Friend Of The Devil

Satan ruled Hell with a malevolent thirst for pain and suffering, visiting the worst horrors imaginable upon all who entered his realm.

Bob was Satan's best friend. Bob defended Satan to anyone who would listen. Just because he had an important job to do, and that job was not all together pleasant, doesn't mean Satan was a bad guy. Don't confuse the uniform with the man. This was one of Bob's favorite sayings.

Those poor souls who suffered a Groundhog's Day repetition of never-ending torments hated Bob even more because he stuck up for Satan.

But that's what friends do.

Weightlifting

When he first started pushing barbells, he did it to get his anger out, throwing the weights from his body, stressing his tendons as he exhaled sprays of spit with every red-faced repetition, every sweaty pump. He realized his joints wouldn’t last long hurling metal, so he calmed his approach, traded manic intervals – of fighting gravity with fury – for calculated precision, and he’d demonstrate, lying down on a chair with an invisible bar connecting his fists, showing us the proper form of a barbell press, his big forearms and biceps flexing and twisting slowly as his muscles contracted, then extended.

From Guest Contributor Parker Wilson

Parker is a writer and editor living in Highland Park. He is a recent MFA graduate and spends his free time running along the Detroit River. He’s published in Bristol Noir and is a founding editor at DUMBO Press.

Instagram:@parkerreviewsbooks

Bathroom Tile

‘Once upon a time someone tried to imitate marble with porcelain.

Understandable; humans have been artificially recreating nature since the cavemen. It’s our nature to synthesize.’

Arnold stood in the bathroom of his newly rented apartment, pondering its cladding.

A 12x12 tile covered the floor and all four walls. The same pink-veined beige tile, repeated 286 times.

‘But this imitation fails instantly due to the repetition. Nothing could be less realistic.’

He felt he’d been given insight into an anonymous tile designer’s mindset. He didn’t know how to interpret it, but he had a year-long lease to mull it over.

From Guest Contributor Olivia Rerick

Learning To Read

I lean into my chair holding the book by its bind, learning to read what I did not as a child, but now with gray in my stubble. Flipping through the pages, feeling the paper crease between my fingers, I fumble to link it all together.

I follow the words with a methodical dexterity of a trained scientist, and with repetition, I begin to sense the fruits of my labor, basking in the glow of my mother’s maiden language come alive.

The exercise ends with a whistle, as I close my cookbook and taste the pepperpot burn my overeager tongue.

From Guest Contributor Eric Persaud

Eric is an Indo-Guyanese American living in New York City. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation in Public Health and writing stuff in his free time.

A Beginner’s Guide To Dystopia

From the street outside, a loudspeaker boomed, “According to the decree of the 17th of this month on the Abolition of Walls.” I got up from the table where I was reading and went over to the window. Banners with the slogan “Public Interest Comes Before Self-Interest” fluttered in endless repetition down the street. Practically right under my window, officers were clubbing a man who lay crumpled on the pavement. I sighed, then went and sat back down and found my place in the book – sea nymphs with red seaweed hair were sunning themselves on the ledges of seaside cliffs.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of THE DEATH ROW SHUFFLE, a poetry collection forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.