Issue 19 Fiction
Hystericalectomy
by Sean Bernard
they say it hurts if it’s true which is the deadest-on thing I ever heard. Case in point: when my sister-in-law says to my wife, "Least you’re dropping a few pounds, Bea," my wife gasps, Nurse gasps, the walls. My wife was sexy-thin an hour ago but now she’s a weepy sixty-year-old tub. Apparently her hysterectomy has jacked up the hospital’s space-time-continuum—something to do with endometriosis and ovaries, Nurse says. Up and down the halls I keep seeing dead people very much alive and also folks I’m pretty sure are yet to be born. Twice this kid has come up to me thumping a baseball mitt, saying, "Wanna play catch Uncle Robby?" When I gave him a buck to scram he cried, "Aw, shucks!" Nurse says he’ll stop existing soon, which works for me—I just want things back to how they were. This new world is too complex: besides the unborn and undead, there are also different-age models of the living. I saw myself an hour ago pissing at the next urinal. We glanced over at each other all stealth-like, not wanting to seem, well, gay. (I was bigger.)
Omakase
by Daniel Browne
the first course was horseradish-cured hamachi with edamame. No soy sauce for dipping. No glob of fluorescent green. Just three pearl-pink ribbons of fish draped across a narrow white rectangle. Two stacks of edamame—three pale beans to a stack—sat between the outer slices and the inner, the composition so precise, Simon didn’t want to disturb it.
Marcus caught him eyeing his plate.
"I know," Marcus said. "But there’s nine more courses. Trust me, it adds up."
