo by Star Spider

~ Sophie Boyce ~ 2 Comments

I ate a double stuffed Oreo. You said life was meaningless. I considered the possibility of a sunny day in the midst of a snowstorm. You drank red wine with breakfast. I consecrated the bathroom with fire. You stood out in the rain. I asked my sister what she thought of communism. You spat on the dog by accident. I smiled at a bumblebee. You smiled at me. I sank my teeth into a stone and it cracked. You joked that there would be no more air soon, but it wasn’t funny. I revved the engine to make us go faster. You took a trip to the jungle in your mind and ate a wild flower there. I found a rabbit in the backyard and named it Frederick. You sang songs that were old and full of meaning you couldn’t quite grasp. I painted a picture of laughter with my fingers. You fucked your way to the top. I sank to the bottom of bathtub and noticed it was still black. You bared your teeth at the world. I cried tears of peppermint and olive oil. You told me things would never work out. I held you while you screamed at the night. You mourned a distant cousin who died of malaria. I danced around in circles until I puked. You walked until your feet got blisters but refused to stop. I went to the end of the world and looked over the edge. You blew the stars out like candles, but it wasn’t your birthday. I told a lie about elephants and cotton candy. You didn’t know how to ease my pain, so you cast a circle made of earth. I elevated myself to the status of a king, but in the end I was only a pigeon. You bowed before me like a branch in a strong wind. I ran faster than day or night. You circled in my orbit for far too long. I gesticulated wildly to the march sky, willing it to hail. You ate the last mango and the juice fell on the floor. I played the trumpet, although I hadn’t practiced since high school. You felt as though life wasn’t just. I aimed high and hit my head on the ceiling. You ate a wild flower in real life and shrank like Alice. I cupped holy water in my hands and drank, it tasted of salt and bygone hope. You promised blood and ceremony. I gave you half a pecan and an old piece of dried barley. You believed in ghosts and kept one nearby in case of emergencies. I allowed for all manner of ruckus fornication in our bed. You became an iron smith and forged a sword that could kill a giant. I dined on sugar plums and cognac with a high born elf. You learned voodoo from a woman with a pet goat. I bled in the basement to raise the dead. You swam with an otter and held hands while you slept. I devised a plan for a time machine I didn’t have time to make. You anticipated a journey to Alaska. I learned to speak dove and cooed over a lunch of bird seed and pink cupcakes. You painted an easter egg the colour of death and rebirth. I made my own pickles. You demanded a pool full of jelly beans to match your dress. I recognized my great great grandmother in a picture at the Louvre. You collapsed a wormhole in our den, causing the momentary dissolution of existence. I prayed to every god I could think of and only seven responded. You picked leaves from trees and dried the tears of a thousand children with them. I snuck into the porn theatre to listen to the men weep and moan. You decided you would be an opera singer because you liked the fragrance of music. I tried to chase my shadow but tripped on a penny instead. You wrote me a note for every day you were away. I put a tag on an empty bottle and sold it as enlightenment. You ingratiated yourself to distant tzars and minor demons. I sat on the dock at the cottage and watched the boats capsize in the storm. You drew runes on the wall and in the night they glowed. I made masks in Africa with horn and bone and hair. You dove so deep that something changed in you. I walked on water, but it was only a magic trick. You salivated over a grain of sand from an alabaster beach. I connived to build something so big it would make the world feel small. You kicked a bucket full of bottle caps and they scattered. I put a line of black paint on the couch. You promised you would join the circus when you were seventy. I catalogued all the ways miracles had let us down. You swore at a piece of sandwich meat. I vowed to make all things right and then wrong again. You felt as though you ought to put more effort in. I collapsed the table and put it away. You assembled the puzzle on the floor. I barred the doors with rosemary and wishful thinking. You misunderstood my riddle. I forgave all the sins of the world. You made the plants grow with your mind. I called three hundred random numbers and only seven people picked up. You were smarter than I gave you credit for. I was the greatest fool that ever lived. You kissed me in the gloaming. I wrapped my arms around you. You ached for the helpless insects. I danced on an unknown grave. You sang one last note. I combed the papers for word of my absolution. You cut the cantaloupe with a knife made of wood. I opened the portal at midnight. You dreamt of something more profound, a life where things meant something. I offered you a bite of my double stuffed Oreo.

