<

SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING
BY MAZIE LOUISE MONTGOMERY

I am bored. I am bored with this place and this desk and this carpet. The desk is old and has "character" because it is heavy and made out of a tree that doesn't grow in nature anymore and I am supposed to like it more than, say, the fake-wood desk I could buy from Wal-Mart for $49.99, but I do not. I would rather have the fake-wood desk covered with the fake, wood-design contact paper so I could play with edges and peel it up, piece by piece, over time. The carpet has a unique design, delicate swirls of red and pink and black and it comes from a country where the people don't speak English and was made by someone who probably slaved night and day in a tent in the desert, or at least in a hot factory on the bad side of Chicago, while they put this beautiful rug together, but it is also boring and I think I would rather walk on shiny black linoleum tiles that never need to be waxed.

There are books around my desk written by people with impressive sounding names and the insides of these books are filled with substantial words like Cataclysmic and Calamitous, words that sound like they could get up off the couch and kick my ass should I come in and interrupt their cartoon watching time after work. I think the words in these books could actually drink me under the table if given the chance, and maybe kick my ass in pool too. But these words are still boring because the cartoons they watch are perverse and shocking in that over-the-top, grossly violent and overtly sexual kind of way. Sometimes I think I'd like to see Cataclysmic and Calamitous watch a pornographic cartoon in front of the kids as they are enjoying a satisfying after-school snack of Oreo cookies and a glass of 2% milk. I'd like to see the porno staged in one of those George W. Bush, No-Child-Left-Behind inspired "charter" elementary schools where the "older" and dumb yet street-wise fifth grader who can already grow a beard becomes enamored with the newly graduated, idealistic teacher who is both "youngish" and nimble and wants to save the street-wise fifth grader from the harsh streets of some heathen place like New York City, or Durham, North Carolina. But then I think this would also be boring because it seems like something I've already seen or been told about as a recent dream from a friend of mine who shall go nameless because he's currently serving in the Marine Corps as a Special Op in Afghanistan and I wouldn't want to put his security clearance in jeopardy.

Sometimes I think I'd like to take Cataclysmic out for a Budweiser or a gin and tonic and then maybe take him to bed. My feeling is that Cataclysmic has a tiny penis. I think the chip he has on his shoulder is a dead give away. Most of the words I've ever met who had such an immense hatred for the human race and a ready desire to punch a complete stranger in the face usually had a tiny penis. I'm making generalizations and I probably shouldn't do that but I'm bored and I don't really care about what I should and shouldn't do. In fact, I think I'd like to start simultaneous relationships with both Cataclysmic and Calamitous. Maybe we could have a threesome. Maybe Calamitous could play the part of the psychiatrist and tell me what a mess I've made of my life lately and give me some good advice on how I should go about fixing it; maybe he could be a judge, watch me go down on Cataclysmic and then critique my performance: That was a nice twisting half gainer, but you made too much of a splash upon entry so I'm giving you an 8.

Maybe Cataclysmic, Calamitous and I could form a synchronized diving team and compete for the Olympic gold. I think I look good enough in a bathing suit to cinch us a hefty endorsement deal. I think the three of us could stand a real chance in the 3-meter springboard event, but not the 10-meter platform, because I still have that persistent case of acrophobia. I was hoping one day to replace my fear of heights with the fear of loud noises, or at least add it in, because the fear of heights is just so common and I thought that an acrophobia/acousticophobia combination in a synchronized diver might just win the hearts of the American psyche. But I'm told the fear of loud noise is more common in pets than humans and anyway it would all still be boring unless I came up with something really intriguing, like a fear of chickens, or German culture. Only thing is, I'd have to convince the Olympic Committee into letting me compete in a bikini. You have to acknowledge your limitations: I just don't look good in a one piece.

If the three of us could just find some redneck girl from the Ukrainian team to whack one of us on the knee or the head with something original, like a yard stick, or a rolled up newspaper, that would be choice. And in front of a camera crew, even better. But it couldn't be too scripted. It would have to look spontaneous. There are just too many of those sentimental Olympic stories out there already. It's hard to compete for air time against a beautiful Romanian gymnast with a blind mother or a 139 pound multiple-world-champion Chinese female weightlifter who can snatch 250 pounds while simultaneously dealing with the emotional pain of a cancer stricken sister on her deathbed.

But even with the threesome and the fake-wood desk from Wal-Mart and the shiny black linoleum tiles and the porno and the gin and the Budweiser and the pool playing and the synchronized diving, I would still be bored. I think Cataclysmic and Calamitous would eventually leave me for some other boring words like "deserted, wet streets" and "patches of green, green grass covered with dew" and "dim streetlights" that "buzzed and crackled" in the night and then maybe Cataclysmic and Calamitous would get together with these words and make a sentence, or better yet a short story set in California in the 1960s involving poor and uneducated itinerant farmers enduring poverty and depression. Maybe there could also be a grandmother and a social worker. Or maybe they could form a sentimental poem about teenage love in which they compared falling in love to drowning in the ocean or their lover to a giant wave slamming down on them or a rip tide slowly pulling them under. Maybe they could both drown together like two virgin lovers fated to never consummate their love; maybe I could stand on the shore of a secluded sandy beach and watch. Maybe at sunset the sky would alight with the color of their love and my feelings of boredom would be replaced by empathy and a melancholy sadness that would inspire me to greatness.

Or maybe I could just stay bored and drink Budweiser alone while I watch Cataclysmic and Calamitous compete without me. Maybe it would be better for the team if I just stayed home and went to bed early, which sounds like the most boring thing of all but has a certain appeal if preceded by at least four shots of Jack and followed by one strange sex dream in which I capture gold medals in both the shot put and the long jump. Then maybe a passionate if not slightly misguided Canadian from the equestrian team might run across the infield of the arena wearing nothing but a placard that said: WAR BAD. And that right there would make all my years of hard work and self-sacrifice worthwhile.

