Short, Fast, and Deadly

Short, Fast, and Deadly
i38
Edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela
29 August 2010

Featuring:
J. Bradley
Jon-Michael Frank
Elissa Gordon
Cajsa Landin
Mike Miller
Johnna Talbot
Caitlin Thomson

Copyright © 2010 by Individual Authors
All Rights Reserved

The Great Relief of Letting Go

In my dream, we hung off the side of an impossibly tall building. My feet tingled the way they do; I am afraid of heights. I turned to her and said, Can you believe some people actually let go? I should have known it was a dream; I was so calm. I should have known it was a dream because were I awake, I would have replied, Can you believe some people don’t. I woke up in my own bed, but the sheets were twisted.

 
by Cajsa Landin of New York City

These words

spent the night underneath a bench.
You are
a thousand ghosts at dawn.
 
by Caitlin Thomson of Toronto

Marooned

There's a quiet dignity in drowning in the adult swim of mixed drinks alone. No bar tab to sacrifice a credit card toward. No jukeboxes playing for the deaf. No doors coughing you out like nicotine jerky after last call. Alone, you are Poseidon. You’ll pick the Spanish galleon of last night from your throat without searching for snipped strings slumping from your wrists, ankles, and jaw.

 
by J. Bradley of Orlando

Parabolic

Tomorrow is just an empty
Trojan horse; I wonder
if I'm still a city worth burning.
 
by J. Bradley of Orlando

On a Tourist Street

A man believes he is walking a dingo because he holds the dog to a leash. The other end of leash stretches as far from the man as dingo can make it go. The dog's tail is a periscope, its ears are erect, its teeth visible. When the dingo spots a toy skunk dangling from the hand of a little girl, its body contorts to a lunging, choking, howling curse.

 
by Johnna Talbot of San Diego

Better Hatter

I scurried to the landfall. I perused the refuse. This hat I found is a sign that my head was no good.

 
by Jon-Michael Frank of Philadelphia

Family Business

My father
man of few words
you had to hand it to him
80 years in sweets
he distills to 8 words:
 
Pour sugar
Melt, fling
Floss slats
Cool candy.
 
by Elissa Gordon of Elizabeth

GG

At 95, she was blind but feisty, navigating her home with one hand on the wall. The teabag had already been boiled eleven times, but she poured me a cup of #12 and demonstrated her new talking clock.

At 101, she sits on the stark white bed in a backless gown and gums a sliver of cheese, at times seeming to forget why. I say nothing. Outside the window, a robin cocks its head and flies away.

 
by Mike Miller of Stockbridge

Sneak Peak: A cappella Zoo

Deja Vu you say? No, it's not. I know we Sneak Peaked A cappella Zoo's Fourth Issue a little while back but hey, these guys are on a schedule and Issue Five is just around the corner. So here we are again.

I'm pleased to say that this time around you can read a few of my own recklessly flung words in the A cappella Zoo cages (ahem, habitats) but more importantly you're going to read Nancy Gold's "Showtime" in its entirety. Here's an excerpt:

We aren’t really made the right way for flight--extend your arms, rotate the top of your hands forward, and flap from your elbows. That’s a start. Forget all you’ve seen about flapping from your shoulders. You’ll never get any lift that way.

Yeah. I'm jazzed to. But, all right. All right. I know what you're really here for. Screw the words. Here's the pretty cover. It's by Martha Brouwer and it makes me want to jump. Off of anything. In a good way:

There is going to be so much goodness in this issue. I know. Because I'm still drooling over Issue Four. It's soaked. And trying to stand on my bookshelf anyways. Not an easy task.

So go buy that shit.

Short, Fast, and Deadly
i37
Edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela
22 August 2010

Featuring:
Stevie Edwards
Jane Flett
Ricky Garni
Howie Good
J. Scott Hardin
Len Kuntz
Sarah Long
Ryan Sayles
Shriram Sivaramakrishnan

Copyright © 2010 by Individual Authors
All Rights Reserved

Micro Cosmos

There is a tiny little bit of tuna fish in the fridge.
And a tiny bit of chicken in the fridge.
And a cantaloupe big as Mars
Saturn. Pluto.

by Ricky Garni of Carrboro

He Found a Hollow Point Vampire Fang

The smell was what told us he wasn't coming back. James swore up and down he saw vampire bites on his neck but the rest of us, we knew damn good and well those weren't fangs. Eric kept talking about the exit wound and all I could talk about is what his parents would do when they realized this was all their fault.

 
by Ryan Sayles of Kansas City

Sparks

A great uncle
went over
 
the railing.
That may
 
explain
the black
 
sparks
I see.
 
Seatbelt
the heart in
 
and just don’t
 
when they say
stand here.
 
by Howie Good of Highlands

Of Chocolates

There are many theories
On the nature of women,
But the closest I ever come
To an understanding of them
Is in my love of chocolates.

by J. Scott Hardin of Phoenix

Her Name on a Grain of Rice

At the restaurant she goes cross-eyed, a bit pissy actually, despite this place being pricey and all I’ve gone through for the occasion.
 
"I can’t see it," she says, pushing fork tines through the maw of rice. 
 
"It’s there, just look harder."
 
She cuts me a look that could kill stuntmen. "Why couldn’t you have just gotten me a ring like everybody else?"
 
I stop mid-swallow. "But I thought you said we were one of a kind?"

 
by Len Kuntz of Snohomish

Scribble

I scribble a lot
about my long lost past
how my past fought
with me and went past fast
 
It’s late now
you had lost my love
and
 
all I have is a dove
 
by Shriram Sivaramakrishnan of City Chennai

Scabs

She sent him scabs in the post, flecks of skin folded into envelopes without a post-it note of explanation, ever. She didn't know how to say "I like you" so she posted him pieces of herself instead.

Humphrey didn't know what to make of the barrage of blooded extracts that landed on his mat. Lonesome, nervous, under-siege: somebody must want him out of this town.

He left, and her heart found a new scab to worry.

by Jane Flett of Edinburgh

Kiss

I tell you that I don’t kiss anymore because it might kill me so you take my cheek instead and tell me secrets will kill me faster. I want to tell you that I am already dead and that I buried myself in a perfect black dress on a hill and I cried. But I don’t say anything  because your eyes tell me you might cry too and I know we will kiss long and hard and I will have to bury you next to me.

 
by Sarah Long of Boston

don't call this tenderness

because I don't think you noticed
the blisters on my heels
as you pinned them back
against your shoulders.
 
by Stevie Edwards of Chicago