Cherrypicked stories

'One, two, three, down!' And down went the baton of the police officer onto the sleeping figure of Edward Irving, startling him awake and, although yet unbeknownst to him, setting in process the destruction of his identity. Another officer, younger although of senior rank, stood in the doorway, smiling wryly at his partner's antics. Edward Irving struggled to catch his breath between blows, barely taking in the fact that two State officers had just broken into his apartment, entered his newspaper-strewn bedroom. Much less so did it occur to him that after delivering to him the standard preliminary beating, the officers would then proceed to take him to a station, place him in a brightly-lit cell, administer further beatings, put him through a perfunctory interrogation (in which further beatings might or might not be involved), before returning him to his luminous cell: repeat from step one. Edward Irving could only guess that this would happen, or something to that extent, because he did not have the ability to see beyond the curtain hiding the forward direction of a linear narrative.

For, so he told us later over lager and nuts, despair was soon snapping thankfully at those bruised new bandaged heels of his.

The author recalls a college instructor's savaging of Joyce Kilmer in the light of his own experiences.

The first sign is when she takes her mobile to bed with her The second is when she denies that she does The third sign is when you find her pubes in the plug hole When she knows you prefer her natural

A 200 word break from nanowrimo.

We followed skeens of red thread to the festival, met a Chinese puppet dragon, side swinking like a bad spark, at the gate. I let you lick a line of rum off my wrist while we listened to him complain about the inconvenience

Miffy "What do you mean, cut off? "I did warn you Mif. "But I should have been paid. The money would have been in my account! The direct transfer should have gone through as normal, fuckdammit.

bouquets

When you are gone I walk the hills in the changing robes of fog without letup, pick the last love-in-a-mist, tell my sadness to the careless eyes of dusk. When night falls, I hasp my windows fast against