<

SHOPLIFTING FROM URBAN OUTFITTERS
BY VICTORIA TROTT

Jane goes into Urban Outfitters. She feels okay like she looks not out of place or anything. Her hair is clean, she feels okay. Jane is on caffeine and feels excited. She read that caffeine doesn't make you do things better but it makes you feel like you are doing things better.

Jane picks up six pants. They are in European sizes, she thinks about how Urban Outfitters is stupid for trying to be European. Later she thinks they probably are European, she heard somebody say something about them being European once. Jane goes to the dressing room with her pants. The girl counts Jane's pants. She makes a nervous smile thing when it's awkward for the girl to count her pants because they are over her arm. The girl makes a confident smile back and Jane feels stupid. She goes in the dressing room stall and feels stupid for calling attention to herself with the awkward smile interaction. Jane looks in the mirror and feels okay, nothing is broken or leaking, she is wearing makeup and a black coat.

She tries on all the pants and then tries on some of the pants again. Sometimes she dances with the music and looks at herself in the mirror wearing pants and dancing and hopes no one sees her feet from the outside. She takes off the tags and metal detector things from some pants. She puts one of the pants on underneath the pants she is wearing and puts two pants in her bag. The metal detector thing falls on the floor and makes a noise and when she zips her bag it makes a noise, she wonders if someone will connect those sounds with shoplifting.

Jane feels cool because of the dim lighting, the act of shoplifting, and her makeup and non greasy hair, maybe. She puts the pants on her arm and bunches them up so it looks like there are more pants there. She walks out past the girl who counted her pants and feels scared. The girl looks at her, Jane can see from her peripheral vision maybe. The girl is talking to another girl and finishes talking as Jane walks by her but Jane doesn't really think the girl will do anything, she is only nervous as a cautionary method.

She puts the three pants back where she got them and walks quickly towards the door. As she walks towards the metal detectors things in her body change, blood and heart things, she feels different and faster. She thinks things to counter anxiety, 'I want it to go off. It should go off. It would be exciting to go to jail. Corporate bitches. I’ll feel cool. I'm wearing makeup. Nobody cares. They'll just tell me not to ever come back and it will be funny, I’ll be okay.' She goes through the metal detectors and outside and feels victorious and secretive, she feels like the wind is blowing her hair around and she should skip or something.

Jane walks down the street. While she waits at the stoplight a black man with a beard asks her for change. She gives him some from her pocket and feels self-righteous even though she gave him like sixty cents probably. She feels aware of the people waiting at the stoplight seeing her give the man money and worries that they perceive her as stupid and naïve or something. The man said ‘bless you’ after she gave him change. She thinks if she had no money and an addiction to something that gave her temporary relief she would want people to give her money. She uses her money to buy substances that give her temporary relief like opiates from food and caffeine. She supports being homeless and asking people for money so you can shoot heroin or drink alcohol or something.

She goes into Rittenhouse Square and sits on a bench. She takes clothes out of her bookbag and puts them in a red bag that was also in her bookbag. She goes across the street into Barnes and Noble. She goes to the magazine place. There is a tall man talking on his cell phone about Obama in front of the fashion magazines in a voice that is used to indicate gayness in males or something. Jane looks at the fashion magazines diagonally to him. He keeps talking on his cell phone and moves over a little. She looks at the magazines more without touching them. She used to like to read them more than she does now. She feels a little bad about that. She likes watching movies and TV shows where the characters act trite, clichéd and melodramatic, because of the way the people look in the movies.

She walks to the New Releases section and picks up New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. She walks into a corner and flips through the pages looking for the metal detector thing. A woman comes into the corner in a wheelchair maybe. Jane tries to make it look like she is skimming the book. The woman lowers herself onto the ground while reading a book. Jane doesn’t register what the woman is doing, just her presence, Jane leaves the corner. She goes up the escalator and sees a bathroom with a sign next to it that says Please Leave Merchandise Outside Bathroom. She walks toward it, she sees a white shiny half globe that might be a camera on the ceiling, but she goes into the bathroom anyway, carrying New Moon, her bookbag, and the red bag.

In the bathroom she goes to the handicapped stall and a woman comes in the bathroom, Jane makes eye contact with her through the crack where the door closes and thinks ‘oh no!’ and that maybe the woman could see New Moon through the crack.

Jane goes over to the toilet and stands next to it not doing anything for like a minute. There is shuffling and then peeing noises from the woman. Jane is still carrying all her objects, she thinks maybe if she puts them down that will be suspicious. After a minute maybe she starts trying to unzip the red bag, still holding her other things. She thinks she can get out her water bottle and pour some in the toilet to sound like peeing. But it is hard to unzip her bag and she thinks zipping noises sound suspicious. She puts her things down and pees regularly, so that it will seem like she is a normal person peeing. The other toilet flushes and feet walk into the stall next to Jane, she is worried, what if it is the same woman, waiting to catch Jane and search her or something. The woman next to her makes a sighing noise when she starts peeing.

She puts the book into her bookbag and leaves the stall and washes her hands. The woman comes out of the stall next to her, it is not the same woman. Jane leaves the bathroom and avoids making eye contact with the white shiny half globe attached to the ceiling. She walks out of Barnes and Noble quickly.

Jane walks to the subway. When she goes into it and gets on a train she looks at the other humans while tensing the muscles in her eyes and making them wide. The humans see her reflected in the train windows and continue thinking about their lives.

She gets off the train and gets on a bus and then gets off the bus and walks into Han Ah Reum Supermarket. She used to steal apples and tea and blueberries from this store and feels afraid people will recognize her from the camera footage and confront her with wide eyes or something. That hasn’t happened and she goes to Han Ah Reum often. People mostly avert their eyes inside it. There are buckwheat noodles and a sushi section and a produce section. When they stopped carrying Nutella Jane felt sad.

