Trending Now! Help With Legal Fees for Reluctant Swordsman

By Mitchell Shanklin

Hi, I’m Joshua Henzel. You might have heard of me from the New York Post article or all the YouTube videos. I’m the guy with the giant flaming sword who’s suing the NYPD. One thing the articles and videos got right is that I do have to stab myself in the heart to ignite the flame. But no, I don’t do it “for fun.” If the flame dies, so do I.

I’m sick of all the lies and If I’m going to ask people for help, they should know the whole story, so I’m going to tell my side of everything. My lawyer told me I should only tell part of the story (sorry, Mr. Schmitz!), but my best friend Billy told me that lawyers are paranoid little poops and I trust Billy. (He didn’t say “poops” exactly, but I don’t like profanity, so I edited it, even though he says I’m way too young to be such an f-wording prig). (Continue Reading…)

The O’Brien and Palmer Show – PART TWO OF TWO

by L. S. Johnson

INTERVIEWER: The war isn’t the only subject you delve into with this new show, is it?

PALMER: You know it’s not, or you wouldn’t ask the question.

INTERVIEWER: I have to say, we weren’t sure if we could ask the question at all, legally. You were quite the topic of conversation upstairs.

PALMER: Oh, I’ve heard that before. [laughter]

INTERVIEWER: Have you been afraid at all, talking so openly? That you might lose your audience, be fined, perhaps even arrested?

PALMER: Talk about what, John? [laughter] But do you see what I mean? I’m sitting here right before you and you’re avoiding saying what I am. We’ve got a bill sitting in Parliament, we have people demanding change, and yet we still can’t — or won’t — talk about what I am. Now you asked me about the war as part of my show. What kind of man would I be, that I could natter on about death and devastation, but fear saying what I am? What kind of society are we creating, where it’s acceptable to joke about genocide, but not to acknowledge the affection between two consenting adults? [applause]

(Continue Reading…)

The O’Brien and Palmer Show – PART ONE OF TWO

by L. S. Johnson

INTERVIEWER: My guest tonight is comedian Timothy Palmer, who recently returned to the stage for a nationwide tour. Please welcome Timothy Palmer. [applause]

PALMER: Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s great to be here, John.

INTERVIEWER: Before we get started, I must tell you that we polled tonight’s audience before you arrived. Over the years you’ve done some remarkable cameos in films and television, and we asked the audience what was the line they most wanted to hear you say. The winning line was from ‘The Ladies of St. Agnes.’ [laughter and applause]

PALMER: My God, I’m funny and I haven’t even said anything. [laughter] It’s every comedian’s dream. [He starts to stand up] Well, I’m off, you can put my fee in the mail. [laughter]

INTERVIEWER, handing PALMER a slip of paper: This is the line in question. [to audience] Ladies and gentlemen. Timothy Palmer, from his memorable cameo in ‘The Ladies of St. Agnes.’

PALMER, looking directly at the camera: They never taught us this in Sunday school! [laughter and applause]

(Continue Reading…)

The Cuckoo of Vrežna Mountain

by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko

I realised I was in love with Ivor the day he went up the mountain to speak with the goddess.

We were at that age when the affectionate ease of childhood tips over into something different, when every touch could be the casual brush of friendship or something more and I would never know in advance which was which. There were many times, in those days, when Ivor would take my hands in his, larger and warmer and smooth with the orange-blossom oil he rubbed into them; and I would jerk away with some hasty apology and adjust my trousers while he was not looking. To this day, I find the smell of oranges arousing at the most inopportune times, of which, in a town known for its citrus trees, there are uncomfortably many.

Which is to say that it was not entirely unexpected, this matter of my being in love with him, except insofar as I had never considered the option until it was upon me; and if we had been boys further up the coast, away from the Oracle and her mountain, perhaps this would have been a cause for celebration: the sort of slow exploration of love and youth that ends, mutually, in a friendship deeper than it was before. (Continue Reading…)

Houyi the Archer Fights the Sun

by Cynthia Zhang

“I,” Houyi the Archer says one bright August afternoon when the thermometers hit 103 and the teenagers crack eggs on the sidewalk to see if they’ll fry, “am going to fight the sun.”

