THE ONLINE FICTION AGGREGATOR

Archive for the ‘Short’ Category

SHORT

In Short on September 8, 2010 at 7:40 am

Fifteen years earlier, when I first emigrated to America, Mother had stood in much the same spot and cried hard, trembled like a spider web in a breeze.

SHORT

In Short on September 7, 2010 at 7:40 am

I nod, like the bobble-headed caricature I’ve become, and I ask her please may I use the bathroom.

SHORT

In Short on September 6, 2010 at 7:40 am

I’m reminded of the woman who asked to be put into a permanent coma because her dreams were just right, passionate, found, held, loved.

SHORT

In Short on September 5, 2010 at 7:40 am

Soon Jack’s cage will be big enough to hold us all.

SHORT

In Short on September 4, 2010 at 7:40 am

Run with me up the hill. Run fast!

SHORT

In Short on September 3, 2010 at 7:40 am

She wanted to go out like that, she told me once. Lit up like an accident.

SHORT

In Short on September 2, 2010 at 7:40 am

When the pilot slammed his fist on the altimeter, the altimeter started to bleed.

SHORT

In Short on September 1, 2010 at 7:40 am

SHORT

In Short on August 31, 2010 at 7:40 am

I remember the days of fried breakfasts, rashers and puddings and scrambled eggs piled high, with no limits, canisters of fine coffee and several varieties of specialty tea, Danishes and croissants without end.

 

SHORT

In Short on August 30, 2010 at 7:40 am

I reminded him that I was a great hockey player and there was nothing to worry about.

SHORT

In Short on August 29, 2010 at 7:40 am

The Cacate doesn’t wear off like the pes petrat.

SHORT

In Short on August 28, 2010 at 7:40 am

A story I’d heard a thousand times.

SHORT

In Short on August 27, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Those spiders will try to crawl up your skirt and into your panties. Don’t let them.”

SHORT

In Short on August 26, 2010 at 7:40 am

The Illustrated Book of Snake Care says that living with a reptile is a responsibility that can become an adventure.

SHORT

In Short on August 25, 2010 at 7:40 am

Both of them proceeded to kick the shit out of me sort of squealing like I was a spider or something.

SHORT

In Short on August 24, 2010 at 7:40 am

They take their time chewing them up, slowly gnawing through the flesh and breaking the birds like balloons.

SHORT

In Short on August 23, 2010 at 7:40 am

______ cried about work ______

SHORT

In Short on August 22, 2010 at 7:40 am

Pure white, the skull is probably from a raccoon.

SHORT

In Short on August 21, 2010 at 7:40 am

The country looked to the town for containers, and the town looked to the country for destinations for its containers.

SHORT

In Short on August 20, 2010 at 7:40 am

He remembered what his father once said: when you see danger move towards it.

SHORT

In Short on August 19, 2010 at 7:40 am

The sky broke open and the world flooded, ruining crops and clothing stores, and just before we all drowned the sun fell from the sky like a baby bird.

SHORT

In Short on August 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

I would rather eat baneberry than give Noble to you.

SHORT

In Short on August 17, 2010 at 7:40 am

The green woman goes to the bathroom mirror. She admires her perfect body, her inhuman color.

SHORT

In Short on August 16, 2010 at 7:40 am

He was famished after a long night of nightmares.

SHORT

In Short on August 15, 2010 at 7:40 am

You have to gut a moose right away, they say, or the meat rots in its skin.

SHORT

In Short on August 14, 2010 at 7:40 am

The next time she was pregnant, they set the cage on the ground and she bit the kits to death.

SHORT

In Short on August 13, 2010 at 7:40 am

His jottings were mundane: boy falls off swing, 10:20; low-flying plane & everyone in park looks up, 11:07; two men in sweatsuits argue in street, 11:30; Hector crosses street in distance, 2:35 . . .

SHORT

In Short on August 12, 2010 at 7:40 am

Liminal means… sleeps under bridges…. Also, he stinks.

SHORT

In Short on August 11, 2010 at 7:40 am

Therefore, ostrich society did not need a justice system per se. Criminals punished themselves.

SHORT

In Short on August 10, 2010 at 7:40 am

Frances and I were perched on the windowsill, passing a stogie back and forth, watching the rain pour slantwise in the neon-colored night.

SHORT

In Short on August 9, 2010 at 7:40 am

I had my wits and I had my pride so you can bet I’d be the first jack out there for the spring drive, rigging the flyboom and passing out peaveys.

SHORT

In Short on August 8, 2010 at 7:40 am

But he was a writer. He didn’t have to see a pushcart to write about it. He could imagine a pushcart.

