Contributor: Frank Holland

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      Mrs. Perkins asked her friend Jeanette, “Is that normal, for a man to give it a name?”
      “Give what a name?”
      “You know: it.”
      From Mrs. Perkins' timid manner Jeanette understood what she referred to; but, to make sure, she asked, “It?”
      “Yes, his-- ”  Mrs. Perkins's eyes closed modestly.  “ --manhood.” Then she reopened them.  “Do men do that -- call it by name, like it's human, like it has a life of its own?”
      “Well, sometimes it does.”
      “What?”
      “Have a life-- ”  She hesitated.  Although still in her forties, Jeanette was much more knowledgeable about contemporary life than Mrs. Perkins was.  “What does Cal call it?”
      “George.  I just wish he would meet some nice religious girl and get married.  I want to have grandchildren before I die.”
      “If you want him to move into a place of his own, why don't you suggest it?”
      “Oh, I don't like to be pushy.  I don't want him to think he's not welcome here.”
      “I think he might even like that, living on his own.  But he thinks you need him here at the house.  And he doesn't want you to live alone.”
      “Or for that matter, I could move in with them.”
      “Them?  Him and George, you mean?”
      “No, him and his wife.  George, well, he goes along with him, of course.”
      Jeanette asked, “How long has he called it George?  All of his life?”
      “Oh, no, just recent, like he only took notice of him -- it.  Only in the past couple of weeks.”
      “That's odd.”
      “That's why I asked.  Isn't it sort of odd to give it a name?”
      “Not really.  I've heard of people giving names to, well, different parts of their bodies.  It's not really unheard of, no.”  Jeanette could have elaborated, but she didn't.
      Both women startled as the back door opened and Mrs. Perkins' son walked in.
      Jeanette nodded.  “Hello, Cal.”  He nodded back.
      Mrs. Perkins said, “Cal, look at these lovely tomatoes that nice young girl across the alley brought over.  Wasn't that sweet of her?”
      Cal gave them a perfunctory glance as he washed his hands in the sink.  “Yeah.”
      Mrs. Perkins continued: “So I invited her over for dinner tonight.”
      “What?  Why?  For five tomatoes?”
      “Because she's so nice and so kind.  She's such a joy to be around.”
      “Well, you be with her then; I'll eat early.  I don't want to see her.”
      “But she likes you.”
      “It's not mutual.”
      “But that's why I asked her over.  For you.”
      “For me?  To spite me?  And spoil my appetite?”
      “Because I know you like her too.”
      “I told you the other day, I do not like her!  She's a nuisance, annoyance.  I -- don't like her at all.”
      Smiling, Mrs. Perkins shook her head.  “That's not how I heard it.  I know different.  You like her in spite of yourself; you just won't admit it.”
  “What don't you understand about 'I-do-not-like-her-at-all!'?”
      “Well, part of you does.”
      “Well, it must be a part of me I'm not aware of.”
      “That may very well be.”
      “Last week when you asked me didn't I think she was sweet, don't you remember what I said?”
      “I remember exactly what you said.”
      “I asked you, why does she come over here all the time, what do you let her in for!  And   -- and -- I said she is a colossal pain in the ass!  She revolts me!  She makes my gorge rise!  So if she comes over tonight, you eat with her!  Not me!  You!  Because I won't!”  He slammed the damp paper towel into the trash and went upstairs to his room.
      Mrs. Perkins continued smiling with self-confidence.  “Jeanette, you heard what he said, didn't you?  The poor boy don't realize it himself, but he admitted it right out: she makes his George rise.”
      For a moment Jeanette considered correcting Mrs. Perkins, but she decided not to go there.


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I have had short stories published by several (over 20) publications, including Cicada, The MacGuffin, Oyez Review and Pleiades.

