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A Simulation
Though the explosions shouldn’t surprise him they do. They sound off rhythmically every few minutes and he shudders startled by each and every echoing blast. Placed where he is on the terrace looking out over the river he can see the Basilica’s towers and the smoke sift upward through the trees-line. The blasts’ depth [...]

The lost art of Toad calling
He limped along the sidewalk shouting “I will treat them like animals. I will drag them through the dirt before I slit their throats.”
As I passed he looked me in the eye and momentarily, before again casting down his gaze, I could see that he was possessed.
“Secretly, you know I [...]

Yesterday’s DrugI quit my anti-psychotic med and found out that the world actually was undermining
me. The nagging feeling of going to prison and not getting Deadazine, the guards not
handing out my usual nighttime dose, afflicted me with raging paranoia, even more
than total withdrawal in my small house at the edge of town. Denial of the [...]

‘Fonzi just eats it. He doesn’t even look sad or embarrassed.’Fonzi gets all kinds of shit at school.  There’s the name, for one.  Everyone thinks it’s hilarious that a Pakistani kid was named after a character on Happy Days.  I’ve tried to explain to the other kids that there’s no way that’s true, because [...]

Find and Replace

I.
Jen, darling Jen, I will see you no more.   There is somebody new.
The fungus toes my soul.  Only a flame will check its advance.  Your flame smudged itself out.  You are ashy and dry.  Soon you’ll just be dry, babe.  If I keep seeing you, the fungus will choke my soul shut.
I will [...]