About the Type by Christopher Linforth

This paragraph was set in Times New Roman, a typeface of black newsprint and official documentation. The type was cut when an amateur printer misplaced his brown-bagged serifs on a drunken trip to Myrtle Beach. From the pool bar, he offered Georgia at a discount rate. The publisher demurred. They wanted the prose, the ninety-one words to look upmarket. Classy. They suggested Garamond: the choice of the artful writer. The paragraph only resembles a colophon, the printer said, slurping on strawberry daiquiri.  I’m not sure if it’s much more than that.

Christopher Linforth is the editor of The Anthem Guide to Short Fiction (Anthem Press, 2011). He also has work published in Denver Quarterly, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Notre Dame Review. He maintains a website at christopherlinforth.wordpress.com.

Audra by Paul Beckman

Audra is my current girlfriend. She is the rowing coach at a local junior college. For weeks, before she became my girlfriend, I would sit on the grass at lunchtime eating my sandwich and watch her coach. She would pace along the river’s edge with a stopwatch and megaphone yelling out instructions to her two racing teams. Before that, I’d been watching her from my office window since I first noticed the sculls on the river and on the first sunny day I took my brown bag down by the water. At first I sat on one of the benches and then, wanting to hear her voice and see her up close, I moved to the crest of the grass overlooking the river.

She walked over and asked me if she could share my sandwich because she hadn’t eaten breakfast. Sure, I said and handed her a half of my Swiss, lettuce, tomato and sprouts on pumpernickel. In between bites she let me know that she knew I’d been watching every day—even the days I pretended to read the book I always carried. Sometimes I did read my book, but I didn’t correct her. As she was leaving that first day she asked me to bring her a tuna on rye the next, light on the mayo and lots of lettuce. I brought her sandwiches every day after that and one day she ran off without ordering and I showed up the next day with a gas station convenience store ready-made baloney on white—the only thing besides liverwurst that was left. I wouldn’t think of eating either one of those so I got myself a yogurt and a pack of crackers and cheese.

Audra took one bite of her sandwich and gave me a disgusted look before shoving the sandwich back at me and grabbing my yogurt. Jews don’t eat that combination of foods, she instructed me using her megaphone from five feet away. I megaphoned my hands and yelled back that who’d know better than me since I wasn’t eating anything like it. That night we went out for Chinese.

I was first attracted by her smile (did I mention I kept binoculars in my office?); she smiles often and even though she’s tired and I mean sick and tired of hearing this; if you had to describe her in one word it would be adorable. Katie Couric used to go through the same thing when she first came on the Today show.

But best of all, Audra loves to give oral sex. (I have no personal knowledge of Katie Couric in this respect.) Audra often tells me that we were made for each other since I love being on the receiving end. Who am I to argue? Once we were driving by a Chrysler Dealership and she said we should go test-drive a van. She had her head in my lap before we got off of the lot. She’s such a kidder—always pulling stunts like that. The best was going through the drive-in at McDonald’s. I ordered while she went about her business and when we got to the window to pay she lifted her head and told the teen to make sure the fries were hot and then went back down on me. The kid pulled the fries out of the bag and yelled for someone to bring him new ones. He stood there with a frozen smile pretending that nothing was going on but never taking his eyes off the back of Audra’s head, even as he handed me my order.

There’s much more to Audra than oral sex, she’s bright, witty and fun to be with. But, let’s face it; if your girlfriend has to have a fixation, this is a pretty good one to have. We’ve been together two years now and there’s never been any talk of marriage or living together. It’s not that I wouldn’t entertain such thoughts but Audra once told me a joke:

“How do you get a Jewish woman to stop giving blow jobs?”
“I don’t know,” I played along. “How?”
“Marry her,” Audra laughed.

I mean, I’d hate to walk down the aisle and then on our honeymoon have her tell me that she’d given me fair warning and if I’d chosen not to hear it–why is she to blame? Know what I mean?

Paul Beckman specializes in the short story and flash fiction. His work has been published in England, Canada, New Zealand & Germany and several stories have been turned into plays.

Some publishing credits: THE CONNECTICUT REVIEW, THE NEW HAVEN REVIEW, ONTHEBUS, SHORT STORY LIBRARY, THE WRITER’S VOICE, PLAYBOY, 5 TROPE, OTHER VOICES, THE SCRUFFY DOG REVIEW, FICTION WAREHOUSE, WEB DEL SOL, JEWISH CURRENTS, LONG STORY SHORT, PITTSBURGH FLASH FICTION GAZETTE, RIVERBABBLE, EXQUISITE CORPSE, COLLECTEDSTORIES.COM, OPIUM, CLEAN SHEETS, THUG LIT, THE VIEW FROM HERE & SOUNDZINE.

Dawn by George Eyre Masters

Morning arrived in San Francisco like a hitchhiker. Lipstick on crooked, her rouge streaked, she smelled of diesel exhaust, donuts and ocean. Tasting like fried eggs and bait, she surrendered to gravity, calendar and the clock.

