For a Moment She Thought – Bill Cook
Monday, August 22, 2016 10:28 — 2 Comments
She warms a plate of food in the microwave atop her refrigerator. Afterwards, she smokes a cigarette in the chrome dinette chair and flips through the latest issue of Bust. She stops on the page with the fall clothing advertisements after finishing the article about divorce and dating and lust and sex. Last month, it was weight loss and related disorders like binge eating and anorexia and induced vomiting. Joan’s happy she’s only marginally overweight. Though, she’s doing much better. For instance, on her days off she’ll meet Sonia for a jog and then afterwards they’ll make love or go […]
Widow Country – Anna Rowser
Thursday, July 21, 2016 0:34 — 0 Comments
The spring of their retirement, the husband and wife packed all the possessions they wanted to keep in a shipping container. They planned to resettle in the southern California suburbs once they found a house, somewhere closer to where they’d grown up and where their siblings still lived. Better weather than the east coast, even if it was widow country. Black widows in every woodpile, potentially lurking in any outdoor cranny or nook. And now brown widows too, a non-native variety that moved in closer to human dwellings. The wife led the operation of unpacking the container with the caution […]
THE HIGH COST OF LIVING – Lee Todd Lacks
Monday, July 4, 2016 9:34 — 1 Comment
Mary Ellen Magner lay doubled over the tall, split-rail fence, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. Dazed by the events of that sultry, summer morning, she could still feel Roy kneading her ample backside. The sweet-natured neighbor boy had been at it for twenty minutes when Momma walked in to catch him reaching up her dress. Mary Ellen laughed as she peered through the sheer gingham fabric, which now hung upside-down over her head. Between the split rails and her dangling legs, she could make out her mother’s shadowy form, trimming what appeared to be a slender, sapling […]
ALMAGEST (an excerpt from the novel Najma) – Danny Sherrard
Thursday, May 26, 2016 12:18 — 0 Comments
I didn’t hear about the skeleton they found on the moon until three days after they found it, which is a little late to receive that kind of news. I was at the bar Almagest (where I get most my news anyway) and two people sitting down the counter were talking about it with an iPad in front of them. The closest one to me was saying that he thought it was a hoax to distract us from the fact that we’re at war. The further one down, who was bald, said, Maybe, but what if it is something else? I […]
A Night Of Blight: Psychic Warfare At The Mercury
Thursday, September 17, 2015 11:08 — 0 Comments
I don’t think Jake, The Monarch’s Editor and Chief, had any idea what he was getting into when he accepted Poster Bot’s first article. The Monarch takes great pride in providing opportunities to new (and often eccentric) authors, but nobody expected this author would be a real-life counterpart to the debauched Gonzo Journalist he writes himself as. Poster Bot does good work, but he’s not easy to work with, so I was brought in as a special Gonzo Editor to share the burden. Jake chose me because I’m physically intimidating, or as Poster Bot describes me “A 300 pound graduate […]
Sour Cream Girls – Gen Del Raye
Monday, September 7, 2015 8:28 — 0 Comments
The TSA agent doesn’t know how much a Port Ellen 1981 costs, and he doesn’t care. All he knows is that the bottle is more than three ounces. That much is clear.
The answer isn't poetry, but rather language
- Richard Kenney