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A WANTED WOMAN by Paul Beckman

October 23, 2018

I told him not to call anymore so he started sending me postcards. I had my lawyer tell his lawyer onay on the postcards or any mail. Then the texts started. This time we went to court and the judge gave him a restraining order and we left figuring that was that and no more and good riddance to bad rubbish but the planes started flying low and slow pulling messages—I Love U— I Miss U, etc.

So it was back to court and the judge threatened him good and added planes to the list and threw in drones for good measure. Hot air balloons. We can’t think of everything so I hear what would have been our song blasting. At Last by Etta James over and over and over and I stood on my deck holding my cell phone up so he waved goodbye only to show up in the balloon the next day when I was sunbathing in the yard and no music but he started dropping leaflets until my yard was covered and yes they all said the same thing—Marry Me—I love you.

So the next day back in court and the judge takes a shotgun out from under his desk and hands it to me. He tells me I can shoot the balloon down. So the balloon is out of the picture and he’s gone to ground and I ask around if anyone has seen my Maid of Honor and the looks and coughs and subject changes come out and one day I get a wedding invitation to their wedding and no I’m not going and no I’m not pissed at Sally but I’m not going because I’m afraid these two have cooked up a surprise wedding for me and I don’t want to have to use that shotgun.

MARBLES by Bram Riddlebarger

October 18, 2018

"Sit down and take a load off," said Jack.

"We've been working like the queen's bees."

"Yeah," said Tommy.

He was tired.

"Which one did you go out on today, Tommy? I thought I saw that #4 sagging a little."

Jack wasn't joking.

Tommy was real fat.

He was tired, too.

"No," said Tommy. "I stayed on shore and flirted with that cute little Amy. The one with only one eye. Besides that, she's real cute."

"Are you shitting me?"

"Nope," said Tommy.

They drank warm beer out of brown bottles.

Jack couldn't believe this Tommy.

"Hitting on the ladies, huh?" said Jack.

"You know, I'd watch out for that one-eyed . . . "

But that was as far as Tommy would let Jack go.

He let Jack have it with some real dialogue.

"Now, hold on there, Jack," said Tommy.

"Just watch your mouth about the one-eyed women.

Amy seems okay."

"Okay?" said Jack.

"Have you lost your marbles? Or did this one-eyed Amy eat ‘em already?"

Jack was a mean-spirited man.

He had watched Amy switch around in the office at the building beside the water many times himself.

He had wondered what it would be like to be with a one-eyed woman.

Tommy said, "Yeah. She ate them."

"What?"

"She ate them."

"What?"

"She ate them."

Jack emptied his brown bottle of beer.

He looked at Tommy.

He squinted at Tommy with one eye closed.

And he knew that they weren't there anymore.

Poor guy, he thought.

No marbles.

Jack stood up to get another warm bottle of beer.

Tommy said,

“We both got something missing now."

SISTERS ARE NOT DOGS by Chelsea Houghton

October 17, 2018

My sister ran away when she was fifteen. She disagreed with my parents about something – she’d been a bad girl most likely, I don’t know, I was too young to be included. We’d never really got along. I was happy, it was quiet without her. No bitching or barking in the middle of the night. Always taking the best bits and leaving me with the scraps.

We didn’t hear from her for weeks. She’d been sleeping in friend’s rooms, once in a neighbour’s garage. She was fed and cared for from place to place, until her friend’s parents found they didn’t want a stray around.

We found her one night out the back of the liquor store, standing in the floodlights. We’d been searching for a long time, catching glimpses of a mirage of her brunette ponytail walking with some friends.

Then suddenly, there she was. Her hair was tangled and droopy and her oversized hoody made her frame look small as it hung over her jeans. She’d been sleeping among the pallets behind the skip in the carpark.

She emerged, hackles raised, poised for attack or escape. We moved slowly and calmly, finding a blanket to herd her towards the car. When you got up close you could see the swollen belly beneath the thick fabric.

She came, tail between her legs, sighing with her head submissively leaning against the car seat. It was that or impoundment. For months, we could hear her whimpering into the night.

I AM A WRITER by Danny Swain

October 5, 2018

I make up symptoms to get unnecessary hospital treatment.