Masters is a writer and a seagoing cook.

Poem in the Age of Twitter by Jamy Li

(feed from user on Dec. 22, 2010)

My final answer: It’s whatever it is in this world
that – digging into the deepest corner
of the soul – you would truly, honestly
die for.

My third: It’s looking into the eyes of the boy
of your dreams and realizing what every book
and movie and song ever written
is about.

My second: It’s a story with infinite possibilities
but always the same beginning and end,
so really it’s the middle that’s
most important.

My first attempt: It’s what was made by an ancient spark
in a pool of ooze, the perfectly-shaped coils
born to breed and bred
to survive.

What if God or some
alien species asked:
“Can you explain Life in
140 characters?”

Collapsed Jenga-style into chair at #lax,
waiting for delayed flight (heading: #yyz)
to arrive on this gray, rained out day -
I wonder….

Jamy is a Canadian writer living in Los Angeles, California. His twitter handle is @jcrewman.

Coalinga Poetry by Walter Campbell

Carl was the poet living Coalinga, California, right near Harris Ranch, who wrote the poem in which he described his recently wed wife as “fresh and florescent as cow shit.”

You may have heard of him. Many have. But in case you haven’t, he was a very famous and well-respected poet before this incident. Poet laureate material, even.

But then he compared his wife to bovine excrement.

You can’t blame Carl, really, because he did grow up right next to Harris Ranch, in a town that perpetually smelled of cow feces. For him, cow crap was a beautiful thing that reminded him of birthday parties, fresh showers, spring mornings, midday picnics, romantic dates, and newlywed wives.

But for everyone outside Coalinga, the fact that he’d written such a thing about his wife was unbelievable.

His agent in Los Angeles scolded him. He was no longer able to sell his poems, or book him at large bookstores and colleges, so his agent dropped him like a bag of cow shit.

He and his wife went down to LA to beg the agent to take them back. In Downtown LA everyone on the street looked at Carl with complete disgust. A few even threatened to hit him.

Carl’s agent wouldn’t budge, even when Carl’s wife explained what a compliment being compared to cow shit was. Even if he could understand something so screwed up, he said, the public couldn’t. He just couldn’t make any money with Carl.

Dejected, they took a cab to Santa Monica where they passed a man on the street from Coalinga who was down at UCLA medical center getting his nasal passages repaired, and the man, upon seeing Carl and his wife, said, “Wow, your wife really is just as amazing as your poem says.”

Walter Campbell lives and works in Philadelphia, went to school in New England, and grew up in LA, but he’ll write pretty much anywhere. Recently, his work has been published in Dog Oil Press, Jersey Devil, Six Sentences, Dogzplot, Weirdyear, Vestal Review, Flashshot, Yesteryear, MicroHorror, Eclectic Flash, Toasted Cheese, Negative Suck, Horror Bound, amphibi.us, and Glossolalia.

It’s a Plan by Paul Beckman

I don’t own a cell phone, beeper or blackberry. I’m not one to carry a bottle of water with me when I walk from my car to the store or keep one at my desk while at work. I don’t spike my hair with gel, have a Mohawk, shave my head bald or favor the “bed head” look. I don’t have tattoos, piercings or marks on my body other than those I was born with.

I like my drinks but I feel no need to stick a piece of citrus in my beer bottle or order the high priced vodka de jour. If I’m craving a martini I’ll order one the way it was meant to be made—with an olive or two but not with espresso, pomegranate or gold flakes floating around.

While driving I listen to the AM station of oldies. I don’t have FM, satellite radio nor a DVD or CD player in my car. My car’s for transportation, not entertainment. And speaking of my car, I don’t need a moon roof, a plethora of cup holders or three rows of seats. And speaking of seats—I don’t need ones that massage my back or heat my butt either.

I live in a condo in a suburb of New Haven. I bought the furnished model and took possession when the others were all sold. I have left it the way the decorator furnished it except I replaced the cardboard TV with a real one.

I’m also quite lonely. I go out occasionally but rarely get a second date. It seems that woman don’t want my kind of rebel so next week I’m planning to buy an Ipod and a water bottle and join a gym. I think that should turn my life around. If not, I can start adding the other pieces one at a time until I find a soul mate.

Then, if that doesn’t work, I’ll order a mail order bride—either Russian or Chinese. I have all the paperwork made out, but it’s a last resort that I probably won’t need now that I have a plan.

Paul Beckman specializes in the short story and flash fiction. His work has been published in England, Canada, New Zealand & Germany and several stories have been turned into plays. He’s had two collections of stories published in print, “Come! Meet My Family & other stories” and “Maybe I Ought To Go Sit In a Dark Room For a While” and a novella “Lovers & Other Mean People” published on line by Parting Gifts. Additionally he’s had two chapbooks published; one with Web Del Sol and the other with Silkworm Ink.  He earned an MFA from Bennington College in 1999.