Prune Hands
by Sally Weigel, December 2008
"She refused to think about dirty dishes, despising the cracks in the glass and the yellow tint each dish had acquired over the years. She refused to respond to the men she works with or listen to them talk about girls who give bad blow jobs. She scrubbed dishes, hoping to wash away a bit of the numbness that soaks into her skin."
The Burial Case
by Peter Schwartz, December 2008
'After a genuine attempt to beat what M.F. now recognizes as a budding addiction, he buries a $440 Tiffany lamp and a Japanese silk robe, the latter being a present from his wife for their 10th anniversary. He gets what he describes as "the greatest thrill of his life" from this. That thrill is not lessened by the shadows of guilt and remorse he feels about the robe.'
Rabbit Stew
by Rainbow, Jonathan Simonoff, and Dirk Van Nouhuys, December 2008
"I tried making snail stew and dandelion salad, but Kevin, Michael, and Shivaun wouldn't eat. I could make heart of palm, but we only have two palm trees. Chocolate covered ants would require chocolate, and though cockroaches are nutritious and crunchy when you fry them slowly, I don't think any of you would eat them. Our neighbors wouldn't appreciate me cooking their cats, and I couldn't eat Gato even if he takes all the mice before I can get them."
an excerpt from Love Spell
by Marie Kazalia, December 2008
'He clears his throat—she looks his way—"You better buy that one," he says—"if you want to get rid of that love spell..." he mocks gestures of embarrassment. "You can see it?" she says amazed, almost involuntarily engaging in conversation with him. "Everyone can!" he declares, bending down a bit to peer straight into her eyes.'
Poor Man's Security System
by Kurt Remington, November 2008
"The beasts were all over each other. Each was skinny and filthy, having spent months or more in dusty dry alleyways. Dogs like this thrive in a barren dust fields. They've hunted and humped rats in dusty Mexican alleys long enough. They screech and wail. Taking them from their habitat is as natural as throwing a giant parrot in a cage in a cold Canadian basement. Now they were looking through glass as if looking up from under a thick sheet of ice."
The Plague Director
by Kevin Griffith, November 2008
'I think we can all agree with the president that this morning's strange and unprecedented tragedy calls for "a man and his father to go into the same girl." Amos 2:7. What I mean by this is that as Americans, we will pull through this as a nation. We will work together, just as a father and son use the same prostitute. To our enemies, I say "Hear this word . . . you cows of Bashan." Amos 4:1. Those of you who worship the Good Lord know what I am talking about.'
Skip Forward: A Selection from Crackle
by Kane X. Faucher, November 2008
"He could barely drive a stake through the heart of compound anxiety — always future-indexed — and repose in the relaxed self-satisfaction that the monster was now dead. Perhaps the best he could do was interpret his own history in that personal gallery of memory, paint from an eyedropper stuck between sticky sheets to emerge when opened like a Rorschach test."
The Taco House
by Luis Rivas, November 2008
"The guys are working her pretty hard and she's sore and swollen up pretty bad. Ramón, the man in charge, goes over to her, grabs her by the arm and takes her to one of the rooms. He makes her lift up her skirt and drop her panties. Her vaginal lips are as bright red and swollen as a freshly cut deli beef steak. He rubs it. She flinches with pain. He studies her face, watching her wince with discomfort as he pulls her lips apart, fingering her, tapping the clit sadistically."
Cogito
by Brent Powers, November 2008
"Today. What's today? How do I feel? Don't ask, just change things a little. The bird in the window looks at me again. It doesn't move, doesn't want anything, or I don't think it wants anything. Doesn't a bird usually twitch and chirp? Well, not this bird, this is a special bird; it is a bird with a sky blue hood and cape and a gray, furry looking cummerbund. Its eyes are black stones, like something rare, and with little bitty lights shining in them."
