issue twenty five

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i'm 100% confident that i'm the most insecure guy who has ever tried to date you.

rory bruggeman

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hey!

hey! girl! stand up straight! your awkward shy-girl slump isn't going to be so hip when you're 65. you'll just look weak and feeble. and i'll crush you

totally engrossed

i was totally engrossed in our class discussion. but when he said, "claire, what do you think of this passage?" my mind went completely blank. i suddenly had no idea what we had been talking about for the past half hour. my ears were filled with cotton balls. my face had turned a deep shade of red faster than you can say relax. what is this? anaphylactic shock? it turns out i am allergic to the sound of my own name - especially when spoken by my russian lit professor. and that's why i carry an epi-pen with me everywhere i go.

claire russel

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bananas wear clothes

they are easily undressed

i love naked fruit

anne adams

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the fifth maestro

this should be the end of the crescendo.

we've been in the minor key too long.

everyone's shifting in their seats, gripping their purses.

some have covered their ears. we need release, resolution.

but the pianist keeps hammering the keys.

he's bent over now, crying all over the piano.

red-faced and pained, he's shaking, but still accelerating.

the chandelier crystals shimmer as they vibrate.

a second pianist comes in and stands beside the bench.

he starts slamming low octaves in the same

maddening minor progression. he leans his whole weight

into the keys, almost hitting his face each time he comes down.

people are sweating, looking around nervously, grinding their teeth.

somebody finally breaks and screams,

but her scream just serves as a dissonant harmony

and now she's part of the piece, another brick in the buildup.

i look back from the front row and i see terrified eyes,

open wide and watering at the rims. as the volume rises

some people start passing themselves out to escape the strain.

the doors are locked, the exits blocked.

the man behind me has his head in his hands,

eyes shut tight, shaking his head back and forth

yelling no, no, no, no, stop, stop,

stopstopstopstopstopstopstop.

and now a third pianist runs out and starts jumping on the keys.

he smashes the fingers of the first two

who keep playing with broken, disfigured digits,

sometimes slipping off the bloody ivory.

a fourth comes in with a hammer, rips the lid off the piano

and bangs a high f-sharp string over and over

and over and over and over and over

and over

until the final maestro takes the stage,

walks to the front,

and explodes in a hot, bright, searing light,

consuming us all.

austinrory hackett

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4 girls

oh hey, someone hacked my email account?

oh hey, how are you?

oh how was kissing that one girl?

oh hey, mind making a statement to the police?

whatever

steve canfield

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watching you slip away one month at a time

the first time i hiked up to that peak

to get all my msgs

you had sent me daily texts

which made eleven

and a voicemail for my birthday

i tried to send one back

but the satellite had already gone

leaving me cursing the heavens

and i spent the next 7 days

rereading your old msgs

the second time i hiked that peak

you had only sent two msgs

sans exclamation points and smiley faces

and i knew for the next 8 days

that i'd lost you

trav clark

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get her out of my heart part II

i see her leaving her house

i see her driving on i-15

i see her at rory's goodbye party

i see her driving home

i see her walking from her car to her door

i see her bedroom light turn on

i see her bedroom light turn off

i see her backdoor is unlocked

i see her food in the refrigerator

i see her toothbrush in the bathroom

it's still wet

anonymous

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my hand is a claw

wretched and old

how many fingers can one hand hold?

first there were seven

now there are eight

crazy how these phalanges propagate!

dane cannon

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"i think about her often, sometimes by the hour. there are many days i imagine i'm debilitated over the loss and failure, and can't get out of bed," he says to her.

"are there actually days you're debilitated over the loss and failure, and can't get out of bed? or is that a phenomenon you can only imagine?" she asks.

"i'm able to imagine this vividly. i've lived it fully," he answers.

"i just wanted to be sure i wasn't the only one."

silence.

"who lingers in your mind before you fall asleep?" he asks.

"i do not have time to write a book, or i would tell you," she answers.

lincoln wilder

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flight

i would like passenger "a" to lose balance and fall and piss off passenger "b"

because "a" refused to sit down and insert the flat metal fitting into the buckle

until it clicks

sarah cutler

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judgmental

i thought i knew myself pretty well
but then i saw a man driving a subaru and wearing a yamika
and i thought that is weird

megan morton_________________________________________

the last completely original expression of creativity was about fifteen years ago. the year was 2032. it was musical. something about violins and voices and binary code.

since that time we've been trying, we really have, but the truth is that we've already been straining ourselves for the last couple of centuries and it's just not getting any easier. all of our new things are just the old things repackaged. and nothing changes. everyone hates each other for the same reason that we have hated each other from the beginning. just for being there. just for being "other."

computers didn't save us the way we thought they would. computers didn't have a soul in the way that we thought they might. many of us still believe that they could have... but the soul of humanity was too tired, too old to exert the kind of creativity necessary for that sort of programming.

so the soul of humanity quietly stopped struggling, laid down, and died. that was two years ago. 2045. june. one week after my sixty-second birthday. the older generation, my generation, still makes art but it's bland like the flavor of cardboard, and it doesn't have an audience. there aren't as many people as there used to be. the last thirty years have seen a worldwide decrease in sexual activity. people just aren't in the mood i guess.

the rising generation seems to be different. they give us, well, hope isn't exactly the right word. it's more like a general awareness that the species will survive, that this new generation doesn't have the same debilitating associations that we had. they don't connect sex with things like beauty or passion or love. they seem not to care about the "why". instincts are more important than questions.

they don't see a point in questioning their programming.

just s. guy

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