the king
winner - first birdville impromptu award
christopher hayes-kossmann
“You can’t fake heroin withdrawal,” she said. “It’s a bit more than red eyes and itchy fingers.”
“I quit smoking. How hard can it be?”
He’d been buying from Brightsides almost eight years now. She wheeled the streets with a backpack stuffed with pot and speed and MDMA and the occasional downer for when he needed to be especially morose. She’d once sold him a double-hit of LSD that he tongued while touring the Detroit Sweeps. That was killer; Sylvia had called him a “post-societal neo-anarchic hero,” and squirreled into his bed not once but twice, as if his neo-anarchic power would spread to her via shared fluids.
blackberries
yt sumner
On the drive home she pushes her finger deep into my forearm and a white oval blooms.
“You’re sunburned.”
I sneak a look down where she pressed and see a fine crescent marked there. The mark is a little jagged because she’s been biting her nails again. She points at the side of the road and squeals as I take the turn-off to Danny’s house.
“Look at the blackberries. Remember how we used to pick them on the way home from the beach?”
bride price
amalia dillin
“Are you going to come willingly, or am I going to have to throw you in?” Jean asked.
“Perhaps he lost all his courage when he failed to please his wife on her wedding night,” Luc said. “It’s just a little country bull-leaping, Monsieur.”
Jean snorted. “Maybe we should show him how it’s done?”
“Marcus?” Luc nodded to him and Marcus jumped off the fence where he had been sitting. Ethan could hear hoof-beats now, and then the bull was in full sight, a darker shadow against the grass – except for its horns, like crescent moons fallen from the night sky.
every so often
richard larson
The hut is waiting for him on the outside of the village, a cramped thing where he either sleeps or masturbates. Dirt floor, wooden walls. Victor picks a nail out of the rotting door frame as he enters. He never bothers making repairs. The family will relocate again soon, hopefully closer to Linz. Mauthausen doesn’t suit him.
Victor sleeps and has bad dreams. He wakes up when the night is sufficiently dark to move corpses.