Flash

JUST ANOTHER FRIDAY by Stefanie K. Yang

August 6, 2025

When Gary died, nobody mourned—not even his siblings. Everyone agreed he lived like a ghost, practically invisible and emerging only when absolutely necessary. He had no children and accomplished very little. He wouldn’t be missed. Like many before him, Gary simply ceased to exist while time and the universe continued on.Yet, for a brief moment, Gary mattered. Gary was murdered. He was killed in his own home in his own bathtub on a Thursday evening between nine- and ten-o’-clock. The most conspicuous evidence was his severed leg. The killer left it in his bathtub in a shallow pool of water which hadn’t properly drained. Gary’s bronze leg lay in the center of the white basin, knee softly bent and brown hairs floating like drifting seaweed.The rest of his body was discarded in a heavy duty trash bag, which was securely fastened and propped against an overflowing bin beside his mailbox. Friday was trash day. So it was a young trash collector named Manuel who would end up discovering Gary the next morning.

***

At approximately 7:15AM, just as Manuel was emptying bins and a couple of school children were boarding a yellow bus, the trash bag containing Gary split open and all of its contents spilled out, mortifying Manuel when a naked body tumbled out onto his right foot. The children stared with hands pressed against the windows. Stanley the bus driver, who was oblivious to what was happening outside his bus, pulled the lever that closes the door, pressed his foot on the accelerator, and shouted for the kids in the back to sit down. He could not hear over his own voice the sound of Manuel frantically calling for his colleagues on the garbage truck to come and help. Trash collectors were just as invisible as bus drivers. That’s why Stanley always had to shout to be heard. As the bus drove away, the children settled down and started lamenting about the upcoming tests of the week. Most of them hadn’t studied.That Friday was indeed a rough day. The traffic was long, the tests were hard, Gary was dead, and Manuel ended up quitting his job. The discovery of the corpse was the straw that broke Manuel’s back. He never wanted to be a trash collector. It paid better than one would think, which was why he took the job, but the pay was not worth the perception that his work belonged on the bottom rungs of society, somewhere between burger flipper and high school janitor. He would later explain to friends and family that he needed to quit; that they, too, would have done so if they, too, spent day after day driving down the same routes collecting what everyone else wanted to discard. How would they feel, he asked, if the dead occupant of 143 Blattodean Road landed on their feet? Would they tolerate the nauseating scent of decay, of blackened banana peels and moldy coffee grounds, while staring in shock at Gary’s sad state? They’d be ‘grossed’ and ‘freaked out’ and ‘fed up,’ too. No, he decided. Life was too short. Gary would have agreed—when the universe surprises you with an earth-shattering moment, you have to act! You need to take what you can and run, or die without having done anything.Those were the thoughts that crossed Manuel’s mind that morning. After cleaning up the contents of Gary’s trash bag, he climbed back onto the garbage truck and proceeded onwards to house number 141 with plans of submitting his resignation as soon as his shift was over.

***

141 Blattodean Road is the dilapidated bungalow of Mr. and Mrs. Withers. The couple lived in the same house for over a quarter of a century. It was where Mr. and Mrs. Withers once raised their children, but those children eventually grew up and moved away. With their human babies gone, they now devoted their resources to a Miniature Schnauzer, two Persians, and some chickens.Gary hated chickens, cats, and dogs, and the Withers probably hated Gary. It seemed inevitable that they’d be contentious neighbors, but because Gary often kept to himself and never once tried to cross paths with them, they were able to coexist without incident.On the night of Gary’s murder, the Withers were walking past his property with their Mini Schnauz named Percy. All evening, Percy had been pacing—wound up and restless, like he knew something extraordinary was about to happen. He needed a walk. So although the Withers didn’t usually stroll during hours they considered unsafe, the stars were out, the moon was full, and dinner had been indulgent. The rustling leaves outside beckoned them, so they walked their dog. And it was mostly nice. That is, until Percy started barking just steps away from returning home.Mr. Withers hissed, ‘Percy! For Chrissake, quit yer yappin’!’ to which Mrs. Withers asked whatever was the matter with him. ‘The hell I know!’ Mr. Withers replied, ‘He’s your damn dog!’ In times like these, Percy was never Mr. Withers’s dog.Poor Percy. If only he could speak human. If only the two most important people in his world stopped to listen sometimes. They might’ve understood him.‘Someone inside that house is screaming,’ Percy barked. ‘I hear screaming! Someone is screaming! We need to find out what’s causing that screaming!’‘I don’t understand what’s wrong with him these days,’ Mrs. Withers sighed as she watched her husband tug at Percy’s leash. ‘Maybe he’s getting senile.’Mr. Withers grumbled. He was hating the incessant barking, but he hated the idea of their dog developing dementia even more. Then as if remembering—‘What day is it today?’ And as if his wife could read his mind—‘Did you take the trash out? Tomorrow’s trash day.’Mr. Withers scowled. When he wasn’t able to calm Percy, he reached down, scooped the dog into his arm, and marched the rest of the way home. His wife followed suit, stopping briefly at her front porch to glance at the shadowy movements behind her neighbor’s drawn curtains. The wind rustled the leaves. Mrs. Withers hugged her arms for warmth, then went inside. She needed to make sure her husband hadn’t forgotten the trash again.

***

For the rest of that night, Blattodean Road was quiet. The Withers got their dog under control and the killer proceeded to kill Gary, emerging two hours later with a trash bag containing his stiffened corpse. The bag would sit all night against the curbside in wait for an unassuming trash collector named Manuel, who couldn’t have imagined that in just a few short moments, he would be shaken to his core at what would land on his shoe.But in the grand scheme of things, none of it would matter. Gary dies. Nobody cares. It’s just another Friday.And the woman who killed him with a broom slept through most of it on Gary’s bed, hungover from a night of wine and phone calls about what she had totally—like, ewww—done, and dreaming about a tussle in the tub and striking something over and over again.

PRAYER BREAKFAST by Emma Ensley

July 30, 2025

I knew that downloading music was illegal, but my dad was the one who showed me how to do it, so I didn’t worry too much. I still prayed at night for God to forgive me, just in case.

***

The Australian's username was koala_rocks47 and he was thirty-two, though I didn't know that yet.I was eleven and three-quarters. I'd found the John Mayer fan forum through a Google search after Drew read the lyrics to "Why Georgia" in Literature class, during our poetry unit."am I living it right?" over and over again, while his hands shook.I wasn't living at all, not really. Not until I heard that song.

***

koala_rocks47: hey Why_GeorgiaGurl! saw ur post about wanting the Melbourne bootleg. I've got the whole show, soundboard quality. want me to upload it for you?Why_GeorgiaGurl: omg yes please!!! I only have the first 4 songs from limewire and they keep cutting outkoala_rocks47: no worries, mate. us hardcore fans gotta stick together. btw love your username - georgia's my favorite track too. how old are you?Why_GeorgiaGurl: 16

***

On Wednesday mornings, Pastor Jim drove the Presbyterian middle schoolers to Bojangles on Cleveland Highway. We called it Prayer Breakfast. At Bojangles I would order a cinnamon biscuit, a buttered biscuit, and a Mr. Pibb. I’d watch Drew across the restaurant while Jim asked us about our “faith journeys.” “Anyone want to share what God's been doing in their lives this week?”I could’ve shared that I'd stayed up until 3 AM downloading bootlegs with someone named koala_rocks47, who thinks I am in high school. Instead, I said nothing and watched Drew's headphones settle around his neck, wondering what holy music played through them.Last week on the bus, his batteries died and he asked to share mine. We listened to a live John Mayer show from Melbourne together. During “Comfortable” our arms touched and stayed touching for three whole songs.“Where do you find all these?” he asked.“The internet,” I said.

***

The next Wednesday his batteries worked but he asked to share headphones anyway. This time he played me Damien Rice and said "this will make you cry" and I pretended it did even though I was mostly thinking about how to make our arms touch again.

***

On the forum, I tell people I've been to twelve John Mayer concerts. I say my favorite was Atlanta because that's the closest city people would recognize. I talk about the acoustics at the Fox Theatre even though I've only seen pictures online. koala_rocks47: which was your favorite show of all the ones you've been to?Why_GeorgiaGurl: probably the one at eddie's attic. he played this unreleased song called “in your atmosphere” and everyone was dead silentI downloaded another bootleg. Hartford, 2002. The crowd noise sounded like prayers or waves or static between radio stations.

***

I burned Drew a mix CD and almost called it “Songs for Bojangles” but at the last second I wrote “Songs for Wednesday Mornings”. I included the Melbourne "Why Georgia," some Damien Rice, and other songs I thought sounded appropriately deep and romantic. Songs about longing and roads and being older than we were.

***

koala_rocks47: what's winter like there?In Georgia, winter meant maybe putting on a fleece. Maybe frost on car windows that melted by 9 AM. In Brisbane it was summer. Upside-down seasons.Why_GeorgiaGurl: cold sometimesI opened a new browser and googled the distance between Brisbane and Atlanta which was 9,272 miles.

***

Drew's mix CD got scratched. The Damien Rice track skipped on “still a little bit” over and over.“Still a little bit still a little bit still a little…”

***

That night I prayed. “Dear God, forgive me for lying about my age. And for downloading. And for the way I feel when Drew's arm touches mine during 'Comfortable.’”

***

Some girls hang out in Pastor Jim's office after school, taking photos on flip phones and listening to emo music that almost sounds like worship songs. I don't go because I don't get asked but also because when I mentioned it to my mom she furrowed her brow and said "I don't know about that."I rolled my eyes and told her it was perfectly fine and she said that it didn’t matter. That it was a bad look. I mentioned this to Drew, like can you believe this, and he kind of shrugged. He said, “I mean yeah, he never has the guys in his office.”

***

I asked koala_rox47 if he believed in God and he typed for a really long time before just saying “no”.

***

At Prayer Breakfast, Pastor Jim always sat next to whoever was newest. This week it was Anna from sixth grade. He asked her about her "walk with Christ" while his hand rested on her back.My Mr. Pibb tasted flat. I couldn’t finish my second biscuit. When Drew played me an unreleased Damien Rice song on the bus, I could barely pay attention to the words. I stared out the window watching the cars fly past us on Cleveland Highway and letting my mind go blank.

***

My mom asked me again about Pastor Jim and I said I hadn’t noticed anything. She stared at me for a long time. I added this to my list of lies needing forgiveness.

***

koala_rocks47 messaged me less and less. Or was it me who was messaging him less and less?

***

I started praying with just the beginnings. Dear God, Dear God, Dear God, Dear God, Dear God, Dear God, Dear God, Dear God.

FOREVER by Spencer Lee

July 25, 2025

I’m sitting at the pool with the boys, listening to the gardener trim the hedges. The world right now is loud and whirring. When the gauze comes off, everything will be graceful and good. My surgeon’s a short man with steroid face–large, skeletal nostrils–but he has great taste in women’s faces. My face feels taut and ready for anything. Underneath the bandages, I swear that I’m smiling down at the boys. I lower my feet into the lukewarm water. The sun is injecting undulating crystals of white that look like ominous little spirits. Or Xanaxs. I wonder what my husband’s doing at work, likely sitting somewhere too: at a desk, a toilet. The boys are yelling, splashing each other, crying out. I get up and towel off my feet, before alerting the nanny to go make them a snack. Heading upstairs to reapply SPF to my limbs, I swallow myself up in the blunt white surfaces of my house. Avoiding the sun makes me feel a little purer, like I’m a kidnapped woman. Peace, quiet, and skincare.The gardener moves right under my window, whirring underneath me. I hear him stumble. The trimmer turns off, and he’s singing to himself. I think to myself that he must be drunk. Last month, there was an incident at the country club. I overheard ladies talking about it at the smoothie bar–a worker killed himself, accidentally, in some sort of construction accident, some sort of falling or impaling or crushing. One of the ladies said that she thought he was probably drunk, and that alcoholism is a disease and it is more omnipresent than we think. Her friends were not necessarily having it, so I went over and agreed with her. It’s actually an area of vulnerability for me. The hedge trimmer turns back on as I lay myself down onto my bed, bunions hurting. Against my will, I think of my parents' liquor cabinet, the largest one you’d ever seen, with the wood sanded down where it rubbed together on opening or slamming shut. I close my eyes and laugh to myself, pop an Ativan for the pain. I look inward. I let myself recount the story of my life through identities: plain schoolgirl, shy debutante, wife, Hollywood actress, wife again, mother. And then I think about my little sports-stars, little Nikes on, splashing away in the pool, and I think about the scalpel that nicked their heads during my C-section. The nanny raises her voice out the window–and I’m reminded of last week, when I got a call from the boys’ teacher, Miss Pappajohn. She had a lot to say. They don’t listen, they don’t relax. They’re doing things. To other kids, to small animals. They’re headstrong, they’re troubled, they’re suspended. When I look at the boys, all I see is a curious innocence. I have the wisdom to know that everything that they do wrong comes from the innocence of not knowing between right and wrong. But of course Miss Pappajohn can’t see that. She’s the one who creeps me out. She’s about my age and I haven’t heard her ever mention a family, or friends. She’s rude, always emailing at odd hours. I can tell her hair has never touched a lick of conditioner. Sometimes, Miss Pappajohn’s face pops up when I see chicken skin at the grocery store. I feel bad for the boys. They have to sit and watch her all day. I bet she keeps whiskey and limes in her dusty little desk drawer. She’s not a good girl. My boys are the innocent ones. Which is funny because of my thought, just now, that I was never really innocent–certainly not as an actress, no matter how approachable and commercial I was always told I looked. You know, that girl-next-door face can be stifling, especially when you’re sitting at home in your own living room and an agent comes by and tells you that you are actually next-door. But that’s what they want. And that’s why I got popular. They don’t want character actresses. They want you to be relatable. But now I’m not. I’m not that innocent girl. Yesterday, I went into my husband’s home office and shredded the letter I got from my mother. The stationary had these cartoon drawings of plump strawberries and yellow happy faces. She was asking for money, I think. She was not innocent either. At the present moment, I have a hard time seeing my parents’ faces; their disapproving features are dwarfed by our distance in space, in time. The mom was short and the dad was tall. Not rich, not poor. They hated me for leaving. I can only imagine them in motion, in fuzzy nonexistent home videos. They’re eating large ears of corn in these home videos. The corn gets in the way of precise detail. I saw on Instagram that hurt people hurt people. I thought it was stupid at first. But lying here alone, I don’t feel like I’m the real cause of anything bad. I guess maybe I can be innocent if I think hard enough. Everyone can be. All the men, too, even. Silent rooms filled with them, black bow ties and woody cologne. That’s not even what they wore or smelled like, but it’s how I picture them.#MeToo has supposedly changed the industry. Now, it’s young men who have to watch out for the gay power-players. I was glad to take this work hiatus to gather my bearings, get in touch with myself, with truth, and now even with my own innocence. Maybe I’m a good girl with good bones when it comes down to it. I notice a pinstripe of sunlight feeling up the walls, then, I watch it disappear as I close the gap in the curtains. The gardener looks up mysteriously at me as I do it. I know I need to deal with him. Suddenly, footsteps. I turn around. “Mommy?” the boys ask. They’ve padded behind me to my room, dripping all over the floors like twin slugs. “Hello,” I reply, slipping the little orange bottle from my palm to my bathrobe pocket.“He’s mad at you.” One points to the other. “Mad?” “He doesn’t want your face to change. He wants you to stay the same and never die.”“Oh, sweetie,” I look at the boys, who are both averting eye contact. “Me too. This is all to make sure that I look the same forever.” The boys liven up, imagining this world I’ve created where mothers don’t age. Smiling, they say that they’ll stop eating so they can never age too. I smile back. Their minds are cute little uncooked hamburgers that only I know how to handle correctly. They’ve known me to get Botox before, and they always hate it because I look different. I’ve misled them in my way, but that’s what mothers are there to do: keep up the illusion of Santa, of no ‘bad guys’ who come out in the night, of a world that’s going to keep running smoothly for the next 100 years, just for them. What they don’t know is that I have to do it. What they don’t know is that looking different can sometimes be the only way to stay the same. If I posture just right, I can make it seem like I always looked like this. Because my new face isn’t stalling for anyone, not even the boys. My new face will not be plain, because plainness invites people to think that you are just like them, when you are not. My new face will not be aged, because looking in the mirror at a wrinkly face fishes out the bloated, drowned corpse of the past and turns it over into the future, which you also do not want. It’ll be that unique kind of beauty that you can’t forget. Which is to say that I will look fake.I’m finally ready to admit that I’ve always been fake. That’s what people don’t get–I’ve always been fake. Things roll off of me. I’ve schemed my way through life. And I’ve proudly worn blinders, because seeing everything in great detail makes everything strange and sad. I don’t want to be sad. But it's all okay now. This new face will let me rest my heavy little mind. It'll get me in touch with innocence. I’ll be on the outside what I’ve always felt like on the inside and it will be my repentance. Lately, I’ve been even considering trying my hand at acting again. This time, I could really disappear—line by line, frame by frame, into a good role. Be ruined and dramatic for a bit. Cry and beg for my babies back. Give a real smile when they do come back. No more Hallmark. I take the boys back downstairs. The gardener is packing up–and a strange feeling that I could have been unaware of something makes me nervous, realizing that something curious about this image does not come together correctly. I’m shocked to feel as though I’m sinking and the world around me is enlarging like a bright ballooning tumour. I gather myself. I approach the gardener, ask if he needs anything–water, a snack. While he answers, I inspect his face for puffiness, yellowing, and I inspect his eyes, too, for wandering. He looks back at me, blankly, as I take my time. He looks fine. I’m glad to see it. Now, I don’t have to do anything anymore. I don’t want to. So, I’m sitting at the pool with the boys, watching the gardener exit stage left. The sun is shining. The boys are screaming, with joy, and the adhesive under my bandages has never felt so tight and secure. Emboldened, I raise my face to the sun in satisfaction. My life is intact and good.

