-by Michael-

Despite her slight frame, good looks, and the countless invitations she received every day of every week to do things with “friends” on the weekends, or to go out with boys who might - in a better universe - be charming men with more interesting vocabularies and ideally some intriguing thoughts - maybe something more than “You’re beautiful” and “Let’s see a movie sometime”, but alas - Jen found herself, as she did every Saturday, at the gas station mini-mart a few miles from her apartment. 

In her mind, she was waiting for a wormhole to open up. She imagined a shimmering blue spark expanding right in front of her, begging her to come in and step through space and time into another dimension, to a parallel Earth, perhaps. She’d show up and see people she recognized behaving in new ways and then she’d find her parallel self and kill the prissy little bitch (because she’d probably be one) and she’d have adventures within her new life because “I hate this goddamn place. It’s too fucking hot.” She lit up a cigarette. In her mind she was waiting for a dimensional rift. In reality she was waiting for Elle, who’d be late. Again.

“You’re late,” Jen exhaled smoke and pushed her sunglasses up on her face. Her nose was a bit small. Glasses didn’t like to stay perched up on it.

“Again. I know. Sorry,” Elle was stepping out of her car. She snatched the cigarette out of Jen’s mouth without pausing on her way in to the convenience store. “It’s bad for your teeth, it’s bad for your lungs, and it’s bad for your heart,” and Jen’s heart was a problem.

Jen didn’t even turn to snap at Elle. “Bitch what did I say about doing that?”

“You said you’d kill me, beat me, stab me. A thousand things a thousand times. You don’t have the lady-balls.” Elle was in the store before Jen had a chance to shoot her the look of death. It wouldn’t have been effective anyhow since Jen’s shades almost fell off her face again.

Within the air-conditioned mini-mart, Elle was staring intently at a shelf of potato chips. So many different chips. Too many, an argument could be made. Canned, bagged, classic, barbecue, cheesy. “Who in their right mind eats pickle flavored chips?”

“I hate you.” Jen had found Elle and was now standing behind her, lips pursed. Her cheeks always sunk a little when she did that which made her look intimidating and a sort of silly way.

“You love me, hooker.” Elle was still contemplating chips.

“I want my cigarette back.”

“Well you can’t have it. It’s dead. Gone forever.”

“I hate you.”

“You’ll live.”

Jen looked over Elle’s shoulder and began examining the snacks with her. “An infinite number of choices…” she muttered.

Elle looked back over her shoulder at her friend in confusion. “What? No.” She looked back at the chips. There were a hundred bags, tops. “There is a very finite number of choices here.”

“Not in all this space,” Jen raised her eyebrows in defense. “Not in all the infinite amount of space in our universe. And then there’s the infinite number of universes in the multiverse to consider. Probable if not completely mathematically guaranteed duplicates of us…infinite variations of this scenario…”

“…what?”

“And that’s not even considering the parallel dimensions that exist in and around our immediate environments…”

“It’s literally just chips…”

“But it isn’t! In one reality we’re debating if we’re getting sushi or pizza! In another you’re black and I’m a man!”

Elle pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “Why can’t you just be content with being pretty?”

“Because my dad bought me a telescope instead of barbies for my fifth birthday.”

“No,” Elle warned her. “You always do this. You think too much and over-complicate simple things. Just look at what’s available in front of you and make a decision. Don’t think too much. Just pick what’s gonna satisfy you most.”

“Choice is like potential energy, just sitting there waiting for something to happen. Infinite possibilities until a choice is made. Then there’s no going back. What happens happens and will not nor could it have happened any other way…”

Elle grabbed a bag of the ruffled pickle flavored chips. “There,” she waved the bag in front of Jen’s face defiantly. “What were the odds I was gonna pick those? I HATE pickles.”

Jen sighed and bit her lip. “Existence is chaos.”

“You’re impossible. How do you get laid?”

Jen smiled. “Boys like girls who can kick their asses and Dungeons and Dragons.”

After buying their items, the females found themselves standing outside of the store once more. Jen was putting her sunglasses back on. She squinted into the sun and said “Still, though. It’s a comforting thought.”

