Dottie and Viv
by Paul Kavanagh, May 2006
"Dottie lived in a small house. Viv lived in a mansion. Dottie and Viv lived happily together. Dottie sat antithesis to Viv. Viv sat antithesis to Dottie. Dottie could feel the reek of Viv. Viv could feel the reek of Dottie. Toe to toe they were. Both quaff the rill omnivorously."
The Money Carpet
by Abhijit Dasgupta, May 2006
"He did not socialise with any of his neighbours and, anyway, he was hardly home, leaving at nine in the morning and returning late at night, sometimes not at all. The neighbourhood was somewhat wary of him; old men looked at him with disdain, the middle-aged refused to acknowledge him, and those who could have been his friends had Anirban given them some hint that he was willing, gave him various names behind his back."
A Far Fetch
by P. H. Madore, May 2006
"I'd like to think it my own fault she decided I was wealthier than I am. But that would lead to certain ludicrous notions, like murder, which of course is not what happened here. How could it be? I'm no murderer, I already said that."
Origins in the Key of Sea
by Kirpal Gordon, May 2006
"Growing up against the blind-lamed-gamed-&-pained, blowing solo against automaton grind came with the territory. But one midnight in May he wandered broken boulevards above ground beguiled, seeking his Eurydice. She appeared later. Meantime, popped for lunar howling & alleged vagrancy, handcuffed to a nick nack paddy wagon, brought to the Tombs, he lay buried behind bars, metal to metal, dirgin' a blues as myna as his key & canary fate."
Sleeping with the Clan of Saints
by Tantra Bensko, April 2006
"She knew he had a good chance of getting killed, or at least beaten up. And she wanted to make sure he showed up where he was going, to apologize for losing him if he did, to exchange clothes again. To comfort him after the trials and tribulations of his trip. He was only 18, naïve, fluffy. Although, he was tough enough to live under a bridge. And really, Kundra was ready for whatever next adventure presented itself, whether she found him or not."
Red Beta
by Brian Downes, April 2006
"In spite of himself Yevgeny felt a great sympathy for the old man hit him, and a horrid rage, too. Yevgeny had become accustomed to being battered by strong emotions. He thinks we are the KGB. And why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't those monsters, those murderous whores, come for him, as well?"
Casey
by Aryan Kaganof, April 2006
"I met her on the set of a short film I was doing for the NPS for the money. The script didn't mean much to me, it was written by some vegetarian who was against violence. There was a campaign going on in Holland at the time against 'Meaningless Violence'. It was all a load of bullshit. Violence is always meaningful."
Sniff, Sniff
by Norman A. Rubin, April 2006
"Then Yarilo would have to submit to their desires, or rather, accept the swift plunging of his thick yum yum into their inviting cunnies."
I miss the days when a day never passed without someone saying numerous times--far out, man
by Marie Kazalia, April 2006
"A slimy dry wet warmth between rough he-to-her's whiskery beard and mustache as he-she pulled me up tight to his-her chest then thromped me to the hard linoleum and did me there on the kitchen floor humping oh so quickly. Afterward getting off of me to brag how next time he-she would do me up right."
"Diablo Winds," "Wild Goose Valley," and "Wicked, Wicked Moon"
by Cecelia Chapman, March 2006
"Right now the full moon is enormous outside the cafe. My wicked, wicked moon. It leers at the six, squeaky-blonde women stuffed in the blood-red leather booth. It glints off their wedding rings as they hold their hands high. It looks down their silk blouses with its buttery stare. It shines at us all so boldly I am amazed that they do not see it."
Squeal Pie
by Willie Smith, March 2006
"Bald scrawny Harry was pounding up a pig larynx. To fix his favorite dish: squeal pie. Not that he used a crust. But when he hammered the things to a pulp, they looked somewhat sickeningly like cherry pie filling. He ate them raw. Scooped right off the cutting board."
Meglomaniac
by Rob Rosen, March 2006
"We both looked fabulous in our new outfits, lost some much-needed weight, and glowed like we'd just stepped off a boat from Tahiti. People stared at us whenever we walked by. Neighbors, who'd never given us the time of day before, stopped and chatted. And most importantly, from a social standpoint, we were forever being invited to dinners and events by the muckamucks in Bill's company. We were, in short, big shots."
Precise, Literal, Unforgiving
by John Palcewski, March 2006
"Actually I didn't give a damn about how I looked, I was more worried that I would become too aware of what she looked like. But I'm a gentleman, after all, and I would never dream of alluding to the faint liver spots on the backs of her hands, or the lack of definition in her thigh muscles, or the dryness of her skin, or the rough calluses on her heels. Or her hands. Which were not as slim and elegant as those of Elizabeth, my favorite ex-wife."