She buys a can of coffee grounds that say something about chicory on the front and an apple. She hasn’t eaten anything all day and feels good about that, coffee covers her appetite. She leaves Han Ah Reum. There is a man riding a bike. She crosses some streets and now she is going in the same direction as the man on a bike, he is behind her. She hears a bike noise and moves over fast and feels stupid. She watches the man on the bike ride away. Han Ah Reum is like seven blocks away from her house. There is a quiet street that she could take to her house or a loud one, she sees the mailman walking in the quiet street and takes the loud one.

She walks to her house and goes into her room. She puts on plaid cotton pants and a T-shirt and feels comfortable. She puts the coffee grounds on the shelf in her closet next to some stolen teas. There is a Korean special tea with corn syrup solids and pine nuts in it and a tea called Sleepytime from Celestial Seasons and organic brown rice and green tea and Earl Grey tea. She keeps them in her closet because she feels ownership of them and unwillingness to share. Jane lives in her parent’s house and buys 2% of the food she eats and none of the heat, electricity, or water she uses in her house. She invalidates them on purpose and keeps her tea and coffee hidden in her closet. Also a small jar of raw organic honey from Brazil. Hiding food and eating it in secret is one of the symptoms of compulsive overeating.

Jane moves things around in her room. When she is alone Jane feels less like she is performing for other people. When Jane was nine years old or something she was riding the school bus and looking out the window and a boy saw her face and put his hand next to his ear with his thumb and pinky sticking out and mouthed some words at her. Jane laughed and felt confused and said to another person on the school bus ‘what?’ and the person said ‘he said “call me.”’ Jane felt embarrassed and the person smiled a little and looked away. Jane went home and for like the next week did things with the boy outside the bus in her mind. Like imagining what she looked like, and doing things differently to present an identity more suitable to him.

Jane sits on her window sill and feels the heater, it’s warm. Her mom says ‘dinner’ up the stairs and she goes downstairs and sits at a table with her mom and dad. ‘Food is bad’ she thinks. There is food on the table. Jane’s dad prays. Jane makes an annoyed face during the prayer and then feels stupid. She eats soup made of beef, onions, soy sauce, and potatoes. Her mom makes dinner every day. There is bread and salad, Jane doesn’t eat those things. Her mom eats mostly salad and a little soup. Her dad eats a lot of soup and some bread. Later her mom eats some bread. She talks to her parents because of the coffee maybe. Every time her parents say words her brain finds things she doesn’t like about what they say. When they stop eating Jane’s mom says something about singing a song and starts to get up and Jane’s dad says ‘don’t get up’ and Jane’s mom sits back down. Her mom says ‘how about o come all ye faithful?’ and raises her eyebrows and Jane’s dad starts singing ‘o come all ye faithful’ and Jane’s mom sings with him and Jane sings not loudly. She feels like an asshole for not singing loudly because she knows her mom likes it when she sings loudly and feels supported and like the holy spirit is present. She is showing she doesn’t support singing after dinner but the message her mom is receiving is ‘I’m all alone’ and the message her dad is receiving is ‘insubordinate bitch,’ maybe.

<

NERVOUS ASSFACE
BY BRANDON SCOTT GORRELL

Yesterday I was nervous.

I was supposed to go to a show with you.

I was really glad we were friends and you were smart and you challenged me to think.

I sat in front of a computer before I was supposed to go to your house and I felt anxious.

I drank two beers and smoked some cigarettes and I felt a little less anxious.

I went to your house and you gave me a Xanax and we drank alcohol and we had an interesting conversation.

A children’s movie was on your television screen and I played with your cats.

I ate the Xanax you gave me.

You had a happy and depressed facial expression and I looked at you.

We walked your dog before we went to the show.

The show was filled with five hundred drunken frat boys on cocaine.

I looked at you and I felt disappointed and I said that I thought everyone was on cocaine.

You gave me another Xanax.

I hated the frat boys and I ate the Xanax.

You looked at the crowd and you said, Yeah, fuck them.

I laughed and I felt happy.

We watched the show.

I felt happy and amused.

You looked sad and depressed and happy and you ate two morphine pills.

You asked me if I felt anything from the Xanax and I said that I wasn’t sure.

Then the show was over.

We were bored and didn’t know what to do and we went to your house.

You gave me two morphine pills and I ate them and I played with your cats.

We went to a bar with no cover charge and we drank alcohol.

You looked depressed and tired and I felt a little depressed and tired.

I watched the DJ for awhile and I moved around a little bit and you stood behind me with a neutral facial expression.

I looked back at you sometimes and you were staring at me.

Sometimes you were looking at the ceiling.

We went to a booth and had small, two sentence conversations.

The bartender told everyone to leave.

We went outside and we were bored.

You asked if I was feeling the Xanax and the morphine and I said that I didn’t know.

I felt tired and I said that maybe I was feeling the Xanax and the morphine.

We decided to go to the gas station to get alcohol.

There were a lot of people at the gas station and I felt a little drunk.

You looked happy.

The clerk at the gas station told us it was too late to buy alcohol and I tried to bribe him with a five dollar bill and you laughed.

We were bored again and decided to go back to your apartment because you had alcohol.

When we got there we drank alcohol that tasted like cinnamon.

We talked about something and I felt interested and you had an anxious facial expression.

You called me a sexist and I felt bad.

I said that sometimes you made me feel like you didn’t like me and you got up and went to the bathroom.

I waited for you for ten minutes and you didn’t come out of the bathroom.

I played with your cats and your cats liked me.

I moved close to the bathroom and the door was open.

I asked if you were okay.

You said that you didn’t feel very good.

I asked if I should leave.

You said yes.