Because I'm a writer.

I don't bathe for years and scratch smiley faces in the dirt on my body. I photograph the faces and send them to random strangers through the post.

Because I'm a writer.

I drink booze until my soul intrudes on the secret meetings between God and Satan.

Because I'm a writer.

When my dog died I had sex with it.

Because I'm a writer.

I hang out with tramps who I only speak mock Chinese to.

Because I'm a writer.

I traveled forty miles west and tried to kill a man with a pencil.

Because I'm a writer.

I dress up as a woman and offer sex to men. When we get into an alley I take a dump in front of them and run off screaming "RAPE!"

Because I'm a writer.

I once babysat two kids and I injected heroin in front of them and just laughed.

Because I'm a writer.

I didn't touch those kids though.

Because I'm not a very good writer.

NOT FOREVER, SNOWMAN by Sara Chansarkar

September 28, 2018

You be my Christmas, Snowy. Keep me company this holiday season, that’s all.

No Forevers for me, now.

Forever lasted only four years and 17 days and left me with this I-am-sorry-note on a neon post-it stuck under the coffee machine, this black-and-white check scarf hung between my coats, and a weight pulling me down like dumbbells attached to my body parts.I’d seen that little minx and the sorcery in her mascaraed caramel eyes ─ the liquid ones made to steal ─ as they bore into his. She’d smiled at me wicked as she sized up my full body.

But, she was not the first to have caught his gaze.Soon, my dinners ran cold and I slept, head on the table, waiting. Foreign smells danced in the closet. The succulents on the kitchen windowsill started to wilt.I worried, but not much. Forever had enough sinew and tendon to survive her. But, I was wrong: she was a force and Forever was still a child with brittle bones.

Now, I keep the sorry-note in my size-40D bra, a weighty lesson: never again.

You, Snowy, just be outside my window till New Year’s. That’s all. Watch me undress and dress and brush my long hair and paint my lips. I’ll gouge your eyes out if they stray.

I’ll wrap the check scarf around your neck, and let me take a picture of us to send to the happy folks who keep flooding my mailbox with their arms-around-each-other holiday cards.

A CATALOGUE OF TEMPORARY OBJECTS by Clio Velentza

September 23, 2018

One by one they sat for their portraits. Littlest ones first. They stopped at the door and undid their braids. They rubbed their hair with vinegar and pinched their cheeks. The oldest ones were fearsome, they didn’t know how to listen anymore. One pricked her finger and spread the blood on her lips. They rolled up their ribbons and stuck them in their shoes. They spat and brushed their eyebrows. One by one. Littlest ones first, these ones still had hope.

The photographer had one grey eye and one black. He would close an eye to look at them, and then the other. The grey eye was polite and dim. The black one was the one they liked best, because it seemed to tell the truth. Then he hid underneath the cape of the machine. The headmistress thought it looked too much like he was putting his head under a skirt.

The stool was perilously high and had a cushion embroidered in Latin. The littlest ones sat squarely. The oldest ones parted their knees a finger’s width. The headmistress slapped those shut.

“We’re looking for parents, not husbands.”

The photographer took his time. Every now and then he emerged and observed them for a while with both his mismatched eyes. The littlest ones laughed at that. The oldest ones sometimes teared up, sometimes clutched at their chests as if recalling something urgent.

flash

“What are you making?”

“A catalogue of temporary objects.”

flash

“What is an object?”

“What my black eye can see.”

flash

“What is temporary?”

“What my grey eye can’t see.”

flash

“Am I an object?”

flash

“Am I temporary?”

One by one they sat. One by one they stepped off the stool, blinded by the light.

