LAUGH
In a short message he once sent me—only to me, not because only I could read it, but just because he was typing to me and that was what he happened to be typing—Phil told me he felt both pity and camaraderie with whoever was laughing on the laugh tracks in sitcoms. Especially the old sitcoms, the ones taped on cheap film stock with bright colours, where sometimes even the camera would get sick of the set and swing through the fourth wall and you’d actually see them clapping and laughing, like on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. But mostly they would just be waving, usually to the cameras and sometimes to the stars.
What I remember about that show is that it lives on in colour, like the lime and light purple graffiti in the title sequence, which still screams nineties TV at me like an acrylic painting. Phil said to me—another time, because he’s always thinking about it—that it’s his favourite nineties TV show, and that he still watches it all the time when he’s lying in his room reading his textbooks. He said it makes him laugh always. I don’t remember. I just remember that the colours were really important to how people might watch that show even if they didn’t know anything about it, because things like that stand out to me more than things I wish stood out, like what it was really about, or what it might have taught me when I was a kid. As many times as people tell me that what they talked about on that show was bullshit, I can’t say I actually remember.
But I can tell Phil that it was bullshit. I usually tell him when he wants to talk about it again—not the same things he’s already said, but something else about it, another fragment—in a conversation with one of our other friends, or tells me in a text message that he’s in his room watching it on his computer. But it just makes me think about it more. Wouldn’t the people who clapped and waved to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air be old now, and wouldn’t the old ones, like my grandparents who also liked that show, be dead? And if you went back far enough to when everything was in black and white, you’d know they’d be dead. Phil watches those shows, too, sends me old clips of them like viruses. In syndication they’ll echo like cacophonous ghosts, not laughing at anything, really, maybe just laughing through their own laughter. Laughing on videotape to things that will be funny always. I can’t go any further with that.
All of those are things I’ve never told Phil—not because it’s him, just because I haven’t told them to anyone, really—even though sometimes I’m thinking them while I’m typing him a message. After just a few weeks I stopped saying them, even though that’s what I think I thought was so great about him when I first met him, that he would talk about stuff like that. After just a few weeks he would say things and say things and say things, usually in short messages he’d type to me, and I’d sit and read them and smile. I imagine Phil sitting in his room—thin t-shirt, studded belt, spiked blue-blond hair—on his computer watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and sometimes thinking to send me a short message. But usually he’s just laughing, the way I imagine him, moving forward in a way I don’t really understand.
John Nyman's poetry and short fiction has appeared in Misunderstandings Magazine, Steel Bananas, Clark-Nova Books’ anthology Writing Without Direction and Tightrope Books' GULCH: An Assemblage of Poetry and Prose. He is currently studying Creative Writing and English at York University, where he has served as Senior Fiction Editor of Existere, York's journal of literature and art. He will also be attending Vanderbilt University as a Killam fellow during fall 2011.
C. JAK MUSSINGTON
LONY GHORRI IS A HORNY GIRL
Chew, sip, and slurp. Chew and chew, and sip.
Lony Ghorri is eating a Boston Market roast beef dinner alone. She drinks Tropicana juice alone. It is expired.
She stares at the ceiling and wonders, how can I get some?
Lony has a problem: her toilet is clogged. It could be fixed if ran her fingers down the P listings, circled Yellow Pages, and dialed for a plumber, but Lony will not call a plumber. She believes a plunger and time will fix her problems.
Lony goes in to her bathroom just to check and see.
Her body and arms move as if fighting against a wave. She feels her dinner and expired juice turning inside her whenever every time she moves; her dinner and juice pretend to be twins inside a womb. She hurries out of the bathroom.
She runs awkwardly through the hallways.
She knocks on her neighbor’s door with one hand. Upon seeing Lony the neighbor lets her in without question. She’s done this before. The neighbor still guides her with his fingers, though, it’s a habit. And she’s grateful.
Sss sss sss sss. Plop, plop.
She taps her toes. Her odor fills the bathroom. She wipes her ass first and cleans her vagina second. She throws the used tissue in the toilet; she is relieved. She washes her hands with cold water and then uses her neighbor’s towel. Their names are embroidered on the towel: Neighbor & Neighbor’s Wife. She feels it and places her face against their towel and she feels jealous. When she closes the door behind her the neighbor and the neighbor’s wife greet her. She smiles when the neighbors smile. The neighbor escorts her to the door. She smiles again, but the neighbor just opens the door. She fumbles for the door knob when she remembers she didn’t wipe the toilet seat down. Her dead, urine soaked skin is on the toilet seat. She frowns, but then she shrugs.
Lony passes her bathroom when she re-enters her home.
Lony passes her bathroom when she retrieves a carrot from the refrigerator; Lony is on a diet.
Lony passes her bathroom as she thinks of that guy who gave her his number earlier on today.
