the room was cold
and there were
gray flowers
of dampness blooming
all over the walls
He took off
his shoes and
the shoes were the
warmest things in
the room so the kitten
climbed into one of them
He sat on the
mattress in the corner
and petted the cat
in the shoe
He smiled and said
to the kitten, "At least
I have no debts."
Even God agreed
with him. He winked through
the hole in the
ceiling
he takes his old wrinkled
notebook
and the black pen
and finds a
spot from which he can observe
the people
and write down what he
imagines to be their inner
conversations
It passes the time
and it takes away
attention from his own
inner conversations
It’s like a prescription drug
he has to take for the
rest of his life
and the twenty-nine bookshelves
filled with notebooks
he has at home stand as proof of that
But this will be
the last one,
he promises himself
as he closes the notebook and
walks up to the bridge
She came from work pretty early and I knew when I saw her that she quit yet again She changed four jobs in the last five months and got a tattoo that said APATHY on her lower back Her father died five months ago. He died of what's called almost-drunk-driving He was sipping on a beer bottle while driving fairly slow on a country road But the front wheels hit some log or something and the impact triggered the airbag It bloomed in his face and stabbed the beer bottle into his eye causing him a major trauma to the brain R.I.P old man. Maybe not your wife but your daughter sure will miss you She's coming from work dirty and ragged Approaches me and demands a cigarette I give her a small lighter and she tells me to go fuck myself "Well you're done with work early today," I…
You can still be good
at what you do
without liking
what you do
It’s more common than
you’d imagine
The words reflected his face
in the steamy bathroom mirror
He watched
until he felt cold in his
nakedness
and shivered
reached for the towel
wiped
got out of the bathroom
put on clothes
and returned to his writing
desk
The blank page was ugly
unlike the somewhat encouraging
words on the steamy mirror
He reached into the drawer
pulled out the pen
stuck it into his mouth
clicked it
Reached again into the drawer
pulled out the gun
pointed it at the blank page
fired
He wrote for the remainder of
the day and the next
night around the smokey hole
It was finally
beautiful
From the hand of the writer Bogdan, we return to the path of short stories – j re crivello (editor)
by Bogdan Dragos
When the enemy strikes keep your gun close to you. That worked during the war, but the war was all those years ago and the saying didn’t apply today.
Today it was more like when depression strikes keep your ice cream at hand. He got into his slippers and went into the kitchen to grab a spoon for his ice cream. Living on the ground floor of an apartment building from the suburbs gives a man quite the sights to see at times. He peeked out the window and saw a man or child, couldn’t tell what the hell he was, only that he was very fat and he held a big silvery spoon in one hand and a pigeon in the other, and crushed the pigeon’s…
the cat was utterly
uninterested
and downright
bored
with him reading
mediocre poems
by her side
"You don't like this one?" he asked
"It's about nature
and birds
flying and... and... How good does
it have to be for you
to like it? I'm only ten, I haven't
lived long enough to
write poems of grief
and depravity like my father. But you
know, I'm actually aiming to become
better than him. I aim to be
a more
respected poet. What, you don't think
I'll be able to?
You think I'm just another
deluded fool? I'll show you!"
The cat stood
and stretched raising her tail
"Calm down, kid. First of all,
your daddy was no
poet. Just some drunk who spoke of
demons as he passed out
in bars. And you, you're not ten, okay?
You're just ten days
clean of meds."
"You think I should
end myself?" he asked
The cat waved a paw
at that. "Nah, just go on with the
next poem. I'll be listening
but please don't expect any
praise. It's not in my nature to
offer it, okay?"
"But... you think I'll be a great
poet one day?"
The cat closed her
eyes and offered no reply
mashed potatoes poached eggs beans and some homemade garlic sauce but no meat for the princess's sensitive stomach "I'm full," she said "No, you are not," said mother. "Eat up. Finish everything from your plate and trust me, it's been calculated. It's the right amount. Now eat up." Father agreed. Being a step-father he didn't have much of a say in this matter or any other It took the princess another twenty minutes to finish the food from her plate and then stood and went to the bathroom but it wouldn't be that simple. Mother had to go in with her And she did and both of them came out and the princess went to her room and mother started cleaning the table always just one step away from bursting into tears which gave her new husband some work with emotional support and all A princess doesn't steal but this…
again
she grabs a stool
and places it into the corner
of the room,
climbs on it, assumes the lotus position
and closes her eyes
and covers her ears with headphones
She faces the corner
The voice that speaks into her
headphones starts a
countdown
Meanwhile
her father shakes his head as
he watches her
“You can’t be serious,” he says. “Are
you meditating again to ask God to make life
fair? Is that it? What happened?
Was your Uber late? Internet connection slow?
Heheh!”
She doesn’t hear him. The voice
in her headphones says, “And twist. Remember
to always twist. If you only stab
him it’s not enough. That’s just gonna do
a little damage that can be fixed with a quick visit
to the ER. You have to twist the blade. That’s
when the significant damage happens. Twist
as much as you can. Show no mercy.
Take advantage of
the fact that he will not expect this from you.”