The (Non)Fickshun 500
or, Short Stuff for Lazy People

THEY'LL ONLY LET YOU DOWN
by Darran Anderson

My father told me once bout the time Superman went bad.

Said he could remember it like yesterday.

Burnt all the women’s clothes off with his x ray eyes.

Laughed as he flicked busloads of old folks off flyovers.

Spelt out obscene messages with the cities’ Christmas lights.

Pissed down on the streets from the Chrysler building.

Pops said he didn’t believe in nothing after that.

ARM READING
by Regina Bauch

I once met a man on the train who was blind. He was an inspiration. He made me feel bold and I asked him to interpret the bumps that spotted my upper arm. He gave me a look and I pretended not to see it. I am you for this second, I thought, looks don’t affect me. I rolled up my sleeve.

            Could you help me out and read my arm?

            I don’t do that, he said blankly.

            I don’t either.

            I don’t think you’ll find anyone who can. He turned to the window. Brush and trees smeared with motion outside.

            But don’t you read Braille?

            Yes, but not arm Braille.

            Leg?

            What? He twitched his shoulders together.

            Not now. Listen, I don’t normally do this.

            What?

            Ask blind people to read my arm.

            So why start?

            You’re an inspiration. Don’t you want to continue to inspire?

            How many blind people do you meet and harass? He kept to the window.

            I thought about my answer because I passed a blind man on the street a couple months ago, but he looked busy crossing the street and his busyness made me busy thinking about the types of canes I’d like to grip if I were blind or had to wear an eye patch or just old. I didn’t even think about my arm at the time.

            Just you, I answered. I didn’t want to make things complicated. Am I harassing? I asked.

            No, just annoying. He didn’t turn from the window.

            Can you feel past this and just read my arm?

            I’m not a circus performer.

            I don’t insult, I just wonder.

            I’m not a palm reader or psychic either.

            I know that. This is my arm. No wrinkles. Just undiscovered words. My body is telling me something and only you can decode it.

            This is getting kinky.

            But don’t you see that it’s true?

            I guess . . . but—no! No. I’m not going to touch your imperfections.

            Heah now. You insult. Don’t you even wonder about what my arm is telling us?

            It probably wants to tear itself away from you.

            And be read by you because you are the only one who can understand it.

            It’s just flaking skin, he said.

            And bumps and tiny hairs and colors even.

            He shifted in his seat. No, he said almost to himself, squinting to the glass.

            Some are red like chapped lips, I said twisting my arm into my chest for a closer look. Then the pink spots, I kept talking, these make me think of those soft mints you get at restaurants. You know, the ones that dissolve so easy. They smell so good in the bowl together. Some are tan. Chocolate I think would be the normal association but I prefer something less romanticized, like potatoes. Then—ooo that’s a weird freckle, like a Beatle’s do . . . I trailed off, poking at my bicep.

            He was silent while I sat picking the bumps off my arm, flicking skin to the floor.

            Don’t do that, he said looking down to his hands folded on his cane.

            What?

            Pick the words off your body.

DREAM NARRATIVE
by Miki Howald

The dream narrative is interesting only to the dreamer, he told her, the story arcs of the subconscious compel no reader or listener besides the self. So she will never tell him how last night she drove down the Seward Highway in all its pulchritude, where along the side of the road the skeletal pines, simultaneously killed and preserved by salt water, rose out of marshes to lord over the road. Somewhere in those five miles between Turnagain Pass and the road to Hope, on that long, slow-grade down a mountain, she lost control. There are things she knows about stopping a car: shift into neutral, pump the brakes, if it fishtails, turn into the spin, all of it futile. She opened the door and flung her body into the road, rolled through the dirt until she stopped. Because this is a dream narrative—so self-referential and uninteresting—she will never tell him that he was there, too, waiting in a car parked beside the road. He lifted her from the ground and held her, told her she didn’t look that hurt. She let him kiss her neck and her clavicle. His lips left bruises, but this has nothing to do with him, so she will never tell him that. She shivered under his touch and his gaze, and he offered to kiss her entire body, if only so everyone could see where she hurt.

WATER CLOSET
by Deborah Diemont

The restaurant in the converted mansion does not have a bathroom but a Water Closet. On the door, WC, like the initials of an English lord. He's tall and chilly, one leg slightly longer than the other.  He's like a coffin into which the bog leaks. But then again, what grace and flourish! WC, wild and curvaceous, like a ten-acre garden with snaking paths and fountains. Like the blackberries that stain lips and fingers, the thin summer dresses you once wore, scoop-necked to show off your collarbones and breasts. 

Turn the handle and step into the cold, tiled space. Fasten the heavy iron clasp. Aren't these also called privies? No. Privies are moldy outhouses; they were for poor peoples’ relief. The lonely throne has a varnished wooden seat. You can still see the birthmarks of the tree it once was.  A long bronze chain reaches up to a very high ceiling. What if the lock won't open again?

Hitch up your skirt and sit. The drain in the floor looks ashamed. If only it had been born an eyelid to close. The walls are a white forest closing in. Concentrate instead on the sepia portrait of a family. The looks baby translucent in her baptismal gown but her brother and parents frown. Why smile if no one makes you?

Now, consider the daunting chain. Reach out your sweatered arm and pull.  The vortex could suck you down, down, away. Back to your first house at the bottom. The bear in the crib, one glass eye missing. The tiny shoes yellowing like teeth. Flee into the mirrored ladies' lounge. Breath in the restorative lavender.