Elle was opening her bag of snacks, admiring the nutritional facts. “I know. Only three hundred calories.”

“No, you fat-ass.”

“…rude.”

“I mean the infinity of it all. It’s comforting.”

“How’s that? Doesn’t it make you just feel small and insignificant and shit?”

After a little too long, Jen looked away from the sun. “Not really. I guess it just means that out there in all that space, somewhere… I’m having a good time.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and fiddled with it a bit.

“Mmm,” Elle’s eyes went wide to push back the depressing implications of her friend’s words. “Yeah. Who ya texting, slut? Somebody sexy?”

Jen was passive. “Idunno. He’s still talking to me.”

“He? Who’s… OH HIM. Yeah? How’s he doing?”

“Persistent fucker…” Jen muttered to herself.

“Maybe. But he’s attractive. And charming. And really into you.”

“And needy.” She was clearly responding to one of his messages.

“Or attentive. You always do this.”

Jen finished responding just in time to put her phone away and push her shades back up on her nose before they fell again. Then she reached into her purse, pulled out a cigarette and began to light it, but before she could get a spark off the flint, the cigarette was snatched from her lips and smashed under Elle’s foot. Jen groaned.

“Oh groan away you existential bitch. I’m trying to save your life, here.”

Maybe somewhere on the other end of a black hole or in another universe or another dimension the events that sculpted who she and everyone around her was were different. Maybe she wasn’t confused or anxious. Maybe she was vegetarian. Maybe she was a champion body builder or a professional video game designer. Maybe she was a cop or an assassin who killed bad men who really deserved it, or maybe she didn’t even exist at all on some other Earths. 

“Yeah, yeah,” she shook her head and smirked. “Shut up and give me a chip.”

Jen’s heart was a problem.

-By Michael-

There’s a story in the underworld of the city goes something like this: Two guys. A fuckin’ Sox fan and some Limey prick. Real popular fellas. Good lookin’. Suave and charming and all that bullshit you hear about in movies. People thought the kid from Boston was a fag since he was real good in the kitchen. Could get real fancy with the knives and what have you. Turns out he was real fancy with the knives in the streets, too, so ain’t nobody I ever heard of called him a fag to his face. His partner, the English fella, was anything but a fag. Or maybe he was but he sure as shit covered it up real good. Booze was the Yank’s poison and broads were supposed to be the Brit’s. Now he was good with, oh whassit called? Them tiny guns. Derringers! Yeah he had two of ‘em, special made for him, hid ‘em up his sleeves. Sneaky fuckin’ Limey.

Anyway…

The story goes like this: Two man operation. Mr. Hart is the yutz with the knives and Mr. Link is the fancy fucker with the accent and guns. Real professionals. Quick clean jobs with no questions asked. You give a name and they did it. Hello, slice, pop. Bing, bang, boom, fuck you very much no name no more. They’d seen and done it all. Even kids. Well, not KIDS kids, but 18 years don’t make an adult, you ask me. Rumor is Link even did his whole family before jumpin’ the puddle over here state-side. Who knows.

So everything’s goin’ smooth and they got a name for ‘emselves after takin’ out a mob boss and his family down in Philly. Back then the families was tryin’ to contract these guys, but Link and Hart weren’t havin’ it. Said neutrality is better for business. Said permanent connections create too much baggage. But Hart makes a mistake. Falls in love with the wife of one of the poor schmucks he an’ Link did in. ‘Course, she don’t know Hart had a hand in it. But the guy who hired the two didn’t want loose ends. He finds out she’s alive and tells Mr. Link that if they don’t do her in, he’s givin’ him Hart’s cut to kill the broad AND his partner. So Link tells Hart straight up and they cut her out of the picture. Hart knew he had to do it. Didn’t want to, see, but business is business to a fella like that.

A few weeks go by and business stops being business for Mr. Hart and starts becoming a problem instead. He ain’t eating. He ain’t sleeping. He’s sitting on the docks all night just drinking and waiting for the sun to rise. Well, Mr. Link don’t like that. He says in that uppity accent of his “Get your shit together, Hart.”