Sand
by Jim Chaffee, November 2008
"When finished, she kneads the wet chunks again, then cooks the masticated mass into a glop which she partially devours with more flourish than before, swallowing and then regurgitating each bite into the bowl. To these quasi-assimilated remnants, now resembling porridge or grits or malt-o-meal, she adds boiling water and mixes it into a kind of mealy slurry which she consumes with deliberate intent. The tape ends as she swallows the last of it."
The Approximation of Marvin
by G. Haritharan, November 2008
'Amrani stumbled and made her way to wait. She was not alone. Another charmer with offering, though this time an also amateur sleuth; he let his line of questioning fire. "You're fucked aren't you?" He raised his Caramel skinned, shaven headed head and face up. Then down. The gesture to rhetoric.
"What's it to you? Fuck off." An offer of peace.'
Wife's two-pronged therapy approach forestalls husband's Thanksgiving pussy jokes
by Martin Jones, October 2008
"Your wet pussy is my cock's pipedream."
"Your pussy may be like a glass of water, but it's always half full."
"If your pussy was a car accident, I'd drive drunk."
"If your pussy was a gas tank, I'd lower the price of oil."
Beguiled by Beef
by Dawn Corrigan, October 2008
"GESH was the Geriatric Super Highway. It had been established in 2025, five years after the segment of the U.S. population 65 or older reached twenty percent."
Outside
by Kevin Lavey, October 2008
"He bought a pint: he lay on the board that he used for a bed within the 4x10 shack at the edge of a wide, tree-lined boulevard, listening. He couldn't let his mother find out. That could not happen. One afternoon she called him from the couch. He suspected she'd discovered, he heard it in her voice, and while she sat with knitting in her lap, he became the bird. He killed her."
Right Before the Scatter
by P. H. Madore, October 2008
"Sat up in time to catch an officer eyeballing my vagrant ass with dutiful suspicious malice. Arrest not in the plan, I stood and checked my pockets. Ticket, phone, fancy lighter, cash. All in tact. As in jail. Moments like those make such things meaningless. Millions go their whole lives without the bother. Somehow they're hopeless in the eyes of society. Slow thoughts, slow burn: realized I hadn't any cigarettes but did not lament."
Ludmila's Voyage
by Amanda Earl, October 2008
"She decides to investigate. You're thinking this is not a very wise move on Ludmila's part. And you're right. The village is not safe in the dark. A man will knife you for the meager contents of your purse and leave you there to die. Yet two people are hanging around an abandoned shack, setting aside safety for sex. And of course, you know something Ludmila does not. You know the couple engaged in nocturnal Glasnost is none other than her own fiancé and her friend."
Denouement on K Street
by Maureen Griswold, August 2008
"Robey's reputation as the best in the business hadn't come from lightweight challenges. His re-branding the public face of AFR after years as a top lobbyist for the gun industry, his cultivating legislators, his crafting and achieving agendas marked him clever, talented, unique. 60 Minutes' recent profile portrayed Robey as a cool head for crises and power building. He would navigate AFR through this, politicians' kids or whatever."
A Blast Chorus
by Nathan Lee Smith, August 2008
"Jake isn't going to stop until something worthwhile happens—a broken window, a decent-sized dent in the door—if it all goes well he'll wind up nursing a busted collarbone and some bloody teeth. He's employing greasy, billiards-ball-sized snowballs for ammunition, rifling off each throw with a crisp snap of the elbow. The centrifugal force slams blood down into his fingertips, causing an eerie stinging sensation."
Oil Babies
by Sophie Chamas, August 2008
"Me, I'm sophisticated. Who do they think they are, treating me like a child? I'm the only one who speaks Arabic; I could have taken care of this much faster. I would have been totally nonchalant; I would've walked right up to that guy, shook his hand and said as few words as possible, striking a deal and getting out of there as fast as I could. Yeah, I wouldn't have lingered like an idiot. Idiots."
