In a room that’s panther black and blizzard frigid, there’s a man hunched over his snapping fingers. The middle rests for a moment on the thumb and the peaks of the prints scratch together like sandpaper before the longer of the two slams down with mad might sending the shorter up and to the side. As the tall man slides across the tip of the pollex, the topmost digit bends and the small connecting area between it and the second highest grows increasingly sore, as does the meaty patch of palm just above the wrist. The snapping persists despite the ache because, without the crack, it’s just the spilled ink.
The atmosphere grows into its own person that crouches in one of the corners as the man stumbles around until his toes find his blanket.…
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In my room, it is dark. The only light shines through the barred window across my bed. Not the moon, but a lamppost illuminating a wire fence.
My eyes are closed when they open the door. They are voices with hands that hold me still. I open my eyes and the room is light again, and it’s time for breakfast.
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I stare at the walls. The walls stare back. There is music playing in the room, or maybe it’s playing in my head. There is music playing, and it fills me with the ocean and the sun, and the way mother brushes my hair in the morning before school. Everything dances if I look long enough.
There are doors that lock only from the outside, and there are people wearing big grey suits who swing their arms like pendulums, keeping time with the clocks on the walls that hiss like stray cats Keeping track of when we are fed, and when we should be shot.…
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No one ever thought England would want to take the United States. Hundreds of years had passed since the US-UK split. No one knew that the Queen Elizabeth still held quite a grudge. One evening, Her Majesty, in a sherry-induced rage declared war on the United States. She had the missile named “The Right Proper Gentleman” and was quoted in the House of Commons saying that “King George would be avenged.” The estimated time of detonation was an hour. Jacob quickly called his girlfriend of three weeks, Nora. They agreed to meet at the halfway point between their two places of employment—the Waffle House on 150. The couple parked and ran to meet each other. Nora’s eyes were puffy and red as she clung to Jacob.…
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Two years ago, Em killed her boyfriend. She doesn’t think that this defines her, merely that it defines her for everyone else. The murder has, of course, had certain effects on her: she won’t watch horror movies or tolerate people who yell. She won’t eat spaghetti with red sauce. She won’t let her new husband wear green, even on their honeymoon when he insists that the t-shirt is the only clean one he has, and really, it’s more of a turquoise.
Still, Em is about as adjusted as a murderer can get, which she reminds herself as she and Marco sit in their hotel bed listening to the argument escalating in the room next to them. Em can’t make out all of the words, but she hears a combination of English and Spanish, hears bitch and idiot and cunt, hears the monotone of a man who has put his train on full speed and removed the brake pedal.…
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Hearing myself snore, I woke. The ice cream truck’s muffled music penetrated the Tudor style walls of the living room. Outside, children spoke, shouted, and demanded over the looping circus theme. Other than ruining my life, why did the truck stop here? The ice cream truck driver knew better as did the neighborhood.
The whooshing of running water chased along the white plaster above me. He’d gotten in the “bath” by himself. From the angle of midsummer sunlight through the windows, he’d started at least an hour late.
Rising off the warm couch, I shivered in the air-conditioned home.
Footfalls pounded, moving away from the shower to the top of the stairs. He cornered banister. Andy, wet and naked, jogged down the stairs. His penis flopping against his thighs as his hairy gut jiggled. …
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“Is it possible to steal from a vegetable?” I asked Timothy.
“Of course it is,” he said, zigzagging his crayon heavily into the page. “If the vegetable’s got something and you take it, well, that’s stealing.”
“So if I peel a carrot,” I said, “and I take away its skin so it’s good for eating, am I stealing from it?”
“Of course,” he said, and began to peel the paper off of his crayon as though I had inspired him.
“But do you think that’s immoral?” I asked. “The carrot’s dead already, it’s been picked already, it doesn’t care if you peel it. It doesn’t care if you eat it. It didn’t even care when you picked it.”
“You don’t pick carrots, Dad, don’t be stupid.…
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Pariya Tenammi suffered from a unique problem that became the source of all his misery. It was this that rendered his life a mess, turning it into a series of unfortunate heartbreaks unfolding one after the other. For as long as anyone can remember, whenever Pariya fell in love, seconds after, he’d turn into a gigantic octopus.
He was all of eight when it first happened. One humid August evening, his new neighbour, Nomi, eagerly tagged along with her mother to make introductions. Pariya, shy, withdrawn, approached the playful Nomi, close to his own age, with some caution and an extended hand. An ageless offering of friendship. So, when Nomi cheekily swatted away the hand and pulled Pariya in an embarrassing embrace, he was flushed with something he’d never felt before.…
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