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Author: Frank Holland

Contributor: Lewis Gesner

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My wife and I go into 7-11 yesterday in our village near Kaouhsiung. We buy rice balls or something and sit at their stools. There is a sound of a scooter outside, then, a second engine; a woman is spraying a cloud of disinfectant from a machine down a grating outside. My wife says, in a moment the cockroaches will come out. Sure enough, first one, then another, then, many many many - crawling over the steps, and onto the window of 7-11 - a man sits outside, we see cockroaches crawl on his foot. It is terrifying - we leave before they come inside. Later in church, we hear the scooter outside again, and then the sound of the second engine...


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Lewis Gesner is a writer and artist living in Taiwan. He publishers, exhibits and performs internationally, and is a member of Mobius artist group, from Boston, MA USA, currently on leave.

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Author: Lewis Gesner

Contributor: John Laneri

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The first time I visited Doc Merriman’s office was the day I took Lyle Winters in for a tooth extraction. At the time, I was living in Possum Hollow, residing in a double wide near the bayou.

Lyle, as I remember, was a fishing buddy – a fellow with a real knack for making the best of most situations. The Doc was also one of the good guys, a through and through professional. Besides providing the community with dental services, he operated the only funeral parlor in the parish.

Just for fun, my girl friend Betty Lou tagged along, saying she wanted to see a tooth pulled from a man’s head.

The Doc went straight to work. He situated Lyle in a dental chair and reached for a shot of local anesthetic. Being hard headed, Lyle immediately sat upright in the chair and flatly refused the painkiller, preferring instead several shots of whiskey to numb his senses. Before long, he was so drunk the Doc began to look worried.

“Is something wrong with Lyle?” I asked.

The Doc scratched his head. “He’s not breathing well. Maybe, I gave him too much whiskey or maybe….”

I interrupted him right off. “Doc, Lyle’s been drinking whiskey since sunrise. I thought you knew. He’s turned at least a half a gallon to ease the pain.”

The Doc cleared his throat. “That’s not good. A man can swallow his tongue during a tooth extraction.”

I noticed Betty Lou lift an eye. “Please don’t let him die. He’s such a wonderful man.”

The Doc turned to her. “He won’t die, honey. He's fine. But, he’ll need some sobering time before I can safely pull that tooth.”

The three of us looked at each other unsure of what to do until the Doc suggested that we move him to a comfortable place. So, in around about way that’s how Lyle ended up in the funeral parlor resting inside a casket with the three of us watching over him.

We must have stood there for thirty minutes not speaking a word just looking down at his immobile form – head resting on a pillow, toes pointed to the sky, hands folded across his chest.

Soon, I began to feel a creepy sensation edge along my neck. I glanced around the room then down at the casket and back over to the Doc. “This place is spooky. I don't like being around coffins. You’ve got them stacked everywhere.”

Betty Lou moved close to me and whispered, “I’m getting goose bumps just standing here.”

Doc simply chuckled. “Coffins won’t hurt you unless you drop one on your foot.”

He did have a point, so we returned to watching Lyle.

Before long though, I started to get bored from standing in one place. I looked over at the Doc. “Some fortification would be good about now. Don’t you think?”

The Doc cocked his head to study me, and then his eyes lighted like they were rigged to one hundred watt light bulbs. He hurried away and returned with his bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses.

Finally, after another hour of sitting in the funeral parlor, during which time the Doc and I sampled the whiskey and engaged in friendly talk, I noticed Betty Lou ease near the coffin.

“Is he still breathing?” I asked her.

“I’m checking him now.”

I reached for the bottle and poured Doc another shot then glanced back at Betty Lou and saw her lean over Lyle and place an ear to his chest.

“Hear anything?” I asked,chuckling.

“I’m not sure,” she replied distantly. “He looks too serene. And, I don’t like the way his lips are curled.”

She bent closer.

I started to say something, but then, I noticed her fanny pointed straight up in the air exposing bright red underwear. Unable to resist the temptation, I reached over and gave the elastic a playful snap.

She shrieked and suddenly tumbled into the casket, her body landing on top of Lyle – totally surprising me. Behind her, the coffin lid slammed shut with a solid thud.

Surprised, the Doc and I came to our feet and hurried to the coffin, laughing all the way.