SHORT

In Short on August 7, 2010 at 7:40 am

The enormous whir and shake was in perfect sync with her spew.

SHORT

In Short on August 6, 2010 at 7:40 am

The boy would fit in the oven if she folded him carefully but he would have to sit very still for her to wedge him in there.

SHORT

In Short on August 5, 2010 at 7:40 am

The warm water of the girl’s mouth held the boy, like a baby in a bath, like a small creature hiding from something horrible in a cave.

SHORT

In Short on August 4, 2010 at 7:40 am

We waited and waited, watching out the windows as the rains soaked the earth, puddles forming in the uneven and softened soilright above our corpses.

SHORT

In Short on August 3, 2010 at 7:40 am

I come back a year later and find no house, but a garden of regrets.

SHORT

In Short on August 2, 2010 at 7:40 am

And so she walked from God’s house into Neptune’s halls and the surf drenched her Sunday best as she twirled her way home.

SHORT

In Short on August 1, 2010 at 7:40 am

I slap the walls with the palms of my hands. My neighbors slap back. I want something that’s mine.

SHORT

In Short on July 31, 2010 at 10:40 am

He palmed the key to her.

SHORT

In Short on July 30, 2010 at 7:40 am

Who does that? Who tells a woman with a ticking clock that the quickest means by which to realize her purpose needs to leave because of serious compatibility issues, all while his loser brother Clyde sits outside in a pickup truck, cake eating grin on his face.

SHORT

In Short on July 29, 2010 at 7:40 am

It had been in flour and in water and in leather and in blood, in duress and in ecstasy.

SHORT

In Short on July 28, 2010 at 7:40 am

Her ex was in another country, and so was her last boyfriend and the other. Nothing was current. She grew up with cows. With prayers, her father screaming out to god then.

SHORT

In Short on July 27, 2010 at 7:40 am

They say whip that lion, use that chair, let the lion come close, make it roar.

SHORT

In Short on July 26, 2010 at 7:40 am

We all think we are birds and then we eat them and forget.

SHORT

In Short on July 25, 2010 at 7:40 am

I’ve been cleaning so long each of the bones in my hands has its own ache.

SHORT

In Short on July 24, 2010 at 7:40 am

I am safe, cocooned in blankets, milk, love and women’s arms.

SHORT

In Short on July 23, 2010 at 7:40 am

When I was eleven, I wrote a poem. It went: my heart is down.

SHORT

In Short on July 22, 2010 at 7:40 am

I imagine that I am pale and thin and that my heart might explode if I eat too much salt.

SHORT

In Short on July 21, 2010 at 7:40 am

The eggs moved in a single gelatinous mass. They broke. Or matured. All 1250 of them.

SHORT

In Short on July 20, 2010 at 7:40 am

He used to carry a huge knife tucked into his jeans until I confiscated it. (Bart Simpson)

SHORT

In Short on July 19, 2010 at 7:40 am

We dated the same girl in college. Andrea. I had her freshmen and sophomore years and Nick handled the rest.

SHORT

In Short on July 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

Living room sparks pennies and nickels. Bookcase creeps up. Ceiling blinks. (“E Said, C Said”)

SHORT

In Short on July 17, 2010 at 7:40 am

Figure out a way to make this still taste good. Do it fast.

SHORT

In Short on July 16, 2010 at 7:40 am

Why can’t I laugh on the fucking subway? The one time I do a massive soft shell of guilt envelops me?

SHORT

In Short on July 15, 2010 at 7:40 am

‘Why is she naked?’ people a hundred years from now will ask. ‘Doesn’t she know ants will eat her bum?’”

SHORT

In Short on July 14, 2010 at 7:40 am

I learned that the Wright brothers had asister who tied rope around her shins to keep her skirtdown when she flew in the machine called a “fixed-wingaircraft.” (“Heavier Than Air”)

SHORT

In Short on July 13, 2010 at 7:40 am

You don’t swallow your food and expect it to be symbolic. I think more people should close their damn mouths when they chew.

SHORT

In Short on July 12, 2010 at 7:40 am

He lights a rollie and smiles serenely back at me. “Fair suck of the sav, mate. It’s the good oil, I tell ya. There’ll be forty millies at least.” (Quentin Poulsen)

SHORT

In Short on July 11, 2010 at 7:40 am

Later, when he was outside under the glow of the street lamp, I thought about asking him, why-why-why but realized that, regardless of his answer, there would be no comfort, none.

SHORT

In Short on July 10, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Where’s home?” said the taxi driver.

SHORT

In Short on July 9, 2010 at 7:40 am

She stood in front of a cactus, prickly in bloom.