I looked into the bathroom and you were looking at yourself in the mirror with your hands holding the sink.

I walked past the bathroom.

I said that I hoped everything was okay and you didn’t understand me and I said that I hoped everything was okay and you didn’t say anything.

I left your apartment and I felt confused.

On the way home I felt really high on Xanax and morphine and I listened to my iPod at a low volume.

<

THREE STORIES
BY MATTHEW ROHRER

DOG BOY

One

Late at night in Oklahoma, a very small, an extremely small man ran across the road in front of my friend’s car. He does not doubt this is real, though the rest of us do, and it doesn’t bother him. He continues to paint portraits of astonishing trees each day and take long drives through the country at night. Nothing else can be learned about this mysterious incident.

Two

On Scott Road, in Pittsburgh, which is a steep and winding city, full of good-natured people, just at the point where the road bottoms out beside a gnarled and ancient cemetery, a very small, an extremely small man ran across the road in front of my brother-in-law’s car and scrambled into the tombstones. For the purposes of this story, I will refer to my brother-in-law as Matthew. Matthew had a friend in the car with him, and both of them saw this creature pass in front of them through the headlights. Matthew is the type to downplay this kind of thing, whether he dwells on it inwardly or not. Later, another friend of his who lives on Scott Road told Matthew he heard something outside one night and when he peered through the French Doors he saw the same extremely small man leaping over the sandbox. How did he know it was the same one? I asked Matthew, and he shrugged and continued to strum an imaginary guitar, and Matthew’s unconcern is the biggest mystery of them all.



MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM

One

They say in the dry flats of Mongolia, underneath the burning sun, burrows the Unnameable. Four feet long, or eight feet long, or two feet long, a pale, pudgy worm the mention of which brings death. It is not necessary to touch it to be killed by it; some say it spits poison, others that it emanates rings of death, like a radio. That no one has ever caught one should be no surprise; that no one who has seen one directly can be found should also produce in you yawns of recognition. I have lost interest already, in these few lines. I have been pausing for so long after each period, and nearly as long after each comma, there’s no reason for you to still be here. There’s nothing more to learn about the worm.

Two

I did once try to find the Unnameable, years ago, but there is not much to say about it, and nothing for you to learn by reading any more. The plains were endless, and empty, the sun pressed down with all its might on the sand. My guides fell into torpor after seven days and refused to speak. I learned more from their horses, who were ribald and entertaining. One evening as the red sun burrowed into the crumbly hills the oldest guide shrieked and fell from his saddle, clutching his eyes. A great cacophony rose up from the horses, and a rare species of bright red bat rose up from the grass. But that is where the Definitive ends. After that came nightfall. Speculation.

Three

The riders I encountered in the desert had fabulously gaudy tents. Their horses slept in them, or stayed awake bickering, but the riders would not sleep in the tents because they had no floors. When I asked what they were afraid of, they moved their fingers across their lips as if to signify a zipper, though I never saw a zipper in Mongolia. When, one bitter morning, we entered the tents to see why the horses had not joined us for breakfast and found them all dead, the riders quailed and zipped their lips. But I was unconvinced. Many mysterious things can occur in a tent full of horses.



THE STRANGE CASE OF THE GENTLEMAN WITH WINGS

One

I spent as much time thinking of the future as the blue stones in the street. I grew fat and bold, but the sun rarely penetrated deeper than my ears. I stopped reading books at 20, except for subjects related to my field, but I quickly regretted that, I regretted that the moment I opened the door to my apartment and encountered the Gentleman with wings.

Two

It was dusk when I met him at the mailbox, trying to stuff a rolled-up carpet into the slot. I looked around, but nobody else paid any attention to his leathery wings. It was the solstice again; they seemed to come around all the time, and what’s worse, it always rained. I dismissed the past year with a quick shake of the head and turned back to the extraordinary Gentleman, but he wasn’t there. I looked up and saw nothing in the sky but a balloon escaping. I was very agitated, and acted like it, until I looked closely at the carpet in the mailbox. It was fantastic. The weave was so wavy. I paused to consider taking it, forgetting the Gentleman entirely. And indeed this is the first I’ve thought of him since the day of the carpet.

Three

Small fires erupting prismatically on the neighboring roofs. A dark, oppressive pall. An ashy steam. An absence of birds, or any sounds. A sharp moon. The Gentleman with wings stood and surveyed the damage so it appeared the moon fit snugly on him, like a hood. Nobody else even looked at him. I was amazed and I finally just said Hey, and he uncurled and loped my way. Seeming to understand my confusion, he laid his right hand on my right shoulder and took a deep breath, and opened his mouth.

The next thing I knew, I was jogging on a treadmill in a white office, with my shorts hanging low.

Four

At dusk, on the black tar roof in the city, I met the Gentleman with wings. I spent each evening up there because of the silent community that gathered on their roofs. Only a few storey’s up and it was strangely silent. We saw each other from across the streets at our idealized, fluid speeds, at peace, or singing over the trees. The Gentleman stood with his weight on one foot and sipped an expensive beer. I was stunned, and did not know what to do with my hands, which they say is a mark of shame. If my secret stories were told both of my hands would fly away.

Five

Everyone I know appears to know the Gentleman with wings more intimately than I, or they feign this friendship in front of me to hurt me. Even if they’re lying they’ve made their point. I saw him once, at a bicycle race, shoved right up against the tape that kept the fans from the path. He cheered along with everyone, he was just a guy enjoying speed and technology, except he was a gentleman, you could tell from his cuffs, and he had wings. We stood near each other in the spill of the wet pavement and paper cups. I said Hello, and asked him a few questions about his situation. I missed most of what he said over the cheering and deraileurs grinding, but what I heard him say was like a sermon of peace, or that is what it sounded like at the time, but now I am not so sure. And I do not know him intimately.

