Sucker
Susan Scutti
I was walking along the south side of Houston, heading home from a friend’s house. I’d stopped by to pick up my copy of The Big Sleep, one of many loaned-and-borrowed books between us. I was living on Prince Street then...
The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see ...
The Veldt
Ray Bradbury
"George, I wish you'd look at the nursery.""What's wrong with it?""I don't know.""Well, then.""I just want you to look at it, is all, or call a psychologist in to
look at it.""What would a psychologist want with a nurser...
The Nose
Nikolai Gogol
Part I
On 25 March an unusually strange event occurred in St. Petersburg. For that morning Barber Ivan Yakovlevitch, a dweller on the Voznesensky Prospekt (his family name is lost now—it no longer figures on a signbo...
The Soul of the Doll
Robert C. Hardin
Being the Recollections of a Late Inmate (1931–1946) of the Dalmarnock Asylum for Children in Glasgow, Scotland
The eyes were what changed and flayed me above all else—the eyes or, rather, the doll’s eye...
Sick Lazy Fuck
Mark McCawley
“If you look a dog in the eye too intently, it may recite an astounding poem to you. You might have been mad for a long time and have realized it only at that moment.”
—Jean Genet, Funeral Rites
Si...
Guy Walks into a Bar circa 1997, Hollywood
Karen Lillis
So this guy walks into the bar last Thursday, and he sorta “lets it slip” that he’s Lawnchair Larry. This older guy, you know? He says it to me right before I’m gonna tell him what he owes me for a light draft. I...
The Battle of Skinner Butte
Ray Jicha
Moving north from San Francisco I slept on the beach near Arcata then made my way to Eugene where I got dropped off around 10:00 p.m. I found a little downtown bar, ordered a draft to pay for the stool and washed down t...
How to Stop Smoking in Nineteen-thousand-two-hundred-and-eighty-seven Seconds, Usama
Chavisa Woods
I asked no questions about anything. i just wanted to smoke cigarettes. Lots and lots of cigarettes.
I come back once a year to visit. I only stay a few days. I try not to ask too many questions. There’s noth...
If You Play and If You Die
Jim Feast
Artemis Brewster owned a large retail store in New Jersey, the Bargain Toy Mart (Toys for Less!) And he loved science fiction as much as what he sold. But his was not the doting, immature love of the geeky fanboy, it was...
If You’re So Special, Why Aren’t You Dead?
Jim Greer
Alphonse samson stood before the mirror in his bathroom for a long time before deciding to. The mirror had no frame but its edges were beveled and the soft light from the neighbor’s bright room shining through a small squa...
Pardon My French
Thaddeus Rutkowski
When i arrived in paris by train, I tried to place a call to a friend, someone I knew from my home city. Surprisingly, there was a phone service with a human attendant in the train station. I gave the phone woman the numb...
Medium
Jennifer Adams
The notice was small, a half-sheet of paper tucked, unauthorized, into the frame of the subway map.
“Mrs. Taylor and she says DON’T GIVE UP.”
Elizabeth leaned closer, oblivious to the discomfort she was ...
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius – Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
I
I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia. The mirror troubled the depths of a corridor in a country house on Gaona Street in Ramos Mejia; the encyclopedia is fallaciously called Th...
Mt. Eden 1978-82
Drew Hubner
It started in a pool hall. Juan Colon had a girl friend, and so did the cop, Jimmy O’Donnelly. The problem was it was the same girl. Usually a policeman is issued whatever number comes up, but special requests can be made....
