three numbers

by horace p sternwall

clarence albert fanshaw was a dreamer, had always been one, and had never done an honest day’s work in his life. in his youth his dreams had been somewhat varied, involving fame, achievement, romance, and even good works, but after his small inheritance had been wiped out in one of the more obscure financial crises of the late twentieth century, his dreams had focused almost exclusively on money - on winning a lottery, finding buried treasure, doing a good deed for an anonymous person who would turn out to fabulously wealthy and properly grateful, or some other windfall which would restore him to some measure of the comfort he had known in his youth. meanwhile he spent his days in the streets, cafeterias, libraries, and homeless shelters of the great city, dreaming… always dreaming… the times changed, never for the better. clarence missed the cheap movie theaters where he had spent so much time in the vanished century, and which had virtually disappeared. so had the old-fashioned missions, which would give you a feed and ask nothing more of a guy than that he say a prayer or sing a hymn. they had already been fading away when clarence first hit the streets, and he had rather enjoyed them. clarence had another, somewhat curious grievance. there was not as much paper to be found in the streets, or left behind in cafeterias, as before. one of his most persistent fantasies had always been of finding a letter, or scrap of paper, which would contain a secret message which would somehow unlock a mysterious source of wealth, or contain a map or clue to the recovery of buried treasure. treasure island and the count of monte cristo had been his two favorite books as a child, and had made a permanent impression on him. but now, of course, in the miserable and unromantic twenty-first century, nobody wrote letters, or wrote down telephone numbers or much of anything else on paper. everything was transmitted or recorded on the same infernal cell phones which prevented them from meeting the eyes of a guy asking for spare change. so it was with both pleasure and surprise that clarence found, one rainy morning on a table at a burger king, a small piece of lined paper, apparently torn from a pocket sized notebook. the piece had three numbers written on it in blue ink. the three numbers were: 3,000,000,000 8,000,000,000 150 what could they mean? * despite his hatred of the modern world, clarence had learned to use the computers available in libraries. so, the first thing he did when he found the piece of paper with the three numbers was to google the numbers. the first thing he did was google the three numbers together. what he got seemed like a whole lot of nothing, including. “the annual report of the secretary of state to the governor of ohio”, and “ the annual report of the water department of cincinnati”, and “coins of the world - netherlands” and “growth - coconino community college.” nothing much there. next he tried the numbers separately. when he put in 3,000,000 he immediately got “convert 3,000,000 seconds to years”. it turned about to be 95 years. that might be promising. the treasure had been buried 95 years ago! next he put in 8,000,000,000. the first thing that came up was “don’t take that call from 800-000-0000”. all right, clarence thought, i won’t. he scrolled through 4 more pages and found something on reddit - saying “there are about 8,000,000,000 people on the planet”. yes, and they are all looking for the treasure. finally, he tried 150. all sorts of nothing. the best was on the fourth page of scrolling. “nancy pelosi removed a 150-year-old sign reading “in god we trust" from the entrance to the u s house of representatives chamber.” what a bitch! to do somerthing like that! but did it have anything to do with the treasure? maybe the 150 year old sign was worth 3,000,000 dollars? maybe nancy pelosi was going to bury it for 95 years and come back and dig it up and it would be worth 8,000,000,000 dollars. clarence felt that he was getting somewhere now. but just then he heard a loud recorded voice behind him announcing: “the library will be closing in ten minutes. if you have anything to check out, please do so now.” clarence sighed. he would have to come back and resume his researches tomorrow. but maybe it was just as well, as his head was starting to hurt. why did everything have to be so complicated? and would his dreams ever come true? like 8 billion other people living lives of possibly 3 billion seconds, clarence asked himself these questions about 150 times a day.

are all humans insane?

