I.C.U.

by Tim Burke

Sometimes Keith would wander into the visitors’ waiting room, just so he could see time passing. The window faced south and the room was filled with autumn dusk the color of dried egg yolk.

The monitors beeped and the machine fixed to his father’s throat rasped. The one tube that ran to a plastic jug of amber urine, its tube disappearing under the sheets. Keith imagined the tube sliding up his penis, the pain of the urethra being forced open.

His father did not want to end up an old man tied down in a bed. When he threw a bowling ball down a lane and had to spend five minutes catching his breath, he glared if you even looked at him struggling.

Association

by Eddie Borey

Below the makeshift tourniquet, his arm was purple and rotten, especially around the bite. He untied the belt—-no point anymore in pretending that it could help him. He could see his purple forearm throb at the new rush of blood. The liquid pressure flowing into his arm was enough to break the scabs on the bitemark. Through the ruptured scab-dam, three colors of filth (black, red, egg custard) dripped a Jackson Pollock on the white tile floor. When he felt neither relief nor pain at this, he knew that he was dying.

As if the maggot hadn’t been clue enough.

The Song Of Prague

by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

It was the most beautiful song he had ever heard. Haunting, melancholy, but with a magical quality — a soul — infused into each note. The song drew Len to the park, from the very moment he stepped from Vltavska station.

Tippler’s Bane

by Evelyn Wang

Creatures of dusk, creatures of dank and dark and dregs of mealy meaty toxins, we sit here in the dust and the damp, in the many shadowy shadows that lurk like pockets. Creeping, slithering, longer and lengthier the shadows grow, into our kingdom of shit and mildew. Nighttime, yes, and we stumble, tumble, unmoving, into the moonlight. Moon, moon. Renders us ghostly little babies, and that we are, nothing but stupid putrid babies, only living, always dying unmentionable deaths, drowning constantly in our own little babies.

We grow, we grow, crop up, pop down, we, we, creatures of grandmamma-secrets and impish delights. A carpet of heads, unfurling to tasty death and hasty birth. Food between our toes and drink from the cracked pipes, bloody rusty nourishment and filthy sustenance, our constant diet, our home.

Tippler’s Bane

by Evelyn Wang

Creatures of dusk, creatures of dank and dark and dregs of mealy meaty toxins, we sit here in the dust and the damp, in the many shadowy shadows that lurk like pockets. Creeping, slithering, longer and lengthier the shadows grow, into our kingdom of shit and mildew. Nighttime, yes, and we stumble, tumble, unmoving, into the moonlight. Moon, moon. Renders us ghostly little babies, and that we are, nothing but stupid putrid babies, only living, always dying unmentionable deaths, drowning constantly in our own little babies.

We grow, we grow, crop up, pop down, we, we, creatures of grandmamma-secrets and impish delights. A carpet of heads, unfurling to tasty death and hasty birth. Food between our toes and drink from the cracked pipes, bloody rusty nourishment and filthy sustenance, our constant diet, our home.

Girls Gone Insane

by John Jasper Owens

It came in the mail, a little package like Netflix uses, but white cardboard. Grass stain on the back along with a deep scratch, the address handwritten and smudged, like it had been handed off in the rain. No return address, postmarked Maine.

A DVD. No note, no explanation. A hand-written label read “Girls Gone Insane 16” in blocky felt-tip writing.

On Being Mandy

by Sandra M. Odell

Mandy Adams noticed her face peeling off while coloring her hair Monday evening. She leaned over the sink for a closer look at the small flap of skin on the upper right corner of her forehead. She slipped off one of the plastic gloves and gingerly touched it with the tip of a finger; it was thicker than she expected, almost rubbery. Surprisingly, touching it didn’t hurt; in fact, there was no sensation at all.

Mandy carefully took hold of the errant skin between her thumb and index finger and gave a slight tug. It pulled away enough to reveal a hard off-white surface below the edge of her hairline, smooth and cool to the touch like plastic. No blood, no viscera; the revealed underside was the fresh pink of new skin. “What the hell. . .?”