SHORT

In Short on July 8, 2010 at 7:40 am

I closed my eyes and saw your prairie-coloured ones.

SHORT

In Short on July 7, 2010 at 7:40 am

If sometimes the strings are a cat’s plaything and also a cat’s innards, I touch the enameled wood and sigh in unison with the creaking pipes.

SHORT

In Short on July 6, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Not perfect, no,” he said. “We run on parallel tracks. We’ll never meet.”

SHORT

In Short on July 5, 2010 at 7:40 am

That’s why I giggled. I did not want to go out with you, be your girlfriend, fuck you.

SHORT

In Short on July 4, 2010 at 7:40 am

I wanted us to give some part of us to this boy, sacrifice some of our living for his dying instead of my kid. I don’t know.

SHORT

In Short on July 3, 2010 at 7:40 am

Mr Jensen rows. I hug my dolly with no head.

SHORT

In Short on July 2, 2010 at 7:40 am

She was musky and beautiful with hair as dark as the sludge left in the coffee filter when the last drops trickle through.

SHORT

In Short on July 1, 2010 at 7:40 am

He fell down drunk and lost his way. Who wouldn’t, he wanted to know.

SHORT

In Short on June 30, 2010 at 7:40 am

He was as quiet as the clock on the wall, and just as dependable.

SHORT

In Short on June 29, 2010 at 7:40 am

Some bought used bricks. Some bought rusted ducts from a pile of scrap.

SHORT

In Short on June 28, 2010 at 7:40 am

If you get caught between the moon and Jersey City, New Jersey, the best that you can do is find a hostage from this crazy world and settle down.

SHORT

In Short on June 27, 2010 at 7:40 am

The buildings scream at Man Bitch.  The screams are generated by steel under terrible compression.

SHORT

In Short on June 26, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Excess,” says her mother, “someone who likes excess would want grapes.”

SHORT

In Short on June 25, 2010 at 7:40 am

I threw the notebook into the river. A crow heckled us and tore through the sick trees. (Called “Sacred Names”, halfway down the page)

SHORT

In Short on June 24, 2010 at 7:40 am

A magazine article said that we need fifteen minutes of sunlight a day to maintain a good mood, which explains why I’m sad.

SHORT

In Short on June 23, 2010 at 7:40 am

King of the Magalogs! they cried, Emperor of Charticles! Master of the Webisode!

SHORT

In Short on June 22, 2010 at 7:40 am

When I learned that menstruation was just the shedding of an egg, I thought that there must be a beautiful chocolate Easter egg inside me that had melted.

SHORT

In Short on June 21, 2010 at 7:40 am

“This is not a joke,” says my mother.

SHORT

In Short on June 20, 2010 at 7:40 am

The Gentleman feels a tiny sun fall out of his chest-grave.

SHORT

In Short on June 19, 2010 at 7:40 am

Janice and I were mostly naked by the smoldering fire, though, as I unscrewed the bolts that held my face intact, she stopped me.

SHORT

In Short on June 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

So in the name of science the Bishop’s daughter hit him in the back of the head, dragged his dark, flattening veins out and dried them in the sun.

SHORT

In Short on June 17, 2010 at 7:40 am

The buildings are big, unyielding rectangles, nothing like the green forgiveness of fields.

SHORT

In Short on June 16, 2010 at 7:40 am

I’m seventy-three years old, all my friends are dead, and I’ve never been married. I’d like to know who did that.

SHORT

In Short on June 15, 2010 at 7:40 am

Wakes up in the Indian Ocean, thinking oh what a silly name. Naked and clinging.

SHORT

In Short on June 14, 2010 at 7:40 am

You ask yourself, “Why did we have kids?”

SHORT

In Short on June 13, 2010 at 7:40 am

After two or three cars he caught up to us and the white woman said, “Oh my god.” She got up and went to the doors…

SHORT

In Short on June 12, 2010 at 7:40 am

Didn’t I tell you to grow an ocean in my backyard I said. The cop said No. He said That was another cop.

SHORT

In Short on June 11, 2010 at 7:40 am

And surreptitiously pouring the pea soup into Dixie cups to stow in the medicine cabinet, and cramming the roast beef into the pockets of her purse.

SHORT

In Short on June 10, 2010 at 7:40 am

The gripping in my belly felt like 5am, in the dark waters between too early and too late. I surveyed the room, trying to prove it.

SHORT

In Short on June 9, 2010 at 7:40 am

I am jealous of the kids who can point to their mothers and say, this is where my synapses were brought together, strapped and crisscrossed in pink. Electrified.

