a digression

by bofa xesjum

alice baked an apple pie betty rode a broom columbus sailed the ocean blue little david played with doom eddie had an elephant that frank could not ride george washington crossed over the hill and came out on the other side harry put the hoodoo on the queen of india’a cat jesse robbed the mail train wearing a brand new hat the king of england told me that luck would be my lady montezuma slept all day because his tree was shady nobody ever warned me and oh how true it turned a preacher will take your money before it is even earned maggie lived behind the quarry with a rooster and a hen st stephen tossed her a nickel back when men were men a turtle crossed the highway under heaven in the rain a vision of eternity wobbled in its brain excuse this long digression i wish you all the best watch your back and count your fingers before you take the final test

the music of henry x

by bofa xesjum

have you heard henry x? i never heard of him. he’s a composer. what does he compose? music. modern music. no, i never heard of him. i have recordings of some of his music. would you like to hear them? > whatever. what do you have them on, jango? no, in my room, on my laptop. in your room! you should put them on your phone, or carry your laptop around, like a civilized human being. so you don’t want to come up to my room? no. i will bring my laptop tomorrow, or the next time we meet. that might be a while. why is that? i am going on a trip tomorrow. a long trip? long enough. have a good time. i’ll do my best. i am sorry you won’t get a chance to hear henry x’s music. i think it is really interesting. is this henry a friend of yours? no. i don’t have any friends. that’s so sad. yes, it is. it’s a nice day, isn’t it? nice enough. they really keep the walkways clean here. i have seen other parks where they are all littered up.

an incident

by nick nelson

he closed the door behind him. he did not take the elevator but walked down the three flights of stairs and reached the street without encountering anyone. i am going to forget it happened, he said to himself. a month went by. he dd not hear anything, and was not approached or questioned by anybody. he figured he was safe. and he was. he lived for another thirty-four years and was never found out.

the captain

by horace p sternwall

a bankrupt banker named godfrey grouse lived in the attic of an abandoned house he played chopin etudes on an old oil drum and considered the neighbors philistine scum very different was miss deville who lived in the house at the top of the hill and treated the tradesmen in a civilized way when they presented the bills she could never pay miss deville had a servant named wilma worth who had been singled out from birth for reasons that have never been clear because you know how people talk, my dear wilma had a gentleman friend who drove old number 9 around the bend he called himself captain captain, not casey, jones and he courted wilma in sepulchral tones the captain married wilma in june and told her he would be back soon then he headed on down the line where he is still looking for a good time the world is always new to an old yellow dog named blue who never howls at the moon because he will be a wolf again soon

the next dance

by bofa xesjum

the street cried out for love but the dance instructor hated life. the dance instructor who hated life headed for the next exit. besides life, the dance instructor hated the car they were driving. it started to rain on the man. death watched from a cloud. and laughed at the man walking in the rain. who had once loved a woman. life waited at the exit as the cloud passed over a woman it was just another rainy day a day in somebody’s life i would hate to think it is all a big joke. the woman looked back down the street. as the cloud passed over the exit and the driver stopped the car , and asked, want to learn to dance?

head

by walter w johnson iii

i have a head and the head has a top in the top is a brain overflowing with slop i walk down the street people ask me my game they think something or other and i must think the same my arm has a hand and the hand makes a fist the fist holds a flower but i have never been kissed my leg has a foot on the foot is a shoe i walk in the rain but my heart is true i walk down the street people ask me my name i don’t know what to tell them ain’t that a shame

in the night, part 2

by nick nelson

part 2 of 2

bradley johanson woke up. he looked up at the ceiling and thought, something really good is going to happen to me today. bradley was born in carthage missouri in the early years of the 21st century. he was the only child of judy, a single mother who was herself the only child of a single mother, janelle, who was one of the few survivors of a small community in north dakota described by local media as a “cult”, most of whose other members had died of a mysterious illness which spread through them during a severe winter. bradley was an awkward child who did not make friends and was devoted to his mother and grandmother and wanted to make them proud of him. he did poorly in school. judy tried to help him with his homework but was not very effective at it. when he was not in school or trying to do his homework, bradley watched television - network television, as the small family could not afford cable. he did not care much for the religious shows judy and janelle watched - although he never complained when they were on - and liked the movies occasionally screened, especially the wizard of oz, and star wars and srar trek movies. bradley daydreamed of writing screenplays for such movies and making large amounts of money, but had no clear idea about how to go about doing so. judy and janelle died within three months of each other. bradley left high school without graduating and found work as an uber driver. on an impulse, he moved to a larger city closer to a coast, and continued with uber in his new surroundings. on the day bradley woke up and felt something really good as going to happen to him, he put in an uneventful day of driving, and when the sun went down he made his way to a small burger king a block from his apartment. it was more crowded than usual, but he found a small unoccupied table for two by the window and sat down at it with his bacon cheeseburger and fries and iced tea. ll an ordinary looking white man about his own age, whom bradley thought looked familiar but whom he had never spoken to, appeared. mind if i sit here? it is kind of crowded. no, go ahead. the man sat down with his spicy crispy chicken sandwich and lemonade. neither of them spoke, but looked out the window as they ate and night completed its fall. bradley finished his bacon cheeseburger and tossed half his fries in the trash along with his wrapper and paper cup and and then left and went home to his apartment. it was eight thirty. the day had three and a half hours left. he had forgotten his feeling in the morning that something really good was going to happen to him. bradley watched “smooth jazz for lovers” for two hours on you tube and went to bed and fell asleep immediately. * when the guy he thought looked a little bit like himself was gone, pete took his time finishing his spicy crispy chicken sandwich. then he got up and left, leaving his tray and wrapper and naokins and paper cup on the table. it was a little before nine o’clock. he would have liked to go to a strip club, but decided to save his money and go to a sports bar on the next block instead. he did not see anybody in the sports bar he knew. he took a seat at the bar in front of a big screen showing a baseball game between the los angeles angels and the los angeles dodgers, with ohtani pitching against clayton kershaw. the dodgers knocked ohtani ot of the game and went ahead by six runs in the fifth inning. pete was not a fan of either team, and he had not bet on the game and now it was too late. he suddenly remembered getting up in the morning and feeling something terrible was going to happen to him. he had totally forgotten about it during the day when he was driving around. there was an hour and forty five minutes left in the day. what could happen? the sandwich at burger king had not really filled him up. he was trying to lose weight, but the food at the bar was not half bad as long as you made safe choices. he ordered a cheeseburger.