Sickness & Health
Featuring stories by Jason Jackson, Andrew Lipstein, Melissa Swantkowski, Manuel Martinez, and Erika Price; read by actors Jonathan Minton, Don Carter, Laurel Holland, Jon Sprik, and Samantha Jane Gurewitz. Hosted by Andrew Lloyd-Jones at KGB Bar on 6th February 2013.
Tiny Alligators
by Erika Price
When Lila’s fuck-buddy moved out of their shared two - bedroom flat above the Sunbeam Bakery, she immediately put up a Craigslist ad and called the local alternative paper. The first potential tenant was a middle-aged Russian guy with high boots and a lazy eye, who rejected her as roundly and openly as she did him. The second was an impossibly taut and pert divorcee with a high-maintenance marmoset that would require, Lila was told, the entire guest bathroom. The third person to call, a maddening week after the first two, was a nineteen-year-old named Rose.
Card Sound
by Manuel Martinez
At nineteen I stood up in the back of a convertible and peed on a car that was following close behind at over eighty miles an hour.
So Now You Go
by Melissa Swantkowski
They were still there. A cluster of three small pus-filled boils on the outside of her knee. Looking closely, Lina saw something dark beginning to form inside each one
RIP Willis Paulsen
by Andrew Lipstein
Though there should be, there is no soundtrack underneath these words. They exist only as they are, next to each other, not touching. They will be printed on two eight-and-a-half pieces of paper, double-sided, and placed in your casket. They contain everything I know about you.
Still Stars
by Jason Jackson
The car radio is playing another song. Picked guitar. No vocal, at least not yet, but I don’t wait. I tune to static instead. I’m driving in the dark again. Not going anywhere. It’s four in the morning, and there’s the throbbing behind my eyes, the twist deep in my gut. The streetlights are white, yellow, then pink, then grey, then blurred, and I’m sick. Nauseous. Outside the window I can see the stars. The meaningless moon, with its stolen glow. No clouds. No rain.