SHORT

In Short on June 8, 2010 at 7:40 am

I decide the purpose of my being in the desert is to find a way out.

SHORT

In Short on June 7, 2010 at 7:40 am

You have to have high ceilings of course—did I mention I have an old house? (Mairead Byrne’s “Floodlights”)

SHORT

In Short on June 6, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Freedom is the devil’s bastinado. Don’t get hung up on freedom, or overestimate its comforts.”

SHORT

In Short on June 5, 2010 at 7:40 am

The growls of these unseen cellos would be frightening if not for the knowledge that each has a soft woman’s hips.

SHORT

In Short on June 4, 2010 at 7:40 am

Last I visited he fried catfish so white and fluffy it belonged in the sky. Boy could fry up some fish should go on his headstone.

SHORT

In Short on June 3, 2010 at 7:40 am

Some kind of a secret vegetable pain was cranking around in my stomach. I gave it some Pepto Bismol.

SHORT

In Short on June 2, 2010 at 7:40 am

In her apron she carried four perfect ovals to the kitchen stove, broke shells high over a skillet sizzling with lard.

SHORT

In Short on June 1, 2010 at 7:40 am

He stays in, deep in, a granite fissure in Manhattan.  I stay in Minnesota and go out.

SHORT

In Short on May 31, 2010 at 7:40 am

That’s his goal– to try as many meats as possible. We’re sick of each other.

SHORT

In Short on May 30, 2010 at 7:40 am

Casa Grande is, of course, Arizona’s state soil—salty and robin-red enough to make even the bottom of your pant legs blush. Dust devils whip against a flat house set against the side of Camelback Mountain.

SHORT

In Short on May 29, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Come here,” she said. “We have light in our lungs. We speak into each other’s cheeks. Would you like to buy a puppy?”

SHORT

In Short on May 28, 2010 at 7:40 am

High above the acrobating bags, a flying kitten called Keith was making distress signals like a frightened goose.

SHORT

In Short on May 27, 2010 at 7:40 am

All the graveyards I’ve ever been in aren’t much different from the city park. They have the same grass, the same birds, the same trees, the same footprints and flowers.

SHORT

In Short on May 26, 2010 at 7:40 am

The meditation would be like a lake, her mind like a raft, her breath a soft breeze, and come to think of it, hardly a ripple on the water’s surface.

SHORT

In Short on May 25, 2010 at 7:35 am

Break bulbs apart; twist this root, split this mint. Gardening is an act of violence.

SHORT

In Short on May 24, 2010 at 7:40 am

Someday mom and dad will sell this house. Someday the new people will split my bedside wall and bees will throb out, bees will wick the crawl space between studs and gush

SHORT

In Short on May 23, 2010 at 7:40 am

Look at the yellow sun with suspicion. When I move it is still. When I am still it moves. It is never asleep.

SHORT

In Short on May 22, 2010 at 7:40 am

The house shudders like a sleeping horse, and the teacups rattle on their hooks.

SHORT

In Short on May 21, 2010 at 7:40 am

The doctor said, “Anything else?” Cohen said, “Nothing much. Just sometimes I choke a little on the rice.”

SHORT

In Short on May 20, 2010 at 7:40 am

The bump asked the snoring patient, “Are you aware the sun precesses through the zodiac one degree every seventy-two years?”

SHORT

In Short on May 20, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Do you hear that, honey?” You motioned to a path leading down the embankment. “Careful now.” Like tightrope walkers we made our way down to the pebbled shore below.

SHORT

In Short on May 19, 2010 at 7:35 am

We had an epidemic of lost voices, a period of itchy noised words that died in our mouths, and at first we forced out animal noises but then we began to like the break; some of us didn’t want to go back.

SHORT

In Short on May 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

Of course one should never remove the Herpes ointment from a cool dry place, no matter what’s at stake…

SHORT

In Short on May 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

Push the needle through the cochlea and down the auditory nerve. (It’s best if this is done in one action.)

SHORT

In Short on May 17, 2010 at 7:40 am

Molly and Sally, I go.

SHORT

In Short on May 16, 2010 at 9:52 am

here you say love is the possibility of shapes:

SHORT

In Short on May 15, 2010 at 7:40 am

Snakes will hung in trees or shoe closets i know most shacks hold a snake corn cribs a barn to but snakes dont get up drink milk from cows teat thats a lie…

SHORT

In Short on May 14, 2010 at 7:40 am

I just stare at the moon…

SHORT

In Short on May 13, 2010 at 7:40 am

The invitation was delivered the day after she left. Lyndon made me read it to him three times at dinner, once more before he went to sleep; I knew I’d have to take him. (Aaron Block’s)

SHORT

In Short on May 12, 2010 at 7:40 am

I glance at the space above for wisps of ectoplasm. Angels wings. A darkening vapor.