Sometime later, after listening to a lengthy duet of muffled screams and curses as well as a good bit of fumbling about, we finally managed to get the coffin lid raised and were back to offering toasts to teeth.

By then, Lyle and Betty Lou were sitting across from us on top of the casket, admiring his tooth.

Betty Lou turned to Lyle, “I’ll never understand how my panties got hooked around your tooth. One minute, I was listening to your chest. And before I knew it, we were squirming about in the dark groping each other. I didn’t know which end was up.”

Rubbing his jaw, Lyle replied, “I’m just happy you snagged my tooth.” He gave her a smile and turned serious, his year in college showing. “Your panties do good work.”

She smiled playfully. “You can touch 'em as much as you like.”

Lyle didn’t hesitate. And before I knew it, they were headed out the door walking hand in hand toward her place.

In all, I wasn’t happy about losing Betty Lou. But, a couple of weeks later, I got to know her sister Lillie, which was just as well because she didn’t bother with panties at all.


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John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit can be found on the internet and in several print edition periodicals.

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Author: John Laneri

Contributor: JC Piech

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Her eyes try and fail to focus on the pair of spectacles that sprawl, all cracked glass and twisted metal, on the coffee table. She gives up and looks down at the beige and brown carpet instead. It needs vacuuming; she can feel little bits on the soles of her bare feet. Sticky little bits. Like they’re trying to keep her here.

“Look at me, bitch,” he says, his voice hoarse from too much cussing and too much smoking.

“Maybe ah wud if ah cud see!” Her voice quivers.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, “d’ya always hafta fuckin’ cry at evrythang? S’only a pair o’ glasses.”

“No, it ain’t jus’ a pair o’ glasses! You end up breakin’ evrythang. When’re you gonna stop havin’ your li’l boy tantrums ‘n start actin’ like a man? A real man? Like Johnny… Yeah, that’s right, ya heard me. Ah’m in love with Johnny ‘n ah’m leavin’ your sorry ass. He’s somethin’ o’ mine you won’t never get to break. He’s bigger ‘n stronger than you, ‘n he’s even more pissed about what you’ve dun t’me than ah am…” she thinks to herself as she hangs her head, watching tears drop out of focus onto the dirty carpet. She loved those spectacles. “Th’ only reason Johnny ain’t already gutted you like a slimy li’l fish,” she thinks, “is cause I told him not to. Well… its full moon tonight ‘n I’m done tellin’ him to hold back. When that moonlight shines on him ah'm not sure he even can.”

For the first time in her life she feels strong enough to leave. She stands up and heads for the door. Outside, the sun has baked the ground dry and hard and cracked. She doesn’t need shoes: Johnny lives just two doors down the dirt track. She’s not going to waste time packing bags, Johnny can buy her some new shoes and some new dresses.

“It’s about damn time ah had sumthin’ new t’ wear,” she thinks as she opens the door. “Maybe a bright red dress for th’ summer, t’ sit out in Johnny’s backyard in. And a pair o’ heels to match, for his little werepups to run around at. And a new pair o' spectacles too."

“Where d’ya think you’re goin’?” says her husband, a man made up of hair and short temper. He’s the only thing of hers that hasn't been broken. Yet.

Heading out into the last of the days sun and turning her bare heels on him, she says, “Why don’t ya follow me ‘n find out?”


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JC Piech lives in south-east England with her lovely and patient husband, and her writing forms a pretty mixed bag. Perhaps it’s because she’s a Gemini? Or perhaps she’s just a weirdo.