Molasses
by Heather Palmer, August 2008
"She looks him over: collar unbuttoned, hat crooked over greasy hair, but then, hers so greasy, days—goddam too many days—since a wash. Her brothers in the goddam showers, their women, hogs. Stevie has to go. So do they, but then, Luka keeps his all night, and Tyese's whore. Slut."
An Excerpt from Murmur
by Simon Friel, August 2008
"She smelled good. Her hands were delicate but firm as she held my own to cover the nape between my thumb and forefinger in salt, then place the chunk of lemon between my fingers. My body still shaking, I picked up the shot glass of tequila and she touched my arm to calm me and told me tranquilo or I would spill the good Mexican drink. Ok. Ready. Salt. Tequila. Lemon. Bang."
A Reading from Lemur
by Tom Bradley, August 2008
Tom Bradley reads, with the miracle of video Interweb technologies, Chapter Two of Lemur, his novel of would-be serial killer Spencer Sproul.
A Selection of H'our Dourves by Uncle Paul
August 2008
"Me and Hee loved going to Meemie's every other weekend to see you, even though we were supposed to hate it. When you and Bruce held hands and kissed at the zoo we were told to be disgusted. Weren't allowed to say you were gay at school, because of the eighties AIDS scare. My behavior was always in question."
Sherlock Holmes and Al Capone Search through Time and Genre for Hannibal Lecter
by Brad Johnson, July 2008
"Sherlock's feet pad their way across the wood floor, find their way out the front door and into a spectacle. Men and women scream "bollocks!", undertrained police bustle and give directions and a strange vehicle with flaming tracks is parked indiscreetly on the sidewalk in front of his stairs. Seeing that the people, and more importantly the cops, begin to notice his prescence, he commands his newly-cleaned feet to return him to his less lighted, more familiar dwelling."
Golden Egg
by Durenda, July 2008
"Durenda didn't feel very close to her half brothers and sisters. She was forced to take care of them when Ma didn't but they didn't mind her. Because they were wild children she didn't feel the need to comb or caress their loneliness. She didn't hold Bobby as he cried when he was shot in the eye with a BB gun and his brown eye turned blue. She thought the pets David drug home were nasty and she didn't cry when they died of starvation."
A Letter from Lotonym
by Ryan Undeen, July 2008
'Well, you can see I've told this story a thousand times, so I know what you'll ask next. No one cares about my personal experience, the love I felt, nor the way she danced in my eyes even when she slept. Everyone asks, "Were-weasel? How did you become a were-weasel?"'
A Third of Methuselah
by Tim Millas, July 2008
"The Hales did not welcome him. In fact, the moment their shock subsided they threw him out—or rather Uncle David threw him out; David Hale was the family's unofficial patriarch, because he was the wealthiest and the loudest. He immediately recognized this person as a threat, although, when pressed, he couldn't say what kind. A trickster, out to make fools of them? A con artist, trying to steal the family fortune? Or just a crazy old man?"
scarecrows
by J. A. Tyler, July 2008
"He rides a bike. It is yellow. And the sun is yellow. And the grass is green and the house is white and the tulips are red and his face is mindless."
The Packing Plant
by Joy Raab-Faber, June 2008
"There used to be a meat packing plant next to a big feedlot here. Then it was a gravel pit. Now it's just a dump. Dry rotting tires hunch over the ground like farmers at a corn roast. Broken washing machines and rusty refrigerators stand guard over desiccated arroyos. Shiny brass bullet casings and red and green plastic-jacketed buckshot shells litter gravel canyons. Decaying dogs testify potently to lazy flies."
Pop Goes the Bubble
by Andrew Porterfield, June 2008
"Dan, the pervert; he's been at. Two separate accusations were made against him this week. On Monday the mother of a girl in his advanced kindergarten graduate class came in to report what had happened. She told the vice-principle that Dan had kept her daughter behind after class for not doing homework and that's when it happened."
