BREAK UP CARDS
by Melissa Bull, Caela Moffet, Dan Svatek

THINGS ARE BORN
by Michael Chadwick

Things are born. That is to say that when something is necessary, something will be created. It occurs, everywhere. In nature. In thought. Everywhere. For example, yesterday, at the Firebird Motel, my friend Emmezeka cut his thumb off. It was a pretty reasonable circumstance.

I was standing in the aisle. The aisle between two beds. There’s a certain symmetry to a hotel room with two beds. I was standing in that aisle, with my back facing the wall and I was watching the television…well, actually, even though the television was on…it was Charlie’s Angels, the TV show…even though it was on, I was staring at my reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite me. I was looking at every detail, at every unique imperfection. Looking to understand exactly where everything is located, when in the corner of my eye, I saw Emmezeka’s arm jerking.

I turned my attention to him. He was using the tenon saw. He was putting a lot of force behind his motions. I said, to no one in particular, more thinking out loud than anything else. I said, “You sacrifice precision with speed.” I turned my body away from the mirror, and towards Emmezeka. Just as I turned, I saw the blade positioned right above his thumb.

Have you ever been in a moment that was occurring and you were aware of everything in the moment at that precise moment? I could see that Emmezeka was going to cut his thumb. And I was aware, in complete understanding, that if I didn’t express that concern immediately it’d be too late.

A man once told me…well, he didn’t tell me. I overheard him saying it to someone else. I heard a man once say to someone else that, “you could only notice the play of the world, for a moment, before it rolls on.” I didn’t want that moment to pass me by. So I waited until I couldn’t hold that moment any longer. By that point, the blade was cutting into Emmezeka’s thumb.

“Mez,” I said. I call him Mez. I’m the only person who calls him that. I said, “Mez,” and he looked up. I said, “Mez, you’re cutting your thumb off,’ because as he looked up, he continued to cut. I said, “Mez, you’re cutting your thumb.” And when I said this, I pointed my finger down at his hand.

And at the moment I started to point, a beautiful red ribbon of blood shot out of his thumb. As it moved toward me, I saw this unbroken chain, this crimson rope, connected to Mez. It was beautiful. It shot straight up with a burst of momentum. It went as far and as high as it could before physics intervened. It leveled, for an instant, and then began its downward arch.

The blood hit my left collar, on the top part where my neck starts to show. I always have my collars starched. I get them cleaned at this Korean place. Very good price.

Then, in an instant, he recognized what was occurring and looked down.

But the thing was he didn’t lift the knife first. He lifted his hand. The hand with the cut thumb. He was already pretty close to removing it. Jerking his hand did the trick, so to speak.

I said, “Stick it in the cooler.” We had two coolers in the room. Big Igloo coolers. You know those coolers that construction people carry their lunches in? The Igloo cooler? We had two of them, but they were big, big versions of those. Like the size of small televisions. We had a red one and a blue one. So I told him, “Put it in the cooler.” And he turned around, and right behind him was the dresser. And on the dresser was one of the coolers. The blue one.

He was calm. He didn’t yell, or scream, or look panicked.

He said, “It’s a new day, Lou.” He calls me Lou. I don’t know why. There are no L’s, or O’s, or U’s in my name. My name doesn’t even have the sound ’lu.” I asked him once, “Why do you call me Lou?” And he said, “Because you look like a Lou to me.” What an interesting man.

So he said to me, “It’s a new day, Lou.” I said, “What are you talking about? It’s a new day? We have to hurry to the hospital, to get your thumb back on.” And he said, “There is no need to hurry, my friend. It’s a new day.”

He said, “Today, is day one… of Emmezeka minus one thumb.” And the moment he said this, he had this grin. The kind of grin that makes you think the right side of his face didn’t tell the left side it was supposed to be smiling. The timing couldn’t have been more…perfect. I started laughing with an energy and a vigor that I hadn’t experienced in ages.