 

Star Spider is a magic realism writer from Toronto, Canada, where she lives and works with her awesome husband Ben Badger. Star is currently in the process of seeking representation for her novels while she continues to write, play and frolic on the beach. Her work can be found in Grim Corps, Stories from the Fringe, and she was recently shortlisted for the Frends of Merril Short Story Contest. You can follow Star’s writing on her website, starspider.ca, or @MusingStar.

 

Labyrinth by Liam Hogan

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

And so, you have come to the end of our labyrinthine tale. I did not expect you here so soon. You have successfully navigated the twists and turns, the tricks and deceits, and now that you are here, no doubt you expect one final ordeal–one last challenge before you can claim your prize…
Oh?
Then how did you…? Never mind. Pick a door–any door, and–God be willing, I will see you back here, in a little while.

Premiere
The credits are rolling and the cinema lights are coming up, but still you sit in your seat, waiting. You’ve gone to see the film with high expectations, studiously avoiding any online reviews or the water cooler spoilers of your colleagues. You know this Director’s oeuvre, right from the stunning debut that everyone went to see twice, once to see what all the fuss was about, then again, to see how he did it. The Master of the twist, the Magician of the unexpected. Some of his later films, perhaps, were a little obvious, or worse, the twist, though clever, was just that–clever. No real gut wrench, no rewiring of the brain required to understand it. Still, a new film is always something to look forward to.
And yes, there’s a twist in this film, but it comes near the start, as part of the setup, and yes, the film is decent enough, the actors lift the occasionally stilted dialogue, the cinematography as ever is glorious, but…
Final credits. The cinema is nearly empty: you, someone buried in their mobile phone, and a couple in the back seats making out who probably haven’t even noticed the film is over. No post-credit surprises then. A man in uniform comes in with a long handled dustpan.
And you begin to wonder–did you miss it? Was it cleverer, more subtle than you expected? Was it then, cleverer than you?

Rope Burns
I must have blacked out for a moment. I can’t remember the fall, only the stomach lurching jolt as the safety rope jerked tight, and as I come to and stretch out first my hands and then my legs, I realise I can’t feel anything–because there’s nothing to feel–I am suspended in mid air, twisting and turning on the end of a rope.
“Hello?” says a voice, as I clutch tightly onto the red and green striped nylon. I do not answer, and then a head appears over the precipice above me.
“Ah! There you are. You okay, down there?”
It’s me. I’m the one standing above me. Which makes the ‘me’ on the rope…?

Stream
You slip into the time stream, the steady flow from past, to present, to future, one second per second, looking for backwaters–twisting eddies that might take you where you want to go. But the boat is a pig to steer, it fights every turn you take, and–even more than any submerged rock, or paradox–you fear a capsize, a surrendering to the natural order. Your caution means you miss opportunity after opportunity, and you feel yourself losing the battle–and then you see it, and dig your paddle hard into the flow, and …

Beast
“They’re so cute!” she says. “Warm and snugly! They keep twisting and turning around my neck!”
“They’re trying to strangle you.” I say. “Not that you’d notice.”
She pouts and lifts the two hissing snakes back into their tank. “Beast!” she says with mock passion, as the constrictors writhe and try their best to hide beneath the rocks and branches.
They want to kill her. They all do–all the animals in the Zoo. They’re terrified of her, from the tarantula she pronounces “tickly”, to the crocodile desperately trying to rip chunks out of her leg, they all want to kill her.
I do as well, of course, but I had my chance, and failed, and know better than to try again.

