The Trip by Dillon Cranston
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…
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Twin Sisters by Doug Hawley
I knew I wanted her for a model when I saw the portrait selection at the Portland Art Museum. She was painted hanging out of the passenger seat of a car waving at something unseen by the museum visitors. I don’t know if I’m right, but I thought of early Marilyn Monroe.
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Literally Reruns – The Hive by Rania Hellal
And what is a sin if God himself didn’t see it?
That is one of the finest lines in our archives. And it appears in The Hive by Rania Hellal. I usually like to lay some time between a tale’s first appearance then as a rerun. But it doesn’t feel needed here. I think that it will be a fine thing to bring it back and urge those who missed it the first time to have a look.
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Week 474: The Quest; Five Stars; Little Lists
Quest
No one calls in requests to radio stations anymore. No one there to answer the phone if they did. Even if you could, I really doubt that “I dunno what it is called, but I saw a Lexus shaking to it at a stop sign this morning” would jog many happy memories. Besides, no need. It’s all there for the picking and would have to be awfully damn obscure if it isn’t found someplace online. I miss doing my own detective work. I miss it the same way I miss the death of off seasons and the way nothing used to happen on Sunday–before the world acquired a similarity to supermax prison cells, in which the lights are on 24 hours a day.
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An Overnight Train to Minnesota by A.R. Carrasco
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.
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What’s Your Opening Line? by Nina Welch
“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.”
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Merely Semantic by Mary Ann Dimand
George thought of it while he was shaving. He was pulling the skin of his right cheek down and carefully stroking with the razor held in his left, less adroit hand, and it was such a shock that he cut himself: Lawyers are magicians. As he applied styptic to his dark cheek, he spun it out: Lawyers bring entities into existence by naming them and delimiting them. Without lawyers, there are no geographical countries, and barely peoples. (And those peoples, insofar as they exist, tend to be distinguished as much by the language they speak as by their companioning.) Lawyers set boundaries, and the lesser wizardries of surveying and mapping arose to aid them.
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The Arrival by Anna Elin Kristiansen
Fear is gnawing at my insides when I snap my compact shut. Getting caught up in my looks is of no use now. I’m tired – beyond tired, actually, and no amount of powder or mascara will change that. When I meet him, I know I’ll feel naked and transparent. He’ll see right through my façade because I’m half him. My tricks come from him, so he’s bound to know them already.
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Overtime by Karen Uttien
Saturday, 6.10pm
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Liam muttered, pulling into the petrol station.
Ten minutes earlier
‘Please. Please,’ the girl begged.
Against his better judgement, Liam tapped the address into google, and took the cash.
‘Thank-you soooo much!’ she said, helping her inebriated friend into the car, before skipping back to the busy beer-garden.
‘You okay?’ Liam asked, watching his young passenger’s head wobble in the rear-view mirror.
In her defence – she did try to open the window. But the rainbow projectile flew with such force, it wouldn’t have made any difference.
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