My Thrilling, Extraordinary Life
︎︎︎ Steve Gergley
︎ Aug 14, 2025
This morning I woke up as a giant Angora rabbit named Joey. Unlike Gregor Samsa's experience, this has been a very pleasant and soothing development. For the majority of the morning, I sat on the lap of my new owner (a rotund, syrup-voiced, silk-haired woman named Blanche), and munched on baby carrots while she brushed my fifteen-inch wool with a steel-tooth comb. In the afternoon, I hopped around my three-floor, oak and wire enclosure and ate a large number of crunchy spinach leaves. It was a wonderful and relaxing day. Tomorrow I will begin work on a slim, bracingly honest autofiction novel chronicling each minute detail of my thrilling, extraordinary life.
Steve Gergley is an author and the editor of scaffold literary magazine.
Also by Steve: A Book About Architecture
Weird Dreams
︎︎︎ Mindinterface
︎ Aug 12, 2025
Weird dreams about flying. Weird dreams about flying saucers. Weird dreams about lunch on Stone Street. Weird dreams about touching each other's noses. Weird dreams about fighting. Weird dreams about computer hardware. Weird dreams about being crushed inside of a subway tunnel. Weird dreams about plastic tables. Weird dreams about our first kiss. Weird dreams about the wintertime.
Mindinterface is stuck on the train.
A Devonshire Engagement
︎︎︎ Will Mountain Cox
︎ Aug 11, 2025
Miniature donkeys, maximal horses,
and trusting in their snuffling presence.
A country night without moon or stars
when we made our impromptu proposals in the pitch dark.
Devonshire hills and Devonshire Yeoman,
the fading electric green of the hills
and the silage-dressed theater of the hills,
and the mutton with the downy sleeping cheeks the dark contains.
I cannot see your hand an inch in front of my face,
your little hand, with its new ring on it,
but I will trust it’s there, since I’m the one who placed it there,
the one who said the word “forever,” which made the darkness dare.
If I were to reach for you in the dark
and find that this was all a trick of the light,
then I would surely be forgiven if
I emptied the dark of any latent sound and checked the time.
The lume of my watch is radioactive, but has decayed.
It is half-past kissing time, time to kiss again.
and trusting in their snuffling presence.
A country night without moon or stars
when we made our impromptu proposals in the pitch dark.
Devonshire hills and Devonshire Yeoman,
the fading electric green of the hills
and the silage-dressed theater of the hills,
and the mutton with the downy sleeping cheeks the dark contains.
I cannot see your hand an inch in front of my face,
your little hand, with its new ring on it,
but I will trust it’s there, since I’m the one who placed it there,
the one who said the word “forever,” which made the darkness dare.
If I were to reach for you in the dark
and find that this was all a trick of the light,
then I would surely be forgiven if
I emptied the dark of any latent sound and checked the time.
The lume of my watch is radioactive, but has decayed.
It is half-past kissing time, time to kiss again.
Will Mountain Cox is the author of the novel Roundabout and editor of the forthcoming anthology The Relegation Reader. He lives in Paris, France.
Also by Will: In my past, I have seen a Roomba vacuum ...
Also by Will: In my past, I have seen a Roomba vacuum ...
Still Life
︎︎︎ Rebecca Warlick Cooke
︎ Aug 8, 2025
Our baby breathes in smoke
from the open flames two tables down
Light grey and dark grey concrete
with red paint ground in it
A girl swings the wheel of her scooter
around like a tank gun, and nearby
a gang of angelic blondes play
Their parents set the table with cups of juice
and birthday cake
They’re having a party
while the solemn fat child tends to the fire with a stick
waiting for her mother to return
from the open flames two tables down
Light grey and dark grey concrete
with red paint ground in it
A girl swings the wheel of her scooter
around like a tank gun, and nearby
a gang of angelic blondes play
Their parents set the table with cups of juice
and birthday cake
They’re having a party
while the solemn fat child tends to the fire with a stick
waiting for her mother to return
jungle
︎︎︎ Em Davenport
︎ Aug 7, 2025
give me your fur, please–
it has to be a golden brown
like we rehearsed so many times
i’ll pin your collar to my leather jacket
my ears are no longer red
instead
the covergirl lipstick
from east village
called “jungle”
it has to be a golden brown
like we rehearsed so many times
i’ll pin your collar to my leather jacket
my ears are no longer red
instead
the covergirl lipstick
from east village
called “jungle”