It’s Hard to Say
by Claire Hopple
The fastest recorded escape from a straight jacket while underwater is 22.86 seconds. I’d like to say I still remember that from when you told me. When your voice became flatter and more hollow like it was trying to escape from its own straight jacket. But I had to look it up.
It’s noble you tried for that Guinness record for however many years and just got really close. Though I don’t know if or how you get over such a thing.
In our weekend reading: thoughts on Special Interest’s new album, an interview with Natalie Bakopoulos, and more.
In our afternoon reading: the music of Lamin Fofana, an interview with Ottessa Moshfegh, and more.
In our morning reading: an interview with Tracy O’Neil, new writing by Brandon Taylor, and more.
In our afternoon reading: thoughts on Brit Bennett’s fiction, reviewing the music of SAULT, and more.
In our morning reading: revisiting works by Octavia E. Butler and Stephen Graham Jones, thoughts on Sasha Geffen’s new book, and more.
In our afternoon reading: thoughts on books by Shubhangi Swarup and Marguerite Duras, revisiting “The Twilight Zone,” and more.
You Never Know
by Amy Kiger-Williams
1978
My dad keeps a rifle in the coat closet in the laundry room. I don’t know why he has it. He doesn’t like hunting or fishing like his father does. He likes Captain Beefheart and Mad Magazine and British racing cars and Monty Python and wearing aviator sunglasses and playing with chemicals in his photographic darkroom in the basement. I cannot imagine a time when my father has ever fired this gun, and I never ask him why it’s there or what he’s done with it. But I take it out of the closet when my parents aren’t home. I take it out of the closet and inspect it, its simple design, the metal barrel, the length of it. I am afraid to touch the barrel, but I do, I touch it with my finger tip, just tapping it lightly as if it’s on fire.