The Man From Horsemouth – Thomas P. McGrath

The Man from Horsemouth

The Man down the road from us drinks his own urine.
He also invented a cure for the common cold by grinding mustard seeds, ginger, the ash from burnt bones and then enough tequila to make it a paste.

The Garden – Sarah Richardson

There’s this memory of my mother’s, and though it’s not really fair for me to lay claim to it, I think about it often. It comes back to me, and not just when I’m doing the things that remind me of her – feebly attempting the grand sweeping gestures that echo in her wake – but as I’m walking home after school, or drying the dishes, or reading about sixteenth century propaganda for History, and then there they are again, out of breath and grass stained, and I’m getting nostalgic for a childhood I never had.

The Streetlight Eclipse – Alex Lodge

The Streetlight Eclipse

The Whipper and the Snapper are two young men of no real importance.
They sit in concrete public places most days, keeping out of the sun
and living off car fumes. Their skins are loosely draped over their
skeletons. They never touch, each other or anyone.

I first met them when I was in a band. As fellow youth, I wanted them
to be impressed by me and my mild-but-ironic lyrics and Casio
keyboard. But they spoke another language. They sat outside the bar
where our first gig was, smoking, bitching – a vacuum of gossip. I
walked my instruments past them slowly so I could catch snatches of
their talk: