Little void mighty light four square all white blank planes all gone from mind. Flatness endless little body only upright same grey all sides earth sky body ruins. Scattered ruins same grey as the sand ash grey true refuge. Four square true refuge long last four walls over backwards no sound. Never but this changelessness dream the passing hour. Never was but grey air timeless no sound figment the passing light.

.

Lessness by Samuel Beckett
Pride and Joy Rock by Big Youth

That would make me seem like I am carrying around a red onion in my fist. This is an expression I learned from an old basketball. His skin was nearly peeled raw. The expression means that a man, or a ball, has a firm grasp on the world’s complexities. But it would be untrue. There is no red onion in my fist. For the most part, in fact, I have been thinking about Coach Parker, who is a source of concern. I have known Coach Parker for a long time. He was working here when I first came to the school, and he has been here nearly every day since. He keeps me company, but these days he is making me lonely.

Let me explain. For years, Coach Parker has conducted an on-again, off-again affair with Coach Ortega, who runs women’s softball and volleyball and has a beautiful amount of straight dark hair. These days, the affair is off, and as a result he is dating a new woman. Her name is Julia Fortownson, which is a silly thing to call a person, and he knows it, because he doesn’t call her “Julia” or “Julie” or “honey.” He calls her “Julia Fortownson,” the whole name, every time, and, while this may appear polite, it comes over time to feel like an insult of sorts. Julia Fortownson is small and blond and pretty and wears a strong perfume that makes me dizzy; of particular interest are the two large soft balls that sit upon her chest and the two that ride just beneath her lower back. This is just a joke: I know what balls are and what balls aren’t. I mean, I am one.

Roll Me Away: An Earth Ball Considers Love, Loss, Sheer Hypocrisy and Sean Hannity by Ben Greenman
Groove To The Beat by Keith & Ken

day, days, deep, desk, did, did, did, did, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, directions, distorted, do, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctors, doctors, doctors, door, doors, doors, doorway, dots, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, draw, drawers, dress, drive, driveway, dropped, drove, dry, during, each, ear, ears, easy, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eating, either, either, elbows, elevator, else, else, empty, empty, end, end, end, engine, enough, enough, enough, enough, enough, enough, even, even, ever, ever, every, everything, everything, extra, eye, eyelids, eyes, eyes, eyes, face, face, face, face, facing

Away How She Then Went by Andy Devine
Painting 2 (quartet) by Otomo Yoshihide

When I1 was 1, most nights the house would fill with teeth. They lined the walls and studded the ceiling fans. They would come down like rain and click around my bed. In my head they built a stutter. I couldn’t feel my hands yet but there was something then also in me—something gnawing, something come undone.

When I was 2, I licked the sun some. I could spread it open with my fingers. I could tell it what I wanted. I could float further than even that.

When I was 3, the world flattened and we couldn’t find the streets. My arms felt made of tissue. Words woke up inside my head. I would speak them as if I meant to speak them—as if they’d always been all mine—sometimes their grain would cut my stomach—I felt I did not need the stomach—I felt OK.

When I was 4, I remember someone standing above me in the night.

Someday I Plan to Die by Blake Butler
Cuban Velvet by Monster Rally

Headlines scream, but I can’t read them; the light is too bright. I just listen to the paper being moved by your hands, the slick ads sliding to a mess on the floor. I was a page-turner in high school for the man who ran the orchestra. He used to navigate my thighs with the tip of his baton. I suddenly think about where he is now, what he’s doing, if he’s dead yet. I think about his wife’s dyed yellow hair. But instead I say “I wonder what was destroyed. If anyone was killed.” In the earthquake I mean, but I don’t say it. Something rumbles the next street over and you look up at a nothing space on the wall and I know we both think: aftershock while we wait for the plaster to crack and crumble.

Six Stories by Elizabeth J. Colen
Touhy’s Theme by Kyle Bobby Dunn

John F. Kennedy was killed by loneliness. Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by loneliness. Jack Ruby died of lung cancer.

Not everything is a metaphor.

Jack Ruby beatified himself with a revolver. Lee Harvey Oswald did it with a bolt-action rifle. The cat ate the canary. There are saints everywhere.

I am cooking scrambled eggs. At first it was an omelet but then I experienced failure. Then I decided that I did not like the color so I added salsa. I am feeling proud of myself for being adventurous as a cook. But I also now remember that it is ten in the morning and I am eating eggs and nothing about that is bold or courageous.

In the Shadow of No Towers by Alexander Branson
It’s Gonna Take An Airplane by Destroyer

There’s a sky on the other side of that marriage, my Sweet, and in that sky, a sun: everything you’ve never seen, burning. There are flowers along the road that taste like color. And there’s wind that will push through your hair and make the leaves in the trees start to whisper.?
I’d lead you out myself if I could, down the path and to the wood and out beyond the road into the sea. But he took away my dance and shoes, my course, my lane, he gave to you. The pelvis bone you rest on was once mine. As are the wings within your shoulderblades and the lock on your left knee. I was stripped for parts for you. My roughcoat of flesh woven finer for your wear.?

