ISSN: 2163-0712

Short, Fast, and Deadly i100 [Last Words]

Edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela 6 November 2011 ISSN: 2163-0712

Featuring:

Cath Barton

Anatoly Belilovsky T.H. Coggins

Francisco Delgado Howie Good

Elissa Gordon David E. Haase

Bruce Harris Lois Elaine Heckman

M.D. Joyce Sarah Leopold

Meredith Madigosky C. Martinez

Shaina Mugan Kenneth Pobo

Marguerite María Rivas

and

Photographs by Joseph A. W. Quintela

Copyright © 2011 by Individual Authors All Rights Reserved

Turn up the lights. I don’t want to go home in the dark.

O. Henry Turn up the lights I’ve been caught out in the aftermath of a storm. The harsh neon of the shops makes me shudder but I don’t want to go home in the dark. Headlights zig-zag in the puddles and catch on a green scarf, pointing to the spreading silence of a line of women. Tattered doves fly above their heads. A nod, a smile, a recognition. I join the line. Something shines through a break in the clouds. A trick of the light? Perhaps. by Cath Barton of Abergavenny, Wales

Just don’t leave me alone. -John Belushi

Feet Just don't leave me alone, he said, and I promised I’d wait as he went into the store and stole beer for us and the girls. I thought of Cassie’s long legs, how they ended in the prettiest feet imaginable. I heard a shout – an adult’s – followed by a feverish explanation, a kid’s, in a voice, his. I ran, wondering what I could say to get Cassie to drop her friend and let me smell her sweaty and up close, sober. by Francisco Delgado of Queens, NY

Glory hallelujah! I am with the Lord, Glory, ready, go! - Charles Guiteau

Quake The shifting of tectonic plates was underway. It was nothing noticeable at first, unless you were sober. The righteous were puzzled. Frightened. They noticed. Why, they’d ask? They didn’t understand. For the rest of us, well, let’s just say we were in the midst of doing the unmentionable (shush) when the end came. We stopped. We listened. Someone proclaimed, Glory hallelujah! I am with the Lord, Glory, ready, go! By Bruce Harris of Scotch Plains, NJ

#LASTWORDS

I did not tell half of what I saw. -Marco Polo

In Love I have not told half of what I saw – the lonely road, the burst of light, the sudden passage through the air and into the deep dark of her. by Howie Good of Hyannis, MA

La tristesse durera toujours. (The sadness will last forever.)

-Vincent Van Gogh The Sadness Will Last Forever La tristesse: Vincent pecked the feeder seed Theo dropped. He had the odd white feather or two, Theo was still grackle iridescent. At night, Theo tickled his beak through Vincent’s feathers. Durera toujours: The day the flock flew, Theo stayed until the late afternoon and then took flight. Vincent watched with his beak hanging half open, asking for water he would never again taste, gingerly fluttering his good wing. by C. Martinez of Denver, CO

One last drink, please. -Jack Daniel

I am the Consumer I stare at the flowers until they blur, the sky until it tilts toward me, the clouds until they drift back again. I close my eyes and make a wish: One last drink, please. Prone on the ground, I am leaning over that Vermont stream. I cup my hands, bring the sweet water to my lips. The leaves stir, the weeping willow sways against me. Swallows fly and dip closer, the water laps at my feet, and I take it all. by Elissa Gordon of Elizabeth, NJ

#LASTWORDS

Everything is an illusion. -Mata Hari

Utter nonsense.

-Eleanor Roosevelt Everything is an Illusion She put away memories, packaging them in fake boxes, like ornaments after the holidays. Her life was the utter nonsense of a discarded tree. by Lois Elaine Heckman of Milan, Italy

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go. -Oscar Wilde

Wilde Flew Yonder Aliens, puce; death rays, teal. Oh my! Lavender ships. A vermilion sky. I cannot fathom a worse place to die! Either this wallpaper goes, or I. by Anatoly Belilovsky of New York, NY

Do you hear the rain? Do you hear the rain? -Jessica Dubroff, child pilot

Bologna Sandwiches When I was 30, I would wake up with night sweats after dreaming of curving thighs. Now at 60, I wake up with trembling hands and wild eyes with memories of rainy days and bologna sandwiches with mustard cut diagonally and the insurmountable feeling of excitement of having those pointy corners of white bread in my mouth. Oh Christ, do you hear the rain? Do you hear the rain? by M.D. Joyce of Chicago, IL

