1676 9 3
|
“You have no idea what your lives will be like if you can get out of the ‘hood. You could be driving Volvos, eating Tuscan cuisine, getting MacArthur ‘genius’ grants!”
|
1676117
|
When I cook sausages, I am afraid I will not let them sit in the pan long enough, and they will be pink inside. Then, even if the pigs have been handled humanely, I and the person for whom I've prepared this meal will be at risk for some terrible stomach poisoning.Let's say…
|
1675126
|
forced to submit/
to reasonableness//
and universal healthcare.
|
167574
|
Once again there's too much to handle and
no space to process
|
167521
|
Slipshod shoes were the first sign of a meltdown. Sometimes she could see it coming. A prickly gentleman washing his clothes on a Thursday afternoon. One week he’s fine. Nothing wrong with owning a sour face. The next Thursday, his shoes don’t match.
|
1675278
|
She asked if I needed to be measured for size “to make sure they feel really good on you,” her lips all gloss and smile. I was nineteen and knew my size but changes in weight had caused fluctuations before so maybe I'd be different…
|
167574
|
The Judge waited for the perfect wave.
|
1675149
|
the wind mistook your arms for wings
|
167561
|
I do not know what zinzins is, what a zinzins is, who zinzins is.
I do not want to know
|
167510
|
Floating along the ebbs of the ocean,toward the horizon, where time has no say,an end that will never be reached.
|
167555
|
there should be a word for it.
|
1675148
|
|
167563
|
The Assistant is lost again in a grid city. Again she feels disconnected from the world. Where she is the sound has been switched off.
|
167542
|
Had this been a film, I’d have seen you at once. Extreme close-up: my finger on the green button that opens the door to the park. Long shot: my leaving my bike at the entrance. Slow shot: my walking down the narrow stone path.
|
167400
|
And it's a tough thing
to become a father,
a contradiction;
guiding a child to avoid the things
that you know about so well.
|
167453
|
Little mercy, ten fingers, ten toes.
|
167430
|
"Every single thing ... " Hunk Hokum pronounced from the stage, flexing his muscles and prancing around in his red pseudo-loincloth, "has been totally scripted ... and ... every action ... has been ... preplanned-out ... in advance!"
|
167452
|
Send me a secret story in a song just for me
|
167465
|
This writers' conference (sponsored by VQR, which had run its banner ad atop the Fictionaut home page in the summer of 2014, which begins to explain both my attendance and this essay) revealed itself as an apt subject . . .
|
167400
|
“Devil’s Pass.” It had the highest rate of vehicle fatalities per year in the entire State of Colorado. Everyone in my state drove like a bunch of stupid rejects, so I asked the guy just how many? He replied,
“Four thousand for the entire state!...Nin
|
1674117
|
Except with the language I was born to./
Occasionally, with painters and collagists-//
dead now, typically- who can’t voice/
opposition to my misappropriations.
|
167411
|
Later, your father stared, confused, at the empty spot where the wall paint layers ended in the shape of the old machines. He stopped coming in.
|
16741910
|
|
167363
|
"Thanks for the wild sex--let me know if you have any problems with the lint trap."
|
167364
|
His face was creased with sadness the first time in the room and he danced his tai chi like a young man half his age, and laughed, like headtrippers do, from the neck up.
|
167300
|
I smoked my cigarro under his watchful eye. We were never able to make too much conversation even when I was teaching him at Educenter. Now that David had opened his own school, Evert had come to learn with him because it was much more affordable, but he
|
167376
|
“Now we lay you in your grave
There was no way you could be saved
You hate our lord Jesus and he can tell
Which is why you will burn in hell.”
|
16731911
|
served as it is/
among these friends.
The frayed filaments/
tickle my chin and irritate my nostrils,
|
167397
|
Even word dancers need rest.
|
167321
|
The story itself is not much longer than a snippet. What is a snippet anyway?
|