A Hole in the Wall Called a Windows by David Bernardy
Silver Zero by Sunroof!
23 by Blonde Redhead

It was once, says the other sister, the elder. In the first town, once.

In the second town, twice, says the younger. Somebody stole her soap when she left it for a moment by the pila. Bio-degradable soap, costly, carried across two borders like a refugee sent home.

And they stole her t-shirts from the line where she’d pinned them and her sandals from the sun-square where she’d left them to dry. So that makes four, no five. No, she does not have to count each t-shirt as a separate robbery, thank you and fuck you.

Can you honestly count a missing t-shirt as a robbery? says the elder.

Can you honestly count bio-degradable soap?

Minor Robberies by Deb Olin Unferth
Matilda by Mickey Mickey Rourke

Something appeared to want to punish us, and when we were punished, we wanted to punish other people. When we were poor we would call the neighbors more often for help, and we would say, “Hey Bob Gary Susan, could you?” Often it was Mom who called for favors while Dad mended his ladder, because, when we were poor, something always seemed to be up there on the roof in the gutters clogging up our lives.

When we were poor Dad tried to fix his ladder. When we were wealthy he said, “To hell with that ladder, why should I climb? I’ll just hire some kid to come and unclog us.” And he did. The kid came with his own ladder and crawled up onto our roof and unclogged us. While the kid crawled above us, Dad would be nodding into his book. He often read books by men. Yes, very good, he seemed to be approving, by way of the book’s author, the kid’s work, which was an indirect approval of his own work, since it was Dad’s work that gave him the money to pay the kid..

Stories Of Things That Had No Power Of Their Own by Evelyn Hampton
03 by Giuseppe Ielasi
Green Apple by Amanaz

The first week passed in discontent as he pondered a design for a world of infinitude. Canvases once again lined his room, and the smell of turpentine hung in the air. Dozens of rough sketches accumulated in a pile. The more he thought, however, the more extensive the problem became, until finally he felt it was all too much for him. he thought he might boldly leave it up to chance, but in that case his efforts to create a new world would come to nothing. And if he merely captured the inevitably of partial reality, the contradictions inherent in that reality would pull him back into the past, perhaps trapping him again in starvation. Besides, the chalk had a limited life-span. He had to capture the world.

The second week flew by in inebriation and gluttony.

The third week passed in despair resembling insanity.

Once again his canvases lay covered with dust, and the smell of oils had faded.

In the fourth week Argon finally made up his mind, a result of nearly total desperation. He just couldn’t wait any longer. In order to evade the the responsibility of creating with his own hand an outside for the window, he decided to take a great rick that would leave everything to chance.

The Magic Chalk by Kobo Abe
Pulse Static (Tranqillia) by Tolerance

‘What’s America like?’ Abigail asked and her mother promptly rebuked her for speaking while eating.

‘It is a big country, with lots of opportunities,’ he said.

‘And how is my brother; he must be rich by now?’ the sister in-law asked. Yakubu answered truthfully and briefly, addressing himself to Naomi, ‘He has a good job, and two cars - one for himself, the other waiting for you.’

He told her of the nice apartment, which she’d soon call home, and the friendly neighbours who all looked forward to her coming, but he didn’t say her husband was dying.

The Immigrant by Helon Habila
Estudio nº1 by Sebastiao Tapajos & Pedro Santos
Black Out by Scientist

The next morning, I bought a slab of bacon and six cans of beans at the village post office, rented a large comfortable horse, and proceeded farther down the Canyon past miniature cornfields, green pastures, swimming pools, and waterfalls to the ruins of an old mining camp five miles below the village. There I lived, mostly alone except for the ghosts, for the next 35 days.

There was nothing wrong with the Indians. The Supai are a charming, cheerful, completely relaxed, and easygoing bunch, all one hundred or so of them. But I had no desire to live among them unless clearly invited to do so, and I wasn’t. Even if invited, I might not have accepted. I’m not sure that I care for the idea of strangers examining my daily habits and folkways, studying my language, inspecting my costume, questioning me about my religion, classifying my artifacts, investigating my sexual rites, and evaluating my chances for cultural survival.

So, I lived alone.”

Havasu by Edward Abbey
Castles of Ghana by John Carter

“Well, I am cold talking to you. . . .”

The doctor waved his hand and walked quickly to his own door. Kirila was on the point of following him, but, seeing the door slam, he stopped.

For ten minutes he stood motionless in the middle of the hospital yard, and without putting on his cap stared at the doctor’s house, then he heaved a deep sigh, slowly scratched himself, and walked towards the gate.