Hart says “I don’t know how. She’s gone and it’s my fault.”

Link looks at him cross-ways and says “She wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last. This anxiety nonsense and sadness needs to stop. It’s all in your head. You know that, you silly little shit.”

Well, Hart knows the first bit is true but isn’t so sure about her not being the last. He thinks maybe he wanted her to be the last. Mr. Link sees his partner ain’t snappin’ out of it so he pulls one of them sneaky fuckin’ guns and shoots Hart in the ear, says “If you won’t listen to me, you sullen bastard, maybe you’ll hear that,” and then he puts a real classy vest on and goes on tyin’ his Italian black leather shoes. Doesn’t even look back at Hart when he says “Sharpen your knives and put on your best tie. We’ve got a new job.”

Mr. Hart is holdin’ on to the new hole in his ear and looks at his partner when he says “Why?”

Mr. Link’s reloading them derringers of his and says “Because that’s what you do when somebody puts a hole in you, Hart. You put on a fucking tie and go to your job.”

I want you to come closer so I can grab you and not let go. I want you to want to come closer and know I won’t let you go and I won’t let anyone else hurt you again because we’ve both been hurt and we both know how it feels so let’s just turn into cats or something and be together for a while longer.

I think that would be nice. 

Him: I’m going to propose to you in a year.

Her: okay. Haha…but you’ll be sick of me long before then.

Him: oh, trust me darling. You’ll be the one getting sick of me first. Lol

Her: i don’t get sick of people. (:

Him: good. So we’ll be engaged, then.

Her: (:

Him: (:

Her:

Her:

Him: hey, you.

Her: (slowly erasing you from my life for no reason and i won’t tell you why. I’ll just let you fester with your thoughts for weeks. Months, even)

Him: but -

Her: nope

Him:

Him: …guess I won that little bet…

A Character Scene for Creative Writing Class

Romantic Comedy

            “You’re breaking up with me?” he seems shocked.

            “Yes.”

I can tell this isn’t going to go as planned.

            “But…why?” his eyes are arching outward in that pathetic sort of way that makes him look like Droopy – you know, that clinically depressed and depressing cartoon dog? The eyes and his beak of a nose with its nostrils flaring with angst…it’s embarrassing.

            Don’t get me wrong, I like Derrick – rather I liked Derrick, and I actually think his big nose is cute. Cute, but with his bushy eyebrows and his thick-rimmed, black glasses – he’s a mustache short of a bad Groucho Marx disguise.

            “Why do people ever separate, Derrick? One or both parties get bored or annoyed and they grow apart. It really isn’t personal…”

            “It’s the most personal thing in the world, dammit!” He’s shouting and getting emotional. It’s unnecessary. I brought him to the dining hall so he wouldn’t cause a scene.

            If you’d have asked me why I was breaking up with him after 2 years of dating, I honestly couldn’t tell you. If you’d have asked mewhy I had dated him for 2 years or any years at all, I’d have just as much to say. And now he’s looking at me in a very serious way that makes it very hard for me to keep nice about this whole thing. He whispered something to me that I’m not quite sure I heard right.

            “I’m sorry?”

            “…are you on your period or something…?”

I am, but-

            “Are you fucking kidding me?” He just lost his game and I’m probably a sick person for taking a bit of pleasure in watching him struggle for words.

            “I don’t mean – I mean if we could just work things out I know that we’d be fine. We just need to talk about it.”

            “I slept with Mark.”

I didn’t mean to say it. It’s not even true, but Mark isn’t going to deny it. I’ve caught him staring at my ass on more than a few occasions.

            “Mark – my roommate Mark?”

            “Yes.”

            “Oh.” He sits there staring at his plastic cup of coke. I’m sure he watched the same bead of condensation run down its side. He can’t look at me, but I feel like every other pair of eyes in this hall is focused on me. It’s embarrassing. At least he gets up and leaves with dignity. I’ll ignore the fact that he just called me a stupid bitch under his breath.

            My roommate, Becky – she must have been walking up behind me. She probably saw the whole thing happen. I’m glad she’s decided to come floating over to my table making sympathetic noises. Sitting down next to me with that obnoxious bleached hair of hers, green eyes full of simulated empathy. It makes me smile.

