Your mother’s voice, calling you to get ready for school. Immediately, the slice of the headache. The undercurrent of nausea in your throat and stomach, the leaden quality of the bones. You shouldn’t have gone out drinking last night. She is calling again, your mother—her footfalls are nearing your door. When the drinking first began,… Continue reading The Kali Yuga is a teenage hangover
Tag: fiction
Hungry Ghost, 23A
An earlier version of this story was published by Sixfold Magazine in the winter 2024 issue, available here. For moments now Jeff has entertained the fantasy that he will secure himself an entire row, two empty seats beside him along which he can stretch, lie, even sleep. Perhaps it is the tattoos on his face… Continue reading Hungry Ghost, 23A
The marble-workers
On the bench they sat in a single row, working their marbles. The bench stretched in either direction for miles–perhaps an infinity–and to each inhabitant was allotted a single marble, a clear sphere speckled with dots and striated with lines that the individual rolled over in their palm, trying to wipe clean. Over time, this… Continue reading The marble-workers
The short, miserable life of an empath
By the time she reached middle school, the empath had learned of the horrors visited upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of WWII–hence, she developed radiation poisoning, even though both geography and temporality vastly distanced her from those places. Too, she had learned of Fritz Haber, Zyklon B, WWI’s trenches, and the burnings of… Continue reading The short, miserable life of an empath
Zen bootyism and the case of the disappearing cheese
There once was a monk who taught exclusively by way of flatulence. “Master, what do I do when the mind overwhelms the heart?,” one of his students would ask him, and a toot would be the reply. “Master, why does the mind create suffering?” Toot-toot. “Master, what do I do when the longing for sex… Continue reading Zen bootyism and the case of the disappearing cheese
Jackson Holzberg Buckley 