“To whom am I to go?” he muttered as he came out on to the road. “One says it is not his business, another says it is not his business. Whose business is it, then? No, till you grease their hands you will get nothing out of them. The doctor says that, but he keeps looking all the while at my fist to see whether I am going to give him a blue note. Well, brother, I’ll go, if it has to be to the governor.”

Darkness by Anton Chekhov
Come On by Los Saicos

June felt despicable, bur she was terrified. She and her friend sat meekly beside her mother‘s bed. June picked up a book in which her mother had written with a red pen untrue. June thought this was dear, even catastrophic, because it was just a book of poems. Finally her friend left. Go, go, thought June carelessly. Day surrendered to night as it does, and June had the odd thought that she had never been born. The thought appeared quite gracefully and didn‘t seem at all inappropriate.

Harmony by Joy Williams
Rich Man, Poor Man by Andrew Wartts and the Gospel Storytellers

There was no mistaking that he had been shot. It was a new sensation but a recognizable one for which no appropriate similes existed. It wasn’t like anything. Not the sharp sting of an insect or like being hit in the stomach with a hammer. It didn’t feel like anything except what it feels like to get shot. He knew now. Either the impact or the entry caused him to ejaculate in his pants. His fluids glued his clothing to his body. The wound wasn’t a small toothless mouth or a reproduction of “Ascent of the Blessed” done the size of an Indian Head nickel: it was a bullet hole in his stomach. The metaphors arrived slowly.

There was no mistaking by Andrew Ervin
Faded Parts I & II by Haunted Houses

Shun the smart crowds. Instead, mix
With the dumbest you could find.
They will teach you much, in fact,
Just about everything. They’ll show
You how inadequate you really are.

Sneer at beauty, especially all
Manifestations of glamor. Never
Forget that time brings each ugliness
And that we’re all hideous, at the core.
(Coeur.) If you see unblemished skin,
Peel it. To nourish your atrophied
Sense of empathy, practice mercy
Fucking at each opportunity, and try
To do it sober. Don’t, like every other,
Identify and align yourself with power.

How to Have an Interesting Life by Linh Dinh
Happy Birthday by Inca Ore

Once a woman saw him in the skin, she was never the same woman. She would hang on his every word, his every gesture and glance. Julio loved the women loving him. That’s why he said what they wanted to hear.

Oh what a good politician he was. A man’s place is at the feet of his women, he said. A man is meant to do physical labor and menial jobs like paving roads, sweeping floors, cleaning latrines. If God had wanted men to do office work, he would have made them less muscular, less angry, less eager for wars. The men, of course, were enraged by his words, and overcome with jealousy of his good looks. But soon the men began to dress like Julio, to wear glasses like Julio, even to buy the cologne and shampoo Julio Vega was said to use. In this way the men became Julio-men, and the women hummed around their Julios like bees around blossoms before ascending to their glass offices in the sky.

The Country Where I’m From by Nin Andrews
Bump Up (High Step) by Sun Araw

Our brother smells like gasoline all day and into the next. He is breathing gasoline. He is a locomotive. We tell him he is a car. We tell him he eats gas like a robot. He gets angry with us, tells us that we are dead, that we will be dead, that as soon as he gets back from school it’s on, he says, you are all dead.
At school we think about how we are dead all day. We wonder what it is like to zombify, to eat the alive. We want to eat every single person we come into contact with. We want to eat their flesh until we can see their bones, we can see the goldfish swimming in their veins. We want to eat the goldfish.

For All the Space in the World by Katie Jean Shinkle
Mother’s Last Word To Her Son by Washington Phillip

Let me spell it out for you: you and me sitting in a tree. You, above, me below. Below, a house. Look at the map—look how high up we are, how far we need to go. Let’s make our home here among the spiders, among the bees and acorns. I am making a list of the things that you love: circles, tongues. I can’t tell you what this says about you. I am wearing a grey suit. I am wearing a grey suit and your skin is pink, the color of medicine. Here, take this—swallow it. I do not know how long you have been hanging in the trees. I don’t know how you are suspended in mid-air like a gem, like a dying wasp. Someone wrapped a string around your body—was careful with the knot. You must have lifted your arms up like you were dancing, like you were asking some god a question—about dead friends, about bribery.

Wizards and Warriors by Brian Oliu
skylife 4 by The Parasails

He is yelling about something that has relatively little to do with pizza. Fucking pepperoni. Fucking crust. Fucking sauce from a can. And she is instead of yelling back drowning garlic with welts of tears that drip miserably down an always unnoticed face. And he tears on with o yea and that’s right and you bitch and you shit and you you you that’s right that’s right that’s right. >

Pushing and Shoving as People Do by J.A. Tyler Love is Blue by Jackie Mittoo & the Soul Vendors