“You coming, Schmuck?” The cell phone at his ear, he studied the reflection in the rearview mirror and exaggerated a smile. The front teeth looked good but he needed to fix that rotten molar all the way in the back. “I’m in the parking lot already.”
“Right around the corner, but go on in. I need to make a stop first.”
“You got your camo on, don’t you? Or did you go fancy on me?”
“Nope, ACU all the way.”
“Good. Camo’s more effective. Want me to order something for you?”
“Naw, I’ll get my own. Works better when we’re alone anyway. In a few, Schmuck.”
“Alright, Schmuck.” He put away the phone and got out of the car. The sun hot overhead, he put on a pair of Ray-Bans and strolled across the parking lot.…
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He considered the phrase “last meal” and the men it brought to mind—death row inmates on the eve of their execution and Jews on the eve of their Yom Kippur fast. And Jesus, he supposed, who embodied both groups, by far the most famous Jew to eat a holiday dinner and then march to his death. Sliding a chicken into the oven, he toyed with the parallel. Enjoy your “last meal” you dirty fucking Jews, he would write in the comments sections on this Yom Kippur Eve. Hope every last one of you dies by sundown!
His apartment filled with the scents of cooking. Following advice his mother had emailed him five years ago under the subject line “Tips for an Easy Fast”, he did not overeat.…
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When Will’s mother died, it took them a month to find his father.
Ty Stewart was a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with the same riotous coffee-colored curls as Will; he was in the wine business, he said, Married, but his wife lived in France. He looked at his son a bit warily, but he tried. He took Will out to dinner at a diner his mother worked in, sixteen years ago; Ty ordered cheeseburgers, strawberry soda, and hot apple pie. He watched every bite that went into Will’s mouth, looked relieved when he finished.
“Tell me about her, please, Ty?”
Ty didn’t remember her, not really. Will could tell, by the way he skimmed over details and stuck to the basics.
“She was beautiful,” he said. “Had a great laugh.…
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In the name of the former and of the latter and of their holocaust. Allmen.
-James Joyce
1. Los Alamos, New Mexico
Theologians exploring crucibles and intersections of faith light upon the fact that Trinity, where the secret gang detonated the Gadget, was likely christened after a verse by John Donne: “batter my heart, three person’d God”. Multi-armed Vishnu is present as well: “I am become death, destroyer of worlds”.
2. Hiroshima, Japan
Archeologists exploring the ruined city discover a ruined statue of a young girl holding a ruined steel origami crane over her head near images of people burned into battered concrete buildings. Words are carved in the broken stone beneath the broken girl: “This is our cry, this is our prayer – peace”.…
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The walls of his cubicle are particularly low. Ruben sits at his desk, his cornmeal oxford shirt crinkled and untucked at the hips, his white crew socks showing, his coiled black hair flattened on one side, glinting with the kind of rich, human shine you only get from not showering for three or more days. Sometimes, I’m reminded of Fight Club when I look at my coworker, but I know that Ruben isn’t the leader of an underground bare-knuckle boxing society. How do I know? That’s artisanal jam on his shirt collar, not blood.
“The Stetson report, I need it before our 10am,” says Kip, finger drumming his pack of Gauloises Blondes.
“I left two copies on your desk,” says Ruben.
“That was last week, dumb dumb.…
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The man stood at the window. The sun was melting crimson onto the tree line, but instead he pecked at his phone with furrowed brow.
The woman sat in a chair, overaggressive springs prodding upward beneath the vinyl. Her soles fused to the floor, tacky and gleaming with disinfectant. She rested her arm on the bedrail and stroked the girl, who was upright and looking far away.
“Mommy?” the girl said.
“Yes, honey,” Sueanne said, paging through the magazine in her lap. ‘Nine tips to a shapelier bottom.’
“What did the doctor say?”
“When?”
“Before. Just before, when he was in the hallway with you and Daddy.”
“Haley honey, I’ve told you, you need to rest and let the grownups worry about doctor things. It’ll only make you feel worse to worry.” …
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Every year in the small town of Jatinga, India, birds fly in from all over the world to kill themselves and tourists come to watch. It’s been going on for a hundred years, scientists say, in the months of September and October when the ground is still moist with little brown puddles from monsoon season. High above the sinking leaves of the jujube trees and damp wooden huts of the village, people line the street like they’re waiting for a parade in the dark. They watch their wrists as time ticks forward, glancing upward until the first bird appears against gray and heavy clouds like a black dot on a dirty canvas. The bird plummets like the first rain drop of a storm before splashing on the ground in a flurry of feathers.…
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