SWIMMERS by Tobi Pledger

July 24, 2025

Doc Raeford lifted the tail and stepped back to avoid the torrent of steaming bull shit. After the last wink of the bull’s anus, he leaned forward and pushed the electroejaculator probe into the rectum, completing the docking maneuver.“Bull’s eye.” Mike would never have imagined that he’d enjoy helping a veterinarian anally penetrate a two-thousand-pound Angus bull, but he did.Raeford shrugged. “It’s a gift.”The bull resisted the intrusion, lunging forward, shoving his chest against the gate of the squeeze chute with a jolt. His nostrils flared, flecks of foamy mucus blowing out on the exhale. The Texas sun heated the black hide, releasing its animal scent.“How’s your wife?” Mike asked.“Good. She’s meeting her sister for a spa day. They’re doing goat yoga, then getting massaged with hot rocks.”“I’ve heard of the down dog, but not—”“This isn’t a position. It’s baby goats standing on your back. Supposed to be relaxing.”Raeford flicked the switch and the bull froze, legs locked straight, the only movement a twitch of skin over his shoulders.“Have you hired a new assistant for the clinic yet?” Sweat dripped from Mike’s chin onto the front of his khaki twill prison-issue shirt. He watched Raeford out of the corner of his eye.The bull sucked breath into his massive lungs and held it for almost five seconds, before releasing it in a snort as his abdominal muscles spasmed, and he ejaculated. Mike was right there with the collection tube.“Yep. He’s starting next week.” “Oh.” Mike tasted something metallic, bitter as an unripened persimmon. “Good deal.” It had been stupid to hope for anything different.Raeford pulled the ejaculator probe out of the bull. Mike removed the loving cup from the end of the collection tube and placed it carefully on the workbench.After pipetting a drop of semen onto a glass slide and studying it under the microscope for a couple of minutes, Doc Raeford said, “Morphology eighty percent, motility seventy percent.”Mike wrote the figures on the bull’s breeding soundness evaluation form. “He’s a keeper.”“Yep. Lots of swimmers.”“So, Doc, I’m getting out in three weeks. I’m going to miss working with you.”“I can speak with the parole board. They may argue for you to stay if I tell them what a big help you are.”“Oh, hell no. No, way.”“I’m messing with you, son.”Mike received the maximum sentence for being in possession of a smidge over two ounces of marijuana, likely because he’d refused to say who’d sold it to him. He smiled wistfully.Raeford palpated the bull’s scrotum and measured its circumference. He wrote the measurement down and gave a thumbs up to Mike, who pulled the lever releasing the head gate. The bull trotted out and was herded from the area by two trustees on horseback.The next bull had a higher body condition score but his sperm were sluggish, resulting in a motility score of only twenty percent. Despite being a handsome animal, he would not be kept for breeding. After the last of the bulls had been examined, Mike tidied the work area. He wiped off the electroejaculator and packed it, and the microscope, in their cases.Raeford sorted the evaluation forms by the bulls’ ear tag numbers. “That was a good day’s work. What do we have for next week?”“We’ll have several new litters of piglets needing iron shots, ear notching, and tail docking. And a batch of male piglets ready for castration.“The whole enchilada. That’ll keep us busy. Thanks for giving me a hand today.”“Yes, sir. Always happy to help.”

***

The following Wednesday, Mike had two tables set up in the farrowing barn, each with a large dog crate on top. One crate held a litter of piglets, the other was empty.Raeford pulled lidocaine, syringes, needles, a V-ear notcher, castration knife, brown glass bottles of iron dextran, and a jug of disinfectant from a black bag.Mike brought out the first piglet, cradling it gently in his calloused hands.“I’m back to square one with the search for an assistant.”Mike blinked and something fluttered in his stomach. “Why?”“The guy never showed up, and he’s not answering his phone. Maybe he got another job and isn’t courteous enough to tell me.” Mike stood mute as Raeford injected iron, punched divots out of the ear margins for identification, and nipped off the end of the piglet’s tail. He hugged the baby piglet to his chest and whispered in its ear before placing it into the empty crate. As he picked up another little one, his mind chewed over this new development. He took a deep breath and spoke fast, before he could change his mind. “Doc, would you consider letting me interview for the job?”Raeford frowned. “I thought you were going back to UPS?”“I’d rather work with animals.”“It probably doesn’t pay as much as UPS, but the job is yours if you want it.”It didn’t feel real. Mike didn’t want to ask but had to. “It’s not a problem, me being an ex-con?”Doc Raeford put down the tail nippers. “You’ve been my assistant for a year and you’re damn good at it. You treat the animals with compassion. I don’t give a good crap about anything else. You hear me?”“Yes, sir. Thank you.”“Now, let’s get going. It’s date night for me and the wife—she’s taking me to goat yoga.”

MUTUAL by Caroline Porter

July 21, 2025

Amelia-Rose followed first. She even had the audacity to message Francis afterwards, as if following real life acquaintances on Tumblr was normal. Hi Francis! It’s nice to see someone else who is as online as me lol. xoxo—AR Francis freaked, of course. She couldn’t picture Amelia-Rose as a fellow Columbiner, not even as one of the fangirls exclusively in it for horny reasons: the ones who posted crime scene photos of Eric’s body captioned idk hes kinda cute without his face, who posted drawings of a shirtless Dylan Klebold, passably rendered in ballpoint pen—not that Francis thought there was any respectability there, with those types of girls. Amelia-Rose’s blog was Lolita models and gifsets of the Sanrio characters and hard-jawed men who were stranded in a meadow of kawaii. Arrayed in tweed, they pinned squirming schoolgirls beneath them, besmirching their mahogany desks with statutory rape. Those posts were hashtagged with TCC.A multipurpose acronym, two types of girl. Read Francis’ way: True Crime Community. Turned on its head: Teacher Crush Community. Francis ignored Amelia-Rose’s message, but clicked the Follow Back! button. And so they were mutuals. A disclosure of degeneracy: I know you, yes, but you know me too.

