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The Sadness Gene
by Eric Lutz, May 2009
"Worst of all, when I'm sitting in my room, when my skin is dry and I ache all over, my shoulders especially, and there is nobody calling, and I turn my phone off, there isn't anything on TV and I'm bored and I wonder, is this how everyone feels?, but I know that it isn't how everyone feels — the worst is that I won't change. I was born this way. It's in my blood."
Blacktop
by Pheadar O'Tyrrell, May 2009
"Mike and Louise are out in the front. Mike's pissed off because the car was towed away last night and it cost him two hundred bucks to get it back. Damn thing sat in front for eight years. Never did run but Louise kept stuffing things into it and it was her extra room. Nobody messed with it. Everyone knew Louise kept her stuff in it. Everyone respected her 'room'. Few months ago someone stole all the wheels and left the thing just sitting on the street like an old bone."
A Dirty Grape
by Heather Palmer, May 2009
"Michael prefers pink and black in combination. Of course I prefer yellow. So I was wrong from the beginning but I said what does it matter to Michael and he seemed to think it did. He said he needed a drink to think things through. He said, If we're gonna have this conversation. I said let's not. He said okay but we didn't have sex again for another four nights and I took that as a bad sign. Plus, the night we did have sex I wasn't wearing panties."
All Cleaned Out.
by Daniel Carpenter, May 2009
"The boxes in the hallway have 'clothes' and 'videos' daubed in thick black marker. I don't know where she got the marker from. There's alcohol in those things, can't have them around. Can't keep them in this place. All sorts of things you can't have in this house. Sharp knives, bleach, lighters."
Waiting for Calvin
by Dan Kennard, April 2009
'"Grove Pepperwood here to see Calvin Miniscule please. Or is it Maxicule? I've completely forgotten. Anyway, I'm here for the publicity, I heard this is the place to turn it all around." Grove pulled a wine sack from underneath his stained shirt and took a huge long chug, then, without capping it, placed it back underneath his shirt, another dark stain appeared, like brown blood dripping from his heart. He wasn't drinking wine.'
In Case of Apocalypse, Break Glass
by Don Hucks, April 2009
'"I'm putting together an anthology marking the ninety-ninth anniversary of Cage's birth — in 2011. I'll need two-hundred seventy-two writers, not counting myself, from all genres and sub-genres, to provide wordless tributes — wordless poems, wordless plays, wordless fiction, wordless essays, wordless whatnots and bric-a-bracs. Maybe you could contribute a story?"'
Prose Stories for Angry People
by Martin Jones, April 2009
'"What does he know about me?" I wonder. If he knew my history of violence it seems so odd that this preppy little man — this man with his cloying manner of complacent suburbia and his pseudo-gentry gym outfit — would dare sneer at me like that. I look at him — or better said gaze around him — with docility but that docility turns to dumbness in the context of his sneer...'
[ a boy in the woods], & (sixty-seven), [ a boy in the woods], and [ a boy in the woods]
short fiction by J. A. Tyler, April 2009
"Feet his feet we have a thousand million hundreds shoes and infinite feet and we can drink from them and he is parched, our boy, shoeless and toes coming going out. Our us never stops coming going out. We made a basket and imaginary fish leapt to it and we cried holding a basket of invisible fish squealing and the delight and the drop of sun."
Of Similar Circumstance
by Linda A. Lavid, April 2009
"Continuing, let me say I'm a naughty girl. Perhaps the word naughty tantalizes you with sexual innuendo and playfulness. And a naughty girl, takes it one step further to licentiousness. I choose words carefully. I don't want to become boring, predictable. It could be my demise. At any moment you could reach for the remote and flip on the television."
Behind the Dumpster and in the Sun
by Marc Gulezian, March 2009
"Melvin had been 'taken away' when the pastor of the 120th Street Methodist Church got fed up with him digging up the bushes and flowers, making barren the area that wound along the vaguely awe-inspiring slash fear-inducing, pointy-arrowed, black iron-fence that surrounded the church and its patch of grass."
