If nothing else, you must respect the classical hustle; the Roman legionaries signed twenty-five-year contracts, sacrificed their youth and delayed marriage to be muscle. After being discharged they received a parcel of land, found wives, and retired. This is how men (and, fuck it!, some women) should be: youth isn’t a dalliance—it’s meant for raw, myopic exertion.… more
Writer: Andy Bodinger
Nemluvím Cesky
FICTION by Andy BodingerWhen they were dating, Tomáš chatted endlessly about all the Americans and Brits and Aussies he had befriended online over the family computer in his adolescence. He talked about how many of them disappeared completely, leaving behind only the legacy of their grammars and vocabularies; the composite parts he fashioned into fluency. Tomáš was an amalgamation of all things. And she forgave his forgetfulness because his memory worked like his control of Czech, English, Russian, so languid and free, until it would suddenly freeze, where a clever synthesis perched on the tip of his tongue. In these moments there was an intellectual bent to his stoppage, watching his brain scour the vast traffic of networks for one more piece of something to share with her. And when he found it, it came out as a hiccup-sized yawp.… more
