by Clarissa Romano

He looked up the street and there she was, walking toward him in pink jeans, hair dyed black and pulled into a ponytail. It wasn’t until she took off her sunglasses and he saw her eyes that he found evidence of the years. Eleven this winter. He’d seen her once or twice more to sign the papers and pick up his stuff, but she’d gone straight into rehab and he was glad to be rid of her.

“Good to see you, kid,” he said, giving her a hug, careful not to look at her too much. She ordered a soft taco and a lemonade. They sat on the terrace in white plastic chairs beneath a wall of bougainvillea.

“Goddamn it’s been a long time,” she said. She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’re you doing with yourself?”

He told her about his band and his carpentry and he tried not to get distracted by that particular angle she held her head at when she was listening. “Rockabilly?” she asked.

The sparrow tattoo on the back of her hand had faded to blue-green. He had no idea what had become of her after that first year.

“We live in Venice,” she said. “About eight months.”

When they were married they’d shared a downtown loft. The floors were cool cement and through the windows LA was vast and dreamy. Also urban and decayed. Nicholas remembered that Molly had wanted to be near the beach.

“Bullshit,” she said, with a laugh. “You haven’t thought about me.”

“Sure I do.” He shifted in his seat.

“Okay, look,” said Molly, leaning forward. “I’m about to drop a bomb on you.” For a few seconds doubt flickered in her eyes. “We have a son,” she said. (more…)

by Kai Flanders

The truck came out from under the shade of the bridge and into the sun. The street was narrow and the tires jumped on the cobblestone. The sun came in through the bars in the windows and it was very hot in the holding cell in the back of the truck. For a while there was nothing but apartments, but then the truck turned and there were not only the apartments but also some stores and, after a while, a park. But the truck passed quickly by and there was only a momentary glint of green through the bars. Then the truck was in the center of the city and the buildings were very tall so that you could only the sides of them and nothing else. The driver lit a cigarette and the smoke blew back into the holding cell.

“Could you open a window?” asked one of the men in the holding compartment. He was very tall so that his knees touched his chest sitting shackled to the metal bench. There was also a man next to him.

The driver did not say anything but reached over his shoulder and slid shut a glass barrier between the cab and the holding cell. No more smoke came into the back, but it was still very hot. By this time the truck had passed through the city center and there were no more large buildings. There was only the road and small shops and business and sometimes a restaurant on a corner.

“I’ve eaten there,” the tall one said to the man sitting next to him as the truck passed one of the restaurants. “I think that’s the place. We passed it so quickly.”

The man next to him did not say anything.

For a while the truck climbed up a hill, but then the road flattened out again and there was, on one side, train tracks running out of the city and on the other a steep drop. There was a tram that brought you up the hill for a dollar but it could not be seen from the back of the truck. The driver might have been able to see it, though. The train tracks were seldom used and then only for shipping goods out of the city. Hardly anyone rode the train. The tracks and the arcades over the tracks and the sides of the cars, sitting abandoned on side rails near the station, were all covered in graffiti. The truck passed the station and came down the hill and back into the city. At the bottom of the hill there were two wrecked cars. (more…)

by H. Palmer Hall

1.

Jonathan Trisk has just had a thought. Not a very original thought, but a thought. He is sitting in the midst of four tables of bridge and has just opened six no trump. But the thought is not about bridge. “I am,” his thought ran, “fortunate to be alive at this moment.” No, not an original thought at all, and it has nothing to do with his having a hand capable of being opened at six no trump. Jenna has just told him that Lissel wants to go to bed with him. She has some kind of “thing” about Vietnam veterans. Well, those veterans who managed to see the light and oppose the war. Jonathan Trisk is that kind of veteran. His partner passes. Odd, he thinks, after she lays her hand down, that she should pass when she has the ace of hearts. Jonathan’s thoughts are, when he has them, often like that. Unable to linger for long, to remain focused on one thing.

Lissel, Jonathan Trisk thinks. What an odd name. He recalls having seen it before, some time ago, when he was even younger than he is now. In a musical comedy. But Lissel is nothing like her. Lissel is in the process of becoming unmarried after having walked in on Ray, her husband, in bed with another man. “He’s gay,” Lissel had told him. And then she had kissed him—Jonathan, not her gay husband. He remembers having felt her belly rubbing against his, her small breasts, fashionably small in their circle, braless, rubbing against his chest. I’m sorry, he had said.

2.

Jonathan is getting married. No, not to Lissel. To Rosie. Rosie is in Los Angeles doing whatever it is that she would be doing to prepare for a modest wedding. Lissel has taken Jonathan out for a bachelor party. “Every man needs a good send off before he gets married,” she said. He drinks scotch and water and then scotch on the rocks and then scotch neat. Lissel orders for him. “This is your night,” she says. Above them a Corona neon sign glows in the dark bar. A fat cowboy sings about a love that went wrong. Lissel suggests that all love goes wrong. “I loved Ray,” she says. Her leg brushes against his.