SHORT

In Short on May 11, 2010 at 7:40 am

The brain is only programmed to recognize novelty, and overclocks itself to elongate events that might be memorable.

SHORT

In Short on May 10, 2010 at 7:40 am

Worm your way into this, she thought, lipping the cardkey a little further back to near tickle the uvula.

SHORT

In Short on May 9, 2010 at 7:40 am

“If you had a superpower, what would it be?”

SHORT

In Short on May 8, 2010 at 7:40 am

The city makes me thankful that I cannot hear the rising-falling voices of the servants, locked behind my skin, in charge of keeping me alive.

SHORT

In Short on May 7, 2010 at 7:40 am

‘Monkey run, monkey talk, monkey done a bad, bad do do,’ chatters the Missionary.

SHORT

In Short on May 6, 2010 at 3:32 pm

they had sex on a sunday made love on monday trysted on tuesday wanked on wednesday thrilled on thursday finally fucked on friday and saturday they just sat there staring at each other

SHORT

In Short on May 6, 2010 at 7:40 am

Bound by fencing masks, cocooned under gauze, the roommate’s polaroids tacked to the walls of the loft, who lent you those little metal balls for stimulating g-spots, who built a swing in the foyer.

SHORT

In Short on May 5, 2010 at 7:40 am

Maybe I should go down there to the taco stand where you normally buy your dos tacos and avocado salad meal right around now, and we can have a cinematic-string-swelling love scene by the chili sauce bar.

SHORT

In Short on May 4, 2010 at 7:40 am

The dead have nothing but time. He parsed pages, sorted his UNIX from his LINUX, swam among the fireflies a million miles of fiber optic cable so as to soak up ones and zeroes.

SHORT

In Short on May 3, 2010 at 7:40 am

The woman leans forward and raps the glass with her wedding ring. All three seahorses separate and rise to different sides of the tank, indifferent, inviolate, upright, acting as if nothing has happened, as, of course, nothing has.

SHORT

In Short on May 2, 2010 at 7:40 am

Victor slid the fingers of one hand between the fingers of the other to show the cyanide moving through the rocks and the gold leeching out.

SHORT

In Short on May 1, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Fuck,” said Bernie. “Fuckwinky eyeballhead.”

SHORT

In Short on April 30, 2010 at 7:40 am

Genitals contain multitudes.

SHORT

In Short on April 29, 2010 at 7:40 am

I wrote out a suicide note but what sentimental drivel!

SHORT

In Short on April 28, 2010 at 7:40 am

One time she asked if there was anything she could do for me. I said there was. She said, no, not that, that was terrible — that was the most disgusting she had ever heard.

SHORT

In Short on April 27, 2010 at 7:40 am

The Miracle on Ice and Richard Pryor on fire. Pinball and KISS and “1984” in 1982.

SHORT

In Short on April 26, 2010 at 7:40 am

“So anyway, this woman’s dog jumped out of the back seat and raced off down the road and she screamed after it ‘Charles! Charles!’ and it reminded me of Little House On The Prairie.” “It did?” He sounded further and further away.

SHORT

In Short on April 25, 2010 at 7:40 am

Here is the police department, silent. I imagine cops with scarred knuckles sitting inside.

SHORT

In Short on April 24, 2010 at 7:40 am

And all she ever thought about, apparently, was how good God was to the wretched of the earth. “And the glory,” she sang. “And the glory and the glory and the — oh yes, it sure is.”

SHORT

In Short on April 23, 2010 at 7:40 am

1 The connection between French kissing and eating soup being Appetite, what with the sexual/erotic/carnal connotations implicit in the act of eating, in terms of psychic fixity (e.g., the mind-clouding desire for satiation) and physiological response (e.g., Pavlovian salivation, the licking of one’s lips, an increased heart rate, etc.).

SHORT

In Short on April 22, 2010 at 7:40 am

He would think he was doing a tombstone rubbing at the old Civil War cemetery, holding a sheet of rice paper in one hand and a thick piece of drawing charcoal in the other.

SHORT

In Short on April 21, 2010 at 7:40 am

Back from Iraq, naked in the cellar…

SHORT

In Short on April 20, 2010 at 7:40 am

The lappets of his mouth were lovelorn.

SHORT

In Short on April 19, 2010 at 7:40 am

I kept trying to get to the upper stories of the house to jump out the window, but an older woman with rough hands kept pulling me back, kissing my cheek and saying, “Son, there isn’t anything up there. The party is down here.”

