Life Misspelled

Intelligent machines probe not only my words, but also the silent spaces between words, searching for hidden doors to secret rooms. As a kid, I won a goldfish at the county fair by tossing a ping-pong ball into the fish’s bowl. My mom flushed Goldie down the toilet while I was at school. I think of it sometimes when I see Nazis invading Poland on the History Channel. “Last name?” the woman behind the counter asks, eyes on the computer screen, hands poised on the keyboard. “Good,” I say. “How do you spell that?” “Like God, but with two o’s.”From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Marching Onward

Joe toggled through the stations on Direct TV, waiting for something to catch his eye. He didn't want to get caught up in another one of those History Channel documentaries. He needed something mindless after all the drama at the office.

For some reason the remote wasn't responding very well and his frustrations began to mount. Whenever he had to call customer service, it was an endless menu of useless options. Maybe if he blew on the inside of the remote; that always worked with his Nintendo.

After changing the batteries, Joe happily returned to his slow march to death.