I told him, “You have…no idea.” But I don’t think he heard me because I was laughing so hard. I am sure that it came out like a jumble of sounds. But those sounds must have been pleasing, or the site of my laughter made him happy, because he started laughing with me.

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A lifelong wrestling fan, Con-U certified Michael Chadwick has interned with Vice and En Route and now makes a killing with the mad men -- he's the one in the bow-tie.

ROOMIE

by David Bradford

When I bob my head to the music it is to keep on titanically avoiding defeat. I bob my head with a shrink's wit—not one who wishes to make the other, the kook, feel they are understood and compassionately in good hands, but to communicate an apparent flawless, albeit dishonest, unflappability. No one is indifferent to Michael Jackson, for better or worst, and coming back home to the vibrating sonic skunk of 1987’s Bad pounding through the foot thick walls and into the garden is an example of what it takes to make me pray the gay student (fashion administration), the 20 year old econ major will accept me into their home and its grey, seriously custodial aesthetic. But still, for now, I am here, I am smiling, and I am limply, though aptly, bobbing my head to Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” in an apartment with acoustics similar to a 1986 club, specifically when said club failing and overly loud and empty and everyone inside—say me and the roomie wreck wretch bitch—are pretending not to mind the dismal time. She says she shall go out very soon. I type on, and affect unaffectedness. In 20 maybe. I am a rock, reliably inanimate, mostly. I drink water out of a Flensburger bottle and crack my knuckles. I visualize grinding my teeth like a yogi cage fighter. I want to die, though that is merely an expression, I guess. I want to kick the chair from under her and MJ, which is a euphemism, I guess.

Here is an example of the lack of self-awareness and lack of selflessness roomie-darling demonstrates: she is a self-proclaimed light-smoker who smokes, feet away from my bed (daybed), at least one 17 cigarette pack worth of hand-rolled Kingsgaard death-sticks everyday. I am a non-smoker. She rolls, smokes, waits maybe ten minutes and rolls again. She then smokes again. And waits ten till her next roll. Maybe. Maybe less. And so forth. Till 3 am. Maybe. If she is tired. Or later. She claims her recent intake of the carcinogens is related to the stresses of being out of school and, intentionally, out of work—two things she, irony of ironies, quit because of feelings of overwhelming stress. Self-awareness. She’s also quite loud when she cooks, and eats for two, though she is quite plainly only one. She is lovesick for a child to love her. To love her she says. Not to love. She’d be horrible for a child.

Here is an example of her capacity for ‘love’ of loved ones: we are at the one bar worth drinking at down the street. I have, previously, insisted I really want to stay in and work on stuff, but she insists, over the phone, that we meet, in 20, at most, for a quick drink or two. An hour later she shows up and we drink a drink—mine already almost gone—and finally my second. A friend phones her in tears. A close friend she describes as, lovely, beautiful, close, sweet, selfless. The line cuts out. Bad reception in the bar. And she just keeps on drinking with a sigh, rolling a cigarette, lighting up in the non-smoking section. I ask her what’s up. Her friend, the lovely one, is in tears she says. I ask if she’ll, like, call her back. Bah, she says, don’t feel like it, later. I tell her I’m going after I get this last Flens down. The phone rings again. Again, the close friend. Again, in tears. The connection cuts out again. Again she sighs, rolls, lights up. Shall we have another she says. No I says. Call your friend back I says. Oh No she says, when we’re done she says, I buy you another you shall buy me breakfast. No. Come on. No, we’re done. Call your friend. She doesn’t.

Here is an example of her pathologically lying neediness: she offers her place to me for a month, has me move in and crash on her daybed. She sets me up nicely, tells me she’s leaving in three days. She has me pretend I’m her cousin for most of her friends, for reasons she refuses to cite. She tells me she’s leaving in five days. She has me come home to visit her home neighbourhood, tells me come home at 2, my appointment is at 13, we’ll leave at 14 she says. When I get there she changes it to 16, then 18, the 20. I waste a day. She tells me she’s leaving in six days. Tells me she’s booked the ticket. Tells me she asked her sister to book the ticket. Tells me she does not believe a person can be happy living alone. Tells me she hates living alone. Tells me she’s leaving in four days. Told me this two weeks ago. I ask her when she’s leaving. She doesn’t answer.