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Author: JC Piech

Contributor: Craig M. Workman

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            I came in and slid the grocery bag down my thigh until the bottom tapped the linoleum. For some reason, it seemed a bit too quiet today.  Hey!  I’m home!  Anybody home? I said.  Where the hell was my dog?  Mr. Snowball always licked my hand the moment I got home, but was nowhere to be seen.  Ever since he’d been a puppy, he had always had this thing with licking the floor and chewing the chair leg.  He’d lick the computer desk and chew on the carpet.  Where the hell was he?  I suddenly remembered the need to send my online pals a reminder that I was going to be out of town for the computer gamers’ conference until Wednesday.  The back room had become my de facto study, and I kept my computer and everything else worth considering there.  I walked on back, and there sat Mr. Snowball in my Retune gel office-chair, his head bobbing up and down over the keyboard.  Hey there puppy I said.  Hey there puppy what’s…what…the fuck?  I moved closer and noticed he had a pencil clamped in his mouth, and was punching at the keys with the mealy pink eraser.  And guess what?  No, he wasn’t eating the pencil or screwing up the keyboard.  He hadn’t pissed on my chair.  He had shed a fair amount of his signature whitish-fur all over the backrest, but that doesn’t bother me.  This is the part of the story that gets weird.  There, on the screen, Mr. Snowball was typing something.  It said:

Rjrsdityo can youseeeee it turirueoyi  ittt—o

In the space of a moment, I realized that this was it.  This was the moment I’d been waiting for my whole life.  Mr. Snowball looked up at me looking down at him, pencil  wedged in his mouth.  Oh God!  Oh, good boy.  Keep typing!  Keep…do it!  Keep doing it, boy!  It occurred to me later that this was something of a dumb thing to say to a dog but he was just doing such a great job, and I didn’t want to ruin the moment.  The moment, nonetheless, was ruined.  He dropped the pencil and walked into the kitchen. 

            I had so much to do now!  So many people to contact!  So many others needed to know how special my dog was, and how special I was by proxy.  I saved Mr. Snowball’s document as Mr. Snowball’s Miracle in a folder called Special Documents, which I’d created some time ago for situations just like these.  I got online and sent out a mass email to everyone I knew praising my brilliant Mr. Snowball, and that they had to come see when the time was right.  I alerted the media; this was pretty difficult actually, partly because in the movies when they say “ALERT THE MEDIA” you don’t really understand that there isn’t one phone number that alerts the media.  It took a while to call the media, and even longer to convince them to believe me and come on out to this house of knowledge and miraculous typing.  Oh, this was it.  This was my time.  Finally, no more frozen dinners and frozen hamburger patties, cold cardboard pizzas from the shitty delivery joint down the street.  I was going to be famous.  Beyond famous.  Everyone was going to want to know about Mr. Snowball and about me.  Endorsement contracts, amazing weed, and chicks.  I was going to have sex with large-chested, fake, overly made-up women in droves.  Every day is a gift, but at least one day wasn’t going to be a necktie from my grandmother.

            Yesterday, the small backroom was so cramped with cameras, reporters, and all my online friends, there was barely room for Mr. Snowball to perform his work.  He sat in the office chair, the staccato pulse of flashing cameras and reporters’ voices droning in unison to their respective stations.  Then Katharine McNamara, the Voice of Austin Action Four nodded.   It was time.   Solemnly I wedged between two reporters and placed the old pencil in Mr. Snowball’s mouth so that the eraser stuck out.  I scratched him behind the ears, and he began to peck away like a furry chicken.  The video cameras whirred.  This was it.  There was no going back now.  It was time.  Chuck, chuck, chuck went the keys.  Mr. Snowball dropped the pencil.  He had finished for the day.  And what was his masterpiece? 

,,,,,,,,,,,w

Fucking dog.

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Craig M. Workman is currently an adjunct professor of english at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, as well as an I-PhD student there. His work has appeared in Kerouac's Dog, Midwest Literary Magazine and Literary Juice. His dog cannot type.