#LASTWORDS

Moose…Indian... -Henry David Thoreau

Sternum Trading Cards A hoof print in my sternum. fill it with ink, rinse it with turpentine and send word: A Moose…Indian… by Shaina Mugan of Tianjin, China

Get my swan costume ready. -Anna Pavlova

A Harvest of Swans Get on your knees, conundrum, my ribs only flex to the rhythm of the swan in cannibal costume ready for the harvest. by Shaina Mugan of Tianjin, China

Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees. -General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

Cross Fire Let us be cross, when we’re over. And the river still sits in the shade, we are still of the trees. by Shaina Mugan of Tianjin, China

#LASTWORDS

It don't matter; I figure I licked the Rock anyway. -Bernard Coy

Rope “Single file!” the teachers drone. All hands grasp the rope as we zigzag toward the science museum. The sun stings, the rope is scratchy, and behind me Doug kicks a flattened soda can. Up ahead a man shrieks, “It don’t matter, I figure I licked the rock anyway.” Policemen drag him off, his tongue wagging. “Why people lick famous buildings I’ll never know.” The cop winks at our wide eyes. Only the rope keeps us going. by Meredith Madigosky of Chester, PA

It’s better to burn out than to fade away. -Kurt Cobain

White Noise My friends tease. “Well…I suppose it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Despite the black screen and smoke billowing out of the back, the infuriating green light blinks to say the television is “ON.” We watch together as flickers of snow appear in flashes, reminiscent of a horror film I’d seen. Laughing it off, I pretend away the creeping fear of channeling the dead. A face appears and vanishes. by Sarah Leopold of Chester, PA

Codeine…bourbon… -Tallulah Bankhead

Licked Bourbon, codeine. Well, we all have to believe in something, right? Bourbon was my trampoline. I jumped up, ate a cloud, and burped out a hurricane. Codeine patted my back and I began to breathe. For a while. The wet dachshund tongue of death licked me real good. I can’t say that this was unpleasant. by Kenneth Pobo of Media, PA

#LASTWORDS

. . . the fog is rising. -Emily Dickinson

. . . the fog is rising. Landscapes bridge a map of where you've been, where you're bound to go. Memory becomes a guest speaker for ritualized absence. by Lee Sittler of Madrid, Spain

And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices. -Virginia Woolf

And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices. I’ll write in a cat's voice, mewl, shut up inside this tuning-fork tree, bent beneath burning fall dusk. Hallucinate Patience, Fortitude. Satan peers into a mirror seeking a twin. I’ll be tiny, write a weak cat voice at the hour of its death, amen. Don’t look for me under rubble; I am locked in an olive, steel strongbox; I lay on love letters, yellow and foxed, my side pierced by secret, obsidian arrowheads. by Marguerite María Rivas of Staten Island, NY

Van Halen! - Darrell Abbott

All compound things are subject to breaking up. Strive on with

mindfulness. -Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

Van Halen! A scream of Van Halen! Freud says He means Valhalla! The next thing anyone hears is Havoc! Exiting the trenches, an explosion consumes our middle school. Mortar rounds decimate our emotions, our bodies, our spirit. I’d never noticed those cracks in Freuds boots before. As his, and those of them that encircle me, dash away, I hear the PSYOPs clearly for the first time. Strive on with mindfulness. by T.H. Coggins of Denver, CO

#LASTWORDS

I am dead. -Unknown Union Soldier

I am dead

an errant bullet

punctures gumlike

over-ripe watermelon

left under leaf

before first frost

they brush it off

as if a

period

were punctuation

by David E. Haase of Denver, CO

The play is over, applaud! -Augustus Caesar

Last Words | A Note from the Editor And so, upon its 100th issue, Short, Fast, and Deadly Weekly bids adieu! It is with deepest joy and gratitude that I have had the pleasure of shepherding your words out into the world, at precisely 3:59pm EST, every Sunday for the last 100 weeks. I draw these weekly missives to a close, with great excitement for the notion of beginning SF&D Monthly--expanded and in print-- but also with a little sadness, for I will miss this weekly shout into the world. SF&D Monthly will launch on 19 January 2012. Until then, adieu! adeui! The play is over, applaud. The play is just beginning, applaud… With Warmest Regards, Joseph A. W. Quintela New York | 2011