Man of God
by Vivian Lawry
You never heard of the Rev. Mr. Moses Abraham Davidson? He once preached from the mouth of a stuffed whale—but more of that later.
He rode to his calling in a pony cart, pulling a small wooden wagon in which rode a Chester White hog he called Hamlet. He taught Hamlet—the most civilized of barnyard animals—to fetch, sit, and stay. Hamlet ambled with the Rev on walks and lived in the back room of his house. They were accompanied by a white Great Dane named Baskerville.
t crystals s t holding & t crystals r t entitys o t holding
by Jim Woster
t crystals s t holding & t crystals r t entitys o t holding
lastfeb t vatican sent its shuttle 2 t crystals
t vaticans xplained god god & jesus god
they didnt try 2 xplain t spirit god cept they did xplain t organless conception o t jesus god
Potassium
by Arianna Reiche
I always think I’m too tired to go. Even as I’m telling myself I’ll skip this one, even as I turn my phone onto its face to suffocate the light, even as I wrap myself in my duvet, the one that smells like teenage me, curve my spine, and try to re-settle into the abyss of sleep – there my feet are, hitting the carpet. There I am, standing. I’m getting my coat.
CUNT
by Sylvia Math
I didn’t have very much to do with boys my own age, when I was 14-16, before I left home, but there were two. Both very nice. Nice Boy #1 was also sexy. He was tall and he had just the right slouch. There was absolutely nothing rebellious about anything he ever said or did. But you could feel it simmering. When I saw him again later when we were both in different colleges, of course he had green hair, eyeliner and a Flipper tee shirt (the one with the x’s on the fish’s eyes.) It was dull to hang out with him when we were 15 though.
Pro/Con
by Julia Meinwald
Good caviar was a vote against ending it all. When the night began, Sasha hadn’t known her own feelings on Royal Ossetra Caviar, but as the evening progressed, it emerged that she was a fan. She kept slinking back up to the counter, taking another of the small plastic espresso spoons the host seemed to have in endless supply, and dipping it directly into the jar, then side-stepping a few feet away to nibble the salty treat unnoticed. Not that there was anything wrong with eating caviar by itself, directly from the jar, she thought. And not that there was anything wrong with attending a party just to stand alone while people who knew each other trotted out stories about the time they ran into Maury Yeston at the opera but at first had not even recognized him. If she didn’t talk to someone in the next twenty minutes, Sasha decided, she would leave.
Jaywalker
by Ravi Mangla
My wife worries about my habit of walking into traffic. We can be stopped at an intersection, the light red, and she’ll have to grab my shirt collar to spare some Uber fare the trauma of being an unwitting party to manslaughter. Whether my incaution is the product of a subconscious death wish or simple absentmindedness is anyone’s guess.
Night Plane
by Ian S. Maloney
Dad woke me from a deep slumber. The call came in at 2:50 am. My head was covered in my Star Wars sheets. I was seven years old, living in Marine Park, Brooklyn and tagging along with my dad, Jimmy “Bugs.” His footsteps creaked across the parquet floors upstairs and a light tap followed on my bedroom door.
“Buddy, up for an adventure for a few bucks?”
Everyone’s Getting Old for the First Time
by Perry Genovesi
While her husband, Stan, relayed to Carson a story about something indelicate their CEO had said, she decided it was time to bring out the baby. Blair set her wine on the coaster and smoothed her skirt.
She left the living room and stepped to Declan’s crib, scooping him up, carefully, so he wouldn’t have one of his outbursts. She snapped on his overalls with the big, goldfinch-yellow buttons Stan’s mother had pushed on her from BINK. She smoothed Declan’s silky hair over his forehead and his warm lips pecked her shoulders. She looked at herself in the mirror with the baby and thought about her husband’s wish, expressed before Carson arrived, of wanting Carson to settle down with Charlotte from work. Carson didn’t even bring Charlotte. What was the point? And why did they settle down? She’d been the right age and Stan expected it. She swaddled up Declan and cha-cha’d into the living room.