Longing for an immersive distraction from his troubles, Joseph took up metalworking as a hobby. He spent days in the shop and brought home miniature metal horses, houses, people, dogs. They outlasted Joseph’s finances, his ties to his family, and even Joseph himself, and were impervious to corrosion in the landfill.
Category Archives: Story
J.L.B.’s Response to K.
February 21, 2010 – 12:49 pm
Dear K.,
I was disappointed most by the silence of those who might know “where things would fall.” While I realize that their existence is not strictly guaranteed, you would think they would have the courtesy to lend you a hand if they did.
Regarding your trackless desert: I have been reading Fingarette’s book on [...]
Poseidon Remarks On Life
February 19, 2010 – 12:20 am
Light from the sun has not touched the ocean’s floor since the beginning of time, and yet it cradles ten times more species than the land and sky combined. I admire the adaptability of those animals that have survived the tumult wreaked upon them by weather demigods. But their souls are brittle compared [...]
Explore/Cohere
February 2, 2010 – 11:47 pm
He was starving and overflowing when he first found it. His fingers, stubbier then, pulled at it with affection. His hands instinctually expressed love by manipulating every lever and caressing each crevice. The new discovery, pulsing and multifaceted, promised infinite amusement.
It returned his grip and pulled him into its gelatinous folds with [...]
Poseidon Remarks
February 2, 2010 – 11:05 pm
The way the sun beats and the choppy way sound travels make me wonder sometimes why anyone would choose terrestrial life. Though I was disappointed at first when I drew the middle straw that determined my destiny, the more I exhaust myself in journeys to the land the more I miss and even take [...]
Obligation
December 3, 2009 – 10:13 pm
“Obligation sits on me like a lead cape,” she said.
“Obligation is the breath that stokes my inner flames,” he said. “You must be talking about sleep.”
“What sleep?”
Argentina
November 3, 2009 – 9:30 pm
The gauchos who staff the Argentinian club in Williamsburg were frustrated by the young people who only pretended to tango and who giggled that the animal lying dead in the middle of the dance floor was a chupacabra, when it was clear to anyone with an education that it was a velociraptor. It molted [...]
New Superhero
October 20, 2009 – 11:29 am
for Jeff Hammel
They decided that he would have a super-human capacity for masking despair with ironic incomprehension. Rejected then abandoned by those he loves, cut off irrevocably from the society that gave his life meaning, he resists any recognition of the cause of his woes. As consequence, he is shrouded from their import. [...]
Diplomatic immunity
October 2, 2009 – 2:07 pm
After I gave the man directions, he explained to me that he was unfamiliar with the subway system because he was a foreigner. From Canada, so you wouldn’t know. A diplomat in fact.
“Oh really? Do you have diplomatic immunity then?”
He was in his late twenties and wore thick-rimmed glasses. Except for [...]
Airplanes
August 11, 2009 – 10:30 pm
Against the depthless fog of sky the airplanes en route to LaGuardia buzz so low you can jump and swat them like clueless, prehistoric dragonflies. Some predator–faster, more flexible and vicious–will supersede them soon.