***

In the hallways they passed each other like strangers. Francis saw Amelia-Rose exclusively through her peripheral vision. Amelia-Rose took on a diffused quality—pinks and yellows, like the kind of sunset Francis saw in the Sunoco parking-lot where she sometimes sat, cross-legged in a fug of cigarette smoke, on the automatic tire pump.What if I talked to her? Francis thought, but she couldn’t withstand the visual: Amelia-Rose, almost six feet tall with her childishly large hairbows; Francis, in a men’s leather trench coat that dragged across the linoleum floors.Despite this, Amelia-Rose liked her reblog of the boys mugging for the camera, liked her selfie in which she wore Eric’s mirror-lensed sunglasses, liked her 1000 word essay, a painfully comprehensive breakdown of a single line from Eric’s journal. What do you think about when you look at the sky at night, when there's no clouds out and you can see all the stars? Francis reblogged a text post: According to autopsy records, Eric’s heart weighed ten grams less than Dylan’s. Alone in her room, she cried. It was Eric she loved best, after all—his verbosity, his skinny limbs in a constant tap dance of agitation. The visibility of his desperation to be loved, like cracks of light shining through the roof of a condemned building. She shut her eyes and held her hands out, trying to feel the weight of a dead boy’s heart. Above her reblog, she added: when i read this, i cried for real.A message appeared in her inbox. Here if you ever want to talk about anything.She imagined telling her, all the trite things Amelia-Rose would say to try to convince her not to. And what advice could that girl offer? A teenage girl in love with her drama teacher. A girl who had answered, unabashed, the anonymous ask Francis had sent her—answered that her wildest fantasy was to be walking home from school in the pouring rain and see the familiar car on the street. To watch as it slowed, as the passenger window rolled down. To see deliberation play across his face, to watch the break in resolve in real time. To be offered a ride.

***

Do I dare disturb the universe? asked a poem Francis studied in AP English. Do I dare? Do I dare? came into her mind often. That intruding, shameful question. Time to turn back and descend the stair.

***

At night she would play through Eric’s Doom WADs. Bricks. KILLER. Hockey.wad. She liked to clear the level of all the demon hordes and then linger there, floating through that labyrinth he had created over twenty years ago. When she tried to sleep she would see the Doom HUD on the back of her eyelids. 50 ammo, 100% health, 0% armor. She dreamt a military-base maze, an endless turning of corners. Eyes shut, the eyeball flicking back and forth underneath the thin skin of her eyelid, searching for someone that was not there.

***

She did theater tech for the spring musical, Little Shop of Horrors. Amelia-Rose was Audrey. Francis watched from high above in the control booth as she sang her solo, a falsetto belt. I’m his December Bride. He’s Father, he knows best. It was a pity, Francis thought, that Amelia-Rose was so talented and still deemed unworthy of love. Francis trained the spotlight down on her, aim steady as Amelia-Rose danced across the stage. Afterwards when she went to smoke she found Amelia-Rose crouched behind the theater, her mascara in wet trails down her cheeks. Francis didn’t know what to say. As she lit up she watched Amelia-Rose out of the corner of her eye. Francis finished her cigarette in silence, crushing the butt under her combat boot.“Do you want to go to the mall?” Amelia-Rose asked suddenly.Francis had never been to the mall. She didn’t have a car and she wouldn’t have wanted to go even if she could get there. Still, she found herself nodding. Found herself saying, “Yeah, okay.”

***

At Southpoint Mall they threaded in and out of stores, compelled to buy nothing, touch nothing, barely speaking. They ended up on a bench behind the mall beside an abandoned fountain.“I guess we should go home,” Amelia-Rose said eventually.Francis nodded. She stared at the fountain. Inside were statues of children, cast in brass. They were disquieting, malformed, their mouths stretched into grimaces meant to be smiles, their teeth individually rendered. They were placed on raised platforms, and underneath them jets of water were supposed to spout up to give the illusion that they were being blasted into the sky, except someone had turned the jets off a long time ago. The fountain was infested with geese; they splashed in the water and leaked white shit through the children’s hair. What if I walked in? Francis thought. What if I did anything at all? The sun came down a parking-lot orange. A tree branch balanced in the open hands of one of the children. It was brittle and five feet tall. The end branched like a forked tongue thrust into the sky. “Do you ever feel scared to do literally anything?” Francis asked Amelia-Rose.“Sometimes it’s good to be scared,” Amelia-Rose said. After a pause, she continued, “It’s like—I made a move on him today. He was helping me do my makeup, blacking out my eye, and his hands were on my face—I grabbed them and held them against my lips. For a second he stayed there, and I thought maybe…” She looked down, fiddling with her bracelets. “He was nice about it—he said he would ignore it this one time.”Francis walked over to the fountain. When she grabbed the stick, it was almost too much sensation: dirt worming beneath her fingernails; the geese’s honks; the slippage of leaves underfoot; the smell of still water. She turned back to Amelia-Rose. She levelled the stick and looked down its barrel, composing the image just so. A face in the crosshairs. “I could kill him for you,” Francis said.Amelia-Rose laughed as if it were a joke. “You wouldn’t dare.”Francis thought: Watch me. Amelia-Rose grabbed the forked end and pulled. The stick cracked like a wishbone between them, the sound dry and startling. Around them the geese screamed, rose into the air, and fled.

