
THE NINE O’GLOCK SHUFFLE by Lindsey Pharr
Your eyes follow their tiny finger and, sure enough, there’s a nine-millimeter handgun lying in the middle of your neighborhood street at eight in the morning on Fat Tuesday.

Your eyes follow their tiny finger and, sure enough, there’s a nine-millimeter handgun lying in the middle of your neighborhood street at eight in the morning on Fat Tuesday.

Once my father finishes and leaves, my mother leans back into her chair, rests her eyes on the clock above us, and begins to recall the lovers of her past.

She hits the button to go live and slowly eats something. It could be anything: an apple, a banana, a small granola bar. Comments fly in, encouraging her.

It’d been just one of the gummies, one of the 5mg guys that looked like peaches but for some reason tasted like grapes.

They ask her if she knows what day it is. They try to make her guess how long she drifted for. She won’t. Four days. That’s what they tell her.

When anger threatens to disturb my indifference towards the customers, I breathe deep, I take smoke breaks to cool my nerves in the gnashing waves.

Since I met MOLI she has of course been my vital thing.

We bought Barbies for the clothes, but sooner or later they all ended up naked.

“I can feel your heart beating.” He said it like he was telling her something about herself that she didn’t know already.

How sad is to witness the deflection of someone from your own ethnicity, who breathes the same air, eats the same dishes, but is enemy to your land’s ethos?