Archives

JITTERBUG JOHNNY by Grey Traynor

July 11, 2025

Jitterbug Johnny made it to the back of a dozen trucks and sports utility vehicles in the form of a sticker: “Jitterbug Johnny 1965-2023 – ‘Drive faster than an eagle takes flight!’” Jitterbug said the phrase any chance he could: before and after taking a shot, getting out of cold above-ground pools, even while receiving the toothiest blow job. However, it was a phrase that bothered some folks, sticking in their ear like a stubborn wad of wax. Did eagles take to flight faster than most other birds, they would wonder, shouldn’t this pithy encouragement have more to do with

SLUMBER PARTY AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Robert Helfst

July 10, 2025

We’re nearly there now – lids grow heavy as the sun sets on our species. It’s bittersweet, sleep’s surrender, a warm blanket wrapping around our aching bodies. It’s better this way, a relief to embrace our conclusion without a coda, to no longer carry on. In the end it wasn’t cancer or rising oceans or mass extinctions or other self-inflicted harms but a deep fatigue that hollowed us until there was nothing left to do but rest, finally, now and forever. One last shared sigh, releasing the weight of our communal sins, and then the comfort of an unending slumber.

NO NAME AND COOL PARTY by Erin Satterthwaite

July 9, 2025

No Name I looked at her picture to see if she was more attractive than me. I looked up her family’s ancestry to see if they had ever owned slaves. They hadn’t; they were quakers. I looked at the picture of my boyfriend and her when they were in Italy together. I had never even been to Italy and he knew this. Yet there he was four years ago eating gelato with her with his eyes closed and a big grin. He probably wouldn’t take me to Italy because I was dull and uncultured. She worked in academia at a

BURIED PATHOLOGIES AND THE ULTIMATE ‘NO PLACE’: An Anti-Interview with Oli Johns by Ryan Raymond Buell

July 8, 2025

How many people will read this interview? Will anyone read it? Will exactly three people read it—the writer interviewed, the editor interviewing, the publisher publishing … before a handful of thumbs sends it scrolling offscreen in their search for more content?—so much to read and digest, to form a perspective on … I can’t. I don’t have time. Just swipe to the bottom and see if it leaves a mark. It’s hard to know if I watched this or imagined it, but there is probably a cyberpunk anime where someone plugs a metal cord into their brainstem, and the data

THE CONSULTATION by Zac Smith

July 7, 2025

So a vasectomy isn’t actually reversible. I like to start off with that. Because for some guys that’s all they need to hear before they decide they need some more time to think about it. I know people say that a vasectomy is reversible, but it’s not. You really need to be done having kids if you’re going to do this, because it’s permanent. But I see you already have some kids so I’m less worried about that in this case. You have three, is that right? That’s great. Makes sense you’d want a vasectomy. I have three kids, so

THE GROTTO by Jim Ruland

July 4, 2025

I Seamus receives a key “You’re in luck,” the innkeeper said. “The Grotto is available.” The innkeeper was a large man who wore suspenders, wire-rimmed glasses, and a fisherman’s cap. He looked like a builder of model ships. Seamus smiled and waited for the innkeeper to continue. “The Grotto is our most popular room. Usually booked months in advance. We had a cancellation, so it’s yours—if you want it.” “I’ll take it,” Seamus said. “What brings you to the Seaside Inn?” the man asked as Seamus filled out the registration papers. “I was in the city for a conference and

THE ROOSTER THAT SCREAMS by Laura Shell

July 3, 2025

So there is one rooster in the neighborhood that sounds normal, emmits the typical cock-a-doodle-doo cry in the wee hours of the morning. Then there is the other rooster, the one that submits a scream like someone is holding a hand around its throat. It’s like an “Ehhhhhhh,” sound. And it’s much louder than the other rooster’s call. So every morning, I hear the rooster that screams and wish I knew where it lived so I could find out exactly why it screams. *** The rooster belts out its usual “Ehhhhhhh,” sound, then scratches at the scar on its throat.

THE LAST GREAT NORTH AMERICAN HOCKEY TEAM by Eric Subpar

July 2, 2025

I awake on a Saturday. It is my birthday. All my friends are here. My wife is telling me about the preseason. Kevin is still coming. Don’t blow out the candles until Kevin arrives. I won’t, dear. Her father tells me about the Los Angeles Kings. I unwrap a Los Angeles Kings jersey. I’m a fan of the L.A Kings. My son asks if we can throw the puck around a bit outside after the party. That’d be great, son. My wife’s father asks me about the roster. Think we got a shot this year? That rookie’s a phenom. Sure

BOOKS THAT NEEDED TO BE SAID: I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT. Recommends by Shane Jesse Christmass

July 1, 2025

Why did I choose these books? Perhaps because, to me, they represent literature that stands apart from the hegemonic literary marketplace … operating outside the structures of commercial garbage publishing, which prioritises market-driven narratives and commodifiable claptrap stories. They resist assimilation into the literary industrial complex, which often seeks to sanitise or manipulate raw human experience for consumption. Instead, these texts engage in an unapologetic exploration of obsession, identity, and the dissonance between desire and self-destruction. These writers embrace a nonconformist aesthetic, their works subvert the conventional expectations of plot resolution and character redemption. The protagonists are not mere vehicles

A LIVING SOMETHING by David Nutt

June 30, 2025

My wife looms at the ledge of the bed. The cold meat of my brain, freezer-burned with slumber, is still in defrost mode. Meanwhile, my wife has already risen, showered, powdered, dressed, breakfasted, read the morning news, cried about the morning news, genuflected and regurgitated, and undressed again. Now she stands naked in the middle of the room, like an unflappable art-class model, waiting for her indolent husband to get up and do something meaningful, and maybe felonious, with his life. I can’t fake it anymore. I get up and go to the closet, where we keep the new suit