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Author: Craig M. Workman

Contributor: Samantha Memi

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I was born into an ordinary family in Berlin in 1938. My father was a stick of celery, my mother, a tomato. I was a grapefruit. My father sometimes queried the origin of my birth. My mother never answered.
‘Never had a grapefruit in the family,’ he would say. She stayed silent.
I went through the state education system and more by luck than talent I arrived at university to study Vegetable Bake for Amateur Cooks. I wasn't happy, I couldn't understand why anyone would want to treat vegetables so cruelly. I left during the first year. I drifted, hung around in grocery shops, got in with a bad lot of spinach. It looked like my life would turn out bad. Then I met a gorgeous Maris Piper potato, He was new but, despite that, could find his way round the supermarket shelf. We married, had a baby carrot, I was so pleased.
Then one day we heard marching bands. We looked out the window and saw what we later learned were stormtroopers. Two weeks later the door was smashed in and my husband was arrested. I heard later he'd been boiled and mashed. Didn't they have souls, these people? he was a frying potato.
I was alone with my baby carrot. Everyone stared at me in the street. I realised it was because I was fruit and my daughter was vegetable. What gave them the right to judge me.
Then we were put in a camp where I was forced to chop up leeks and cauliflower for swarthy arrogant soldiers. It was a horrible job and I was warned that my daughter, who was too young to work, would be old enough to bake in a pie. I met a leek from the escape committee, he said they could help my daughter escape. They couldn’t help me, they only worked with the vegetable community. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to my little carrot.
‘Mummy,’ she cried, ‘don't leave me.
You'll be safe where you're going I said and stroked her topsy-turvy leaves, and then she was gone, driven off in a van painted as an ambulance but full of veg.
I was distraught. Friends said I had to continue working otherwise I'd be steamed. But I was so depressed I thought a good steaming might be better than the miserable existence I had.
Then other soldiers arrived. They killed our captors, and freed all the fresh veg. Some of the elderly couldn't be saved, but at least I was free. We had a party. I got sliced into segments and tipped into a fruit salad. A melon pip told me my daughter had married a handsome young cucumber. I hope she is well.


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Samantha Memi is a patisserie chef in London. Her recipes for a happy life can be found at http://samanthamemi.weebly.com/

