Monthly Archives: January 2016

Jan 26 2016
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Fiction

To Be Afraid

By John Michael

 

Every Wednesday I watch a game show called To Be Afraid. Contestants admit their deepest fear while hypnotized and they wake up the next day confronted with that fear for 24 hours. If they guess it by sunrise, they get to spin the prize wheel.

My favorite episode is with this middle-aged guy named Dennis. Dennis wakes up and his wife is vacuous and frumpy. Before saying good morning, his Ivy-educated children ask for money. At work, the guy Dennis trained five years ago is now his boss. He informs the whole office that the C-suite drained the pensions and ran to the Caymans.

Dennis goes home to decompress. He flips through a thousand channels but everything is asinine. On the news, they report that the leaders of all faiths have called a press conference to admit that God is a scam. The President interrupts to announce that the evil cabal puppeteering all governments has become powerful enough to rule openly. Under talking heads debating if this will affect the price of gas reads the caption: “NEW TYRANNY ONTOLOGICALLY SIGNIFICANT? Sixth Extinction Already Under Way, Majority of Biologists Agree Too Late to Stop.”

Dennis drives to a bridge and steps over the railing. He stares at the water and feels the velocity of his tears dragging him down with them. “There’s no point!” he screams into the void and lets go of the railing. Several spotlights punch on and the key grip grabs Dennis by the collar. Dennis guessed correctly.

Back at the studio, Dennis spins the wheel with little more than gravity. He wins a rider mower worth an economy sedan. The skin on his cheeks is transparent and he doesn’t appear to be looking at anything when he says, “We live in a condo.”

 

– John Michael doesn’t have a Boston accent. His work is published or forthcoming in Really Short Stories, The Finger, and NANO Fiction, among others. He is currently working on a novella. Read more at www.johnmichaeltxt.com.

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Jan 19 2016
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Fiction

None of This is Your Fault

By Rebecca Fishow

 

Last Sunday, I nearly ran over your dog. I couldn’t have done it without you. Why wasn’t he secured in the yard? Why wasn’t he tethered by some kind of leash, to some kind of tree?

I admit I had been looking down at the time, rummaging for something below the passenger seat, for a map, a lost love letter, my own severed hand. It seems I am always looking down. On the good days, I am rummaging too.

Last Sunday was not a good day, despite the rummaging. I do not know if life is precious. I do not know who gets to choose what lives and what dies.

Your dog lived, another dog died. Later that day I came out of my apartment, and because I had been looking down, I saw it lying on the empty patio of a French restaurant. He was still, save for the slightest tide of his fleeting breath. His eyes were open. They had become two landing strips for flies. Underneath his tail, a small brown splotch. A wet spot on the concrete around his body widened. I called my lover, who rushed home to help. But he could not help the dog, and he could not help me. I could not help him. Funny, how we felt like help was what we needed.

I am not doing a lot of living these days. Living requires a name. I’ve misplaced mine somewhere. I’m still searching though, beneath the passenger seat, where I could not find my severed hand. None of this is your fault. Nonetheless, I implore you, please be more careful.

 

– Rebecca Fishow is a writer and artist living in Montreal. Her fiction and illustrations have appeared or are forthcoming in Joyland, Necessary Fiction,The Believer Logger, Mud Season Review and other publications. She is a contributing editor at Cosmonauts Avenue and holds an MFA from Syracuse University, where she received the Joyce Carol Oates Award in Nonfiction and the Cornelia Carhart Ward Fellowship.

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