"Hard Come By" and "Nail Polish"
by spiel, February 2006
"Yet now she finds herself pinned to the prison tortures. Heaps of naked masked men. Finds herself stretching to see beyond the smudged-out portions of the photos. Believes she can spot a penis here or there, counting seven nude pictures on CBS in just one story, somewhat embarrassed to be rattled by interests she's never known she had."
In Fetu
by Jen Michalski, February 2006
"We were born as one, to our parents, and placed on the single trajectory that we would call our lives. It was innocent enough, the mistake of it all, the oneness, for there was no evidence of twoness: one egg, one heart, one mind, one name. Just as we have always known that there were two, it was thus only natural to us that there were two. It could be no other way, and all the complications that came with the inconceivability of two were, for us, merely the nominal struggles of life."
Three Excerpts from Restorer of Lost Things
by Peter Magliocco, February 2006
"Perhaps that's why I came back. I can never really return to Hanoi Hilton -- it will not grace me ... But here, at the Motel, where we once came for R & R at times -- well before the Tet Offensive, & even after it -- can I not seek and perhaps achieve a rebirth of sorts? Seeing how wonderful the bustling city's become since those days!"
Windfall
by Willie Smith, February 2006
"Thorns ripped his already-ripped clothing and stabbed and frayed his skin. Wil cursed and looked down at his forearm, where the ruined sleeve of his shirt dangled. A fresh cut streaked from hand to elbow. He reached down and squeezed either side of the gash. The scaly skin went white. Dull red oozed from the new hurt. He let go of his skin."
Fidel and Me
"Two years ago I met a Jewish man in Buenos Aires bar named Samuel who told me he had sex with Adolph Eichmann's nephew. I knew it was true. Sam's parents survived the camps so Samuel could make love to the nephew of Eichmann."
My daily sin
by Clive E. Smith, December 2005
"My parents watching television and not laughing at Sidney Pointier like they usually do when other Black people come on screen. I always thought he was a white actor in blackface. He spoke different and seemed to be the only Black liked by whites, on television, other that the old cardboard-mug shot-police-composites, which flooded the news bulletins in the late seventies and early eighties."
"Spider Salad," "Promise," and "Goggles"
by Liesl Jobson, December 2005
"What ails them, asked my father. Cowpox, I said. That's not possible, he said, backwashing into his fourth beer. He leaned too close to the flame. His hair was singed, creating a bad smell that mixed with the gas from the brazing torch and odours of molten metal. It must be chicken pox, said my father. Andrew said they had already had chicken pox. You can see the scars and you can't get it twice. Probably AIDS, says my father, they've got that funny head shape."
Flight
by Gary Cummiskey, December 2005
"He was having coffee with the tall blonde one, somewhere on the Zambian border. He had met her in an Internet chatroom while she was living in Australia; she had tried to meet him in South Africa, but there had been visa and passport problems. He in turn had been unable to enter Zimbabwe, so instead they had arranged to meet here."
Honey
by Allan Kolski Horwitz, December 2005
"All the guards know him. They do not object to his visits though they have long wondered at the situation, the scenario: smartly dressed woman on third floor plays with hangdog man. They have all overheard the repeated conversations over the intercom – Umlung, dejected in the foyer, pleading to be allowed to come up - and is ignored, or told to come back another time: later in the week, at new moon, the beginning of the following month . . ."
One Night Stand
by Robert Greig, December 2005
'I saw with surprise two gleaming, abandoned figures, leaping like dolphins in the foam at the edge of the surf, splashing and playing like entranced creatures. Then they stopped and with mingled fingers walked slowly out, their curving naked lines etched beautifully when a wave broke in a flurry of flashing foam behind them. "That must be what love is," I thought, feeling like a foreigner. I turned back, not wanting the guy to think I was checking out his girl's tits, and went back to the party.'
The Loving Cup
by Gordon Torncello, November 2005
"Unfortunately, the university or college begins by separating one family member from the other, on friend from the other, one neighbor from the other. The campuses grow in direct proportion to the amount of displaced lives they collect; what comes out the other end, or whoever comes through, is dispersed across the globe to help fill key positions. This means very few life-long friendships, and even fewer community gardens."
cocaine.
by Paul Kavanagh, November 2005
"after copious amounts of cocaine tate was not feeling too good. clod kept laughing and lo was dancing. tate was drowning in sweat. clod kept laughing and lo was dancing. clod eyed lo and wished he could not see tate. clod kept laughing and lo was dancing. clod saw the legs of lo and frowned when he came upon the eyes of tate. lo was coquettish when she danced. she laughed and went round and round."