Meat Puppet
by Jim Chaffee, June 2008
"I remember the poor bastard's blood. Not gobs of it clotting in great liver-like chunks, like you'd expect in war, but rather a single drop viewed at a focal point projected with convex lenses in a pair of tubes; image resolved to enlarge and discriminate between corpuscles burst and whole swimming in the azure-dyed pin-prick's ooze squeezed between glass slides; corpuscles intermingled like the lucky and not so lucky adrift in a battlefield of some purple swamp."
Michael and the Final Fix
by Tom Sheehan, June 2008
'"Michael," said Todd Grimson from his wheelchair in the facility's dayroom, quantum sparkle in his eyes, energy lifting itself, "What do you do, outside of here, to get so damn muscular and," he flashed his eyes, "so chocolaty?" One thick, gray eyebrow, parted by the faintest of scars, moved with his question, leveled in interpretation.'
The Borscht I Gave the World
by George Sparling, June 2008
"I'd just been released from a halfway house for the mentally ill, and began translating Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day into Arabic. I had a private room in a Victorian, sharing it with a older man who was recovering from spinal surgery. I was to be his caregiver for about a month or so, at least until he could walk on his own. My papers, dictionaries and Roget's Thesaurus scattered across my table, I grieved over the first word, 'Now.'"
These Creatures Look Crooked
by James Wall, June 2008
'"Do you love me?" she asks. I don't say anything. She is quickly asleep, her breathing ragged, high. I finish the bottle and the cigarette and get up and take my clothes off in the dark and lay back down. Everything seems blue, and the smell is stronger. I gag slightly and then put my arm across my forehead and smell the cologne on my wrist.'
Unlimited Right of Association
by Dawn Corrigan, May 2008
"LOCAL WOMAN BUYS COMMIE STATUE, INSTALLS IN BACK YARD, the headline reads. Beneath there's a photo of the statue of Vladimir Lenin that Mrs. Heretick purchased on eBay. The Hereticks stand before it. The photographer had to kneel down to get all three faces—Mrs. Heretick's, Mr. Heretick's, and Lenin's—in the picture."
Sandblast Me Beautiful!
by John Michael Cummings, May 2008
"All the while, Thad's arm was getting socked by ice as he leaned out the door and lunged for her. Car horns went on blowing. Finally, Rosie yanked up her shirt, showing the highway her breasts.
"'Oh, sandblast me beautiful!' she cried out, proceeding to do a jig on the roadway, her face and breasts getting pelted.
The Last Straw
by Jared Booth, May 2008
"I didn't mind that so much — after all, the only person he's harming there is himself, and if that's what he wants to do then that's his fuckin choice, innit? But knocking that old lass off her scooter was the last fuckin straw. I was that close to calling the cops on the arrogant little shite. But what would that've achieved? Fuck all. So I bought a pen instead, and put him in that."
Four Seasons for Serena
by Tyke Johnson, May 2008
"Fridays we wouldn't have sex. We wouldn't eat meat. We would talk very little for she prayed all day in Russian. 'God' was the only word I understood other than 'sorry.' These two words seemed to be in every sentence and this drove me mad. She was a stranger on Fridays so I'd disappear into the landscape. Walk towards the waters and the fields, all over, but never towards the woods. They were too dense and I feared I'd never be able to find my way back."
Throwing Puppies
by Alexios Antypas, May 2008
"We weren't losers, we weren't high, and until that very moment, not one of us had shown any inclination to excess. It was just one of those things you don't ever want to try to fully explain: Marin picks up the puppy and hurls it towards the ravine."
squibs
by Frank Sloan, April 2008
"What we discover are the crumbling pavement and rusting, teetering bridges. What we discover are pastures chewed to death by atv's and washed away by over grazing. What we encounter are invasive species that choke out all native life and swarms of dope fiends that invade every forsaken farmhouse. What we fail to discover are peace and insight and community under the sacred skies of the pioneers."