by nick nelson

the first parts of arthur bradshaw’s day were always the best. arthur lived on the thirty-sixth floor of an apartment building in the western section of the city. and although over the years he had various issues with the management of the building, there was one thing he always appreciated about the building, and that was the reason he never left it. it always had hot water. arthur enjoyed taking long hot showers in the morning, and no matter how long he indulged himself in this pleasure on any given morning, the hot water never seemed to give out. for this, arthur was willing to endure inconveniences with the elevators, the trash disposal, the heating and the air conditioning, and even the wi-fi. arthur had two other pleasures in life. one was coffee. there were a number of coffee shops outside the apartment building and near the subway entrance that arthur entered on weekday mornings, and he enjoyed spreading his custom around them, and sampling the various blends and brands. he did not, however, profess to be any kind of connoisseur, as he realized how easily claims of that kind, about coffee or about any subject in the world, could lead to ridicule and disaster. arthur’s third pleasure was enjoying the novels of delia smith rogers. he regularly consumed them on his hour long subway commute to his office in the heart of the city, usually on his e-reader or listening to tapes of them, but sometimes actually reading the printed editions. delia smith rogers’s long series of hugely successful novels concerned the intricate plots and counterplots on a distant planet of various kings, queens, henchmen, magicians, assassins, vampires, ghouls, golems, rebellious peasants, and unruly royal children, in a never ending but always perfectly logical and comprehensible variety of incident, very different from arthur’s own daily existence. the novels had been made into a hit tv series, but arthur preferred the books. one thing that could ruin arthur’s day, even early in the morning, was failure to get a seat on the subway car and be forced to stand part or the whole way to the office. one morning he could not get a seat, and he was debating whether to put his briefcase down on the floor of the car and put his earbuds in while standing up, when the person standing beside him actually spoke to him. arthur turned his head ever so slightly to look at the interloper. he saw a white man about fifty years old, not quite a bum, with large brown staring eyes and wearing a coat much too warm for the weather. “what do you think?” the man asked, apparently following up the previous remark which arthur had not heard. “about what?” arthur answered, thinking, why am i talking with this person? “about whether the whole human race is insane?” “um - insane in what way?” “they live in one world with their bodies and a whole different one with their minds.” “that could be.” “do you mind my talking to you like this?” the man asked, leaning a little closer to arthur. “it’s not the worst thing that ever happened to me,” arthur answered evenly. “but maybe you better get used to it. because you know what i heard?” “what did you hear?” “that they are going to pass a law that people on the street and everywhere will have to start talking to each other and stop looking at their phones and playing games and looking at pictures of cats and monkeys.” “i didn’t hear that. it sounds unlikely.” “you think? but you never know, do you?” “no, you don’t.” just when arthur thought he could not take any more, the man announced, “well, it was great talking to you, my friend, but this is my stop.” a number of other people also got off at the next stop and arthur was able to claim a seat. his ordeal was over. but he did not feel like listening to his book, or doing anything except stare into space for the rest of the ride. even the least break in his routine tended to upset arthur. his day was ruined, and he decided to just suffer through it.

a puppy waits for you at the back door of heaven

by rhoda penmarq

but they are getting away with it that doesn’t mean i have to like it especially - especially when i couldn’t walk down a street anywhere in the world and know they were laughing laughing for to beat the band it is time to take a stand the last stand with a dozen red roses nailed to the wall and a million years of flowing tears and a million dead butterflies all because of scum like them think of us, billy! i wish i could but it’s been going on too long and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and they just keep drinking martinis and laughing don’t forget, she was my girl i can’t stop thinking about it a part of me wishes i could and joey - poor fucked up joey the roses float away in the fog in the wind and the rain and the fog the fog outside the penthouse window muffling the sound of their laughter the laughter of the lowest scum that’s what i want to know

revenge falls from the sky like a million roses

by rhoda penmarq

what kind of scum did this? joey was my friend ricki was my girl it is time to take a stand but what about us, billy? we still have to live joey was the greatest friend a guy ever had for a million years he took her away from me that’’s why i have to know we can’t let then get away with it because they think they rule the world i bought her a dozen red roses because i couldn’t live with myself but that’s the kind of scum they are and have been for a million years i have to do this he was my friend how long has this been going on? do you think roses fall from the sky? “i’ll tell you what falls from the sky” no, billy, no! even though she did me wrong i couldn’t hate her forever “the clock is ticking out on the highway” because they know we are in here and they are laughing at us

the old house

by timothy t jones

back in the day every town had a road and the road ran through the town and on to the next town in the town there was always another road that ran up the hill and on the hill was a house an old house where nobody lived and nobody lived since anybody could remember sometimes the old house had a name like “the old johnson place” and sometimes it did not the windows were always broken and cats crawled around the front yard and looked at the broken windows birds flew around the windows and sometimes bats, at dusk every town had a sheriff and the sheriff would drive up the hill and look at the old house and drive back down the hill again every sheriff had a friend named mike and mike would ask the sheriff anything going on up at the old house? and the sheriff would say, nothing much and mike would say, no kids hanging out, getting into mischief? and the sheriff would say no, not any more they don’t get into mischief now they just sit home and watch tv and mike would say, that’s too bad and the sheriff would nod and they would look up at the sky the darkening sky at the clouds and the old house and the birds and the bats and the moon and the trees back in the day

So now

So now I'm like the crow.
So now i'm like timmy
timmy and the slurkett
timmy and the revenge

of rhoda's revenge.
So now I'm like Harlequin
and Jimmy Bastard
and Fern.

And now I miss them so.
So now I write another line
and wish beyond wishing
you would craft this, flashing by.

all together now

all together now

walking with a dog you are
never alone
and your eyes are always down
ticks, turds, and dangerous bones
you watch the neck and the ground
between the small stones
moves an ant, and
i adjust 40 pounds of
huge, damaged leg
to avoid
who commits more horse power?
an ant's (entire) life
(toil)
or a big animal's
avoid maneuver ;
either way
he is more efficient
i
am more accurate
we both live

2019