Spiral
The Jeweller holds the chunk of uncut stone in his aged hands, turning it first one way and then another under the bright light. You feel some of the tension drain away, there were times you didn’t think you’d make it. Times you wondered if it was worth all the sacrifices, all the spilt blood. But now…
“Plain, or spiral cut?” The jeweller repeats, dropping the eye piece and staring at you with a red-rimmed eye.
“Excuse me?” is the best you can manage in reply.
“Every stone can be cut two ways” the jeweller says, stretching his neck until there’s an audible click. “There’s a spiral–a twist–at the heart of every diamond. A plain cut imprisons that shape. Makes it sparkle inside, not on the outside. A spiral cut, on the other hand, reveals it, shows it off to the world, makes it sing.”

Bartender
“It’s a Singapore Sling,” I say as I slide the glass across the smooth counter. “With a twist.”
She blinks at me. And then again. You get used to the double eyelids–they’re the rule rather than the exception at Jimmy’s. Some of the bar staff–that is, some of the other humans who work here, this is after all a classy establishment and only the best bartenders will do–they find it creepy. Me, I don’t mind. Especially when she’s flashing the sort of credit she’s flashing. Besides, ignoring the eyes, she’s kind of cute.
“What’s the twist?” She asks, with a knowing smile. For a moment, I fantasize about our bio compatibility ratings, but I know it’s just that–fantasy, and I have a job to do. Still, I turn on the charm, and I tell her…

Pursuit
When you can run faster than your pursuer, you do exactly that. You run straight and true, thanking your lucky stars as you leave them behind.
But when you’re slower, then you’re either smart, or you’re dead. You have to be more nimble, more cunning. You have to twist, and turn, hoping that the sudden changes of direction lose your pursuers more time than it loses you.
And that is the key. You don’t run faster by jinking, so if you do it when the pursuer is still a way off, then all it does is hasten the end. For optimum effect, you need to leave it to the last possible moment. You need your pursuer breathing down the back of your neck, and hope that as you turn, they overshoot, and miss, skidding and sliding, carried on by their own speed, to buy you a few precious seconds more, to reach safety, or pray for a Deus Ex Machina…

Knife
I look at the dagger in my hand. The black cloaked teacher repeats his question. “Does anyone notice anything unusual?”
Kerrigan, two seats closer to the front, raises his hand. “Yes?” the teacher asks.
“It’s slim, Sir!”
“So?” the teacher probes.
“A stabbing blade, Sir!”
The teacher smiles a thin smile, and I wonder if he is thinking the same thing I am–that Kerrigan attracts far too much attention to succeed as an assassin.
“Does anyone know how many times Caesar was stabbed?”
The room is quiet. Kerrigan is either too smart to answer two questions in a row, or not smart enough to know.
“23 times. Of those, only one was considered fatal. What did his assassins fail to do?”
This one, this answer we all know, and we respond in well drilled unison. “Twist and turn, Sir!”
“Twist and turn” I mutter in quiet echo, holding the dagger beneath the level of the desk, watching the keen blade catch the light and remembering the feeling that first time, as struggling flesh resisted the motion, and died in the effort.

Last Words
You’re not sure where the gun has come from. It hangs limply in your hand, until you turn and point it at the Director. But he is already shot, already dead. Or dying. You approach slowly, cautiously, the ringing in your ears pulsing with every heart beat. His eyes flicker alive as you bend over his prone body, his lips twist and convulse–he’s trying to say something, but struggling. You wait, frozen, then he tries again. “Have you ever…”
There’s a pause, he squeezes his eyes tightly closed, opens them again, seems to think.
“Have you ever… tried living your life… backwards?”
And then he struggles up from the shrinking pool of blood.

