Post Traumatic Special delivery

Kim Jung gi

Billy ripped the page from Phoebe's notebook, let’s face it, he thought, nobody’s ever gonna know; it’s not like anyone gives a shit anyway. The thumb-start on his faux-retro maglev Hyundai Sinner worked eventually; whacking crackle into the alleyway like some zombie bad lung trauma, and he cranked it into the high street as if he hadn’t already used up eight of his nine lives. The bipolar traffic honked resentment at his door-handle-testicle-tangling progress through the unsynchronised mind-fuck that posed itself as progress (a political viewpoint that proclaims anyone arguing with its singular premise can go fuck themselves with their left-wing anarcho-socialist values). Billy ripped the last of his credit from the slipstream of the late-running 5:37 from Hell as it side-swiped its comatose commuter cargo into a sad resemblance of awareness, hoping that the sling-shot momentum thus gained would serve to deliver the message Phoebe’d so recently, and so desperately, scrawled upon the feint of her jealously guarded, preciously teetering-on–the-brink-of-extinction, notebook.

Tales for the attention-span deficit reader

the optometrist

by nick nelson

illustrations by danny delacroix

the optometrist walked down the street. everybody watched from their windows. injun joe, smoking his eternal pipe, watched from the window of the smoke shop. wang yun watched from the window of the laundry. miss ellie williams watched from the window of the schoolhouse. sheriff pete brown waited at the bottom of the street. the sheriff had pulled an old battered sofa out into the street and he sat on it. the sheriff had a shotgun on his lap. the optometrist kept walking down the street. slow and easy. jessie jones and sallie may watched from the second floor window of mrs willard’s. buck daniels and jake carter and the rest of the town good-for-nothings watched from outside the saloon. banker solomon smith, though he did not approve of such nonsense, found himself drifting over to the window of the bank to take a look. suddenly little bobby miller ran into the street. “bobby miller! you get back in here this minute!” cried mrs miller. with an “awww!”, bobby obeyed. the optometrist kept on walking down the street. there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. just the sun. getting higher. everybody had a good view. the sheriff leaned back on his sofa and smiled. old ulysses, in town to buy some provisions for old mrs bainbridge, watched from the door of jackson’s general store. “a bad business.” observed mr jackson, wiping his flour-stained hands on his apron. “sure enough,” ulysses agreed. and the optometrist kept on coming. “i got my money on the sheriff,” drawled buck daniels. “everybody’s got their money on the sheriff, you dang fool!” exploded charlie matthews. “ain’t nobody going to take that bet!” the sheriff leaned back a little easier on the sofa. the whole town watched. the sun got a little higher in the sky. and the optometrist just kept on coming.