Pen Gipperson wasn’t thrilled that he had to visit the attorney handling the lawsuit against him at a fuckhole office in Connecticut. Extremely inconvenient. But because of legal matters there was no way around it.
Continue reading “Mary Mary by Adam Kluger”
Alexander Korda’s 1948 film ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, starring a moustache-less David Niven, was a famous flop, in both Britain and America. At the time, it was suggested by the critics that Niven had been miscast, but Alfredo Epps’ new release, ‘The Last Jacobite,’ implies that there was a deeper problem with Korda’s original movie. Namely, that the main character was at fault, not the main star.
Continue reading “An Appreciation of Alfredo Epps’ ‘The Last Jacobite’ by Michael Bloor”
His wife smiles as she looks over at him, slipping her hand over top of his. They sit in rented beach chairs not far from where their three small children are playing in the sand. Digging up ‘rivers’ for the sea to flow into and filter out of. Sand castles that are hastily built and quickly moved on from. Splashes in the cool surf washing far enough inland to get their ankles wet.
Continue reading “The Wave by D J Roosh”
I sat in Clarice’s office every week. My bedroom closet was bigger. A black leather couch with holes in it took up half the room. White stuffing like cottage cheese spilled out of it. Her pine desk overflowed with files. Clarice had more books on her wall than a library. They were in boxes on the floor. All that knowledge. Nowhere to put it.
Continue reading “Fractured by Lisa Lahey”
It’s been almost a month now since she first became acquainted with pain.
When she’d first glanced at him, half dazed under the strong pull of morphine, she knew straight away, even then, that she would never forget that face.
It was the face of a young man; Plump at the cheeks and lips and sharp at the jaws. Round and soft where one would expect it to be, yet angular in all the right places.
A perfectly balanced face, she thought.
However, it was the eyes –or rather the lack of them- that grabbed her attention, almost by the throat.
Continue reading “When Pain Grew a Beard by Rania Hellal”
Okay. I’m being serious now. Not that I haven’t been serious all along. But this I gotta say. If there’s anything…anything at all that’s important to me, it concerns this matter—this matter of the heart.
So…
Continue reading “Initiation by Fiver”
This is another of those stories that we really wanted to publish but for various reasons it wasn’t a good fit for the usual posts. It was too good to pass over and so – we give you-
Horton Hears You by Rosemary Grant
The paramedics found him in the snow at a bus stop, nursing what they called a Hennepin Avenue cocktail: grape juice and Listerine, mixed half-and-half. When he got to the emergency department, he did nothing but stand at the door of his room and stare through the glass. I walked in and introduced myself as his nursing assistant. He took off his Horton Hears A Who! t-shirt and said he was cold. I asked if he wanted a sandwich. He replied: “I never killed anyone.”
He stood in the corner of the room as I took his blood pressure and temperature. He didn’t look at me. His arms were circled with lines of round cigarette burns, spiraling down his palm and across his hands. Seven on each finger, four on each thumb.
When I left his room, the doctor was at the door talking to his nurse. He couldn’t stay, the doctor said. He was sober enough to walk and talk. He wasn’t suicidal or homicidal. He burned himself and drank—but that was how he lived—and maybe he acted psychotic, but only God could say for sure, and he didn’t meet criteria for admission, and anyway the hospital was full and the hospitalist would spit in his face if he asked for another bed.
“Should I call a cab?” said the nurse.
“He wants to walk home.”
He walked out into the snow as I was checking in a woman who had three children with the flu. I didn’t see him again.
This story really impacted the team here and so we approached the author to suggest we link to a couple of sites that care for homeless and desperate people.
Madison Street Medicine brings together doctors and healthcare professionals to provide healthcare for homeless people in Madison, WI https://www.madisonstreetmedicine.org/about/.
and
MEDiC is a system of student-run free clinics affiliated with the University of Wisconsin that provides free care to underserved populations, primarily homeless people and undocumented immigrants https://www.med.wisc.edu/education/medic/.
I walk in; he’s watching Andrei Rublev walk through a shoddy doorway into the rain and disrobe.
“That’s an oldie,” I say. “Are you finding it any good?”
“Hmm,” My son hems. “It’s a lotta doorways. And he’s not very nuanced.” Done thinking, his face flashes. “Don’t spoil anything if you’ve seen it.” Still hung up on the Citizen Kane snafu…
Continue reading “The Trip by Dillon Cranston”
The other week I encountered a most unusual sport. You may know him. Wilson Mizner is a Broadway playwright, fine art forger, fixer of boxing matches, California hotel manager, and above all a professional gambler in all games concerning chance. His God-given talent of seduction enticed me into one game of cards I will never forget. The evening prior, the quick-witted 47-year-old traded a pistol fired by Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Corral for a mint condition 1922 ‘green pea’ Aston Martin, which he swapped for a remote ice-fishing shack on Devil’s Lake. He bet the icehouse on a game of war.
Continue reading “An Overnight Train to Minnesota by A.R. Carrasco”
“It’s the hardest thing to make someone laugh especially if you’ve had nothing to laugh about.” –Tracy Morgan
“You know, I’m homeless.”
Silence.
“Hey you in the second row. You look surprised. Do you think I’m too cute to be homeless? It’s pitiful. I don’t have a floor, a roof over my head, a refrigerator to put food in, a place to shower. Do you feel sorry for me? Ah, a few of you. Don’t. I’m a poet. I don’t follow the rules, and I get inspiration looking up through the moon roof of my 2008 Buick, La Crosse, Gold Mist. My grandpa left it to me in his will. I think of him every night as I sleep under the silver apples of the moon and wake to the golden apples of the sun. You probably think this is a poetry reading. Don’t worry, it’s not.”
Continue reading “What’s Your Opening Line? by Nina Welch”
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