Love Hurts

Sometimes I think I must have imagined that night. It was like one of those direct-to-video action movies with Bruce Willis or Nicolas Cage – blah blah, pow pow, and over in something under 90 minutes. We tugged at each other’s clothes, moaned each other’s names, rubbed, sucked, writhed. I was bleeding so severely afterward, my bottom lip split open, my eyebrow practically torn off, that I almost passed out. Instead, the world persisted in behaving recklessly, ringing the doorbell and then running off. I knew without knowing how I knew that all things were the same thing to the dark.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's newest poetry collection, Heart-Shape Hole, which also includes examples of his handmade collages, is available from Laughing Ronin Press.

The Setup

Purple marks stained the ivory flesh of the young victim's neck. DNA forensic technicians hustled around her with their swabs and evidence bottles.

My partner Isobel raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question.

"DNA will confirm it, but it's him."

Isobel sucked in a breath. "Adam Knowles. Been killing ten years, but not a hint of where he is."

I knew where he was. Twelve years since I killed him and placed a sample of my DNA labelled with his name in the database.

The victim's final screams played in my memory as I, Detective Richard Morrison, guided the investigation.

From Guest Contributor Ross Clement

The Calculated Slant Of An Eyebrow

Jamie had the most expressive eyebrows of this or any other generation. They were eyebrows that could communicate what sculptor's stone and painter's easel have lamely attempted for centuries. When Jamie raised them, doors flung open.

While one can refute even the most carefully constructed argument, there's no arguing against the calculated slant of an eyebrow. At a nuanced protragalation from just one of Jamie's bushy caterpillars, fleets would unfurl their sails, old wives would once again see their husbands as young men, and whole economies would lose their composure.

So more is the shame that Jamie was a woman.