PARROT by László Darvasi, translated from Hungarian by Ági Bori

July 15, 2025

As was his habit, he lay down for an afternoon nap, although next door they were building a church. The sounds of drills, hammers, and other tools kept waking him up. He fumbled his way to the kitchen, drank two glasses of absinthe in quick little swigs, plopped back in the armchair, and stared at the ceiling. Up there, the light was moving back and forth, forming streaks and patches, devouring itself. They were puttering around next door, and he remembered that the foreman had once said to the workers that not all of them would live long enough to see the completion of the church. He was a slim and sinewy man; he smoked while he talked; he lit up a few cigarettes. He watched him from the balcony, then eventually he reached for a cigarette, too. The workers should remember, the foreman explained, that there are sanctuaries and churches whose construction lasted five hundred years. Think of the many churches in the world that are up and running, but they’ll never be finished. They’re not yet finished, but services are already taking place in them. The workers should remember that a church might never be truly finished. And when it is finished, does everyone get there in the end? No. Not everyone gets to the church they plan to go to. Because along the way they get lost, find another church, take a different path, get sick, die.The workers then began to ask questions.“Then why bother building it?”“I don’t know,” the foreman said. “They’re paying us, aren’t they?”They are. That’s true. If they weren’t paying, they would quit for sure. But because they’re paying them, they’re working. Then one of the workers asked a strange question:“Could a prayer be ever finished?!”“Perhaps if it’s genuinely heard,” the foreman replied, but he already regretted saying it.The man thought that once services were being held, he’d go over there to pray too, perhaps get down on his knees, and ask the Lord not to let the bird land on his windowsill anymore. Is that what he really wanted though? The window was open, and if he were to close the window panes, he’d suffocate. The heat was unbearable. At least with the window open, there was a small draft. He got up from the armchair, and looked back to see what kind of imprint his body left behind. He turned the radio on, and the scratchy sounds, emitted with each turn of the button, also sounded like a prayer. He listened to the news. Another catastrophic mine accident somewhere. The hot spell was here to stay. A protest was underway. The man turned the radio off. He drank another glass of absinthe, opened a can of beer, and watched the slowly disappearing brownish foam; by then, the bird was already standing on the windowsill. Truth be told, it usually dirtied it up and, once again, it pooped right there.The men below were puttering around.The bird was the town’s parrot, it flew from window to window, no one knew who its owner was, whose cage it escaped from. Someone might have let him go, shoo, fly away, we don’t want you anymore, bird. He thought it might have stayed around this area because of the construction of the church; maybe it was fascinated by the sounds of drills, chisels, hammers. The temperature was so high that the dripping sweat boiled on the temples. The city was suffocating, windows everywhere were wide open, as if they were human mouths. Large, hungry mouths, breathing in the heat and exhaling human vapor, the scent of dust falling from the leaves of indoor plants, the stale smell of furniture. The curtains, like souls ready to escape their imprisonment, swayed back and forth. The parrot was an exceptionally intelligent being.Its small colorful head tilted left and right, it listened, it eavesdropped. It picked up and learned the intimate whispers and shouts that circulated in each home, then it moved on. In the next home it repeated what it heard earlier. Sometimes the parrot told the man, stay with me.“Stay with me.”“Go away.”“You’re not enough.”“You’re too much.”The parrot whispered, be nice, be nice.“Let’s dance, darling.”The bird acted out how the church was being built. It imitated the drilling, the chiseling, the loud hammering, as though it were an echo. After a while it flew away, the man wiped off the yellow poop from the windowsill, and emptied another glass of absinthe down his gullet. He sat down, stared upward, and gave names to the cracks on the ceiling. He spotted a spider. He might have even dozed off. That’s when the doorbell rang. It was the foreman from the construction site, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. His face looked tormented. They had exchanged a few words before, back when the construction started. He was now holding a bag in his hand, said hello, and asked to come in for a moment. He had something to say. The man nodded, of course, and stepped aside. The foreman accepted the glass of absinthe and lit up another cigarette. “This is how we pray,” he said “during work.” “We never get to the end of our work, but we pray regardless.”The bag was still in his hand.“I see,” the man nodded. “Did the parrot used to visit you, too?”“I never chased it away. Sometimes I might have even waited for it,” the man nodded.“Do you know what one of my workers said? He said that the bird is the voice of history.”“That might be a bit of an exaggeration,” the man said, and he poured another glass. They clinked their small, but thick glasses.“While we were working on our construction site,” the foreman said, “the bird kept repeating a woman’s name. In your voice. We couldn’t work because of it.”“You couldn’t work because of a name?”The foreman didn’t answer.“It was so ridiculous. The youngsters, the younger workers, they kept laughing,” he said as he wiped his forehead. “Don’t be angry with me, but it couldn’t go on any longer.”“I see,” the man nodded. “Don’t be angry with me, you all.”“Here you go,” the foreman said, and he slowly lowered the bag on the table. He chugged another glass of absinthe and left. He didn’t say goodbye. His steps echoed in the stairway, although during such heat waves stairway noises usually sound muffled. Blood seeped through the brown pastry bag. They must have caught it by hand, and then wrung its neck. The man placed the carcass on the windowsill, right where it pooped a few hours ago, and then, as had been his habit for some time, he began to talk to it.

POCKET UNIVERSE by D.T. Robbins

July 14, 2025

I find a pocket universe in my apartment building. A whole ass other universe two floors below me! On the 23rd floor to be exact. You’d never know it was a pocket universe by looking at it. From the outside, it just looks like another normal door to another normal apartment. The pocket universe feels like it’s made for me. Like its dark energy and matter and various particles all exploded from the nethermost parts of my soul during its creation or my creation, or maybe they happened simultaneously and that’s how love works. The first night that I’m in my pocket universe, I sleep. That’s it. I sleep the best sleep I’ve had in years. No alarms. No construction outside my window. No neighbors fucking so loudly that I get a little jealous but also a little horny. Just the purest form of rest known to man. I wake up to a fresh cup of coffee just the way I like it on the nightstand with a little note that says: Good morning. I love you. At sunset, I walk through the field of black velvet petunias and watch how the rays of light bounce off the petals and bounce upward to illuminate the coming stars and my heart bounces around in my chest and wow wow wow, look at how beautiful everything is!I tell my pocket universe everything: how stupid my boss is, why I chose to wear whatever I chose to wear that particular day, how my diet is/isn’t going, my working theory that anyone who drives a KIA is a bad driver and anyone who drives a BMW is an asshole—everything! My pocket universe listens and laughs and through signs and wonders lets me know if I'm right or if I’m being judgmental. It’s not long until I pack up most of my shit and move into my pocket universe, only going back to my home universe when I need to water my plants or get a haircut or see how the San Diego Padres are doing this season or something. I work remotely, and my pocket universe has great WiFi, so I’m still able to make money even though I don’t have to pay for rent or gas or groceries anymore. My pocket universe provides everything for me free of charge. Nights are spent by the ocean, drinking coffee stouts with the dolphins. Mornings are spent having friendly debates on various topics with the redwood trees and the skyscrapers while scarfing down the best fucking breakfast burritos I’ve ever had. In the fleeting moments, I stare at the sun because here it doesn’t blind you. Here, it illuminates the version of you that you’ve always wanted to be. The version of you you’d always hoped was somewhere inside of you. It shines its light on that part of you like a miracle, and you start to believe.