Lony passes her bathroom when she searches for a piece of paper with that guy’s scribbled number on it.
Lony passes her bathroom when she uses her laptop.
Lony passes her bathroom when she thinks about calling that guy.
Lony passes her bathroom when she retrieves Ben and Jerry’s ice cream from the refrigerator; Lony is on a diet.
Lony passes her bathroom as she dials the numbers.
Lony passes her bathroom as she mouths a laugh and a conversation.
Lony passes her bathroom when that guy picks up.
Lony passes her bathroom as she talks to that guy.
Lony passes her bathroom when she learns that guy’s name: Herb Peltum.
Lony passes her bathroom when he asks her out on a date.
Lony passes her bathroom when she says ‘yes.’
Lony passes her bathroom when she hangs up.
Lony passes her bathroom to rest her weary head.
Lony dreams of her and Herb Peltum.
She dreams he is doing more than fingering her. She dreams he is fucking her and pissing and cuming inside her.
Lony wakes up.
She walks to the bathroom and opens the door. She lifts the toilet seat and sees pieces of herself decomposing and floating in the toilet. She can see hunks of shit in the murky brown water. Lony pours bleach in the toilet to combat the smell, but it doesn’t work.
She has to hold back the tears.
She fishes in the toilet with the gloves on. She fishes with her breath held and head turned. She fishes for feces. She holds them in her gloved hands; they make sounds like squish squish. She places them in a large black garbage bag. She dumps bleach and ammonia in the toilet bowl. She scrubs the Pollock painting rendition away. She washes her hands when she is finished. She washes her hands again.
Lony thinks about Herb Peltum during work, but Lony thinks about her toilet more.
She calls Herb Peltum sometime in the afternoon and softens her voice for him. She tells Herb Peltum that she must cancel their date. Herb Peltum asks, “Why?” She’s embarrassed to say it at first, but she tells him about her issues. She explains a rusted pipe and a clog in detail, but manages to keep an air of uncertainty. Herb Peltum says, “My grandfather was a plumber.” He is telling a lie because he hasn’t been inside a woman’s home for a while. He says, “I am the grandson of a Plumber, so I’m a Plumber, too
.” Lony Ghorri smiles and nods, Lony laughs at the right moments, Lony wonders if he’s big.
C. Jak Mussington lives in Inje, Gangwon-do, South Korea. She is forthcoming in Negative Suck, The Delinquent, Metazen Magazine, and New Wave Vomit. She doodles at: https://littleuglydoodles.blogspot.com
MATTHEW FUGERE
YUSUF
One otherwise very normal morning, Francine woke up to a sloth glued to her head. It was an absolutely terrifying way for Francine to start her day. Questions raced through her head as she scrambled to a mirror. What is this? Why is my head so heavy? Is that fur?
She examined the tiny mammal on her cranium for a few minutes. What kind of animal is that? She thought, having never seen a sloth. She poked at it with her hairbrush, trying her best to find out if it was alive.
Suddenly, a huge yawn came from the sloth as it lifted its head and looked into the mirror with Francine.
“Good morning,” the sloth said.
“Not for me,” Francine snapped. “What are you? And why are you on my head?”
“One at a time, dear,” the sloth said, “and why must it be what am I? Can it not be who am I?”
“What?”
“No, dear, whoooooo,” the sloth slowly stated.
“This is no time for you to be cheeky,” Francine exclaimed. “You need to answer my questions.”
“I’m not being cheeky,” the sloth defended, “for I am just as lost as you are as to why I am here, seemingly bound to the side of your head.”
Francine dwelled on this thought. She became empathetic towards the sloth. Surely this was quite traumatizing for him, perhaps even more so since he had evidently lost control of his body as he was glued to her and not vice versa.
“Well,” the sloth said, trying to interrupt the silence made by Francine’s sudden appreciation of the creature, “have you a name, dear? Or shall I keep calling you dear?”
“Francine,” she replied, her thoughts still wrangling with how the sloth must be feeling.
“Absolutely delighted to meet you, Francine,” the sloth nodded his head. “My name is Yusuf.”
“Yusuf,” Francine mumbled. “An odd name for… well for whatever you are.”
“Once more with the what, Francine,” Yusuf said. “You even know my name.”
Francine felt foolish. “You’re right,” she admitted. “Yusuf then. That’s a perfectly fine name.”
Francine brushed her hair. Then Yusuf’s. Then went on about her day.
Matthew Fugere is a writer and student from Virginia. Some of his short fiction can be found at Untoward Magazine. On his spare time, he likes to maintain a satirical online advice column called Sage Advice at thesageadviceofmatt.tumblr.com
PETER RICHTER
BUYING BLUEBERRIES
"Do you want to go into my pockets before I leave?" says a man to a woman.
Wearing only white briefs and not going to work at the diner, a woman touches her left foot.
There is a metal spoon collecting one concentrated package of white sun.
