Nick Gregorio

Nick Gregorio is a writer, teacher, reader, husband, hobbyist musician, and teeth-grinder living just outside of Philadelphia with his wife and dog. His fiction has appeared in many wonderful publications, and Maudlin House has released two of his books: This Distance (2018), and Good Grief, a novel (2017). He cohosts a podcast called book.record.beer, loves movies, punk rock, and comics, and buys more books than he has time to read. Drop him a line on social media! Twitter: @mister_nick_ and Instagram: @mister__nick.

STILL, BIRDS by Nick Gregorio

Joe’s head bursts and fills the office with blue birds. Singing, chirping, flying figure eights around the ceiling fans. The red-faced, foamy-mouthed ranting Bill just popped Joe’s head with should’ve produced something more vicious. Snakes exploding in every direction like those gag cans sold at junk shops in malls. Or badgers, gnashing their teeth, snarling, sinking their teeth into people’s calf muscles. But blue birds flying, tweeting Jackson 5 tunes, swooping, diving, gliding, barrel rolling over the network of cubicles is…I guess that sort of thing just doesn’t add up for me. Standing in a mess of bird nest that…

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