Exit
You take that last turn, and there, in the distance, is a light. For a stretch the tunnel is straight and true, and the light is bright. You quicken your pace, and then slow again, still cautious, still wary. To fail after so many trials, so many disturbing experiences, is unthinkable. The light is bright, you can’t see any detail past it, but there’s something hanging from the ceiling, something that casts a half shadow, something dark, in places, see-through in others. The light is bright, and you shield your eyes as you get closer, as the shadows become symbols, familiar, but not readable. Familiar, yet strange. They’re hanging in a clear glass like substance, but the light hurts your eyes and you turn away for a moment, feeling the coolness of the walls. Then you strike forwards, eager for the prize. The symbols seem as though they should mean something to you–writing, but strange writing, unfamiliar letters, odd words, and as you pass beneath them, as you find yourself looking over a wooded valley, at a path stretching far in front of you, you twist and look up and there it is, the right way around :

Welcome
to the
Labyrinth

 

Liam Hogan was abandoned in a library at the tender age of 3, emerging blinking into the sunlight many years later, with a head full of words and an aversion to loud noises.

His work has been performed by others at Liars’ League (London, Leeds, Hong Kong, and New York), and ‘Are You Sitting Comfortably?’, and by himself at StoryTails, RRRantanory’s Little Stories, and ScienceShowoff. You can find it in print in ‘London Lies’ (Arachne Press), ‘FEAR: Vol II’ (Crooked Cat) and Litro, as well as online at Stimulus-Respond, Dark Fountain Journal, and Synaesthesia Magazine.

He dreams in Dewey Decimals.

Mouth by John Boucher

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

I.
in the valley of the tongues
what houses but bumps

what field but the space between
whispers, enameled flowers

II.
that country she knows and yearns

and must return where coal sky
churns and snows diamond dust

III.
meanwhile mouth a chamber
tooth walls and skin roof

behold yawp light
air horn cry then
chamber collapse

house of words become home
sometime to gnashing fury of morsel motion
later walls scrubbed clean of debris

beware: somewhere coverings
may muzzle taboo puffs of air

IV.
if you seek weapon simply speak
and slay me with your glottal rock

 

John Boucher is a member of the inaugural cohort of the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at the University of Washington – Bothell. His background includes work in film theory and production. He is the editor of the independent feature film “Heart Breaks Open;” the founding member of the Seattle-based writing collective Les Sardines, which publishes bi-annually a literary journal called “Les Sar’zine;” and the co-creator of “The IIWII Project,” where he co-creates and posts daily extemporized mash-ups of text and images, with artist Aaron Morgan.

Desperate Islands Are Ours by Cheryl Anne Gardner

~ Sophie Boyce ~ 1 Comment

I find you, sitting in a piazza at a café table, alone, a dusky bowl of prime opaque in front of you, served with a side of sticky bacon and gin. “Soon,” you say to me, but you always say soon when I’m late, so I tap my foot and wait while squids serenade us from a balcony above; then after a brief violin concerto and a careless “Thank you mister” to God for all the small matters he’s chosen to ignore, we ride raindrops on eucalyptus dust, lace handkerchiefs crumpled in our pockets. I only fear you when you’re near me. I want to tell you that, but just then, the waiter arrives with a stone tablet. You pay the bill with a fist full of coin and ask if the pharmacy’s open all night. It is, so you make mental notes in time and shadow while walking behind me in irritation as I foretell the future in condescending rivulets, my rubber boots flip, flap, flopping against a sunset that isn’t ours . . . and never will be.

When she isn’t writing, Cheryl Anne Gardner likes to chase marbles on a glass floor, eat lint, play with sharp objects, and make taxidermy dioramas with dead flies. She writes art-house novellas and abstract flash fiction, some published, some not.

A Wee Frog by John Gerard Fagan

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

I knew about him. He tried to keep it a secret, but I knew. A wee frog was living in his mouth. I had a bad feeling sooner or later that wee frog would get bored and be on the lookout for a new home.