SHORT

In Short on April 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

The two children were nearly ageless and sexless, bundled in their snow pants and hooded jackets.

SHORT

In Short on April 17, 2010 at 7:40 am

She wondered what it would sound like to be murdered, perhaps if she were tied to balsa and hit with a lot of flowers.

SHORT

In Short on April 16, 2010 at 7:40 am

She was a ballerina. She’s not a threat. She doesn’t even know it’s illegal. Nobody does.

SHORT

In Short on April 15, 2010 at 7:40 am

Two huge cops. They were waltzing in the street chest to chest. Hands clasped. Their care for each other showed white in their tremendous knuckles.

SHORT

In Short on April 14, 2010 at 7:40 am

The fire left a stench of smoldering flesh.

SHORT

In Short, Uncategorized on April 13, 2010 at 7:40 am

Milton was visibly upset that Milton had chosen to confront him.

SHORT

In Short on April 12, 2010 at 7:40 am

He said good choice you cut out the valves black bits slice it marinate it soy sauce ginger garlic rice wine skewer it or maybe do it Italian if that’s more your style you look Italian. I said I’m not Italian.

SHORT

In Short on April 11, 2010 at 7:40 am

It was getting hard making a living sacrificing Spaniards in Tanumshede.

SHORT

In Short on April 10, 2010 at 7:40 am

Some people at school call me the Better Business Bureau. I am very short.  I have beady eyes.  Of this, I am not proud, nor is Mother.

SHORT

In Short on April 9, 2010 at 7:40 am

Suddenly, I remember seeing a man on a TV documentary who had been castrated voluntarily.

SHORT

In Short on April 8, 2010 at 7:40 am

Those eyes stared down through time and in each was the flash of a headlight, the panic of uncertainty, a look of surprise, the horror of nature’s violence, the disappointment at the unfairness of it all.

SHORT

In Short on April 7, 2010 at 7:40 am

The car stopped quickly and my knees hit the back of the driver’s seat.  Hours before with his head in my lap, somewhere between Ravello and Positano, he rubbed my knees with a cupped hand.

SHORT

In Short on April 6, 2010 at 7:40 am

I got up on the tractor.

SHORT

In Short on April 5, 2010 at 7:40 am

There are five blades. They look like quality wood, and I like the dark brown color.

SHORT

In Short on April 4, 2010 at 7:40 am

Me and Gwyn write polite shit about Satan like this about once a year to get everyone over the age of thirty here fired up and feeling like they’re living life on high.

SHORT

In Short on April 3, 2010 at 7:40 am

It’s just me and the elderly woman against the world.

SHORT

In Short on April 2, 2010 at 7:40 am

She tried to carry two or more babies at a time, once.

SHORT

In Short on April 1, 2010 at 7:40 am

Dave Franks hated the slough, though the waters called; if not the slough calling—the boy: Matty, the kid with the oversized hat and tight sweatpants that always waited for his mom after T-ball practice.

SHORT

In Short on March 31, 2010 at 7:40 am

In 1686 the Frenchman Bernard de Fontenelle wrote that the inhabitants of Venus were a small black race, burned by the sun, full of wit and fire, playing lutes with gay abandon, and always in love.

SHORT

In Short on March 30, 2010 at 2:30 pm

It happened as I was crossing over and I saw it, him, right in the middle of the street, blocking the traffic.

SHORT

In Short on March 29, 2010 at 7:40 am

…and I’m going to have to strangle him, she’s been up all night, screaming like a stuck pig, and of course I feel sympathy, because–*#%$!–what person would not wake up screaming if he or she tore aside the *#%$!ing veil a little and saw what there was to see out in the world…

SHORT

In Short on March 28, 2010 at 7:40 am

He buried her mother halfway down under what rocks they could find. He carried his youngest on his back and doesn’t remember at what point she became heavier. It is winter but they are barefoot, and he is unable to speak.

SHORT

In Short on March 27, 2010 at 7:30 am

At the funeral parlor, the roses shat their dark red stink as grandma lay like a rolling pin in a drawer of blue satin…(From “до свидания жестокий мир (Good-bye, Cruel World)” halfway down the page)

SHORT

In Short on March 26, 2010 at 7:40 am

They throb muted between hallway walls. They are on purpose after accidents. They are one way. They are silent getters of attention.

SHORT

In Short on March 25, 2010 at 7:40 am

She held the phone between her ear and her son’s. Her husband wanted to know what they’d dreamed about the night before.