***

I notice it in the sky first, like slender cracks in glass slowly crawling from one end of the horizon to the other. My pocket universe tries to convince me that everything is fine. That it’s not a big deal, nothing to worry about. The water is next. Once clear and pure, it muddles and is soon overrun with leeches. The sun dims from brilliant gold to a metallic gray. Still, my pocket universe tells me it’s okay. That it will pass soon enough, that it’s just grateful I’m here. I tell it I’m just as grateful. That I love it too. That I love it more than words can express. That no story or song or poem or picture or suicide pact or anything could ever express. That’s when the crimson in my veins turns black. My skin pales as the dark lines stretch along every inch of my body. I lose sight in one eye, and my lungs only take half their normal amount of air. Every breath feels suffocating. “I’m killing you by staying here,” I say. “Maybe I don’t belong here. Maybe I was wrong. What did I do? Why is this happening?”The mountains explode. Fire mushrooms up and rolls out like tidal waves across the canvas of sky, setting my pocket universe itself on fire. Stars crash down around me. My pocket universe whispers in my ear, “I’m so sorry,” and I black out. I’m lying on the floor of the hallway, covered head to toe in ash and soot. The door to my pocket universe expands and retracts as though taking its last breaths. I reach for the doorknob, try to force myself back in. I’m thrown into the air like a fucking rag doll, past the other doors in the hallway that lead to regular apartments and not pocket universes, and into the elevator. The doors slam shut, and I’m sent back to my floor.

***

Every morning and night, I walk past the door that leads to my pocket universe. The cracks in the wood heal in a matter of days, weeks, months until it’s as good as new. I heal, too. But I know I can never go back to my pocket universe. That if I do, it’ll kill us both. For whatever reason. It doesn’t matter, I guess. It just is. Instead, I lie in bed at night and dream of my pocket universe. Of its beauty and its brilliance and its whole ass existence being a miracle. And in my dreams, in my mind, I find a new pocket universe for me and my pocket universe to be together. One that hopefully won’t kill us both.

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 eagles soaring unparalleled heights rather than the immediacy with which they took off?These were understandable questions to ask of a man who also drove a beat-up sedan that couldn’t reach 30 miles per hour without shuddering and shaking across the land it traversed. And shit cars aside, Jitterbug usually preferred to stumble home most nights, the pounding tread of his unsteady boots his only company at 2:30 AM.After his death, choking on a chicken wing alone in his studio apartment with no curtains and a crunchy carpet that would scare even the bravest set of bare feet, the truly unspectacular mystery of Jitterbug Johnny’s motto that, without realizing it, garnered years of mental estate by those who knew him, rose to the surface, ready to be evaluated.Bored by their regular brews, Jitterbug’s bar buddies, a comingling from two different, dimly-lit establishments, met in an agreed upon abandoned parking lot to speculate over who “Jitterbug Johnny” really was and why he proselytized about driving faster than an eagle takes flight.First, the bar buddies decided to bust down Jitterbug’s front door, a place, they all discovered, they had never been invited back to.Their first batch of clues was the adornments: a Mexican flag on one wall, just to the side of the bulby TV, and, on the other, just above the couch, hung a life-sized poster of Howie Mandel wearing a burgundy suit—official 2007 promo for the show Deal or No Deal.The buddies stopped in their tracks, thankful for the safe, cleanish confines of their work boots traversing across the crackling carpet, their feet inside burdened enough, sore, weary, from working their hauls, their men, and their minds throughout the day.With fewer answers and more questions, the breeze drifting over the felled front door, the bar buddies scratched their beards and polished their bald heads shiny, forgetting why they felt so compelled to come, until the leering face of Howie Mandel sparked a discussion, a speculating as to why Johnny, a live alone bachelor, would have a poster of a sharp-dressed man and not a woman with honeyed hair and cleavage like an overstuffed couch?What, ultimately, they didn’t say (“Johnny was a queer!”), out of reverence for the dead, screamed louder than what they did (“Deal or No Deal? Solid network TV!”)Then the baked-in smell of spicy chicken soup, advancing from the hallway, comforted their searching minds and, together, without further debate, they realized Howie Mandel, at heart, was a stand-up comedian, an uncovered masculine aspect to the poster and the dead man who had tacked it up with three rusty nails and one bobby pin (“Certainly a souvenir from one wild nooner,” the bar buddies nudged each another with a grin.)But the Mexican flag they still cut their eyes at, wanting Jitterbug to be a full-blooded American. That is until one of the buddies, either the one a full inch shorter than the rest or the one who was always “pickin’ his seat,” chimed in, “I remember Jitterbug sayin’ his dad was half Mexican? Or…Maybe…It was his grandfather?”Ah yes, the bar buddies nodded. They too had a half-Mexican father and/or grandpa.The buddies split up, combing through the rest of the apartment, hoping to turn over the right “shell” and gain more clarity, more understanding so they could get back to their respective bars and nod with added certainty whenever someone spoke Jitterbug’s name.Drawers opened, cabinets closed, and fingers of the buddies gripped, tousled, and upturned what they could find only to come up short of filling in the deep gaps of just who all these men had considered a friend.Was Jitterbug the broken comb wedged under the one recliner, not the one with the blood stain but the one that smelled like box? Was he the TV, stuck on the weather channel for a different state? And where was the car manuals or bird ephemera for all that talk of driving eagles and flying cars. What was the saying again, the buddies shrugged, the permeating soup smell now a given, no longer a comfort.Tired, the buddies scratched themselves a final time, resting their other available hand on their hip until that posture felt too feminine and they all quickly shoved their hands in their pockets and left.Back at the bar, a new one, but as divey as the ones they had known, floors sticky, the beer cheap and shitty, the buddies sighed collectively.“Remember the time Johnny chipped his tooth?”Yes, they remembered, their smiles flat and foamy. Jitterbug had gotten blackout drunk and smashed his face into the pinball table just because no one had ever thought to give it a try.“Remember the time Johnny shit his pants?”Yes, that too they remembered until a bar buddy said, “Which time?”They all laughed over their beers, promising they’d learn from Jitterbug’s mistake, stopping at three, rushing to the toilet if they felt any “hot chocolate” coming on.Then a lull settled and the bar buddies noticed the football game blaring from the many screens and the two women playing pool who, yes, did have smaller breasts than they would normally hope for but it would be rude not to chat them up after the next round brought out the courage.It was this kind of casual moment of nothing, before that chicken wing refused to budge, when Jitterbug Johnny would’ve appeared, telling them all to drive faster than an eagle takes flight. The bar buddies acknowledged his absence with back slaps and mug raises. They didn’t have more any information about their dead, beloved friend. And they still didn’t understand his confounding catchphrase, but one thing was clear: you can argue with your boss for sticking you with the night shift, you can argue with your girlfriend on how best to shut that newborn up, but you can’t argue with the dead.“Hear, hear!” The bar buddies cried, clinking their glasses, letting the beer spill over the rim as it pooled on the bar top. “To Jitterbug Johnny!”

