x-r-a-y magazine, Author at X-R-A-Y

PLUCKERS by Amanda Anderson

August 9, 2021 · Fiction

I was in the bathroom that fateful day, my butt cheek hoisted up in one hand, tweezers zeroing in on the mole with the other, when my boyfriend walked in. His eyebrows pinched together in disapproval. He asked me what I was doing. I stuttered, searching for a more attractive explanation, then finally told him I was plucking the hair out of the mole on my ass. He asked cheerfully if he could step in and take over. I handed him the tweezers, glad he wasn’t repulsed, only to see a sizable boner emerge in his pants. And so a monthly…

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“STORMS OF ENTHUSIASM” by Michael Seymour Blake

August 7, 2021 · Comics, Michael Seymour Blake, Wildly Inconsistent Comics

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NOVELS_IM_GOING_TO_WRITE.DOCX by Aatif Rashid

August 6, 2021 · Fiction

Space Battles (1999) Like Star Wars, but from the perspective of a ten-year-old kid. He has a sword and a laser gun, and he and his friend save the galaxy from a group of evil aliens. Space Battles II (2000) Sequel to Space Battles I. The kid is now eleven, and he saves the galaxy again from an even bigger group of aliens. Space Battles III (2001) Sequel to Space Battles I and Space Battles II. The kid is now twelve, and he and his friend have a falling out. The first group of aliens comes back, though, so they…

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SHAGGING FLIES IN BALLARD by Alexandrine Ogundimu

August 5, 2021 · Fiction

I resolve to confess my feelings on Saturday. You take me to the batting cage up in Mountlake Terrace but the machines are so awful they eat our tokens and give us nothing back, no high-arching softballs or baseball bullets. I would never say anything because I am meek and unmasculine but you get a refund because you are handsome and friendly and always get what you want and I am jealous—of your confidence and looks and talents and physicality and how much sex you have. There’s a bucket of baseballs in your trunk so we drive to a park…

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EVERY DAY IMAGINE DROWNING by Melanie Carlstad

August 4, 2021 · Fiction

I was at work holding onto a trowel and my father wasn’t dead. I argued this point to my colleague, Mary Anne, who was afraid of worms. Here’s the gist, Mary Anne, I said. We are at work. We are gardening. You are afraid of the worms writhing between your fingers, and on top of that, my dad isn’t dead. Mary Anne screamed. There was nothing else to do but scream about the ringed pink flesh of the worms. Everything was drippy from yesterday’s rain. The juniper bush and the ivy leaves strangling it dripped on us. Our feet sank…

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THE OPENER by Marissa Higgins

August 3, 2021 · Fiction

Bobby tossed the stuffed chihuahua between his bare hands, Suboxone in his right coat pocket and a picture of Alyssa at two months in his left. Should have worn gloves, he knew. Cape Cod winters tug the cold out of bones. The bus depot, of course, wasn’t heated. What if I can’t find you in the parking lot, he said over the phone when they arranged the meeting. Just stay in one place, Alyssa’s grandmother said, and then she named it. Sharon added: You’ll recognize your blood. The call went clipped like that: Yeah, he was still at the halfway…

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PATTY by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

August 2, 2021 · Fiction

The problem with dolls who can do things is that they get bored, you have to keep them busy. If you don’t they get clingy, and it’s so easy to forget to keep the little gold chain on around their neck. They say if you forget about the little gold chain the dolls will chase you everywhere, and then it’s stab, stab, stab. But mostly they’re just you, only smaller, which is gross in its own way. As you get older, they become more childish, until finally you have to put them in a shoebox and bury them in the…

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“SOME RAMBLIN’ FROM AN OLDISH MAN” by Michael Seymour Blake

July 26, 2021 · Comics, Michael Seymour Blake, Wildly Inconsistent Comics

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“WHAT NOISE?! WHAT NOISE?!” by Michael Seymour Blake

July 25, 2021 · Comics, Michael Seymour Blake, Wildly Inconsistent Comics

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BABY ON BOARD by Natalie Warther

July 16, 2021 · Fiction

It’s not a lie. It’s just a sticker. A sticker that says there’s a baby on board, when technically there is not. Can you blame me? You’ve seen how careful people are around a new mother. Otherwise, they are reckless. Besides, people lie about much worse. And there is no sticker that says “Be careful, please, I have a lot of student debt.” Plus, it’s not like there aren’t important things in my backseat. The screenplay I’m writing about a boy who wants to play major league baseball, for example, and a pile of towels from my mother’s garage. Why…

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