"That is not going to work." says the woman.
"I would be upset."
She looks into the living room which for an instant is a flower filled space and then returns to what it is, an open mouth stinking of soy milk.
The man touches her breast with the pads of his fingers as if it were box of blueberries to cary out with him.
He says,
"I appreciate that you let me stay in your house."
DINOSAUR RIOT 1969
Corporations wept
for there was a new model
of government. It rose over stadiums,
leapt into nostrils and spilled
onto the trade routes of
grocery truckers.
There was Democrat Karmal -
he owned the meantime.
Mother Geneva - the negotiator
and maker of warm milk.
And Emperor Kush - the
easy-going convert with poor toilet aim.
He was appointed for accepting the
experimental arts but was instantaneously
impeached for revealing the identity of
Banksy.
Studies have shown that
the mystery of Banksy's celebrity allowed for
imagination; the thought that he could be anyone,
maybe Alexander the Great controlling
the Persian facades, philosophically pantsing
what was forced upon him. Yes,
it was a miserable day and of course
the clouds hung like limp dough
but legislators everywhere were celebrating
with a BBQ.
There was a roasted pig
dressed in pineapple and glowing pink skin,
its eyes deposed in sharpie. Democrat Karmal
wore Jesus sandals and spoke
in broken diplomatic cliches like,
"There was a lapse in judgement,
but it went down smooth." and,
"People will vote with their hearts
thus I should leave soon."
The backyard became untidy -
the wood of the porch curled, clotheslines
snapped and one drunk was ordered not to wear
the dealings of his marriage on his face.
When their mothers found out
they called just to hang up.
TIGERS LAWNING
1/2 pacified tigers
sublet apt a
& i watch them pack the window into a box,
roll up their human carpets
& move
to the apt with a veranda.
ooo.
it was there,
w/ a bundle of grocery
roses in his paws
that the male tiger atoned
for his drunken gardening
by allowing for the lawn.
the wife said,
"regarding your lowtops,
the earth is probably dreading yr footprints."
she said, "god wears socks.
he has a satin robe
and bathes in blond daylight."
he re:, "everything
is dew ascending with the morning."
and he tramped the sprouts.
Peter Richter received his BA from Rider University in 09. His poetry has since been featured in kill author, decomP, THE2NDHAND, Indiefeed Performance Poetry & other great publications. He is currently the poetry editor for the fledging Inky Squib magazine and will be releasing an ebook through Pangur Ban Party in late 2010.
WILLIAM HENDERSON
SOMEWHERE STILL THE SAME
In the beginning, even before the heavens and the earth, the flash came to be. I imagine it lurking out there, in here, wherever it was before it did what it was born to do, and I imagine it with a moustache, because most villains have moustaches.
I miss music, new music. Nothing new is being recorded or released. A lover made me a mixed CD once to celebrate our first Valentine’s Day. He and I had exchanged roses, and no one had given me roses in a long time, and before I went home that night, he gave me this mixed CD, and when I miss music most, I remember this mixed CD, and I may not remember each song on the CD, but I make up the playlist. I think I get at least one or two songs right.
If there’s a thing as too much joy, I would be taken away.
A lyric. I’m sure of it. A lyric from a song three or four songs in. He and I hadn’t said I love you, but I knew the I love you was coming, on the tips of our tongues most nights, and I had not yet memorized his body, the scars on his wrists, where, one night, he had cut himself, just because. And just because he used the words just because, I stopped seeing the scars as anything but the before in his life leading to his after with me.
I look for him, for adults I knew as a child, and I look for faces and voices I once knew, sometimes intimately, and each time I seek familiari
ty, I am reminded that nothing after can be familiar because we have nothing to compare after to.
We are restricted to the places we can reach on foot. Some set out to walk the world. An old woman – probably 70, if 70 can be called old in our after – led the walk. She wanted to see Australia before she died. She was living in a place called Illinois before. After, she was in Topeka. A tornado, she said. A farmhouse. A woman on a bicycle pedaling furiously outside the window in the tornado. She had a dog, this woman inside the farmhouse, but this dog had been afraid and died, after.
This woman in the tornado who landed in Topeka, we’ve created stories about her. We call her Harriet, even though Harriet is not her name. We named her Harriet as in Ozzie and, because she was in a farmhouse in a tornado and landed elsewhere.
*
I’m looking for a spark. Any chance collision, and I light up – no, I do not light up, it lit us, neither up nor down, maybe sideways or upside down, something other than who we were before. I liked the before. I ran each morning, and I wanted to like yoga but I did not, and I was apathetic about religion – think how quickly that changed for many of us – and I went to work where I worked and hated the work I worked, and I kissed my spouse hello and I kissed my spouse goodnight and sometimes my spouse and I did more than kiss goodnight.
Come in, I tell them, and in they come, because there is little to do but come in to hear today’s incoming outgoing postcard from before.