ANOTHER WORD FOR IT by David Hering

June 13, 2025

The woman who wrote Beowulf considered it juvenilia. She composed it during the years she roamed close to the old hall, hearing the revelry, watching the fighting and fucking from the slippery dark outside. Over the long seasons she recognised, in her observations of the hall, a will that sprung from its inhabitants; a mode of life that ran in tight, obsolete cycles. Drink spilled, offence taken, necks opened, blood added to mud, children made, killed. These dances played out, accumulated nothing. Over time, she moved away from the hall and disavowed the tales she wrote about it. In their place, she composed stories that were not about human things. Wine and swords melted into the grey candlelight of the old world. She took what the land told her and made its rough clay into her letters. The humans and their fires were things she had stepped upon to light the way; this new language was in the stones, in the correspondence between root and soil, between a bird’s foot and the branch on which it balanced. The years turned. She roamed further into the land’s interior. Caves contained dialogues of water and stone. Animals in mating bred glyphs and signs. Trees bent horselike to meet her, brushing flowers into her neck as she went. There was no longer a distinction between herself and where she placed her body. Blood from a wound was shared with whatever thorn had cut it. As water ran over her hand it carried some unseen fraction downstream. These were inscriptions the world would not preserve; a language inscrutable by the evening of the day on which it was composed. She would scratch on bark or carve into rock, then find it gone. The idea of lines on a scroll became laughable to her, pulp, dirt. The description of a blade, a creature, a warrior, a mother––this was child’s work. She found within this new expression a tapering line, a promise that vanished like ice. Foot became tree became fur became blood became water. Eventually, she was no longer visible. The hall raged on out of sight, a red pinprick, prevailing.

***

It's a mistake for one to assume that writing is the end of anything. Anyone can knock stones together, that’s writing. Anyone can stick a sword through an eye, that’s writing. As words get older, they become solid. Eventually they’re just something to trip over, look back on, and curse at. The world does not have need of anything so final. A place is found in its accumulation and then its dispersal. What else is there to say, other than I am something that briefly came true. Aeons pass. A body sits at a table. It is hard to make out what it’s doing through the haze––perhaps the old perpetual scratching of lines. Some monster shambles to the door, knocks, enters.

PERSONAL LIFE #35 by Ulyses Razo

June 12, 2025

In 1983, when I was 32, I invited my Sorbonne classmate Renée Hartevelt to dinner at my apartment at 10 Rue Erlanger, under the pretext of translating poetry for a school assignment. I planned to kill and eat her, having selected her for her health and beauty, characteristics I felt I lacked.I have had a lifelong suspicion that people find me mentally and physically repulsive. However, many of those who meet me find me to possess obvious intelligence and a sense of humor. They also find me handsome, although of austere appearance. I am often regarded as “very self-analytic."I considered myself weak, ugly, and small (I’m 4 ft 9) and wanted to absorb Hartevelt’s energy. She was 25 years old and 5 ft 10. After Hartevelt arrived, she began reading poetry at a desk with her back to me when I shot her in the neck with a rifle. My colleague Brod has compared me to Heinrich von Kleist, noting that both of us have the ability to describe a situation realistically with precise details. He thinks I am one of the most entertaining people he has met. I enjoy sharing my humor with my friends, but also help them in difficult situations with good advice. According to Brod, I am a passionate reciter, able to phrase my speech as though it were music. I fainted after the shock of shooting Renée but awoke with the realization that I had to carry out my plan. I could not bite into her skin because my teeth were not sharp enough, so I left the apartment and purchased a butcher knife. Brod feels that two of my most distinguishing traits are "absolute truthfulness" and "precise conscientiousness." I explore inconspicuous details in depth and with such precision and love that unforeseen things surface that seem strange but absolutely true.I consumed various parts of Hartevelt's body, eating most of her breasts, face, buttocks, feet, thighs, and neck, either raw or cooked. I swallowed her clitoris whole, due to her being on her period at the time, and me not liking the smell of menstrual blood, while saving other parts in my refrigerator. I understand the pathos of things. I possess an empathy towards things, a sensitivity to ephemera, an awareness of impermanence, of the transience of things, both a transient gentle sadness at their passing, as well as a longer, deeper, gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.I also took photographs of Hartevelt's body at each eating stage. Once the remains of her body that I did not consume started decomposing, I attempted to dump the remains of Hartevelt's corpse in a lake in the Bois de Boulogne park, carrying her dismembered body parts in two suitcases, but I was caught in the act and arrested by French police. In my debut novel, I coined the term Saudade, an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for something that one loves despite it not necessarily being real. My wealthy father provided a lawyer for my defense. After being held for two years awaiting trial, I was found legally insane and unfit to stand trial by the French judge, who ordered me held indefinitely in a mental institution. After a visit by the author Inuhiko Yomota, my account of the murder and its aftermath was published in Japan under the title In the Fog. In my second novel, I coined the term Weltschmerz (literally "world-pain"), a literary concept describing the feeling experienced by an individual who believes that reality can never satisfy the expectations of the mind.My subsequent publicity and macabre celebrity likely contributed to the French authorities' decision to deport me to Japan, where I was immediately committed to Matsuzawa Hospital in Tokyo. In my third novel, I coined the end-of-history illusion, a psychological illusion in which individuals of all ages believe that they have experienced significant personal growth and changes in tastes up to the present moment, but will not substantially grow or mature in the future.My examining psychologists all declared me sane and found sexual perversion was my sole motivation for murder. As the charges against me in France had been dropped, the French court documents were sealed and were not released to Japanese authorities; consequently, I could not legally be detained in Japan. I checked myself out of the hospital on the 12th of August, 1986, and subsequently remained free. On July 2nd, 1982, I attached 43 balloons to my lawn chair, filled them with helium, put on a parachute, and strapped myself into the chair in the backyard of my home at 1633 West 7th Street in San Pedro, California. I took my pellet gun, a CB radio, sandwiches, beer, and a camera.While being lifted in the air by the balloons, I considered inventing the wind phone, an unconnected telephone booth where visitors can hold one-way conversations with deceased loved ones, but decided against it.