Invention & Discovery
Featuring stories by Paul Blaney, Ledia Xhoga, Liam Hogan, Dan Levinson, and Jeffrey Ethan Lee; performed by actors Max Woertendyke, Katherine Barron, Erika Iverson, and Jorge Cordova. Hosted by Andrew Lloyd-Jones and Elizabeth Alice Murray at KGB Bar on 5th June 2013.
Beautiful Wreckage
by Jeffrey Ethan Lee
Every ex I ever had hated any trace of anyone before her. One was even fond of going through my old things, including the most mysterious objects. This was how I lost the most unique and strangely beautiful memento of someone I ever had.
Fixed Point
by Liam Hogan
“Look,” I said, “I get what you’re saying. Some of it, anyway. I don’t believe it, but I get it. What I don’t get is that!” I pointed the end of the plastic trumpet at the mass of pipes and wires humming in the corner of the Prof’s lab. “Are you really trying to tell me that thing is a time machine?”
The Ordered Child
by Ledia Xhoga
Aesthetically speaking, Svetlana was imperfect due to a sudden defect in the molding machine. Her lower lip was missing, or not actually missing, it just seemed stuck to the inside of her upper lip, which stretched towards her chin like a long tongue. But otherwise she was a perfectly functional model and, considering their concerns with costs, the Quality Control had been lenient year after year, allowing her to give birth instead of discarding her to the bin. So now, there she was-- Svetlana Guremonski, a birth model, plugged in to a monitor and staring at the ceiling with her liquid and expressive eyes.
The Secret Life of a Mail Carrier
by Paul Blaney
I don’t recall whose idea it was—most likely Mrs Brook’s since she’s in charge of parcels—but a few years ago we started a Secret Santa at the post office in our small town. Nothing remarkable about that, you might say, and certainly to begin with it was the usual exchange of scarves for fountain pens, vases for mid-price watches, Argyle socks for hardback books. Until last year that is; last year I came home with an Invisibility Waistcoat.