Strange But True
by Norman A. Rubin, March 2009
"It was related, through the gossip of tongues, that in the time past a certain John Spector encountered the spirit of a shadowy form; the appearance of the strange phantom that completely changed his life forever. The happening occurred during a cold night with the wind blowing in fierce gusts. Haunting words were heard flowing in the wind and it chilled him to the bone."
Because of the Tupperware
by Tyke Johnson, March 2009
"There shouldn't have been so many reasons to pack up the bags. Sure there were ugly times. No bloody noses and bruised eyes though. Tears streamed for days but people are always crying. We cry when indecency makes decent in movies. When cartoon lions die. When animated robots breakdown. We cry for rain and sun and snow. So why did those tears make any difference?"
A Bar Story
by Kane K. Faucher, March 2009
"Frank and Irene were deep into their cups, that's for sure. Frank claimed to be a preacher, and was preaching enough fire and brimstone to almost play the part. He asked Irene to place all her burdens and pains upon his soul so that she could enjoy herself. Asking her to focus, he again asked for all her pains. He said he was going to use them to resolve some Oedipal problem with his mother that he said was filthy."
Louise in Afghanistan
by Louise Landes Levi, March 2009
"In Kandahar, as said, you meet the beautiful boy from the train and you and him and his traveling companions all live together in a yellow room on a side street of the city. Osama Bin Laden isn't there yet. No one is there, only the Medieval Afghanis. One day you go to a village built on stilts. All the men and all the women and all the children are living on houses built on stilts. and all the men and all the women and maybe even all the children are smoking hashish, but not you."
"Beauty," "The Lonely," and "This Island Is Not Real"
by Miriam Sagan, March 2009
"He watches through waves of heat. He knows what is going to happen. She will ask him to take her to Panda Express for early lunch. She is hypoglycemic. She will kiss him, kiss him the way no lesbian or identical twin ever has. This is the start of his life as a man, the start of trouble — both the hot and cold varieties."
Pangs of Passion
by Samdi Lazarus Musa, February 2009
"Paul wandered through the bush eating wild fruits and stealing from people's orchards. He managed to partly regain his strength. He was used to living under difficult conditions; his military training had conditioned him. He sneaked into homes stealing pots, knives, dishes, yams, and sorghum beer."
Folks, the laugh is on me
by Martin Jones, February 2009
"Now that I have finished my murder mystery/sex comedy P is for pussy, I am dedicating my time to the research of my new book: One too many pussy jokes: How my marriage ended as I got this scar on my neck. I have had to endure some real barbs down at the wharf district from the passersby who stop and watch me try out my routines."
Ana Bekoach: A Personal Liturgical Homily
by Elisha Porat, February 2009
"From within the contradictory pairing of gentleness and violence emerged the harmony of the poem that so wanted to be born. The ingredients were repulsively familiar: a shell shocked and exhausted soldier, returning home for a short and limited period of time, the threat of returning to the front not yet lifted. His hunger for a woman, the absurd pairing of his fleshly lust with his impending death echo in the poem..."
Darling
by Sam Virzi, February 2009
'Darling carried a black magic marker with him at all times, in case he saw something particularly undeclared and had to rectify such a confusing situation. Once, for example, he encountered a big, bright, ceramic mushroom bolted into the sidewalk outside his university; he wrote the word "ENTRAPMENT" in bubble letters, careful of the patterns occurring inside the black lines of each one.'
A MILF-Change
by Tim Millas, February 2009
'But last night, after he shut the light, she took his penis in her hand; and when he pushed that away, her mouth. "Don't," he said. "Then fuck me," she said. "Stop it," he said; then he was on top of her, pushing into her as if angry; and then for a miraculous ten minutes he was the lover he'd been when there was hope of making a child.'
An Imperial Message
by Stephen Charles Lester, February 2009
'"Not since Vienna has humanity negotiated such a peace," Jong-Il says. Our Secretariat picks her nose and eats it. "We shall be composed by the aria we compose."'
An Evening with Somatotax:
by Ryan Undeen, December 2008
'Just as I was about to slide off the stool and find one nearer the jiggling mid-riffs, old red busts out, "They're cutting the atom smaller and smaller — that ain't the atom, but if you make your will indivisible, you win."'
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."
