Tag: writing (Page 25 of 37)

“The Worst Hangover,” flash fiction by Adam Kluger

March 22, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

The Worst Hangover

by Adam Kluger

He was pretty hung over.

So bad that he was burping into a glass of water. He hadn’t noticed the waitress right away. She must have been new. It was wintertime. The morning after the Smart-TV Christmas Party.

Booger had secured the location for the station and he put together a very bad Christmas reel. The bureau chief cornered Booger at one point and asked what happened with the reel… why was it so lame? Booger was mortified and the only thing to do at that point was drink heavily. He ordered a shot of whiskey with a beer chaser and kept hitting the same number until the embarrassment gave way to stupor. He got home, smoked a bone, whacked off and went to sleep. When he woke up in the morning his mouth was full of cotton and his stomach was doing somersaults. He threw on a coat and went across the street to “My Most Terrific Dessert Company.” It was expensive but he could sit there order a soda and a croissant and feel a little better. The waitress moved across the floor like a ballerina. She was friendly too.

Very friendly, Booger thought. Continue reading

Poetry by Jack D. Harvey

March 18, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

Daughters of Anomaly

(for Traci Lords)

All the cock-sucking,
all the cunt-lapping,
all the butt-fucking
in the world
can’t forge a bond
that lasts beyond
the bounds of flesh and boredom;
time, a river with
Charon waiting
patient as Job,
shuttling busy
as a bee
from bank to bank

carries us all.

Continue reading

Poetry by D.C. Wiltshire

March 4, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

old hundredth

a sparrow flit through

the Great White Sanctuary

with august men in suit jackets

and thinning hair

and their wives appropriately uncomfortable

in mauve Manolos and hose. she made laps back and forth,

l an Olympic swimmer

swimming a breaststroke

of pure panic—

“why am I here?” (echoing the thoughts

of us below), and

“how do I get out?” (ditto) thirty feet above,

pacing the giant ovals of glass

cruelly streaming light

on a bright Sunday morning. she alit

on an organ pipe, only briefly

before the explosion of sound

saw her shit

on the organist’s cotta

(a true martyr—he played on)

Poetry by Holly Day

March 1, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

All the Days After

days pass into weeks

and now even the flowers

are dead, curled brown in their vase like squirrel paws

little hands. I call

my husband

tell him to take

“Nest,” by Meghan Ferrari

February 26, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

Scabbed knees scurry down a path saturated with yellow leaves.“Hurry up!” Sam shouts at her younger sister, exasperated by her slowness.She navigates the strewn branches swiftly, jumping over their jagged edges like a well-worn hopscotch. At the foot of the path she pauses, leaning her body, newly lanky, against the large rock shaped like a jelly bean. The grey bean, swathed in green moss, once served as the perfect table-top for tea parties, and Barbie’s BBQs, but now seats Sam and her friends as they practice their fishtail braids, crossing and re-crossing freshly highlighted hair, and discuss the day’s drama, most recently Becca’s foray with Ben H. behind portable #5.Sam waits until she can see the fraying bows on her sister’s pale pink sneakers, then continues deeper into the woods. As she runs, she stretches her flannelled arms out, and with pointed index fingers, grazes the passing pines, as though leaving a line to retrace.

Poetry by Susan Whitmore

February 15, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

At the Bottom of the Evening

How easy it was, at sixteen,

For the earth to tilt on its axis –

A slanted glance, a mean word

Overheard, an arm withheld.

Then the bottom of the evening

Would fall out, and if I could have,

I would have sold my mother’s love

For sex, drink, and sham affection

“I Will Pay You to Fire Me: My Life as a Custodian” By Katelyn Franco

February 9, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

I Will Pay You to Fire Me: My Life as a Custodian

By Katelyn Franco

“How does one become a janitor?” A question posed by John Bender in John Hughes’ classic 1985 movie, The Breakfast Club, is one that I happen to have the answer to. To become a custodian in the Raymond School System, I first had to send in my application. Then I waited five weeks for a response. Once I finally got a response, I went in for an interview in which all of the questions were seemingly completely unrelated to the tasks I would perform as a custodian, such as “Describe a time when you made a mistake and how you fixed the mistake,” and “If you caught someone stealing from your place of employment, would you report them?” We are custodians, what is there worth stealing? Your options range from cleaning products and rags to machines so large you could not possibly sneak them out of the building undetected. No theft was going on there. It is worth noting that Todd, the head of maintenance, was just as bad at interviewing as I was at being interviewed. I told my mom this later and she said it was because we are both “socially awkward as hell.” (Thanks, Mom.)

Todd hired me on the spot, probably because my mom is a full time custodian in the district, but a little nepotism never hurt anybody. He then told me that as a substitute custodian, I would make eight dollars and fifty cents an hour and work twenty-nine hours a week. He told me that there was a mandatory meeting at the high school the Friday before the first Monday of summer work and sent me on my way. “What a wonderful world,” I thought. “I am now employed.” The wonderful feeling did not last long.

Three Poems by Adam Middleton-Watts

January 29, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

“Maddened by Detail”, “Blue is the Night”, and “The Coffee’s Getting Cold”

By Adam Middleton-Watts

Maddened by Detail

there is a solitary moment here

nothing too complex

the sky split by a single bird

white clouds shaped as a ladder

death spread upon the street

under the guise of orange fur

(squirrels still have so much to learn)

the window of a house

Poetry by April Salzano

January 26, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

While I Was Sleeping

I walked on eggshells until the yolks

revealed themselves as the true enemies.

Then I beat myself up over

the inevitable, which, too, was inevitable.

The sun told the moon

to thank her lucky stars chickens

kept hatching, uncounted by sheep

pretending they gave a fuck who fell

asleep. Continue reading

“Mechanism,” a short story by Tyler Wells Lynch

January 19, 2016 / The Furious Gazelle Editors

Mechanism

by Tyler Wells Lynch

The wrecker was a converted pickup with blue-silver trim sapped beneath a spread of rust. Its jury-rigged A-frame towered over a bed of dusty orange j-hooks, snatch blocks, and collapsed beer cans, all tumbling in submission to the precess of a flatbed hauler. The straps and rusty ratchets quivered in a silent pitch as an old man with skin like boiled leather coerced a screwdriver into the latch of a corroded wheel chock. The whole scene unnerved him—the herniated engine block, the jagged smear of burnt rubber along the road shoulder, the twisted spires of metal caked in blood. It was enough to set the old man’s teeth on edge. A slip and his gnarled knuckles cracked against the hard plate of the wheel chock, cold metal chipping flakes of skin revealing pink. He snapped his hand and swatted the pain and shouted, “God damn!” His partner, along for the ride on his day off, asked what was wrong but didn’t demand an answer when none was given. The old man sucked the wound.