FINAL CUT

The wind howls outside with all the operatic gusto of a new Scott Walker EP. The gunshot blazes through my ear and I black out. I did it. I actually did i— “I’d love to kill myself like Kurt Cobain. One shot--dead. What a great ‘fuck you’ to all the dumb humans.” “Don’t you like … Continue reading FINAL CUT

HADRIAN’S GARDEN

I visited Hadrian’s estate years ago, for the invitation came suddenly to visit his home in Venice. The man, William Hartford Hadrian, was a specimen alone. He was impossibly tall, making his limbs look spindly in proportion. As well, he constantly bore a jovial smile beneath his gray walrus mustache and a glimmer in his … Continue reading HADRIAN’S GARDEN

WITNESS

"Way Lost" by Kim Dorland The only memory I trust is that of the sunset. The other things, they’re fragmented into a million broken pieces, all of them too sharp and deadly-bright to fit back together again. She had a pink balloon tied around her wrist. I remember what she sounded like when she screamed … Continue reading WITNESS

THE SLUG EATS GARBAGE

Every night after the kitchen closes, I drain the deep fryers into a fifty-liter stockpot, all dented and dull. I fill it to the brim and let it cool, then heft it out back and across the parking lot, straining to make it to the rusted grease trap by the fence. I stand on a … Continue reading THE SLUG EATS GARBAGE

THE REAL ONES

Once a week I go to this fancy sandwich shop across the street from the courthouse. Lawyers and courthouse staff eat there. I was standing in line to order my chipotle steak sandwich. The sandwich makers know I always order the chipotle steak sandwich so they start making it as soon as I walk in. … Continue reading THE REAL ONES

THE PROPHET OF PADDINGTON PRIMARY

Summertime, and those last few days of school term left before we broke up for the holidays. Weeker time. Even kids that hated each other always reconciled, however temporarily, when this time of year came round. That last week, when there were no more lessons left to be taught and we kids were much too … Continue reading THE PROPHET OF PADDINGTON PRIMARY

REP MGMT

Everyone at the office has seen her photos. I assume that's what the call is about. I'm the junk drawer. I'm nobody. I will always be nobody in a crowd. If you need something done and can't make a succinct job description, someone gives you my info, and I show up. I am a fixer. … Continue reading REP MGMT

YOUR DEBTS WILL FOLLOW YOU TO THE STARS

The opportunity was once in a lifetime so he e-signatured his name on the dotted line without reading the contractual niceties. He told his life coach that afternoon, slumped in the beanbag chair. “Mr. Husk is sending 10,000 people to live on Mars.” He clasped and unclasped his hands. "I'm going to be one of … Continue reading YOUR DEBTS WILL FOLLOW YOU TO THE STARS

SICKNESS

I knew no one at the exhibition had come to see my paintings. They had come to see the paintings of Mike Apel, 30 and rich, some of it his daddy’s, sophisticated enough to not find himself struggling near the bottom rung. He huffed the faintest fumes of legacy. The Apels were from South Africa … Continue reading SICKNESS

A NEW LIFE AT BERNBERRY INN

1. A Descending Carnage It’s all gone to green now. The sky has rested in its ostentatious blue, in the verve of its banality through the day, but that’s all gone now. It is all something else now. Sickly green has washed in to bruise the world from one end to the other. On the … Continue reading A NEW LIFE AT BERNBERRY INN