When Fatherhood Goes Bad
by Terese Svoboda
A real bonfire. A log, two logs, three, not kindling, a blaze roaring over the water lapping the pier, a place of red eyes in the dark, and crashing flaming collapse.
Men who are willing to think themselves boys stand around as if the fire can fix them, their hands hanging confused without unbent hangers skewered with marshmallow, and the men crying. Men like him, haggard with stuff men don’t want other men to know about.
My Insatiable Hunger
by Deanna Dong
My first word as a toddler was “饿”, Chinese for “hungry” and pronounced somewhere between “er” and “ergh.” Once I learned this magical syllable, I unleashed it constantly on those around me.
“Er erghh ergghhhh,” I repeat as soon as we step through the door, despite having eaten a hearty lunch before leaving the house.
“What’s the matter, my little Dian Dian? Oh my precious heart, you are hungry? Lao Lao will find you something,” Grandma Yan exclaims as she closes the door, frantically searching for something to satiate my pressing demands.
The Endless Idiot*
Marcelle Heath
5:15 a.m.
Light finding its way in like a jackroller. My husband not in bed to gripe about the gulls. Screeching bloody murder as usual.
7:03 a.m.
A pot of coffee with milk and sugar. The sun! My to-do list. Landscapers, florist, caterers. Fetch my boy.
Monitor
by Edy Poppy
Translated by May-Brit Akerholt
I swear, the bags under my eyes are like blisters. I should lance them. They distort my face, my eyes, they keep me awake. I’ve stolen needles from the factory. A little blue box of sewing needles. I squeeze the bag under one eye. Just a cigarette first. I take deep puffs; blow rings. A last cigarette before breakfast. Just one. Then I’ll squash the packet so the cigarettes break in the middle. Throw it at the wall. I count the stubs in the jam jar. The ones with red lipstick marks don’t count. The ones with pink lipstick marks don’t count either. Still. My pores open. I notice how my skin grows coarser, my thoughts as well. I put out the cigarette on the back of my hand. As punishment. Kunyaza, kunyaza …
Artichoke
by Zoe Messinger
L’Avant Comptoir is right off from the Odeon stop on the subway in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in the 6th arrondissement. It translates to “before the counter,” the place you go to have a glass while you wait for your table at Relais du Comptoir—the prix-fixe fine dining spot nextdoor. I’ve made it beyond the counter, but L’Avant Comptoir is the real destination. It has allure, sex appeal, legs. Pictures of the dishes to come hang from the ceiling, each on their own little carte with the prices underneath: croquettes, escargot, foie gras macarons, boudin noir with truffle, waffles au jambon, Comté crème brulée. These one-off dishes tempt you in mid-air, cracking your restraint, sending you into a crazed hunger.
It Was Not Easy to Relax
by Ammi Keller
It was July. Covid-19 had been with them since March. So Sarah and her partner trudged across Rodeo Beach in face masks to where the crowd thinned. They’d rearranged their work schedules to be there on a Monday and still the parking lot had been full. The covid times were silent, people in their homes until we went to nature in a sad human attempt to be animal again, skins sallow from lack of sun, coolers and sun hats and tough Northern California camping umbrellas that cartwheeled away in the wind. A few polar bear types wore bikinis but the marine layer was headed towards us over the water. Most people wore fleece.
The Writer
by John Paul Carillo
(with apologies to Richard Sandomir, and love to Steve)
Phenste Noxid, whose hyper-realistic novels and short stories reflected his fascination with death, died on Wednesday. He was 183.
His daughter Ophia Noxid Fry said the cause was death.
Mr. Noxid produced fiction at a daunting clip. Working on a portable typewriter with wheels and a handle, he published 108 novels and about 6000 stories. His final story — about a man who was 183, like him, and who had a cat like his cat’s cat — was published in Sir Real Review like six minutes ago.
The Mountaineers
by Jack Barker-Clark
We toiled under all the same manias. We worshipped mountains and trenches and volcanoes. Though we knew our gendarme from our arête, our abseil from our rappel, we were no explorers, and on weekends we dragged ourselves up into the woods behind our houses, pioneers, and took the gentle assent to the hilltop as though we were backpacking in the Carpathians, as though we were traversing the Transylvanian plateau.