Here is an example of her stupidity: she tells this same close lovely friend that I am very much comfortable around her, very much myself. She believes my agreement when she asks whether I shall miss when she’s away in Denmark.

Here’s an example of her troubling depression: she sleeps 14 hours a day. She denies unhappiness.

Here’s a second example of her stupidity: she buys spinach in the frozen box format.

Here’s a lasting example of her stupidity: she read, if she reads anything, stuff like Rumi poems.

Here’s an example of her peculiar and paradoxical form of boring: she goes out every night and tries to drag me along every time. She stays out late. She drinks. But it takes her half an hour to drink a glass of wine and she feels that 9h30, which is the time her friends normally want to meet, is unnecessarily and problematically late.

Here’s an example of her single-mindedness’ many dimensions: she uses “shall” instead of “could”, she uses “shall” instead of “would”, she uses “shall” instead of “may”, she uses “shall” instead of “will”. She never uses “please”. She never uses “thank you”.

Here’s a conflicting example of her troubling depression: she thinks happy people shall inspire her to be happy. They shall be quite inspiring she says.

Here’s an example of how unreliable she is: the clock on the stove, her alarm clock, the kitchen’s wall-mounted tea kettle clock, her watch and her cell phone all indicate different times, none of which are right.

Here’s an example of how she has changed over the years: pictures of her former 24 year old self are undeniably of a beautiful girl and now she is undeniably chubby and more or less ignorable in the looks department. This is a conceit.

Here’s an example of how she makes me uncomfortable: she makes this sound I’ve never heard elsewhere like a live animal’s jaw is breaking and blowing a cavitation bubble at the same time. All this occurs within her mouth. She makes it all the time. I ask her to stop. She winces depressively, as in a reverie, looking away. She does not answer.

Here is an example of her confused simple-mindedness: another Michael Jackson album comes on.

Here’s an example of something she does which seems so puzzling and insulting one cannot even get mad due to the confusingly shocking consistency of the said something: four out of five questions you ask her are simply ignored.

Here’s an example of her stubborn incapacity to change: the music is skipping because it is a CD-ROM.

Another example of her stupidity, though perhaps more specifically her stubbornness, or even more specifically her simple-mindedness through the limited spectrum of her lack of selflessness: she just turns down the sound instead of skipping to the next song.

I skip forward. Her jaw cracks. She rolls another.

After about three hours I says when is she going.

As “Heal the World” crescendos and shrivels my ears and kicks me in the face I nod my head again. When, I says. Shall you make it louder, she says. I cough a bit on some second-hand Kingsgaard. I make it louder.

When I shall she says.

Shall you make it louder she says.

I bob my head.

You’re strange she says.

Yes I says.

*

David is back from Berlin now. Visit his blogspot: etadna.blogspot.com. When god closes a door he opens a window -- for a view of David's puppy love, try jescoporn.blogspot.com.

LITTLE CURSES
by Sasha Manoli

Sharing toothbrushes is unhygienic
cats are non-refundable
possessions are liquid
forever in just three syllables
x-large condoms only count if you use
them and private parts are marked with invisible expiry dates
people curse.

Music is sad as
apple pie and casserole
for serial monogamy hobbiests
monogamous like masturbation
alcoholic socialization
no one’s drunk enough strumpets
are instruments
strumpets are instruments
people curse.

Look at this city it’s populated
with warning labels for dyslexics
people curse.




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Sasha Manoli's one half of the WithWords whole (www.withwordspress.com) and the third of two cats. She spreads hand-me-down cheer on the backs of grainy quasi-porny photos: Happy Holiday! May it be filled with hairy men and floral bed sheets. xoxoxo

SPACE! DAD!