<

FLATBED, SEABED
BY TARA WRAY

from PINDELDYBOZ, issue 3

We drank purple grape wine till dawn, then drove to the water and parked the truck just at the edge of the beach. Some waves came up the tires. Hello tires, they said. We laughed with our heads thrown back, kissed for a minute with forceful lips, and then passed out on the flatbed, sleeping bags and cold wheelwells pinning us ever closer.

First light came after a long black sleep. The truck had drifted into the sea. We must have been out there for hours; it could have been days. I had some chocolate covered mints in my pocket and ate two and so did Jack. We hugged frantically, then wondered aloud about the state of things.

Water is a very beautiful thing if you are not afraid, said Jack. Are you afraid?

A little, I replied, because I was. There was so much of it and just the two small bits of us.

Don’t worry, he said, and climbed into the cab through the back window.

I’m not so much afraid of the water, I told him, climbing in myself, I’m more afraid of what’s inside the water. There are jellyfish and stingrays and sharks and Fungleharder fish and, I’m sure, some eel.

Jack tried to start the engine but it was flooded. There are all those things, he said, but if you do not bother them, they will not bother you.

I had no intentions of bothering them, so this relaxed me. But then… What If I accidentally bother them, I said, you know, we accidentally run into the head of a baby shark and the mother gets mad, what if she calls her poisonous friends and they jump out of the water and fly into the truck and sting me or chew me dead or…

Jack stopped me and said: Let’s listen to the radio.

We picked up only one station, and the reception was poor. It was someone named Roy and he was playing a banjo. It was a very beautiful distraction for about twenty minutes. I held Jack’s hand, ate a sandwich from the night before, rolled down the window and let me hair blow back all salt-water tangly. But then the plunk of the banjo started to get on my nerves and I picked a fight.

I told Jack if he hadn’t won the lottery he wouldn’t have been able to buy the purple grape wine we drank till dawn, and he certainly would not have been able to buy the truck we drove to the beach; and he told me not to worry (don’t worry, he said) because the money was all spent anyhow and as soon as we got back to shore, he said, I’m gonna give up the bottle and trade the truck for something smaller, a two-door maybe. Something red.

I folded my arms in a pout. Jack turned to me: What? What, goddammit!?

There was no time to be reasonable. It was getting dark and the sea kept folding itself over and over like a giant green bowl of batter. It reminded me how frightened I was, and how hungry I was. How delicious a cake would be! Then Jack pulled from his jacket a package of spongy sweet snacks and in that instant I forgave him for everything. But he must not have forgiven me because he did not share. And so I was still mad. Turned to face the window, away from his gnawing maw.

That’s when I noticed something up ahead. Not far in the distance. Just right there. I looked, blinked, Jack was eating his cakes, not paying attention, but for sure, it was, indeed…. holy shit! A four way stop! Signs and everything. And a small bobbing car of teenagers. It was terribly exciting. It was people, other people! Oh how nice, I thought. But then we realized, and they realized, that we had no brakes, that neither of us had brakes, and we were coming to the stop at exactly the same time. We put on our seatbelts, braced.

Bump.

Impact was slight due to the speed at which we were traveling. Nonetheless, we needed to take down their names and insurances.

Hello, they waved.

Hello, we said.

Purple grape wine? they asked. They knew.

Yes, we said, a little embarrassed.

Us too, they motioned.

Because we could not stop and they also could not stop, we did not have a chance to get their information. They drifted through the intersection, noses pressed to the glass, then fell out of view.

Jack…I said.

He handed me the last bite of his cake. I stuffed the sweet thing into my mouth and apologized for earlier, for the accident, asked was he ok, did his neck hurt or anything, was he sore?

No, he shook. No. But, he said, I feel as though we’re sinking.

Sinking? I managed to say, the cake being very thick in my mouth. We’re sinking?

He stuck his head out the window to put a chalk mark on the tires. We waited several minutes in relative silence. There was a noise of considerable lapping. Then he stuck himself back out the window and saw that the mark had disappeared.

Yes, he said, we’re sinking.

I cried for a good amount of time. So did Jack. I looked to the rear of the truck and found it was many inches thick with water. Small sea frogs backstroked across our bed from the night before. When I could not cry any longer… I stopped. We tried a little to make love, but decided it was neither the time nor the place.

It got darker and darker until it was full-blown night. Jack turned on the headlights. Frosty pockets of sea shone bright. My eyes were gummy from the salty air and also from the crying. There was nothing left to eat and only a little time before the weight of the water in the back of the truck would pull the machine down, including us.

So this is what it feels like to be doomed, I said.

Jack was too preoccupied with his own gloom to comfort me in mine. I thought: this cannot possibly get any worse. Then it did. A swarm of Fungleharder fish surrounded us. These are the smiling kind of fish. Theys mile when theya re about to eat something. They circled our sinking selves like big black non-winged buzzards of the sea, and I think they were more leering than smiling actually. They glowed a little too.

They nipped at the truck, taking small bites at first, then moved onto larger chunks: tires and hubcaps and wheelwells at once. They got into the engine. Metallic clatter came from under the hood. It was the sound of fish teeth on spark plugs and it was horrendous. Some wires must have shorted or crossed because the radio came back on, and it was Roy, and he was playing his banjo, and it was the sweetest saddest song I’d ever heard and I wanted nothing more at that moment than to hear him play. I asked Jack would he like to dance and he sulked and said I was an idiot.

I love you, I said. Love, love, love you.

Then I unbuckled my seatbelt, rolled down the window and squeezed my way out. The water was choppy and cold, but no more so than Jack. I swam very fast.