SHORT

In Short on March 24, 2010 at 7:40 am

In her living room you stand against the wall, watching older family members jerk their arms and legs, throw their heads back and roll their eyes. They cry and try to pull down the ceiling with their outstretched fingers while the snakes around their necks peer out confused.

SHORT

In Short on March 23, 2010 at 7:40 am

You hurl the apple into the air and you wait for it to come down and you don’t really care when it doesn’t.

SHORT

In Short on March 22, 2010 at 7:40 am

This is what I hear when I dream of my Mother.

SHORT

In Short on March 21, 2010 at 7:40 am

All of the ovens were going. And what have you made? said Horothy, who was to judge their final creations, to Clown Cooking Contest Contestant 8. He gave her a peek in his oven. He was baking a bear.

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In Short on March 20, 2010 at 7:40 am

Gina punched Melissa in the face, ripped off her shirt. She then left the apartment.

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In Short on March 19, 2010 at 7:40 am

I walked around the neighborhood, scissors and satchel in hand, on the lookout for interesting plants.  I’ve taken fistfuls of phlox and snatched hollyhock seeds. Plucked evening primrose out of the ground.  But in the end it’s roses that captured me.

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In Short on March 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

Maybe she thinks in Czech, dreams in German, pretends in English. Babylon is a beautiful place after all.

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In Short on March 17, 2010 at 7:40 am

She. Wide hips, all the better to give birth, my dear. She wanted that baby more than anything.

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In Short on March 16, 2010 at 7:40 am

This other woman, the one who should appear in this story, the one who should have been a mother, the one whose eggs came sliding down her insides, dripping into napkins, the color of sunsetting yolk, she doesn’t know that she should have birthed this girl, this daughter.

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In Short on March 15, 2010 at 7:40 am

please don’t spill the lighter fluid, MC Oroville. We’ll burn this rice and make the tennis players cough. FUCK ME OH GOD FUCK FUCK FUCK OH GOD YOU FEEL SO GOOD FUCK ME.

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In Short on March 14, 2010 at 7:40 am

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the right side of anything,” he told her, and left her bed for the familiar couch.

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In Short on March 13, 2010 at 7:40 am

Mortimer went to the bar every night after work, got drunker and drunker, yelling louder and louder at his best friends. As a kind of preemptive measure, he would go to the payphone and call his house.

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In Short on March 12, 2010 at 7:40 am

You must answer one of the three calls in order to be eligible for the assistance requested. If you do not answer one of the three calls your request will be marked no pay.

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In Short on March 11, 2010 at 7:40 am

There is a sister falling down the rocks of a river, tripping down the rivulets of a lake, this man’s opposition, this man’s opposite, the waves to his stillness…

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In Short on March 10, 2010 at 7:40 am

Anyway, I was thinking about this and I think our theme should be “We Who Have Light Feet,” because I think it really captures the essence of what these two days are about. It’s a shame we didn’t have time to get this printed on some free post-its or pads, because I am certain that it would spread like wildfire as a life motto for anyone who attends.

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In Short on March 9, 2010 at 7:40 am

When the prices of everything went up ninety-seven times in one year, M’dhara Vitalis Mukaro came out of retirement to make the coffins in which we buried our dead. In a space of only six months, he became famous twice over, as the best coffin maker in the district and as the Mupandawana Dancing Champion.

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In Short on March 8, 2010 at 7:40 am

Way out in the desert, outside of a little town somewhere between Phoenix and Vegas. Somewhere between here and there.

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In Short on March 7, 2010 at 7:40 am

…because my personality is usually exercised by my saying something stupid and smiling with a hint…

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In Short on March 6, 2010 at 7:40 am

The boy’s having problems, she says. He’s easily distracted and he’s been biting his classmates, especially the—she stresses the adjective—Sub-Saharan girls.

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In Short on March 5, 2010 at 7:40 am

On my tea bag:  keep up.  On my to-do list: Make a metaphor of the man shaving in his car.

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In Short on March 4, 2010 at 7:40 am

I have the right genes for throwing.

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In Short on March 3, 2010 at 7:40 am

I was packed as a baseball is packed: a tiny round part, my bones, encircled with string around and around, tied and covered with skin.

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In Short on March 2, 2010 at 7:40 am

The radio isn’t playing. It is silent. I don’t smoke. I don’t want to bother her.

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In Short on March 1, 2010 at 7:40 am

Chocolate gives nose bleeds to children, my grandmother said.

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In Short on February 28, 2010 at 7:40 am

There are still several knots of students and now some parents and news vans pulling in behind him, I think.

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In Short on February 27, 2010 at 7:40 am

We bumped into each other and enjoyed the freemasonry until we began to picture life from reverse angles.

