Contributor: Hannah M. Hill

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Four bars, four cops, then sixteen more bars – the last sixteen being quite rusty and annoying. I rata-tat-tatted a twelve-bar blues, and the other four objected, leaving me with a mattress and a bar-shaped bruise... but no bars. Outside, a road is a long bar of its own; a thousand miles per brandy, 85 and a half shots to the gallon.

I took the mattress and made some shoes – and I rata-tat-tatted along down that road; two straight yellow bars, on my feet, and in that tarmac that was dark as the white rich man's wine in the light of the black-backed bar. I walked on the gold, shifting shoes like my hands to my pockets slide when they're rattling out a beat for that Shining American Dollar.

Lost my rattle when the blues mixed reds; a young red head in a red dress, half dead with a half glass and brash lipstick stains. She's calling my shots; a thousand-proof crimson beats, backed at the back of the black bar by a click-rata-click of a red poker chip.


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I've been writing since I can remember; I'm a history lover, a blues musician, an ex-librarian and a vodkaphile.

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Author: Hannah M. Hill

Contributor: Jonathan Byrd

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I couldn’t do my work today. All of my office supplies attacked me.

I suspected that something was amiss for a while. The pens were grumbling about “Unfair usage,” “Pointless notes,” “Useless Endeavors.” It was becoming clear that my pens wanted to work for the guy on the other side of the cubicle wall.

“Why can’t we do work like him? Everything he does sounds so engaging.”

I’ve told them that we all do the same work, but pens never listen.

I did my best to keep them away from the stapler. My stapler has always been impressionable; I think it suffers from low self-esteem. However, I couldn’t always keep them separate. You know how it is, you get busy. You have to comfort your keyboard who is upset because the monitor won’t display all of the pretty words it is capable of typing, so you throw the pen down on the desk where it lands near some other supply and the discord begins.

I heard the grumblings for a few days, but thought everything would be ok, given that the weekend was approaching. On the weekends, I usually put my pens in the desk drawer. One: to keep them from talking to the other supplies; and two: to keep them from climbing the cubicle wall and deserting me. But I was wrong about the grumbling, it didn’t quite down.

Today, I came in and found my desk drawer open. The pens were gone.

Or so I thought.

I pulled my chair out and attempted to sit down. To my surprise, I missed the chair and fell straight to the floor. My chair backed slowly away to the entrance of the cubicle, just out of reach. It was then, while my attention was on my retreating chair, that the pens struck.

“NOW!”

Paper clips and staples flew at me; printer paper fell on me from the cabinets. The tape dispenser sent a long stream of tape into my hair.

I tried to struggle against the barrage; I pulled against the tape stuck in my hair and swung wildly at the falling paper. Through the din, I saw the rude personal attacks the monitor was flashing at me. The keyboard, ever loyal to me, was crying and begging the other supplies to stop.

As I got to my feet, to make a desperate attack on the paper clip dispenser, my chair attacked me from behind. I landed hard on the seat, paper clips and staples continued to sting my face and arms, the tape dispenser tugged at my hair, and paper continued to rain on me. The chair backed away and then quickly spun me around.

The desk supplies continued to attack. My cubicle blurred as I spun around and around.

Finally, the chair dumped me at the entrance of my cubicle.

“Don’t let him get away,” the pens yelled.

The supplies doubled their efforts; the paper clips and staples aimed for my eyes, the falling paper angled itself, trying to cut me as it fell, and the tape dispenser gave one final tug, pulling out a tuft of hair.

What could I do, but retreat? I was hopelessly out numbered. As I crawled out of my cubicle, I glanced back and saw the pens scaling the cubicle wall. They had staged all of this to make their escape.


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I began writing strange, dark, and bizarre stories in the 4th grade. That year, I was referred to the school psychologist after writing a story mimicking Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. My work has been featured on the Mustache Factor, Bizarro Central, and 69 Flavors of Paranoia.

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Author: Jonathan Byrd

Contributor: Brandon Swarrow

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            Bruce is bald, divorced, pays child support yet raises both boys, and is a relentless misanthrope.  If he weren’t spewing heated complaints about his miserable job, his whore wife, or just life in general, he would most likely stop breathing all together.  

            On his 33^rd birthday, Bruce drinks so much by himself that, in the middle of the night, he accidentally stumbles into his sons’ bedroom after using the bathroom.   The bottom bunk creaks and squeaks as he bounces on his belly onto the old mattress.  His face catches a postage stamp portion of the corner of the pillow.  He crashes down so hard that if his son were lying there that night; he probably would’ve crushed him.  Luckily, he was staying over at a friend’s house.     

            Before fully asleep, Bruce’s body is sucked upward.  He awakes.  His spine is pressed so firmly to the brittle slats on the underside of the top bunk that two of the four snap in half, forcing his body to near fold to accommodate the displacement. 

            Through his son’s small window, the moonlight refracts to form a brilliant circle of light on the carpet.  The illuminated sphere contorts tighter, similarly to someone angling a magnifying glass in the sun to achieve heat.  The white beam of light slowly moves up the side of the child’s sports themed comforter.  The circle creeps up toward the sweating and straining Bruce, illuminating a baseball bat, a basketball, and now a lean tan ladder.   The round beam hits his face like a sucker punch.  He squints, but the intensity is blinding.   Just then Bruce hears what he believes is his eleven year-old son’s voice.  “Come with me,” the voice of infinite echoes speaks slowly.   “Come on”

            Bruce’s vision is funneled to a different place.  This is not his boys’ bedroom, this place is bustling.  There are people walking briskly, determined and motivated everywhere.  He sees himself now and a group of busy men and women begin swarming him.  He is being attacked and mauled by these red-eyed humans.  They are all talking and asking him questions at the same time to the point where he can’t really make out what they are saying.  Finally he focuses on another man who seems even more aggressive than the rest; it appears as if he offers him drugs.  Then another man offers him some more drugs.  A middle-aged woman is shouting out offers for sex.  Finally, after being groped, and forced back into a wall, Bruce screams, “What?  What do you people want?” 

            An older gentleman simply says, “Sleep,” and he is erased from the red-eyed rabble, but most respond back with (almost in unison in fact) “What do you want?” 

Bruce thrashes his arms to deflect the gropers and then bellows out, “What?  What do all of you people want?”  The crowd continues to squeeze and pet, groaning the same phrase over and over, “What do you want?  What do you want? What do you want?” 

            Bruce shouts, “Enough with the grabbing already, what do I look like a stuffed teddy bear?!!”  And just then, Bruce turns into a huge puffy, plush tan bear complete with droopy sad, yet lovable eyes. 

The mob parts, smiling, happy and excited.  Some even begin to laugh, while others weep from some unknown yet overwhelming joy.

The middle aged woman who previously offered sex laughs out loud, “That is a good one, but watch this…” Just then the woman says, “Hello Kitty,” and POOF a large half adult half kitten stands before the befuddled Brucey Bear.               

The overly aggressive man from before whispers the phrase, “Wow, imagine that, you’re in a world where you can happily do or be whatever you want,” and he turns and walks away.

Bruce’s face, then body smacks the pillow and the rest of his son’s squeaky old bunk bed.


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Author: Brandon Swarrow