As summer draws to a close, join APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL for one last trip to the beach, but in the shimmering sea, a dark fin surfaces: SUMMER OF THE SHARK, our latest special edition. SHARKS–perhaps the most ubiquitous and feared entities on Earth. They have been on this planet longer than we have, and have casted a … Continue reading A SPECIAL PRESENTATION: SUMMER OF THE SHARK
Category: SUMMER OF THE SHARK
WETWORK
It’s good to have a job. This is what I have to tell myself. I had been a frogman in Vietnam. Most people don’t know what that means. Even less understand. Since then I have been drinking in the sun mostly. I could always fix things. It’s why I got to be a frogman. I … Continue reading WETWORK
“THE VISITATION”
I was washing the dinner dishes when I heard a massive thump. Alarmed, I went to the sliding glass door and looked out. I was expecting to see a seagull lying there dead or injured after crashing into the glass. Instead, a juvenile sand shark was flailing on the back deck. I couldn’t have been … Continue reading “THE VISITATION”
TO THE TEETH
Advice and Observations from two decades as a loan shark in Mexico 1. No matter who you are or claim to be, everybody is indebted to something or someone. We can only get ahead in life due to someone's random kindness or thinly-veiled interest in benefitting off you in the long run. But it's always … Continue reading TO THE TEETH
THE SPEEDBOAT FAILURE
Ian, the 52 year old Circle K clerk, got his left arm torn off by a great white on his last summer vacation. His frequent nosebleeds set off an underwater rollercoaster, and there it was. Big ass shark, a thousand teeth. He can still drive a car, make burgers, win fistfights, and drink booze and … Continue reading THE SPEEDBOAT FAILURE
“SMILE”
This is about thereckoninginvisible until shewhips her ribs forthe tank lookingglass tinted wildblue executed on theprecipice of oureyelines still invisible theserrated touch onher tongue until ouroil-slapped fingers arewaving their synthetichellos dragoon hermouth apart like a blood-spot she bares thehollowed fossil of athroat cut drainingcavernous quiet. -- Sarah Park writes from Manila, Philippines. Her work has appeared in Eunoia … Continue reading “SMILE”
“SHARK TOOTH GIFTS”
There are so many of them allAll I can call it still is generous Each angel’s tooth is dancing on the headOf a pin that looks suspiciously like my arm The beach dolly zooms awayI was right about that; but In my ears like oceanwater in shellsI hear the mantra of an old gift “Have … Continue reading “SHARK TOOTH GIFTS”
SHARK ON DISPLAY IN LEEDS
The pang in the heart of the lonely young man that resembles the faith of expectant hands, that the loneliness is but a bitter prelude to the fruitful bliss to come, a cornucopia of real life after everyone has noted your genius and your voice is valued in the highest places, at the mountain tops of western … Continue reading SHARK ON DISPLAY IN LEEDS
SHARK FIN SOUP
He always orders shark fin soup and there were rumors he had fed a man to the sharks because he hadn’t liked him very much. Or, to be more accurate or precise or however you’d say it, that he had taken the man he hadn’t liked very much out in his yacht, the man didn’t … Continue reading SHARK FIN SOUP
SHARK-TANK
When I was a little boy, I plunged my hand into the shark tank. Fearlessly, I pet tiger sharks as they swam by until a panicked assistant rushed me out of the water. No guest is allowed in the aquarium shark tank. Since then, I’ve become afraid of sharks. Now, a shark might bite me. … Continue reading SHARK-TANK