“Not in my mouth – not my fucking mouth,” I screamed at him in a supermarket checkout queue. His mouth was closed, but I knew the wee frog was listening inside. He was buying a bottle of gin – he never drank gin. The wee frog was obviously making him buy it. The old woman in the checkout looked like she was afraid of me. Her nametag read Ethel. I cupped my hand over my face, mouthed the letters W-E-E-F-R-O-G, pointed to my mouth and then to him as he hurried into the car park. Ethel looked even more confused when I wasn’t buying anything. I resisted giving her the slap she deserved.

*

That man’s name was Geoffrey, and he lived next door to me. He was an old fashioned gentleman who once had a wife, before I drowned her in their garden pond. I think in some way she wanted me to drown her. We all agreed it was a suicide. I was so close to telling the police it was Geoffrey, and I saw him do it. He was a lucky bastard to have a neighbour like me looking out for him. I wrote a poem about his wife’s ugly face that night and gave it to him. I thought it would cheer him up but he looked surprised and ungrateful.

Geoffrey once took a piss through my letterbox and soaked a birthday card I got from my gran. I saw his tiny pecker poke through and let flow. He was drunk and it was the night of his wife’s funeral. I forgave him after I performed minor surgery on his left hand. I told him, when he finally woke at the hospital in a panic, that these things happen when you drink too much. How he got into my house and had that accident with my shredding machine was beyond me. The doctor said I saved his life – he was on the verge of death with the amount of blood he lost. I told the handsome doctor woman I was his guardian angel. I knew she wasn’t a real doctor; women never were; she was probably a hospital spy. I took a mental note of her reddish face, thin lips and shrimp eyes and put her on my list of people to hunt in the winter.

*

Geoffrey always had sugar puffs for breakfast. After the night of his wife’s suicide, I spied on him everyday for four years and documented everything he did. I soon knew all about him. I knew really important things – like he dyed his hair black every Friday morning and sprayed on this foam to cover his baldy bits. Geoffrey also plucked his left eyebrow every Sunday night before he went to sleep and he liked to take a poo, while eating a lemon on Monday evenings, usually around eight.

I burgled his house while he was on holiday one summer. I took his T.V. and a pair of shoelaces from his work shoes. He wasn’t too happy on his return, so I had to give them back. I was tempted to burn him alive in his house that night, but I didn’t want the smoke blowing through my windows and disturbing my house smell. I was very proud of my house smell.

*

Geoffrey went from being a plump fellow to a gaunt bastard. It was all down to the wee frog – it ate nearly all of his food. How it never got bored of sugar puffs every morning and cheap microwave dinners every night was beyond me.

The wee frog had lived happily in a cup of coffee. Geoffrey was stupid enough to drink the coffee. The wee frog had no choice but to make his home in Geoffrey’s mouth. I can’t say I blame the wee frog. I found the wee frog in a puddle the previous week and rescued him. I knew he liked coffee – only poor people and spiders didn’t.

After three months, Geoffrey suddenly dropped dead in a café. I was first on the scene, trying to steal his wallet, when I remembered it was a Sunday and he only ever took his wallet out on a Saturday. I made a grave error by stealing his un-eaten sausage roll. After the second bite I was in shock. I opened my mouth and looked at the reflection in a glass window – the wee frog was sitting between my teeth.

After a week, I decided to stop eating and try and coax the little prick out. And it worked. He hopped out when I was asleep, went down into the kitchen and into a bottle of milk. I was delighted that morning when I woke up and he was gone. Only after my second mouthful of milky porridge did I realise what had happened and he was back.

He left on several occasions, only to trick his way back. He did, however, always give me enough room in my mouth to feed myself. Respect is what we call that. Respect.

One morning, exactly a month since his occupation, he sneaked out and died in my porridge. I think it was down to old age. His autopsy, however, was inconclusive.

A strange thing happened – I missed him. So after a restless night of thinking, I decided it was best if he returned to my mouth.

