"Pick of the Week" Archive - February 2010

HERE'S T' YOU

That bottle told the cops. I said she’d be back, but they’d found the body and then me, drinking her bubbly. What I’d shot was shot already, though, before the gun, back when she said, “Y’re dead’n’gone f’ me” and raised a fluted glass with that sharp-ass smile beneath the eyes I’d fallen into once.

--T.C. Marshall, Felton, CA

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TRAIN TRACKS

I could kill that bloody bird. I imagined tying it up and leaving it by the cat flap just like a villain trussing up a heroine and leaving her on the train tracks. When I returned I found it in three neat pieces. I stared at the cat flap. I was standing by the tracks. There was blood on my hands.

--Richard Ross, San Francisco, CA

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CENTRAL LOCALE

They left me at the place of impact. With the electrons swirling around the center, she yelled back "Must you always be so still when we crash."

--Fish Fishtofferson, Alameda, CA

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FOR YOUR GRANDMOTHER

Your grandmother does not like Calvino. She is letting you know this right now. “You’ve read Calvino?” you ask, frankly amazed. She has. In fact, unbeknownst to you, she started reading your copy while you were sitting right there at the kitchen table, line editing a story.

--Megan Fitzgerald, Scotts Valley, CA