Goodbye, I yelled. Goodbye to you! I saw him look out the window. I saw him look. He did nothing else but this. The truck bobbed for a little while more. I could hear Roy strumming on the old banjo, I could hear Jack cursing me and the lottery and the sea and the truck and the snack cakes and those Fungleharder fish biting into his body—he cursed as much as I’d ever heard him curse before. Goodbye, I whispered. Goodbye to you. And then he was gone. The truck was gone completely. The tinny banjo, silent. Jack, silent. And me, out there by myself, surprisingly, welcomingly, unafraid.

<

NORM MACDONALD
BY ELLEN KENNEDY

Norm Macdonald walks out of the subway station. A man is walking toward him. The man is carrying a Whole Foods bag. There is a line of cars stopped at a red light. As the man passes Norm Macdonald, he kicks the side of a black car service car. Norm Macdonald looks at the car. There is a large dent in the side of the car. Norm Macdonald looks back at the man. The man is still walking. Norm Macdonald makes eye contact with the driver of the car service car. The driver looks confused. He is smiling a little. Norm Macdonald laughs. Norm Macdonald looks at the other people around him. They are laughing. Norm Macdonald will not kill himself today. Norm Macdonald walks to the Duane Reade to buy a seltzer water. He starts drinking the seltzer water while he is waiting in line. He pays for it with his debit card. “I’m rich,” he thinks. Norm Macdonald thinks about going outside, drinking the seltzer water, and then coming back with the empty bottle and bringing it to the counter to buy again. “I’m so rich,” he thinks. Norm Macdonald doesn’t do that. Norm Macdonald walks to Koreatown. Norm Macdonald wants to buy dinner. Norm Macdonald goes to a Korean restaurant that says it is open 24 hours. It is big. Norm Macdonald looks around. “This better not be expensive,” he thinks. Norm Macdonald laughs. “I’m rich,” he thinks. No one comes up to Norm Macdonald. Norm Macdonald is confused. Norm Macdonald walks up to a man and says, “Can I just sit anywhere?” The man makes a noise and looks around. He points upstairs. Norm Macdonald walks upstairs. Norm Macdonald is still confused. On the second floor a man notices him. Norm Macdonald picks up a magazine that is stacked next to the register. It is about Japan. Norm Macdonald walks to the table the man points out for him. Norm Macdonald sits and looks at the magazine. He is given a menu. Norm Macdonald stares at the menu. “This is fucking expensive,” he thinks. Norm Macdonald can’t decide what to eat. No one comes up to him. Norm Macdonald feels embarrassed. The people at the table next to him are staring at him. They stare at him and then talk quietly and then talk loudly again. Norm Macdonald feels fucked. Norm Macdonald finally decides what he wants to eat. “An avocado salad and a casserole that has kimchee, baby clams, scallops, and oysters,” he thinks. Norm Macdonald looks at the magazine. “I’ll just read and someone will come soon,” he thinks. He opens up to a page that has an article on washable menstrual pads. They are colorful and made from organic cotton. “Wow,” he thinks. At the bottom there is a promotion for a free trial set. An email address is given. “I want those for my wife,” he thinks. Norm Macdonald takes out his blackberry and sends an email to the address. Norm Macdonald might now have another week of not killing himself until the package comes. No one comes to take his order. Norm Macdonald doesn’t want to eat here. “Shit,” he thinks. “I’m just going to leave,” he thinks. Norm Macdonald sees the people next to him looking at him. “They know I’m Norm Macdonald,” he thinks. “They know I’m not getting service.” He gets up and walks out. No one notices. Norm Macdonald walks into a Gamestop. Norm Macdonald buys himself a Nintendo DS Lite. He buys a game that involves taking care of interactive hamsters. He buys a Princess Peach case. “My wife will think I’m funny,” he thinks. He pays with his debit card. Norm Macdonald feels drunk. He is not drunk. After walking out of the store he thinks, “I wonder how sad my wife would be if I killed myself.” He walks to a park and plays Nintendo DS Lite alone.

<

A PALE WHITE HAMSTER YAWNS IN BED
BY ELLEN KENNEDY

The hamster is buried under many blankets. It is 6:42 in the morning. Outside the sky is gray. The sunflowers in the hamster's garden have all died.

The hamster leaves the bed and goes to clean itself. Inside the hamster's shower is a bottle of organic cruelty-free shampoo, a bottle of cruelty-free lemon wash, and a small green poof. The hamster puts the cruelty-free lemon wash on the green poof and moves it around the hamster's body very quickly. The hamster's arms are its body. The hamster then takes the cruelty-free shampoo and puts some in its paw and moves its hands very quickly around its face. The hamster watches the suds disappear into the drain as it rinses them from its fur. The bathtub is very clean and pale. The hamster is very clean and pale.

Next the hamster walks to the kitchen. The hamster eats two forkfuls of pasta made from organic soybeans that the hamster prepared the night before. Inside the hamster pantry are three boxes of organic soybean pasta that the pale white hamster's friend sent as a gift. The pale white hamster's friend is a panda hamster with black fur and big eyes that become very shiny whenever the panda hamster is sad.

One time the hamster friends were walking in New York City. They went to Whole Foods to shoplift. The pale white hamster got caught shoplifting. The panda hamster once said "any hamster who gets caught stealing is stupid." The panda hamster made the pale white hamster feel sad and ashamed. He said "any hamster who gets caught stealing is stupid," after the pale white hamster was able to leave Whole Foods. A few weeks later the panda hamster was also caught stealing. Neither hamster discussed much about it.

Both hamsters are writers. Both hamsters write poetry and short stories. The panda hamster writes poems and stories that focus around feeling existentially challenged. The panda hamster's poetry and stories are very good. The pale hamster writes pointless stories with no meanings or ideas, and pointless poems with no meanings or ideas. The pale hamster is bad at writing but feels consoled by it.

The pale white hamster walks to the bus stop. On the bus the hamster presses its face against the window. When the bus shakes the hamster's face hits the window hard. The hamster sits on the bus quietly and with a neutral expression while its face is hit against the window. The hamster is going to work.