I got used to the smell of his decomposing body and the hot sick taste it left in my throat after a few days. Everything felt like it should again. I can’t remember when I swallowed him exactly but I do remember seeing pieces of him in my shit. He looked happy. I buried that special shit in the post-box.

*

I became lonely without the wee frog. I sat in my bedroom and stared out the window most days. Every time it rained I was always on the look out for a new wee frog in the puddles.

I saw my new neighbours dancing in their kitchen. My binoculars gave me a prime view through all their windows. I still had the key I borrowed from Geoffrey, so was able to help myself to their food when they went to sleep – they were an elderly couple so it was never too late. They had a cat called Levi. I wondered how long it would take me to kidnap Levi and turn him into a hat for the winter. I had been practising my suffocating technique so the old lady was sadly going to die in her sleep. The documentation of the old man, just like poor Geoffrey, was to begin. The thought made me happy.

John Gerard Fagan is a writer from Scotland. He has an MA in Creative Writing and has had stories published in several magazines and anthologies, from Black Static to the Scottish Book Trust. He currently lives and writes in a tiny fishing village in Japan.

Discovering America by Howie Good

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment
The  giants  of  modernism  have  begun  to show  their  age.  “Like  us  on  Facebook,”  one  of  them practically begs. Another is having difficulty remembering various euphemisms for being drunk – soused, plastered, looped, shit­faced, polluted, bombed. . . . All the land around them now belongs to  the storms  that  lash  the sea. The shopping  gods  have  also apparently  turned  against  them. I could tell you more about their secret anxieties if you and I ever actually meet in person. On the History Channel, meanwhile, the Vikings are discovering America. But even with the sound turned up, what it means remains unsuspected.

 

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection The Middle of Nowhere (Olivia Eden Publishing). He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.

 

Cat Nap by William Blackart

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

Marvin sat on a milk crate in the back of the funeral home, the preparation room. He was a fat man, and short, and the plastic crate bowed beneath his pounds. His nose resembled one which had been broken far too many times—a look that could pass for endearing on a bull rider or boxer.  Marvin was neither; he worked as a mortician. To his left lay Mister Kilgore on a preparation table.

The day was hot and humid, as Arkansas summer days tend to be. The air conditioner was on the mend.

Marvin never drank water but managed to sweat buckets.

His bratwurst stubby fingers stuck leech-like to a copy of the newspaper and made turning each page a labor. While struggling through the national news, Marvin’s stomach sank at a headline out of Boulder, Colorado: Mortician Arrested, Necrophilia.

“Oh great, another one.”

Over the past three years this sort of case seemed to be on the rise. Marvin wiggled his spiny nose to stop an itch and adjusted his glasses. He looked left—Mister Kilgore on the table, naked and pale. “What kind of sicko …!?”

Marvin’s Crisco-battered heart bordered explosion each time one of these corpse-poker stories hit the news. He had worked as a mortician since he was nineteen, and for these past eighteen years the days were filled with dead bodies. They were dead, devoid of life and color. Dead. The thought of it was appalling and unethical.

But what really churned his stomach was how these stories made him look. It’s tough enough playing the small town sweaty bachelor when broken-nosed, short and overweight; couple that with his career choice and you’ve got a sore thumb. And now he’s a corpse-poker, too? In reality poor Marvin was a trained craftsman who performed his duties with upmost respect and professionalism. Marvin knew that, his boss knew that, and the newly departed knew that, but they weren’t talking.

The sad truth of Marvin’s story: Some local couch fly flips on the news, anchor says a Boston mortician was caught inserted down a dead man’s wind pipe, and so starts the rumor that ol’ Marvin’s feeling up grandma and organizing a leap frog league with Uncle Steve, God rest his soul.

It was a lot to take in. The damned heat didn’t help any.