They are in bed. Not Rosie and Jonathan. Jonathan and Lissel. I can’t go home tonight,” she says. Her husband is there with his boyfriend. She needs a place to spend the night. Just for tonight, she says. In the morning Jonathan will fly to California. He has already rented a tuxedo with a gold cummerbund. He has decided not to drive. That would take three days, he thought. Lissel has undressed and is in bed. He turns off the lights but not before he has seen her, only from the back, getting into his bed.

Perhaps I really love Lissel, he thinks, but then thinks again. But if I love her I would not be marrying Rosie. So I must love Rosie. Still, Lissel feels very warm against him all night. He has trouble sleeping because she bumps against him and one of her arms flops over him and her thigh somehow gets between his legs. He pretends not to notice until she rolls on top of him and kisses him. “It’s an involuntary reaction,” he says. “Because I love Rosie,” he says. “I know that because I’m marrying her.”

Lissel falls asleep on top of him. He thinks that must be uncomfortable. He is very hot. All over. Jonathan does not remember sleeping that night. In the morning he takes Lissel back to her apartment, and she is crying.

(more…)

by James Kaelan

The following is an excerpt from WE’RE GETTING ON, part of the Zero Emission Book Project. LAUNCH the book by Sunday, May 9th, and receive a hand-signed copy from the author.

Sam stands on one side of the canal, and I on the other. He crouches down, preparing to leap across it for the second time, as he had to abort the first attempt. With his knees bent, he sways from side to side. He’s having difficulty keeping his balance. I didn’t give him food this morning, which might explain his unsteadiness. But there’s more to his hesitation than weakness. It’s as if he’s forgotten how to jump.

“It’s only four feet,” I say.

“I just need to get my strength,” he says.

When he has repositioned himself, with his fingertips pressed against the concrete lip of the ditch, he takes a deep breath. But rather than flinging himself across the channel, he falls into it and lies for a moment with the water rushing over his head. I reach in and grab him by the collar before he drowns; the last thing I need on my hands is another body.

He rises to his knees and stares at me. His black wool coat is saturated and water is dripping down his face. From my vantage point I can see that the hair on the top of his head, which is lighter in color than his beard, is starting to thin. He looks much older than he is. If I met him on a street corner, I’d think he was forty or fifty. I’ve never asked his age, but I assume, like me, he’s in his late twenties.

“Take off your coat,” I say when he’s on dry ground, and he unbuttons it. We’re standing on a ridge above the property, and one hundred yards below us, Erin is milling about in the garden. Ainsley has either fallen or lain down, but either way, she’s on her side in the middle of the plot. When I announced that we would hunt, Erin smiled, Ainsley frowned, and Sam had no expression. Because of his apathy, I chose him to accompany me. I didn’t want a listless companion—and watching him slowly shed his coat, he is, if nothing else, listless— but I took this excursion as an opportunity to motivate him. I must be very calculating. Ainsley is in greater jeopardy of collapsing, but if I can animate Sam, I think she’ll follow him. I’m simply being efficient.

But I have to wonder how misguided this is. And I don’t mean living on the property. That, I’m sure, is not absurd at all. We’d all survived amidst the crowds for long enough. No, there was nothing unreasonable in this exodus. But hunting without weapons seems presumptuous. How did those prototypical humans do it? I’ve heard that an antelope, if you chase it for three days or so, will collapse from exhaustion. But I doubt Sam is in any condition for that, if there were an antelope to pursue. He couldn’t so much as jump over a ditch. Our best option is to throw something at something, such as a rock at a crow. There is an abundance of stones on the ground, but a dearth of birds in the sky. Perhaps higher in the hills we’ll find one, sitting in a small tree.

(more…)

by Kevin Walsh

Un-Love Letters was the winner of the 2009 Flatmancrooked Fiction Contest judged by Aimee Bender. It appears in print in Not About Vampires: An Anthology of New Fiction Concerning Everything Else.

A birthday card has come for me in the mail. This is odd because (a) it is not my birthday and (b) this is not the first time I have received this card.

Have a purrr-fect birthday. A cat with cake on its whiskers. “Like, Brian.” He sent it when we were first dating.

“There’s a card here,” I say, showing him, though he does not look. He is lying on the sofa, flicking his fingers across a video game controller. He is here and not here, he is removed.

Removed: at one time, it meant to move to another place: “I removed myself to London.” Sometime between Jane Austen and James M. Cain, it stopped meaning that. But “removal” is a better word than “move.” It describes what happens when you leave. In a few weeks, Brian and I will remove ourselves from each other’s lives.

“The card is from you,” I say.

“No it’s not.”

“Well, look.” And I show him.

“Where did you dig that up?” He has now, finally, bothered to look. On the TV screen, monster aliens pause in their quest to annihilate one another.

I used to love him. I loved him and then stopped. I never did love him, he never did love me. It is one or all of those things, the reason why we are removing.

“It came in today’s mail.”

“I didn’t send it.”

“You signed it.” I show him the inside of the card. “Like, Brian.”

“Is it the same card?”

(more…)