The hamster works as a janitor for a preschool. There are fourteen baby hamsters in the preschool. The hamster hates its job. While the hamster is mopping up some vomit, it stares over at the baby hamsters. In an effort to calm down the baby hamsters, their teacher sets up plates and puts animal crackers on the plates and pours each baby hamster a glass of apple juice. The baby hamsters scream and run over to the crackers and apple juice and begin eating loudly. One severely disillusioned red baby hamster stays in the corner of the room and stares at the other baby hamsters. He is standing by the door. He pushes his face to the glass on the door and looks at the things outside. The pale white hamster feels terribly depressed while watching the red baby hamster but also feels a little consoled. When the pale white hamster was a baby hamster it jumped and spun off things while pretending to be an ice skater in preschool. The pale white hamster thinks of this, then feels embarrassed of itself and jealous of the red hamster.

After work the hamster walks to the bus stop and gets back on the bus. The hamster pushes its face against the window of the bus and lets its face hit against the window. The hamster closes its eyes and feels calm as its face rhythmically hits against the window.

<

BUTT TEEN
BY R.B. GLASER

from CAPGUN, issue 2

Day broke in the window again. The two teen heads didn’t want to leave pillows. Their pillows felt like sleepy eyes; their sleepy eyes felt like pillows. The heads were in soft dreams and understood that in between was the best situation. Ten more minutes seemed like an hour. An ice-cube that didn’t feel cold. Mirrors were videos. Everything coolly the same. There was a pretty layer of air; Philadelphia was a good name for a girl. Fuzz ball was laughing. The heads and the pillows kept realizing how they preferred each other to anything else. Any eyelid dare opened, traded comfort for facts.

One of the teens tried to kiss the other, but the closed-lip teen turned away. Eyelids closed, the pillow feeling, cold air from under the bed, plus hot light from the window. The mirror was a video-camera. The dad was stuck in the car. The pillow, hot light, and the kissing teen pushing his first erection of the day. The dream of the dad began to separate from the hot light. One eyelid opened. Deformed in a sneer, the teen head had a fleeting understanding of the long line of mornings preceding, and the longer line of ones to come.

Boner teen touched the teen body in a convincing way. The touched teen indulged this attempt, briefly lost track of facts. Back into covered eyes, the pillow pushed up its little ideas. To feel good was numbers. 72, 88, 81, 64. Then it seemed too big a fuss; the touched teen turned away. Kissing teen wanted to kiss, but to touched teen, a tongue was one enough in a mouth.

They woke with this early tag, touching and turning away. The morning shone on in, a peaceful, nagging normalcy, an anxiety that the day held nothing for them. Boner teen reached under the bed, bringing out a tube of something. He asked for touched teen to help, to see what happens if. Touched teen smirked, laughed, forgot the fear of morning. Touched teen extended a palm-up hand, pointer finger wiggling. The finger met for the first time, CVS brand lubricant. The finger flinched.

The bed held aging teens, their cell phones, their smelly socks. The roommate was away for a week. Bare balls on the chair. Each day, while boner teen fucked, the fucked teen scanned the spines lined in the roommate’s book shelf, met the longing gazes from the eyes on the roommate’s posters. The apartment was in an area recently swarmed by aging teens. At night they walked in groups of two and three, praying they were going to have fun. Their prayer was talking loudly, was laughing all at once, was ignoring the blinking hand signal and running wildly across the street.

While the other hand grabbed the smooth erection, the finger brushed aside squeamishness and pushed pointed towards the teen’s skinny butt, past rough hairs, not curly or straight, but kinked, frazzled. Through this swampy stretch, the finger found a bit of skin more like itself. The bit was both opened and closed. The finger moved in circles, wiping off the CVS brand lubricant. Boner teen became Butt teen in a gasp. His erection twitched. The finger pushed itself in, finding next to no room, a cat’s unwilling mouth. Pushing further forward, ignoring Butt Teen’s frenzy, the finger dug in, let out, dug in, pushed further, stubborn, like a drill. There was nowhere to go. Butt Teen’s heart jumped. The finger kept its dull push. There was no more room. There was just enough room. The finger didn’t care.

It felt like the finger was making fun of Butt Teen. The finger let itself be pushed out. It pushed back in. It hooked around. Butt teen made his noises. One hand running up the erection, while the finger squeezed in and out. The jabbing of the finger was like science lab, ‘what the hell.’ Nothing mattered. Butt teen gasped. Finger teen looked for some toilet paper, or a towel or something. There was only the underwear and the socks, the cell phones. Butt teen found a black t shirt balled beside the bed, came on the t-shirt, then gave it to giggling finger teen to wipe off the lubricant, plus anything else. The finger was sniffed, was washed in the sink over the unclean t-shirt, the t-shirt was so honest. Finger teen brushed teeth and spit toothpaste foam on the poor black t-shirt, but the shirt got grander with each complication. The morning was overthrown by the new place for finger. The aging teens grew older. Outside the apartment the strangers were continuing onward with life. Dogs were sniffing, shitting; ATM machines were pausing to print out receipts.