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Author: Samantha Memi

Contributor: Alessandro Cusimano

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Dead, I keep walking around the city, I want to drink. My face is reflected on each thing and every time I have to see it again. My watch has stopped. Le Strange, my name means something in New Orleans. Le Strange, the prince of Serendip. Le Strange, the visionary. Le Strange, an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Robbed of Every wonder and enchantment, the city dies in the silence of a false dawn. The sigh of the wind takes me to places unknown to my imagination. There where life ends, starts an adventure that whispers words that only the heart can interpret. Towards infinite dreams. A magical place where The stories of the future write the poems of the past. New Orleans sinks into the hypocrisy of the best friends and the scorn of alligators. The best friends lie, the blend of the good intentions gets quickly lost. The untrue assertion spirits the clever arguments and predisposes to the prodigious. You must make friends with the lie, being ourselves hands over to the hypnosis and the paralysis, to the opposite of ability. The absolution returns a merciful grace, a sugar plum which satisfies the lame matter. Consciousness is rude, woos the stray canard who welcomes the travail of her woman friend. The falsehood is not satisfied with the peasant scuffle, with the resentment, the amusement. Pretends and hides every policy, opinion, pandemonium, without the deception of discernment, of the wrath.
Madness seizes the sorrow and becomes a flower, flatters happiness, living, for a moment, the emotion of a different life, meets the delirium and falls in love. Where the soul, that lives life with resentment, does not scare and bewilders the reason. Domino brings home her puppet boyfriend and plays with him. The tall convex space appears turquoise, draws a sinuous line, sensual on the perimeter, steeped in the events of others. Is the profile of a sea wave, villain of the most beautiful seawater, ensures the persistence of blue. The opposite of darkness is spreading slowly, the wave breaks regular, long, smooth. Has a changing effect, hands out colours. The night owns the future, forgives the guilt, multiplies the fixed and reflected light, surrounds the vaporous game, unties a curtain. After dark, you look and measure the content of mirrors, the anxiety of angels goes on stage, have memory, remind all. The vibrations are perpendicular, penetrate the skin, A mass of water rises and falls. Is female, able to overwhelm the spectator with the honesty of her sins, under a dim light, so as not to be seen, so you do not see the others. There's a glare, the vision is complex. A comely light, double. The volume of the music is consumed, a ruby-throated hummingbird flies free. Growing soft folds follow the trend, the long radius, the imagination to reach, the underside of the tables. Steel and water deposit the gray and blue in the depths of the deepest eyes. Wooden puppet head is sitting on himself, his face is opalescent, flattered, inspired by an happy melodrama built on the water. Hellish exile of the east peacocks, worship of the great flame, ray of the vain vampire. In the pagan temple a creole beauty crosses the pavilion with the half-mask and the rule of the despot queen, winning the pedestal. In the underworld of the ragged little girls, her serpentine allures each sharp talisman, every drunk javelin. In her room, bricks with a transparent bark, tapestries, mats, torn canvases, decorated shutters climb up from time to time, a cobalt coloured carpet draws Chinese ideograms. Oriental lamps similar to distant galaxies with a bright opacity commend the pale meeting of demons and witches, the pandemonium. The stubborn emptiness of chatters attracts the discontent and an intermittent fever in the meaningless space of a vacant abyss. Myriads, gaps, secrets, the profane grants the Sabbath, the small of the abuse, the crackable demonic. The officiants pass the sentence, the holocaust of pythonic. Her hair detains the instant century, with the favorite balsam, fruity. The loss is made elixir, Essence and flower. The guillotine runs through the hazel thinness with the rush of maltreatment. Disheveled, wrapped in a tipsy cloth, the lifeless body on the infamous slope, cold, in the shade of slaughter. Immortal embrace of a fragrant victress. Caressing, bodily shape mimosa, carnal scent of Louisiane, female equivalent of a tempting faun able to appear bronzed, statuesque. Rising hues verging on rosy, surrounded by a medieval ocean, immense sacred vestments, the courting of a majestic Moon, remembrance in love with a perpetual symphony. If the Judgment did not lay the blame on me, the defeat. If the Assassin asked for mercy. Under a priesthood of disgrace, the Whitish Light of the Icy God is in love with the beloved first blood in the morning. In the pale carnage, short bodies fall reddish on the Stone Earth. Half a shadow of the vermillion child glides along the blade-beast of a bluebottle-razor. In a rusty and purple garden, the amaranth sting whips the shot and the Martyrdom with the rope flame. If Endless Father shed his own blood, if Heaven had no more blood. If, Enemy of God, I were a butterfly. If, Demon of Devils, I accepted, on a whim, the agony and invoked, sweetly, the madness. If I upheld, I swear, the torment, if implored mercy. If, Beautiful Prince, I tore my teeth and my eyes. If small arms, rich in blood, waved flags painted like butterfly wings. I am the nervous wandering, the arabesque, the disorder. I am the restless story, the agony in cage, the excellent madman. Mementos, still in the light, cast into a bottomless pit, before a regret depicted by the frosty warmth of my pale smile.



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Son of a painter and a teacher, Alessandro Cusimano was born in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, on July 2, 1967. He lives in Rome, where he is writer, poet, translator, with a special focus on visual arts, from painting to cinema, from photography to theatre. Expressivist poet, he freely refers to the peripheral and irregular languages, drawing on the dialects, the slangs, the various sectorial and technical form of expressions, recreated with personal inventions and varying intensity, in every moment of his literary production.

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Author: Alessandro Cusimano

Contributor: Jerry Guarino

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“So Mr. Citadel, you don’t deny that you have committed these violations?” The tall, grey haired man wiped sweat from his brow, stuttered and replied. “No, your honor, I don’t.” The judge nodded solemnly. “Then you may step down. I am ready to pronounce my verdict.” The accused stood up next to his attorney nervously.