            “Oh my gosh,” she sighs. There’s too much air in her words. “Bobby,” she whines at me. “What happened?”

            “Oh my god, Becky, you know what happened.”

            She asks me if I’m okay and what I’m going to do and she keeps reassuring me and I assure her that I’m really okay. She asks me what I’m going to do as she takes the drink Derrick left at the table. I don’t have time for any of this drama. I have a Lit Theory essay on Derrida and Différance due in five hours and I’ve barely started.

            “I have to go,” I tell her. My phone vibrates in the right-hand pocket of my jeans. It’s a text message from Derrick.

            “Bobby, are you going to be okay?”

Have a nice life, you cold, ungrateful slut :)

            “I’ll be fine.”

The Night We Went Out and Lynched Stupid Boys

by Michael Scorsby

“I think I might’ve loved him.”

“I know I love her.”

“I know. It’s all so dumb.”

“Love is horseshit,” he told her. “It makes people fucking stupid and nobody ever reciprocates properly.”

“He said he loved me and then he did this.”

“He’s fucking stupid.”

“Over a text!”

Two friends hold each other. He rummages through his cluttered mind to find words for her as she soaks his shoulder.

“Do I need to kick somebody’s ass?”

He feels her shake her head, nuzzling his chest.

“You know that all of us are stupid,” he continues, realizing he may be doing more harm than good. “Men. Boys. We’re all selfish and irrational in our own ways. Most of us don’t even realize it when we have a good thing. The rest of us know when we have a good thing and never get to really have it.”

“I’m sorry you love her so much,” she whispers to his heart.

“…so am I. But I’m not, at the same time.”

“…you shouldn’t be using this other girl. It’s not right.”

He can’t have much to say.

“I want her to tell me to not see her - to stop seeing her,” he says flatly. He doesn’t have much else to say.

“She won’t.”

“I know.”

Time won’t move if they stay there holding one another. 

She can feel his heart beat against her cheek -

“This pain sucks,” she exhales, each syllable rattling out of her body.

“Try feeling it every day.”

“Can today not be about you?”

They keep themselves there grasping desperately for protection. It’s internal and external. There is no romance left for anyone. Not now.

“I’m sorry,” because apologizing is all he can do.

It’s limbo. It’s far from heaven and too real to be hell. It’s turmoil and torture.

Let us form a lynch mob and go around stringing up these ignorant buffoons by their scrotums. We will find the boy who broke your heart and jam bamboo under his nails and then we will call him a coward. Then we can find the one who broke her heart so that I can have the satisfaction of seeing him in the kind of pain he put her through - we won’t tell anyone. Then, of course, we’ll have to turn our ropes and spurs and torches on me - because I know what I am and what I’m close to doing. Let’s castrate me and shave my head and soak me in alcohol then set my body ablaze. After I die, we can move away from all of this - somewhere warm where people won’t find us. We won’t even send postcards back home.

Maybe when we tell jokes our laughs won’t be hollow.

Maybe we’ll smile in earnest.

Maybe we’ll have dinner parties and laugh at one another when we bring a new prospective mate home to meet us.

Maybe, one day, we’ll die. Someone with a family will bury us next to one another - we’ll share a headstone.

Maybe she’ll come looking for me - she won’t. She’ll forget long before - and maybe he’ll look for you - he should. He will.

Maybe they’ll meet at our grave site. They might say “hello”, but not much else. They’ll stand there and know it is us, because, even though our names from a life we’d long forgotten will never appear, the people who knew us and caused us pain will know that it is us by the melodramatic engraving.

“Hear lie the Heavenly Damned.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“And she’s silly.”

“…wanna start drinking?”

“Yes.” 

 - Michael Sapieja

IT’S BECAUSE I’M NOT, NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN A SHIT PERSON TO YOU OR ANYONE ELSE.

not deliberately. not if i could help it.

…but i am fucking pathetic and disgusting. i will give you that.

excuse me while i just go fucking kill myself.

I mean, why else would I be doing it if it wasn’t perfectly healthy?