<

GODZILLA
BY BRANDON SCOTT GORRELL

Godzilla woke at 8:37 AM and knew, because of the time, that there would be no new emotionally significant emails. Godzilla knew, by now, not to be disappointed by no new emotionally significant emails at 8:37 AM. "The real time for concern," Godzilla thought, "is around 11 AM." By then, Godzilla knew, his east coast friends would have been awake for some time, his west coast friends would most likely be awake, and the jobs at which he applied would have checked their email accounts and responded to suitable applicants. Godzilla sighed, turned on his back, looked at the ceiling, and worried about running out of money. Godzilla did some mental calculations with figures he had seen from checking his bank account online the other day and decided that if he didn't find a job within a week he was fucked. Godzilla let out a soft roar, which sounded more like a depressed and exasperated Chewbacca. Four hours later, Godzilla was sitting on a riverbank in the small forest that Ravenna Park surrounded, crying softly and making quiet whimpering sounds. Godzilla knew that he should be looking for jobs, but felt paralyzed by the anxiety of not having

He had gotten so used to his days on the riverbank in the forest that doing anything else made him feel either extremely uncomfortable or like he wanted to destroy Seattle and all the people he had given resumes to that hadn't called him back. Godzilla felt a terrible despair. He considered ripping the Space Needle from the ground, holding its base while spinning around repeatedly and using his momentum to hurl it far into the Puget Sound. Godzilla felt excited while considering this sequence of events, so he stood up and began walking towards the Space Needle. But as he approached the top of a hill and the Space Needle came into view, Godzilla was overcome with a feeling of apathy. He fell on his side and obliterated some pine trees. He lay there and stared at the horizontal tree trunks, moving only to blink, and a tear came from his eye.

Godzilla felt such a sense of apathy that he lay in this position for two weeks, not even moving to defecate, hardly any thoughts passing through his brain at all. Toward the end of the second week, Godzilla felt a slight excitement about the fact that he would have, possibly, fifty new emails to check when he decided to go home again. Only when Godzilla began to feel extreme urges to check his emails that were as strong as any intense physical pain he had ever felt did he stand up, bathe in the nearby river, and walk home.

<

A COLD WIND BLOWS TONIGHT
BY NOAH CICERO

Vasily had hope yesterday.

He sat with his sister Sasha at the kitchen table eating Taco Bell, Sasha says, "Vasily, I don't care if you get a whore. I've been making good money lately at the bar. You should."

"I know, but money, it will be gone."

"I'll give you money."

"No, the money, it will be gone, I'll die. Death."

"No, listen, you need to get laid. It has been months. Your self-esteem is withering away."

"Like the state."

"No, Vasily, not the state. Quit fucking thinking about the state. The state doesn't care about you, stop thinking about the state and start thinking about your penis. Your penis is more important than the state today."

"I'm very busy right now thinking about the state."

"No state, penis, think penis."

"Penis."

"Damn, I'm looking into your eyes and your eyes are thinking of the state."

"Okay, let me think, penis."

"Listen, take your check and go the strip joint and find a girl that will do a private with you for 200 dollars."

"But money."

"Fuck money, your penis needs this."

"My penis is lonely. A cold wind blows over my crotch. My penis resembles the steel mills of Youngstown, once populated with energy and labor, now abandoned and unused, rusting, falling apart, with leaky roofs and broken windows."

"You are so fucking dramatic. That's your problem, you out dramatic the girls and girls don't like that. They like to be the masters of drama, and there you are being all poetic and weird all the time."

"My soul is an unpicked strawberry."

*

Vasily goes to the strip joint.

It is wonderful in there.

There are women in bikinis and beer.

Vasily gets some mexican beer. He doesn't drink American beer because it gives him gas. He is convinced that American beer gives everyone gas, but Vasily is so nervous all the time making his ass tight that instead of just farting he gets bloated and hates himself.

A Puerto Rican girl comes over named Janisa.

Janisa is short, skinny, has mosquito bites for tits, and is a fine looking person.

Vasily has gotten dances from Janisa before, so Janisa knows he will probably get a dance.

Janisa says, "You want a dance?"

"Yeah."

Janisa dances for Vasily.

When Janisa leans back and puts her head near Vasily's mouth, Vasily says, "You do privates?"

"Yeah."

"How much?"

"300."

Vasily knows they always say 300, he also knows they will go lower.

Vasily says, "How about 200 and no sex."

"All right."

Janisa says, "Just wait for me outside when we close."

Vasily has to sit there for another hour, waiting, waiting, waiting, to get some loving.

He sits there, orders more beer.

Plays the touch machine.

He imagines Janisa's little Puerto Rican body naked and curled up next to his, her soft brown skin, her pretty long dark indian hair, her skinny little arms tangled up in his.

This makes Vasily very happy.

Vasily has not gotten laid in a long time. He needs this. He needs some loving, or he may die.

No one has died from not getting loving, but life feels very hard without it. Life can drag without loving, life can weigh a lot without loving, poverty, sickness, and trying to show up to work on time and care about work enough to do a good job to not lose the job seem so much easier when one is getting some loving.

But Vasily is getting no loving.

So here he is, purchasing time with a lady.

He has chosen Janisa and not the other girls, not because Janisa is the prettiest, because there are prettier ones, but because she has the best personality. Or a personality that he prefers.

Vasily dreams and dreams of the night ahead, of nakedness, softness, and eventual orgasm onto the Puerto Rican ass.

The bar finally closes.

Vasily goes outside and waits in his car.

He sits there holding his penis, getting all stupid with desire.

Janisa walks out and goes to her boyfriend's car. He doesn't hear what they are saying, but he obviously says something like, "Get in the car, we're going home."

Because after a minute of talking, she gets in the car and leaves.

Vasily sits in the parking lot, Janisa is gone.

The loving is gone.

He sits there.

He thinks about punching the steering wheel of his car. But he realized he thought about it, and therefore has lost its power.

So he drives out the parking lot to a local 24 hour super market, buys an expensive brand of mint chocolate chip ice cream and goes home.

When he gets home Sasha is sitting at the kitchen table writing, Sasha says, "Where's your whore?"

"No whore."

"Oh Vasily."

Vasily opens the mint chocolate chip ice cream and eats it. He decides that tomorrow he will rent five movies of considerable length, go home, order a large pizza that will last him the whole day, watch the movies and not leave the house, or pick up the phone.

ARCHIVES | BOOKS | NEWS | AFFILIATES | STORE | ABOUT