Short, Fast, and Deadly
Issue Nineteen
"Altered Egos"
Edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela
18 April 2010
Featuring:
J.M. Brandt
Kaolin Imago Fire
Caitlin Foster
Howie Good
Bruce Harris
Sarah Long
Matthew Stranach
Parker Tettleton
Copyright © 2010 by Individual Authors
All Rights Reserved
Super Man
Entertaining her in the lavish penthouse suite is a lark. She adores him. Clark calls her sweetie. They kiss. Walking home, she relives the kiss, breathless. He straightens things up, just as they were before their little party. He takes one last look, locks the door and takes the elevator down, a short ride home, to the basement level. He checks the clipboard. Apartment 801 has a leaky faucet. He’ll fix it tomorrow.
by Bruce Harris of Scotch Plains
my first boyfriend was a girl
is a girl we were at target and i left you there the trader joe’s bag dancing around the big red balls on the sidewalk bananas trojans a gluten-free cookie mix mashed by the lady with three redheads in her cart my car would not start i sat i sat you called said meet me meet me halfway by the pharmacy in front of me there is a little girl with chiquita hair chocolate chip cheeks and lubricated fingers
by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock
Web 3.0
His avatar was of Charles Manson. After work at the cube farm he’d go to the PC room to unwind for a few hours.
His favourite programs were based on old movies. He must’ve played Hostel a dozen nights in a row. It had two modes: Elite Hunter or Victim. Both had their respective merits.
Neptune PC was the best room in town. As long as you didn’t rip the jack out of the wall they didn’t care what you did in there.
by Matthew Stranach of Doha
Blow up Girl
A blow up girl a blow off girl a blow up toy. An afterthought, a moment, a gasp, a stroke, a minute, a moment. I’ll move just so, just enough, just for you, just for me. A Barbie doll wanna be, a blow up girl fantasy, a perfect ten in the dim of some small room, some small pocket, with candles lit and secrets and hush hush hush. I’ll bend over and I’ll beg you to tell me all of the things I want to hear and you do.
by Sarah Long of Boston
Love Without Warning
I slip off the gloves, the surgical mask, and dark sunglasses. Unpeeling each blockade, I feel more human and disgusting. I can feel the fresh air crawl with centipede legs across my skin. I shudder. He kisses me - bacteria mouth. He touches me - microscopic terrors. He loves me - all these troubles. I get tangled in him. He plunges into me, without warning, into the hard coil of insecurity. Pulling me up for air.
by J.M. Brandt of Columbia
PIG/IRON
Up a difficult stairway, it’s the new year, or nearly. I knock on the door of a strange apartment and ask the anxious man who answers if I live there. We’re like Biblical figures meeting by providence at a well. The effort to think clouds his face: the orgasm of a pig lasts 30 minutes; how long does death last? Down in the street, terrible dreams pass each other with a nod. I wouldn’t trust someone like me either.
by Howie Good of Highland
Why He Built Up Instead of Out
Everyone wondered about their privacy, at first: the company edict to wear a tracking chip while on the premises at all times. A few were punished for not wearing them; a few quit over them; but over time, pretty much everyone wore them and forgot about them otherwise.
Jones just liked to watch the lights dance on his ceiling: thirty floors of employees, overlapping like God's disco party.
by Kaolin Imago Fire of Acton
Tooth Fairy
I lost my first tooth in the YMCA pool. It fell out of my mouth into a three and a half foot chlorine sea. Next to me, Denny O’Shea pulled on his goggles and dove in, his Batman bathing suit becoming black and yellow swirls in the water. He emerged a moment later with his hand clutching the tooth, a bloody, fearsome thing. I took the pearl from his palm and Denny swam off. What had I done to deserve such kindness?
by Caitlin Foster of Little Silver