Monday Morning on the Farm
by Kris Bluth, November 2005
'"Well, you see, Bill, due to this...deficiency, all the, um, genitalia, on that particular stock are, um, abnormally small."
"How small?"
"1.3 inches. And since CBS feels that the sexual tension of the show will be compromised..."'
"All mod cons," "Through the medium of modern dance," and "Happy place"
by David Gaffney, November 2005
"He hated grocery shopping, hated the time it took. But he came up with a method. People bought the same things, more or less. So he would look for someone of his type, sneak up behind them and roll their fully-laden trolley off to the checkout."
"Civilization and its Discontents" and "The Cleanup"
by Brent Powers, November 2005
"First time I cut flesh I cried. I was ordered to – not the crying. Next time not so bad. I'm not going to say it progressed and progressed to further callousness, no, there's a kind of plateau unless you are sick, it's the screams. The helpless yowling. You hate them for it after awhile and yet you produce more of it, almost like for revenge."
The Shirt Library
by Brent Powers, October 2005
'That was his second marriage, I think, which lasted for about a week. When it was over, I picked him up in my Plymouth. His wife sat in the porch swing, eating a hardboiled egg.
"You see this?" she said, holding up what remained of the egg. "His death lives in here."'
ish
by Ben Fortenberry, October 2005
'"See, Osman we know you're an illegal. Hell, everyone in town does, but a new law states that we've got to fill a certain number of deportations each month. So, we're starting off with the easy ones. Now, you can come back in a day or two, and we'll just throw you out again next month real easy and regular like. Okay?"'
Uncle Rock
by Laurie Mazzaferro, October 2005
"Melissa was their unspoken, don't ever say anything, don't mention it secret. He hadn't meant to discover it. That night trying to convince Kel to go with him to Daytona he almost confronted her. He felt his mouth form the words. He had planned to wait until Melissa came home, high and strung out. He planned on having a little family intervention. (Something he felt qualified to do after all his trips in and out of rehab.)"
Keeping Up Appearances
by Norman A. Rubin, October 2005
"Horace Appleby discounted the words of his wife and continued to comment on the youthful appearances of his friends at the party as his removed lower and upper bridges from his mouth, which he dipped them into a glass. Then he placed the glass and contents in the large medicine cabinet above the sink."
How Roseate Were Here Areolae
by P. S. Ehrlich, October 2005
'"My name is Rozay. I'm subject to fits."
Which I took to mean she had her clothes specially made. Such as the miniature Laura Petrie outfit she was wearing: sleeveless top and Capri pants. I told her my name, and she made a face.'
Asbestos Dreams
by Jon Alan Carroll, September 2005
"The staff meeting with Bagby Barr took place as usual in Conference Room No. 5. Due to its airlessness, No. 5 was casually referred to as Big Stuffy or The Nap Room."
I'm so glad you're a part of my life
by Joel Van Noord, September 2005
"Dan came over and parked his car in the driveway. Walked to the tiny entryway and proceeded to remove every article of clothing and fold them neatly in a pile and then walk in the house with his clothes tightly piled on top of each other. He then lowered his naked butt cheeks into the center of a couch of girls, sending them scattering with high pitched squeals."
Pixie Sticks
by Jessica Del Balzo, September 2005
"His eyes are green, but a dirty sort of green, the color of a dried-out, trampled-on plant. I'll bet he smokes a lot. But wait, who am I to judge? Sometimes I forget about the cigarettes in my car. But then again, I am not addicted, so it's not the same sort of thing. Andrew looks like an addict, possibly of things 'worse' than my pixie sticks."
love
by Paul Kavanagh, September 2005
"The signs were all manifested, the incantatoty, the inchoate, etiolated grunts, the fluctuating orbs, the foamy lips, the disequilibrium. Vermo burned ab intra. That warm woozy feeling that undulated within knocked him for a six. Vermo discarded his chips and fish and held the girl around her waist. The girl was precarious on her feet, but Vermo held her firm."
from Revellie for a Sandstorm
by Marshall Smith, September 2005
"'You take one step closer and I'm popping this motherfucker.' And I meant it, finally. The conviction burned through the uncaring gaze I shot at Johnson as I kept my rifle steady on the Chaplain. Bullets screeched by not more than a foot above our heads. Some slammed into the armored vehicle we stood behind, creating a metallic drumbeat that almost sounded melodically orchestrated if you listened to it just right."
"Femme Fatale," "White Widow," and "Manhunt"
illustrated fiction by Cecelia Chapman, August 2005
"I always thought I knew exactly what was happening. Now I know. She was reading my email and restricted work files, using my code and name, lining the seams of my uniform, and hat, with her tiny, coded letters. I was her witless stooge."
