1. The Black Hole of Comedy I made my way down the dank, filthy stairs, into the darkness where jokes go after they’ve died. I descended into Ha-Ha Hell, like…
Horror
Three Flash Fictions
People are Strange This is the end for my dad, but he’s died before, so maybe I’m wrong. I know it’s a cliché, but deathbed regret is a real thing.…
A Pox on Both Our Houses
A POX ON BOTH OUR HOUSES Ah, syphilis—so sweet, so soft and sibilant, the most beautiful word in the English language. I sing the infectious tune, the bacterial…
Hairs
Journal Entry #1 There is more hair in the sink. There is always more hair in the sink. And in the shower. And in the drain. And in my hands.…
Teacher’s Pet
Sunlight streamed through the westward windows at a slant, glinting off the twenty desks arranged in standard grid formation. That sunlight seemed almost heavenly to Jackie Potter as she sat…
Memento Mori Theater
Note: I met Olga Taran many years ago by a strange and happy series of coincidences. An interest in Descartes led me to study geometry. Since my education had been…
2 Poems: Barbara Holland
Huldra She is Swedish, and one of those,you know. Big. Green eyes and red hair,all clinging velvet and ropesof beads in the front, with coldand cleanly chiseled features.Real Nordic beautywith…
Damp Squib
If Lilly could change one thing about herself, it would be her salivary glands. A dry tongue, that is what she longs for. Remove the constant swill sloshing around her…
The Hypmogoogoopizin’ Man: His Legend
Anciently, when God did ordain to claim this drear and waste domainHim did it please to bid his saintsagainst all pleading abject ‘plaintsto sojourn here ‘cross cruel seato raise The…
Having a Jesuit for Dinner
A Monologue of The Emperor Qian Long (1711-1799). I bid you welcome to the Summer Palace, and to this, my garden behind the Hall of Paintings. There is no…