ART NAZIS by Marc Olmsted

July 29, 2018

Spainhammer's gone, of course. Flattop blond muscleman Viking male stripper and street hustler who wrote for Curtains' ReSurface, grumbling about not getting paid, and mad at Crazy House Press publisher Enoch Poorboy (whom he threatened with a syringe of his own AIDS blood ) - that was the event of Floyd Lice's "ironic" Hitlerian performance rant at the Bijou, where my Japanese friend Tony Amida ran into the famous Satanist's daughter "who was surprised they let Asians in.") I liked Mick Spainhammer and sat on Tony's back porch 1988, both of us smoking cigarettes, as he discussed the "art nazis" framed within the kitchen door at the party which included Floyd Lice in usual arrogance, holding the hand of a razor-thin Aryan punkette in a dress with a lowcut back that showed her asscrack, that "new cleavage" that still hasn't quite caught on. Mick was still ready for his close-up, Mr. DeMille, with no sign of the ravages to come, not just to him but to our city, our day jobs, our planet.The most amazing story about Mick Spainhammer was told to me by Tony 25 years later, reminiscing about this old San Francisco that was evaporating before our eyes. Spainhammer was fisting a trick and Spainhammer was on acid. The trick farted and a spray of blood went all over Mick's chest. On acid. It definitely took our hustler to another realm - staring into the Abyss, so to speak. Still, he didn't freak out or go on a bummer. That was something you had to respect.

RENTAL by Kevin Hatch

July 23, 2018

My sister was a Blockbuster Video. She was a happening place. She kept her aisles clean, her shelves organized. Children begged for candy inside her. Families made special trips to see her.

My sister was the church of Friday night. She was too inviting. A track-star type took her out, filled her with words and other flesh. Made her too-family. Made her un-happening. Made her un-rewindable.

Her posture changed. Late-fees and rental-rates changed. People tried to be polite. She breathed dust in their face, forced expired candy in their hands until they just stopped coming.

My sister drove her Honda Accord through the divider. The car leapt over the guardrail. Our father and I tried to find her. I climbed into the ditch filled with fridges and trash. I followed the trail of broken glass to the blue-Accord puddle. Father tried to mask my eyes but I saw my sister’s aisles everywhere.

FRIENDSHIP WOLFCHEESE by Jonathan Cardew

May 29, 2018

Slide through the doors of the convenience store. Live a little in your skin. This skin was given to you in about 1975. Friendship Wolfcheese made sure you got the kind of skin that earned you favor. Ask for cigarettes. Carefully enunciate the vowels and the consonants. Friendship Wolfcheese was very particular about sounds.

Marlllllborooooo Liiiiiights.

Feel the heat in your cheeks. Why the heat in your cheeks?

Marllllllborooooo Liiiights.

He doesn’t understand you. This boy of fifteen, with the fresh coat of paint on his face. Squints in your direction. He’s speaking, but the speaking isn’t happening in your ears.

Friendship Wolfcheese lived on a boat. He hunted for fish with a stick and string, and then he fried the fish in a sea of butter. Fish eyes popped because of the heat. Because of the way they were being cooked.

Marllllllboroooooo Liiiiights.

This boy of fifteen. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t care for you. He’s got the phone to worry about and the hair to worry about and he doesn’t know you.

Point.

Marlllllborooooooo Liiiiiiiiights.

Point again, hitting the plastic separating you and the boy.

Marlllllborooooooo Liiiiiiights.

Fish eyes popping. More of a melt, really. Friendship Wolfcheese could melt a fish in butter whole. A whole melt.

Marlllllboroooooo Liiiiiiights.

Until the fish was just butter.

Marlllllboroooooo Liiiiiiights.

You could live without. Friendship Wolfcheese could live without. Fish could live without water for nine days. Flipping and flipping. On a chopping block.

You walk back.

CORPORATE CLIMATE by Benjamin Niespodziany

May 28, 2018

Corporate encourages that we ride to work on company pogo sticks. Company bicycles and unicycles are also okay, but everything else is frowned upon. “We can't force anyone,” the CEO laughs. Sheryl hates to bounce, rides in on a skateboard every morning. Everyone used to adore Sheryl, used to throw morning glories at her in the staff parking lot. Now co-workers spit on her as they pass her new office in the broken elevator full of fax machines. I remain a loyal employee, a pogo commuter covered head to toe in Band-Aids. My bruises and scabs are the only things that make my wife laugh. I take a pogo stick to work every morning and my poor balance never wins. I fall four of five times before sunrise and my work is only two blocks from my bed. My boss loves the commitment, adores the blood. Can't stop giving me raises.