“For twenty years of incessant public radio fundraising, for the unmitigated gall of suggesting that people donate their vehicles to save money on gasoline, for your interruption of the most important news events, for calling any program other than ‘car talk’ entertainment, for implying that saving a mosquito is more important than providing food and housing to 3rd world people, for giving equal time to the noble and the inane, for wasting the time of countless thousands on a daily basis, for offering worthless goods as rewards for donations, for thinking that diversity is the same as equality, for pretending to be the friend of the people while courting the wealthy, for more coverage about Michael Jackson’s death than his life, for paying any attention to the Kardashians, Tiger Wood’s extramarital affairs, offensive, gangster rap lyrics and Howard Stern, for giving Sarah Palin as much air time as President Obama, for dedicating 30 minutes of prime air time to business news that is as irrelevant as drips from a water faucet, and last, but most egregious, for insisting that public radio is not commercial radio when every other minute you speak about programs being supported by, funded by, brought to you by and underwritten by of all entities, corporate giant oil companies and financial services companies who caused 99% of our country to suffer countless indignities and the ability to provide for their family, I find you guilty of representing the public broadcasting space and sentence you to work at Tom and Ray’s garage cleaning up oil spills and putting them into environmentally safe disposal sites until such time that Wall Street restores the American economy, New Yorkers have justice for 9/11, teachers and nurses earn what they are worth and the drug cartels are wiped clean from the face of the Earth.


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Jerry Guarino’s short stories have been published by dozens of literary magazines in the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain. His first collection of twenty-six critically acclaimed stories, Cafe Stories, was released in October, 2011. It is available as a paperback on amazon.com and as an e-book on kindle.

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Author: Jerry Guarino

Contributor: Jon Wesick

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Joseph K got fired from his job standing in line at O. Henry’s Market. He wouldn’t miss the customers’ dirty looks when he pretended to pay with a check. No, he would only miss Stella, the cashier with the musical laugh and breasts like the fluffy, pet-store rabbits he’d so wanted when he was five. But that was all over now. Resolving to leave the smell of Rabbit Chow behind, K made his way home to a brownstone apartment in a shtetl on the outskirts of Iowa City.

“Did you remember to pay the assassination tax?” his roommate, a cockroach named Sid, asked.

“Damn!” K opened the wall safe, broke off a piece of gold plaster, and placed it in an envelope addressed to the Federal Reserve of Hope. After bribing the mailman he returned to the apartment where Sid was rehearsing his role in Streetcar.

“You want lunch?” K reached for the boric acid under the sink. “There’s Pol Pot Pie and Top Dog Ramen.”

“No, I had some wallpaper paste an hour ago.”

“You sure? I’d hate to see you pass out from hunger on stage. How about I blanch some carrots?”

“Whether I succeed or fail in insect monolog isn’t up to you,” Sid said while shaking his chitinous head and making his antennae flop like rabbit ears. “The die was cast nine million years ago when my ancestors traded opposable thumbs for lick-able hands.” He fumbled with the script. “Stella! Stella!”

The mention of his lost love brought back K’s teenage fantasy about Nazi war widows. As always he imagined them infiltrating the country by U-boat, that most phallic of ocean-going vessels. Lost in an onanistic reverie he failed to realize that he had less than an hour before his creative writing class when his semester project had to be turned in.

K wiped the monkey glide from his palms, dashed outside, and hailed a pedicab. After a thirty-minute tour of Iowa City’s canal zone, where gondolas of field corn plied rivers of Karo syrup, K arrived at his destination. As he pranced up the granite steps, K marveled at his decision to enroll in the MFA program at the Iowa School of Mines instead of at that other one across town. True, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop had a few good teachers but the School of Mines inspired him to write stories about real people, stories about anthracite and tungsten-carbide drills.

The classroom loomed heavy with the daily roll call while Rocco Mukasey, the instructor, paced like a panther in a daycare center. He’d been head writer for The Barney Fife Show so he damn well wasn’t likely to water the seeds of mediocrity in his students. Like a Hellfire missile targeting a Pakistani wedding he zeroed in on the eighty-year-old woman in a plaid skirt and bowler hat sitting in the front row.

“Maude.”

Maude Lawson stood and read a meandering character study about the malaise of an aging writer. Since it had little to do with erosion control or acid mine drainage, K’s thoughts drifted to the Nazi war widows and how before leaving the Fatherland their diets had consisted of twenty thousand calories a day: sauerbraten, spatzels, German chocolate cake…

“Enough!” Rocco fired his Browning automatic into the ceiling. “That really isn’t a story, Maude. Is it?”

