Short, Fast, and Deadly

Short, Fast, and Deadly
Issue Fourteen
"Sweeter than Sweet, Sweet, Sweden"
Edited by Cajsa Landin
and
Joseph A. W. Quintela
14 March 2010

Featuring:
Carl-Henrik Björck
Elissa Gordon
Magnus Lundqvist
Ken Pobo
JY Saville
Robin Slick

Copyright © 2010 by Individual Authors
All Rights Reserved

Summer Night

The man took each breath as gently as he could. The air tasted like salt.

"Are you hot?" he asked.

It was past midnight, but not dark yet. A blue-grey light filled the loft. The woman’s leg was hanging loose off the bed. He slipped past it and opened the window.

"You were right," he said.

It felt less stuffy now and the only thing the man could smell was her. She was beautiful and motionless and still facing the sheets.

By Carl-Henrik Björck of Umea

Ice Hotel

Honey on toast, honey in tea, I like it sweet, you know that's true, there ain't nothin' sweeter than the thought of you, he sang to himself as he rounded Gamla Stan, rounded, get it? That square castle. My dreams were of Denmark, statue of The Little Mermaid, but we ended up near the arctic circle. Now he's back in Stockholm; I'm in our room dreaming of the Viking vampire, melting the sheets at the ice hotel.

by Elissa Gordon of Elizabeth

England 1 Sweden 0

A rainy summer weekend in Malmo. The steady drip of water from grey skies obscures the history and culture that surrounds her. She doesn't notice the age of the damp stones, the style of the glistening houses or the contents of bakery windows. All she sees is that water drips from grey summer skies in England too. Her Swedish boyfriend loses his mystique, and mentally she's already on the flight home.

by JY Saville of Leeds

X

Excavation, a present past (I can't show)
Extrication, this can't last (I do know)
Exuviation, thicker skin fast (I need flow)
Ex, cast (now)

by Magnus Lundqvist of Jönköping

Labyrinth Luke and His Swedish Meatball

While reading Borges I, of course, fall into a labyrinth, change my name to Luke, eat at a diner with seats so sunken I know labyrinths keep labbing all around me, pulling me to darker depths - all while eggs crack and Swedish meatballs sulk - a waitress named Olanthe serves "piping" hot coffee but drifts lower and lower, no stopping, even for tips.

by Ken Pobo of Media

I Sit With Tomas Transtromer

My favorite poet and I sit in a warm restaurant. He’s kind and wise and psychological. I’m shabby and a kook and nervous. I resent him for being wonderful. The Baltic Sea rears up and smashes into the dining room. I die. Transtromer rises over the water, writes a poem. It’s an elegy. Impeccable.

 
by Ken Pobo of Media

Things are Different in Sweden

A half-naked woman answers the door.

Darryl Apple gasps. "Where am I?"
 
"You’ve died and gone to Sweden," she replies. 
 
Darryl follows her into the house. 
 
A large white dog sits on a toilet.  
 
"Am I in heaven or hell?" he asks.

"Well, we eat banana curry pizza and our mayonnaise comes in toothpaste tubes."

 
"Oh, shit."

"But if you think a woman is suffocating, she’s just saying yes."

The dog flushes and Darryl smiles.
 
by Robin Slick of Philadelphia