The Gift
︎︎︎ Calvin Atwood
︎ July 18, 2026
Her late grandfather, according to her, was just so proud of having never gotten involved with any of the women in France during the war on account of his concerns about hygiene and social diseases. He told this to his granddaughter, my wife, and now she was telling me, yet again. I can’t tell you how many times I’d heard this one. I tried not to take it personally but what was she really getting at? She wasn’t saying that I, given my life course thus far, had made all the wrong decisions. She just wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
I was only angry because I’d heard this one before, and having done so, I needed to find some young people that adored me but didn’t really know me. Lacking the necessary grace, I was incapable of concealing my rage over this seemingly benign comment. But why couldn’t she detect that I’d heard enough about it already? She had to suspect as much, and yet she continued to test me. This part was new.
“He had a girlfriend over there, and when he got home, he got a letter from her, but he didn’t even open it. He threw it away,” said my wife.
Now, I’m no detective but the man was perhaps homosexual, or maybe, he had never considered his own words, so nobody had bothered to call him out. Was I now being asked to sign off on the idea that her grandfather—unlike millions of soldiers, unlike me—had never laid a hand on any of the women in France; and that his, unlike all the others, had just been some variety of platonic courtship? Let’s just say that it was. After all, I had no evidence that this wasn’t the case.
In retrospect, I should have gone up to my office and sat alone in the darkness, listening to the rain, instead of engaging in all that righteous talk. If I’d done that I might still be married instead of sitting alone in my office, listening to the rain, waiting for something that would make it all seem worthwhile. Well, it finally came to me while I was out walking, and now it’s yours.
I was only angry because I’d heard this one before, and having done so, I needed to find some young people that adored me but didn’t really know me. Lacking the necessary grace, I was incapable of concealing my rage over this seemingly benign comment. But why couldn’t she detect that I’d heard enough about it already? She had to suspect as much, and yet she continued to test me. This part was new.
“He had a girlfriend over there, and when he got home, he got a letter from her, but he didn’t even open it. He threw it away,” said my wife.
Now, I’m no detective but the man was perhaps homosexual, or maybe, he had never considered his own words, so nobody had bothered to call him out. Was I now being asked to sign off on the idea that her grandfather—unlike millions of soldiers, unlike me—had never laid a hand on any of the women in France; and that his, unlike all the others, had just been some variety of platonic courtship? Let’s just say that it was. After all, I had no evidence that this wasn’t the case.
In retrospect, I should have gone up to my office and sat alone in the darkness, listening to the rain, instead of engaging in all that righteous talk. If I’d done that I might still be married instead of sitting alone in my office, listening to the rain, waiting for something that would make it all seem worthwhile. Well, it finally came to me while I was out walking, and now it’s yours.
Wanderer Impromptu
︎︎︎ Nathaniel McGlue
︎ July 17, 2026
In a dream I was the wanderer
The lost young man cold and wet again
through the streets of the old town again
I snuck into her house for warmth
I meant no harm
Up the steps through the tall round red brick portal
Victoria’s day
Such a beautiful silent home
The golden runner in the hall
The ticking heirloom clock
I meant no harm
I left her an email explaining, apologizing
What I had done
I meant no harm
Down through the years I did it again
Now and again
When I wandered cold and wet through the streets of the old quarter
Sneaking again into her fine old house again
Up the steep steps through the proud red portal
For warmth
I meant no harm
Ten years gone I wandered back again
To sneak in again
Never again
Because she stopped me on the steps to her fine old house
The deep red brick portal
Victoria’s reign
Her eyes two peepholes to a polar sea
You cannot do this anymore she says
You cannot come here anymore
I know what you’ve been doing
I read your email and you cannot do this anymore
I’d been sneaking into her house in a dream of ten years
Her daughter was all grown up now and as beautiful as her mother
The lost young man cold and wet again
through the streets of the old town again
I snuck into her house for warmth
I meant no harm
Up the steps through the tall round red brick portal
Victoria’s day
Such a beautiful silent home
The golden runner in the hall
The ticking heirloom clock
I meant no harm
I left her an email explaining, apologizing
What I had done
I meant no harm
Down through the years I did it again
Now and again
When I wandered cold and wet through the streets of the old quarter
Sneaking again into her fine old house again
Up the steep steps through the proud red portal
For warmth
I meant no harm
Ten years gone I wandered back again
To sneak in again
Never again
Because she stopped me on the steps to her fine old house
The deep red brick portal
Victoria’s reign
Her eyes two peepholes to a polar sea
You cannot do this anymore she says
You cannot come here anymore
I know what you’ve been doing
I read your email and you cannot do this anymore
I’d been sneaking into her house in a dream of ten years
Her daughter was all grown up now and as beautiful as her mother
He Draws the Seven of Swords
︎︎︎ C. Sandbatch
︎ July 16, 2026
Would that you came
to your beloved,
swift as a gazelle,
crossing wastes in leaps—
legs racing,
limbs afire,
an ordeal: your whole body
pierced with fear.
After you, ever after: the hunter,
and the smiling dog beside him.
But this body’s dust, its trail,
eludes the chasers.
For now.
For ever.
Finding yourself before the bear’s tooth,
look to the spider’s seventh eye, unsleeping,
black where the night-sky snow gathers,
coldly regarding you and what has followed.
Offer instead the summons given you:
blood from the thumb, a small candle,
one little flame from the house you fled,
set down before your beloved;
then we shall rest the rest of death.
to your beloved,
swift as a gazelle,
crossing wastes in leaps—
legs racing,
limbs afire,
an ordeal: your whole body
pierced with fear.
After you, ever after: the hunter,
and the smiling dog beside him.
But this body’s dust, its trail,
eludes the chasers.
For now.
For ever.
Finding yourself before the bear’s tooth,
look to the spider’s seventh eye, unsleeping,
black where the night-sky snow gathers,
coldly regarding you and what has followed.
Offer instead the summons given you:
blood from the thumb, a small candle,
one little flame from the house you fled,
set down before your beloved;
then we shall rest the rest of death.
Don't Go to Online Lit Tomorrow
︎︎︎ Tactical Surveillance Crab
︎ July 15, 2026
A fascist bodybuilder asked me, “Who do you need to confess to?” and I couldn’t answer, but much later in my story, after everyone had lost interest, I realized who I needed to confess to. By then, I had already pushed away all my “friends” (paid actors, bad ones at that). The CIA has an execution chamber named after Robert Glück. How do I know this? I’m there right now. Me, you, and the e-girl you rode in on all knew this is how my story would end.
No bio provided.
In our culture
︎︎︎ Philip Traylen
︎ July 14, 2026
In our culture, she said, if a man offends a woman over the age of thirty, another woman, under the age of thirty, must enter the fray, for the purpose of achieving full mutual resolution. At the same time, an associate of the man—if they are under thirty—will be stored in a cage until all matters have reached a point of rest, have ceased, that is, to progress. Your acquaintance, ‘Adam the tragic ass man’—that was how he signed his name, incidentally—is currently serving that sentence, and he will continue to do so until a certain stillness or at least the appearance of equivalency, between you and my mother, has been, via me, restored. In our culture, we say it like this: whatever the spiritual cost, stillness must reign.