
CIAO, TRIESTE by Christine Kwon
The screaming and kissing seem to come straight from the id, from the desire to suck out a man’s soul and leave him a desiccated shell.

The screaming and kissing seem to come straight from the id, from the desire to suck out a man’s soul and leave him a desiccated shell.

And so, you are here, you are here, you are waiting, frost-bitten and sun-stroked; you are waiting for a warmth that you think, that you know, that you think that you know now will never come.

The chugging train slowed, then sighed to a halt over the England-Scotland border, the so-called station a mere strip of platform engulfed in endless verdant meadow dotted with clots of creamy sheep.

For Hefner, the awkwardness is the point, and he wields its power well.

There’s a boardwalk to the water through the swamp and the swamp is full of white birds on skinny orange legs and there are plastic bags everywhere and Dew bottles and it smells like we’re in a Roman candle fizzing out—that smell, what do you call that?

Hours spent nude on plinths in those drafty rooms, and only one painting had ever done him justice.

On bad days, I fantasized about taking a sledgehammer to the train. I knew where the security cameras were (and weren’t).

Pink light oozes in; just like that, it’s day, and I sigh because nothing bad can happen during the day. It’s a rule, and we don’t break rules.

Sunlight glimmered off the van’s undercarriage, rays of white and blue and golden light mingling in beams and flares captured by the helicopter’s dazed camera. The police took potshots at the minivan as it soared past them.
