Short, Fast, and Deadly

Short, Fast, and Deadly
Issue Eight
Edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela
31 January 2010

Featuring:
Rose Auslander
Kaolin Imago Fire
Maureen Foody
Jessica Rigney
Bardia Sinaee
Sean Ulman

Copyright © 2010 by Individual Authors
All Rights Reserved

Expiry

you've no experience with dying
I said I did and slipped under
you waited for breath wrecked
what am I doing swimming white inside?

by Jessica Rigney of Maili

Light Collector Loaded

Crinkles pops crushed bulbs snaps. Wasted light echoing in empty city midnight. The Light collector. Cloaked in stolen loose-spooled white-blink Christmas lights. Stumbling stamping mashing. Breaking light belligerently. Drunk?

"I had no choice. The bar served Gold Schlager, leafy gold giblets, hehe."

Shadows stripped lights. Strangled out liquor. Returned stolen shine to hundreds of dim homes, but brighter.

by Sean Ulman of Newark

Re-appropriation of the Conditioned Reflex

Sales installed a big bell near their desks that they ring every time they get a big sale. Slowly we're becoming inured to it. One of these days I'll start a fire, and munch on popcorn while we all burn.

by Kaolin Imago Fire of Acton

Normal, Illinois

April said something about silos, how the low tide
clouds kept casting purple shadows from free will of
the Sunday dresses we used to wear.

by Maureen Foody of Chicago

The Drink

snaked round a blade
he slowly lost sight
(having melted her Johnny Cash records
to sip the clear parts)
red fist on the clipboard
she cried

by Bardia Sinaee of Ottawa

Chalk Outline

(What a Pair)

He could sleep with his eyes shut. She could walk in shoes.

(Rumors of Her Death)

They say he cracked the clasp that used to hold the key they say she hung by her heart.

(Evidence)

Dripping from the knife they think set off the explosion? Asteroid blood.  

(Post Script)

He was a great imaginary friend. Funny. Caring. Never there.

by Rose Auslander of Brooklyn