Tuxedo cat sauntered into my affections.
by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017
Category Archives: PROSE
100 WORD SKITTLE // Push-Up
The road was covered with tits.
I stopped and took another look. An endless strip, double bulged on one side and even on the other, stretched to the horizon like a runway. I imagined the disturbed artist who frenetically draws tits on roads. Then I imagined how he runs on that strip, dives off the last boob, and flies away into the sky.
I looked up in hope… and saw a row of utility poles that were casting this odd shadow. I felt disappointed. Another story without a happy end…
I stepped onto the first boob and prepared to run.
by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2017
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Testing, Part #1 (Fragment #30)
The desk was a scuffed, sordid blue. I love such things, you know. They’re better at telling you the story of an institution than all those dull, fat conduct books, and they’re more entertaining. For example, right here someone had ably depicted the birth process of star-nosed moles. I sniggered. Considering their knowledge of such ‘niceties’, perhaps it was a future Darwin Medalist. Although… yuck! I reached for a pen.
Twenty two, dolt! Twenty two, not nineteen! I hate giving a lick and a promise! It’s better not to do at all than to do something sloppily.
I was nearly finished coloring the corrected snout when I heard a semi-cough right above me. Yipes! I raised my eyes slowly, and saw the sheen of a badge: ‘Mr. Turdman’. I snickered.
“Follow me, young lady.”
I got up from the desk and dragged myself after the badge wearer’s podge.
Some lanky guy stood near the door and droned like a jammed record: “Please put your cellphones, tablets, and other gadgets into the basket. Please don’t use any electronic devices during the test.”
I shrugged my shoulders and fished my old celly in its scratched maroon sheath out of my pocket. I put it into the plastic basket, right on top of the shiny, posh smartphones. It looked pretty funny, as if a behemoth had decided to join the dance of the little swans.
“Hey, are you dozing off, bimbo? Stop holding up the line!”
His derisive tone brought me back to reality. “I may suck, but you swallow,” I thought reflexively. I stepped into the study amphitheater.
Question 1a. Compose a limerick using the following rhymes: town, nightgown, lock, o’clock.
I scratched my nape and looked helplessly about. Some dweeb with huge glasses to my left seemed like a promising prospect. This dork obviously knows what the hell a limerick is. I whispered, “Psst! You! Hey, you!”
by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2017
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100 WORD SKITTLE // Keb’s Descent
Do you remember where you were the day the red god fell? Like a cannon shot from the heavens it was, and I was only six. Ma was bouncing me off her knee. She stopped that quick smart. A lot of things stopped that day. My childhood for one.
I couldn’t possibly comprehend all that this singular moment of deity impacting earth would take from me, but I’d soon come to. I’d learn that suddenly pa was gone, that I’d have to ‘step up’ and be ‘the man of the household’.
There would be no more pony rides for me.
by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017
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GUEST POST // Interlude by Gordon Flanders
I didn’t smoke weed, and I didn’t drink, but under the fluorescent lights of Canal Street Station I feel like a thing that slithers. Somehow my fingernails got dirty. I was walking with the girl who I was formerly obsessed with, and I was telling her what I thought was a very interesting story. What I know was an interesting story, in fact, from her gasps every time we hit a pivotal point. And then, in the middle, we ran into some old friends of hers she hadn’t seen in a while. She’s from here and she’s popular, so this happens a lot. There were eight of them. Normally I would just smile and shake everyone’s hand and all that, but I just couldn’t give a fuck about these people and how they knew each other and anything like that, so I stood off to the side and waited for her to ask for her bag so she could go with them. I enjoyed the breeze and I checked my phone. Finally she called me over and her friends were like wtf why are you just standing over there! Meanwhile she had just asked minutes ago why I never do what I want. So that was the thing I wanted, to not talk to these people. I was really fine with her leaving with them, very convenient escape for me, but I did not want to meet them all for no reason. But I did anyway because what kind of asshole would I have to be to hand her her bag and say goodbye and nothing else. So I shook hands with every single one of them. There were people she didn’t even know and I shook hands with them, too. One guy said now repeat our names back to us. I said, I value you guys as people but I don’t have a memory like that. Everyone thought that was funny. You had to be there. So now I look awesome. From weirdo to awesome in sixty seconds. After five excruciating minutes where everyone tried to pretend that we could have an inclusive conversation, they ask what’s up next. I hand my friend her bag and say goodbye, shaking hands with enthusiasm and warmth and real kindness in my eyes. Eight people I will never see again, now they all have a piece of my soul. The train just won’t seem to arrive.
by GORDON FLANDERS
© All rights reserved 2017
unbolt me 