INSTINCT IN THE ABSENCE OF THOUGHT or THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE DROWNING CATERPILLAR by Joey Poole Recently, in the midst of a brutal July heat wave, I noticed that my azalea bushes were being absolutely skeletonized, eaten right down to the stems. A closer inspection revealed that the bushes were crawling with a horde of … [Read more…]
TRAIN By Jill Stukenberg I imagine her emerging from the house to a bright day. Keys, wallet, coffee mug in hand—and the sun like lighting for a surgery. Eyelids fluttering, pupils shrieking with shrink, her gaze would have escaped to the black bulk of the train engine parked behind the shed. By then it had … [Read more…]
PEDESTAL By Kelly Magee We put her on a pedestal, a real nice one, not some cheap, plastic shit, but something comfortable—not marble, it was too cold, and not concrete, that was too hard—an ergonomic pedestal made of responsibly harvested bamboo and recycled bike tires. It stood ten feet off the ground and had an … [Read more…]
Who among us has not heard this pronouncement? “Short stories are great and all, but there’s no money in them.” The curiosity about markets: markets change. There was a long, long period in human history where there was no market for a 300 page book — a novel, if you will — because the middle … [Read more…]
A bit of humor for your week: John Cowan has built a list of 1,000+ “Essentialist Explanations” on various languages. If you’re a language buff it’s worth checking out. Here are a few to get you started. English is essentially a language that uses vowels no other language would accept. -Luís Henrique English is essentially … [Read more…]