“Sorry.” She curtsied and tipped her hat. “I was just making noise with my mouth and couldn’t stop.”

The next reader was a former actor who’d debuted in Rocky 3 and had had a supporting role in an eighties TV show. His poetry was so full of gold chains and Mandingo haircuts that an enraged Rocco emptied the Browning’s magazine into the actor’s chest. This only angered the actor who then beat Rocco into meat paste with a filing cabinet while shouting, “Be somebody or be somebody’s fool!”

As K stared at Rocco’s blood pooling on the Linoleum, he reflected on how the modern short story no longer ended with a climax that tied all its stray elements together. Instead it ended with the protagonist on the verge of some monstrous insight. He thought of rabbit ears, how craisins reminded him of cremains, and whether casting a cockroach as Stanley Kowalski was a radical postmodern statement or merely a way to save money. He thought of Tennessee Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Tennessee Tuxedo. But most of all he thought of his grade point average and whether Rocco’s tragic death meant he’d have to take the class over.

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Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published more than fifty short stories in journals such as Space and Time, Zahir, Tales of the Talisman, Blazing Adventures, and Metal Scratches.

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Author: Jon Wesick

Contributor: DJ Barber

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It was a bleak and somber trek back to the old farm. Brisson Hanoran took the Old Swamp Road as far as Kilkenny's Mill. The troubles had begun right there. A small ripple in the courses of time--a singularity, they said.

Brisson had no talent in the art of mathematics--left even simple cyphers like making change at market, figuring bushels to pounds, and such as that, to his younger brother, Paddy, who had no mind for the mundane world that comforted Brisson; just dreams and wonders and mathematics--physics, his favorite.

This fold in the time-space--or was it space-time? See, that was Brisson's problem. This ripple, er, singularity--was what Paddy called it. Well, this thing! It just came one day--was there like a speck of mold on the bathtub tile. But its presence was just like that speck on the clean, white tiles: small, but blatantly obvious.

Brisson had looked away--didn't want to know such a thing could be. But Paddy! Couldn't leave well enough alone, now could he? Said it was an impossibility! And that's when all the troubles commenced. The small thing seemed to beckon Paddy--drawing him into its mystery.

The waterwheel turned, churning the mill run waters. The sound of the water was splashy and gay this fair summer's morn. And just by the edge of the flowing waters, the small, black speck sat about knee-high above the shaggy turf; like some suspended gnat. But this was no gnat! Paddy flicked a small piece of straw and the speck sucked it right in; seemed to become almost conical for a split second; like some tiny tornado and stretched nearly touching the ground.

Paddy could not have been more fascinated. He flicked another fragment of straw, then another. He dared to pick up a pebble from beside the waters and tossed it haphazardly about four inches wide of the mark. But it too was sucked in around a fanciful arc. The speck's field of influence only seemed to span some ten to twelve inches, but it devoured ever larger and larger bits of debris tossed its way by Paddy.

Brisson could watch no more. It was some fell and evil trickery by all he could see. Singularity! Bunk and Hooey! But Paddy remained behind--mesmerized. Brisson trudged off for home and hearth. It was some hours later that one of the boys from the village came running through the garden gate; all out of breath and goggle-eyed in fear. Brisson didn't wait for the boy to catch his breath; for he knew as sure as pollywogs turn to frogs, Paddy was gone. That speck of total blackness sat there by the water's edge, a bit fatter than Brisson recalled, trailing a small pointed tail that dangled now above the ground. Brisson picked up chunks of brick from the ruins of the old bridge that had once spanned the mill run and slammed one forcefully onto the speck. But the speck, er, Singularity, swallowed it up just as easily as it had that first bit of straw Paddy had cast its way. Fire and Hell! But wait. Brisson dropped the second and larger brick, turned up a palm in thought and wandered away towards the village; for the speck had just winked out of existence.

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Writing is a canvas for the mind to write sounds, paint scenes one can only imagine, not touch or see; and share with the world.

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Author: DJ Barber