It’s not worth knowing what’s inside the wall. It’s just a vaguely human shape painted on the wall of one of the bedrooms, that knocks at specific intervals. But the thing’s brick and I’m not made of money, especially not after buying a home.… Continue Reading
Nicolas digs to the root of most rotten things fast and ruthless. Pit bulls are an affectionate breed. None of my pits attacked anybody before. Yesterday was a calamitous accident.… Continue Reading
i always remember the dead as gray, & always startled when they look alive.… Continue Reading
When I roll in to drive, Dad Bluetooth’s AC/DC or Metallica—some 90s stuff— on the soundsystem, crazy loud. We have to shout over it while he tells me how to switch gears; I pretend like I don’t know how while he pretends not to notice me pretending. … Continue Reading
She took another long stressful sip from her drink and clanked the glass on the table. It could be seconds before her wrath exploded according to her husband’s prediction. But she didn’t stay. Instead, she fled to the attic and to the only world that made sense to her.… Continue Reading
He wakes up with dread in his belly. He can’t afford to get the tap fixed and he sure can’t afford to replace a broken door. He should call the cops, but doesn’t. He should put some shorts on, but doesn’t. Instead he pads to the kitchen and pulls the door open. “Do you know what time it is?”… Continue Reading
It seemed to me that there was an imprint of a lost me on the inside of a certain, special mask. A me that wasn’t lost and afraid. Could I find the right mask? Maybe it didn’t exist, and maybe there was no me to find at all.… Continue Reading
The trauma of war can ripple across generations and bleed through borders. You can arrive in the United States or come back home to the United States, but you’ve left a piece of your sanity behind.… Continue Reading
Baumeister seems to recognize the inherent fascism in the hero worship of the Marvel version of Norse mythology, and thus he consciously inverts everything, making Loki the postmodern hero whose trickster punk identity becomes an antidote to authoritarianism, while Thor is reimagined as a buffoonish fascistic bro, “perpetually shitfaced on cheap lager, crushing aluminum cans against his head, biting holes in them with his teeth.”… Continue Reading
You have to love the Germans, their national sense of humor at least. One part British stodge, one part French aloofery, they’re unmoved by the banal jokes Americans love. But give them a hulking sexecutioner in black polythene and a Hello Kitty mask, and they’ll yuck it the fuck up.… Continue Reading