Story
The Nose
Nikolai Gogol
Part I
On 25 March an unusually strange event occurred in St. Petersburg. For that morning Barber Ivan Yakovlevitch, a dweller on the Voznesensky Prospekt (his family name is lost now—it no longer figures on a signbo...
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Essay
THE THIRLWELL EFFECT
Díre McCain
Genuine virtuosos are a rare breed. They defy categorization simply by existing. Their visionary ingenuity radiates from their work in spades, and effortlessly so. It can come at a price, in terms of their creations being lo...
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Story
The Soul of the Doll
Robert C. Hardin
Being the Recollections of a Late Inmate (1931–1946) of the Dalmarnock Asylum for Children in Glasgow, Scotland
The eyes were what changed and flayed me above all else—the eyes or, rather, the doll’s eye...
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Story
Sick Lazy Fuck
Mark McCawley
“If you look a dog in the eye too intently, it may recite an astounding poem to you. You might have been mad for a long time and have realized it only at that moment.”
—Jean Genet, Funeral Rites
Si...
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Story
Guy Walks into a Bar circa 1997, Hollywood
Karen Lillis
So this guy walks into the bar last Thursday, and he sorta “lets it slip” that he’s Lawnchair Larry. This older guy, you know? He says it to me right before I’m gonna tell him what he owes me for a light draft. I...
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Notes from a Woman Soon to Be Divorced
Su Byron
DECEMBER
Endless South
I woke up and saw that it was winter. There were no birds, etc. Every piece of clothing inside my house was clean. Thank God. I looked into the mirror and saw that my eye was bright and b...
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Story
The Battle of Skinner Butte
Ray Jicha
Moving north from San Francisco I slept on the beach near Arcata then made my way to Eugene where I got dropped off around 10:00 p.m. I found a little downtown bar, ordered a draft to pay for the stool and washed down t...
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Two Poems
William Lessard
Paul Kelly
First time I saw you
you were riding
a stolen motorcycle
down the middle
of our baseball field,
the cops in hot pursuit.
Last time I saw you
...
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Some Poems
Les Bridges
Stuck on a Runway
Thunderheads loom over Dallas.
Stranded planes mill
like nervous, 100-ton cattle,
blood streaks across silver flanks.
185 strangers and I marinate
...
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Evergreen
How to Stop Smoking in Nineteen-thousand-two-hundred-and-eighty-seven Seconds, Usama
Chavisa Woods
I asked no questions about anything. i just wanted to smoke cigarettes. Lots and lots of cigarettes.
I come back once a year to visit. I only stay a few days. I try not to ask too many questions. There’s noth...
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Story
If You Play and If You Die
Jim Feast
Artemis Brewster owned a large retail store in New Jersey, the Bargain Toy Mart (Toys for Less!) And he loved science fiction as much as what he sold. But his was not the doting, immature love of the geeky fanboy, it was...
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Todd Colby—Eight Poems
Todd Colby
Peace & Good Order
Okay dear, whatever you can manage
will be propped up in a boat next to you
full of apologies and texts from some cabin
pumped with nitrous oxide next to the oce...
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Interview
An Interview with New Monsters
New Monsters
The New Monsters are a Bay Area combo lead by bassist Steve Horowitz (The Code International) and tenor sax “monster” Dan Plonsey (of Daniel Popsicle, and composer of Leave Me Alone, an opera with libretto by Harvey ...
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Story
If You’re So Special, Why Aren’t You Dead?
Jim Greer
Alphonse samson stood before the mirror in his bathroom for a long time before deciding to. The mirror had no frame but its edges were beveled and the soft light from the neighbor’s bright room shining through a small squa...
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Story
Pardon My French
Thaddeus Rutkowski
When i arrived in paris by train, I tried to place a call to a friend, someone I knew from my home city. Surprisingly, there was a phone service with a human attendant in the train station. I gave the phone woman the numb...
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