APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
I was by then no great fan of the stage, in fact as a rule I found theater tiresome. The plays had grown too much like films, with their preposterous budgets, their every hair and smile and bit of dialogue glued into place and buffed beyond recognition. Or else they had grown too much like … THE EXIT
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
I pulled a soporific thread of smoke from the tip of a searing knife into my nose with a single breath. Meters of a braided cord slithered from my throat and round an ankle before I crossed the hand- thick curtains. My organs turned to bells as I opened the arc. I touched the stones, … “GAME OF INCHES”
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
(An earlier version of this story appeared at Punk Noir in 2021.) It was early Friday night at the New Orleans Swing club, the five-piece combo setting up in warm stage light. Vivian wore a purple dress because it looked good under waves of brown hair, and she hoped to dance later with elegant dark-skinned … MADE IN IDAHO
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
I look at the water—into it, more accurately—and I vanish. Imagine it brought to a boil, all of it at once. Husks of sea-life Fulton’d to the surface, bursting through that glass ceiling of mass extinction. What machine could do such a thing? What if it’s already been built? Constructed by Superfund, designed by the … “A BILLION CRABS”
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
The only time I’ve ever k-holed was on my twenty sixth birthday. I’d been putting away a pint of Seagram’s on the barefoot walk (the pavement was hot, it was August) to Cliff’s house. We went up in his attic, put on a movie and started getting high. Now that I think about it, the … THE LONG GREEN NIGHT
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
This golden goose egg fried rice I am,You sniffed me out immediately. I saidtry the pate, wrong, like some monastichaircut. I spoke in this illicit patoisthat made you want to coddle me.I was on a mission to fattenYou up, like a liver. I wasdestined to live forever, withYou, so I said so. You loosened. I … “THERE ISN’T ANY REASON TO BE A SHEEP”
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
I want to be an angelwith wings made of gunI want to be a bulldogwith teeth like a gunI want to be a flowerthat grows in the gunI want to go to heavenwhen my time is gun I want to be a gunthat shoots all the angelsI want to be a gunthat sends you to … “A GUN FROM MONTGUNERY”
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
Blood and babies spilt all over the ground when you shot the prairie dog through the stomach your bow through our second story window. You shrieked because you did not know it was pregnant. We tried to collect the squirming offspring in our hands. There were too many. What could we have done to save … “TARGET PANIC”
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
A team of firemen had to peel Michael Garvin off a tree. It was the large southern live oak that spills over the corner of Lehi and Pearl. All the big chunks came off easy enough but it took a considerable effort to strip away all the little fibers and smears and what not, pressed … THE STAIN OF MICHAEL THE PIOUS MORMON
APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL
Lunchtime Express although we are not on our wayto the 1873 World’s Fair in Vienna& it’s unfair our compartmentplays cat & mouse with the river for so long we are still brigands & villainson the lunchtime expressfollowing in the footsteps a shade slower, bankingthrough a turnstile of trees. The woman beside me sighs like a … “LUNCHTIME EXPRESS” – “KEYHOLE COVER NO. 1”