“Husband,” says Chang’E, three thousand years into immortality and long past reacting to these types of statements, “please do not fight the sun. We only have the one left, and most people would not appreciate having it gone.”

“Some might, though.” Above them, the ceiling fan whirls, valiantly trying to assuage the heat. The maintenance company, when Houyi called, gave the next available date for fixing the air conditioning as Monday, which — while not too far away — is crucially not today. “The tanuki pack in Arlington Heights or all those hipster vamp kids in Logan Square, I’m sure they’d come down to personally thank me. Besides, I didn’t say I was going to kill the sun. Just rough it up a little, teach it a few lessons about respect.” (Continue Reading…)

The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead

E.M. Linden

The living have been leaving Tawlish for centuries; this evacuation is only the latest and last. There are good reasons for it: the freshwater spring gone brackish; the water, always encroaching; the colicky, relentless wind. No schools for the children. No doctor. We should have seen it coming, but sometimes we forget what the living need.

We cannot cross salt, so we watch from shore. Our loved ones and descendants wade into the sea. The men strain to hold the boats steady against the waves. Everyone’s weighed down by possessions, a village crammed into sacks and lifeboats. Spoons, spindles, fish-hooks, balls of yarn. A clothes-peg doll in a twist of old apron. Seabirds’ eggs wrapped in blankets: habits ingrained by generations of scarcity. They’ve even dug up their potatoes.

Katie Zell’s mother is already on the boat. The songbook is tucked inside her jacket. (Continue Reading…)

The Hand That Feeds

by Louis Inglis Hall

Last Christmas a mermaid died in the school swimming pool. It was only a small pool, built up at the sides with wooden panels, more like a tank for training children in. That meant it froze over very easily, but a mermaid couldn’t know that. It stood in a courtyard in the shadow of the school, and the sun reached it only at rare intervals.

Behind it lurked a stone and sulking outhouse, pebbledash walls lashed together with a corrugated plastic roof. In its damp darkness the children undressed, and tripped, and snapped tight, powdered rubber caps over their skulls. Under its benches something black grew wetly out towards them. It was the hut that Freya hated most of all. (Continue Reading…)

Last Ritual of the Smoke Eaters

By Osahon Ize-Iyamu

I didn’t want to eat Joshua, but he turned into dust, and the way things go in Carucchi village is that if someone turns into ashes you inhale them till there’s nothing but smoke in your lungs and redness in your eyes. Sometimes we have to eat people to make us less lonely. I didn’t want to do it, but Joshua named me as his eater, so my entire village forced me down on the floor and told me it was necessary. Great-aunty Chinny held my hands and made me inhale his smoke till his entire presence was roiling through my body like the last movements of a dragon.

When Joshua had finally settled in my body, he felt like a weight in my throat. (Continue Reading…)

Homes for the Holidays

by Heather Shaw & Tim Pratt

I stood on the slumlord’s doorstep and took a deep breath — one of the last I would take in this body, which had served me well despite being treated badly. It’s not the body I was born with — I don’t think I started with a body at all. I don’t know what I am, or where I come from, just that I need a human body to host my own consciousness.

My current body wasn’t totally worn out yet, but sometimes I switched for strategic reasons, like now. Even if I want to settle in, I’m forced to take a new host every twenty years or so. Maybe that sounds like a lot compared to a human lifespan, but since I’m immortal (so far), twenty years is a fraction of a fraction, and it feels like I’ve barely settled into a new skin before I have to go looking for a new one. Even when I pick a young, healthy body, something about hosting me puts unusual strain on the brain, and they usually pop an aneurysm, even if I take good care of them.

I hadn’t taken such good care of this latest body. But I was trying to do better. (Continue Reading…)