Face covered with sweat, Marvin tried to wipe it dry with his shirt sleeves. They were sweat-soaked and provided no help. He took a section of the paper and wiped it across his face. It soaked up the sweat but left him with black smudges. It was an instant regret and he needed no mirror to make known the newsprint painted across forehead, cheeks and nose. Low was the feeling, and that an understatement. “A bachelor to the death at this rate.”

Mister Kilgore continued to lie on his preparation table. (He had time. No appointments to keep.) He had been Marvin’s high school history teacher. He taught until the day he died. Rumor was, he’d killed scores of men during the U.S. conflict in Vietnam.

Following some distress over his smudged face, Marvin managed in getting his heart rate under control but needed a minute. He dropped his paper and rose from the milk crate. It lay mangled and unnatural, bent from him massive form.

Parallel to Mister Kilgore was another preparation table. Empty. Marvin scuttled over and climbed aboard with the grace of a drunken baby bear. “I’ll just lay here a minute. Try an’ cool off. Don’t you go anywhere, Mr. Kilgore. I haven’t forgotten about you.”

An overhead fan clanked. It kept a slow rhythm and helped little with the heat, but the little it helped, teamed with the cool of the stainless steel table against his wet shirt, made conditions tolerable. Marvin closed his eyes and fell quickly asleep.

—

“Lying down on the job, are we, Marvin?”

“Mister Kilgore!?…You’re dead!” Marvin screamed the words but they rang hollow, as if screamed into a fifty-five gallon drum. Or perhaps screamed out of the drum.

“You’re right, I am dead.”

“So why are you talking? And why to me?” His complexion was non-existent.

“Why am I talking? That’s a good question, Marvin. I don’t know.” Mister Kilgore pondered his own words. “But now that I’m dead, I know that I am dead.”

“Of course you’re dead.”

“You don’t understand, Marvin. For years it irked me when someone would say, ‘oh, he’s dead.’ By saying ‘he is dead,’ it infers that the dead person is something, as if being dead is a state of existence. I always felt the correct wording should be ‘oh, he died,’ or ‘he no longer exists.’ But now I know they were right. And I am dead.”

A bright flash fading to near darkness. Marvin’s eyes adjusted to the dim-lit room. He jumped from the prep table, thankful to be nothing but alive.

A part of him longed to return to that magical state wherein communication with the dead is achieved. Instead, he quickly touched Mister Kilgore’s pecker (just to say he did it) and left the staleness of that damn funeral home forever.

—

Marvin sat at a picnic table in the park studying the ‘classifieds’ section of the newspaper. No jobs to speak of but it didn’t matter. Proper women passed with their pampered kids. There were joggers and businessmen in suits. Teenagers kicked soccer balls and threw frisbees and held hands. They all reeked with the stench of the future. But none of that mattered, save the sun on his face and the dancing oaks around him. And all those who passed ol’ Marvin no longer saw a fat, sweaty, tangled mess of a being, but rather a man with pure life in his eyes. It was something they’d never know, even in death.

William Blackart is a traveling songwriter from Arkansas. He also writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction. His stories and poems have appeared in the serial art zine Man Vs. Wheel, Nebo: A Literary Journal, Nude Bruce Review and RAZ: The Electric Dangerous Paper Blog.

 In 2009 he hand-made and self-published Crappy Words, a chapbook of poems

Thunder Thighs Nelson in: The Excommunication of Tiffany Brown, Part 1 by Mark McKee

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

Flick tickers a
night of rolling
drumheads
found fondling space
giants with nine brothers in law.

Thunder Thor thighs the thaumaturge
thimbles sewing
sedgewicks into saucy manes.
Credits roll.

Flick tickers a teenage date
wave wide welling with ingénue gut glory.

Stomachs churn.

In the booth
Flick micks the marm of Brown’s thighmen:

Thunder Thighs Nelson, gat gloating, tongue tarried.

Mark McKee is from Dyersburg, TN. His work has appeared or his forthcoming in Space Squid, Eyeshot, and Menacing Hedge. He sometimes review books at goodreads.com/markmckeejr.