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In Short on February 26, 2010 at 7:40 am

He invited me over on a Sunday for throwback movies and casual sex, I faked an ear infection.

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In Short on February 25, 2010 at 7:40 am

To make it eas­ier on every­one involved, he became a rub­ber band.

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In Short on February 24, 2010 at 7:40 am

To clarify any blind mad-grabs, personally, enjoy getting ahead of yourself when the sun settles down, when fingering loose change in your pocket that someone else will get. Think wistful, So much surpasses-(This line comes from the third story on the page, “Japonisme”)

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In Short on February 23, 2010 at 7:40 am

It wasn’t knowing, as she always knew, how love like paper sacks ripped with use:  two or three tomatoes could nestle unseen, six would rupture the sides, tear fibers.

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In Short on February 22, 2010 at 7:40 am

Beneath the back porch light, daffodils were rioting; my hostess’s young guests were beautiful and eager to get drunk.

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In Short on February 21, 2010 at 7:40 am

Last night I received a telephone call from a man who said he was my mother.

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In Short on February 20, 2010 at 7:40 am

He said they would have a platonic symbiosis. She believed him.

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In Short on February 19, 2010 at 7:40 am

Like a fevered musk ox at full stomp, I want to stretch the fabric of your insides.

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In Short on February 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

Her sister looks like a nose-face with whiskers. Please, can I have the grains in the holder?

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In Short on February 17, 2010 at 7:40 am

Later, when they are asleep in bed together, I move around the house, picturing those who will ugly him. (This is the second story on the page. It’s called “Who Will Ugly Him.”)

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In Short on February 16, 2010 at 7:40 am

That night Mattie dreams of porcupines. She wakes and remembers two porcupines having sex and thinks to herself, how clever that neither one gets hurt in the process.

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In Short on February 15, 2010 at 7:40 am

Joining the status quo were new voices in the harmony; all breathless, all female, all moaning a thousand poorly faked orgasms and sighs of satisfaction. She and I turned out of sync and my beer fell on our moving legs.

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In Short on February 14, 2010 at 7:40 am

just overheard a big black girl saying ‘if you BUY me a HOTDOG, we’re TOGETHER.’

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In Short on February 13, 2010 at 7:40 am

She lies in a bathtub fingering herself. The water bubbles up. She can hear her husband walking in the hallway. And she can hear her children asking for Cheerios.

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In Short on February 12, 2010 at 7:40 am

“I smell dried tiger penis,” said Amy.

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In Short on February 11, 2010 at 7:40 am

I put both hands down low on those painted-on jeans and push, but Big Girl laughs and leans back like she’s working for the hill. I ease Big Girl one step up. We slide back two.

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In Short on February 10, 2010 at 7:40 am

we’ll laugh together and feel closer after having shared something. but in my mind i’ll doubt everything i hear you say.

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In Short on February 9, 2010 at 7:40 am

Shhhhhh, he says, we don’t know. We don’t know anything.

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In Short on February 8, 2010 at 7:40 am

An old priest stands on an overturned trash can shouting, “Madness! Madness!” It is unclear whether he is for it or against it.

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In Short on February 7, 2010 at 7:40 am

…her boy buckles up, and they drive off, a construction paper flower conspicuous on the dash.

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In Short on February 6, 2010 at 7:40 am

The fire will not touch these townspeople, though, it cannot touch them, although it is almost here. They drink pink lemonade and joke about the law. Their jobs are small, and effortless, and benign. They smile in electric light.

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In Short on February 5, 2010 at 7:40 am

His goal was to force this store’s location to close. It was, of course, a chain.

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In Short on February 4, 2010 at 7:40 am

I didn’t know what to do with the pigeons when they were done solving equations and working their way through the labyrinth.

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In Short on February 3, 2010 at 7:40 am

Even if humans did not love her, at least the wind would always shake the tree leaves and shiver her bones.

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In Short on February 2, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Don’t ever be impressed just because a man brings you flowers,” her mother would say. “Not all flowers are created equal.”

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In Short on February 1, 2010 at 7:40 am

“Is this what you wanted?”

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In Short on January 31, 2010 at 7:40 am

have babysitted before for my little brother and he was 1 2 and 3 be4 he dyed but dont wurry i didnt kill him he had a diseaze I promise

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In Short on January 30, 2010 at 7:35 am

He laughs and laughs until a fat lady in purple stretch pants leans over his father and starts screaming.

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In Short on January 29, 2010 at 2:23 am

A man and a woman are laughing.

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In Short on January 28, 2010 at 3:29 pm

I am not normal, I can’t find my way from chains or complexity