spaghetti war crimes

     My friends and I all walked through the door of the diner and were immediately greeted by the cool sensation of the A/C. The blood rushed to my face. I became dizzy from the sudden change in temperature. A warm front had met a cold front and my face found itself right in the middle of the two.      Before I even got both my feet in the restaurant, my eyes shot over the throng of heads to check behind the cash register. There he was. My throat dried up and my heart fluttered. Those friends next to me continued on to join the line, but I stood in the doorway a few moments, dazed.      Once I regained my bearings I followed. I spent most of the time in line staring at my shoes: beat up converse that had holes in the sides of them from my grip tape. I had cut them at the ankle, all the way around, right under the first eyelet. I called them three quarter high tops. I got the idea from an old skate video, Streets on Fire. One of the skaters h...

When we all got news that Hawley was headed back home to Reno, none of us knew what to think. The strongest link in our chainmail, in our holy divine armor, was about to come undone. We had spent countless weeks forging those chains, building what we had come to enjoy for the past couple months, weeks, years? Time has felt odd while in this settlement. One can’t be quite too sure what day it is, what year, what month, what season. It doesn’t help that the weather is perfect with a high of 75 each and every fucking day. Blending the mondays into tuesdays and the tuesdays into wednesdays and so on and so on; so that there is just one blanket of continual day and night that spans for such a time that beards crop out and babies begin primary school. So that relatives pass and that no one can be sure if the ham in the fridge has gone bad. But yea, Hawley’s leaving town. It’s sparked a certain hysteria amongst the group. We’ve all got this trepidation beginning to rear up in our bellies, for...

          Alexander was a careful young man. He measured up all decisions in his mind before ever taking action. The world of his thoughts was more vivid than the world of forms that danced before him on his cave walls, lit up by the ever-present firelight. Each morning upon rising, Alexander would make himself a fresh pot of coffee. Everyday it was the same amount of the same blend made in the same coffeemaker and poured into the same cup alongside a small amount of the same cream. Alexander measured out 31.8 grams of coffee each day to load into his coffee making machine. That amount was–in his eyes–the perfect ratio for a cup of coffee. Of course, he would only drink a single cup and dump the rest down the sink, but he saw this as a necessary sacrifice in order to obtain the ideal ratio of coffee grounds to hot water in his cup. When ready to measure, he would place the special scale he got as a Christmas gift from his mother on the kitchen counter, do...

My mother yells at me to rise from my sleep. I worked all of yesterday and am extremely tired. There is more work today though. So I listen to my mother. I sit up on my cot and look through the cracked concrete of our home, towards the rice paddy fields, and I see the men’s heads bobbing. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. It’s a continuous rhythmic motion as they tend the paddies. Up and down. Up and down. Just like my sister’s when the young men come to visit her. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Mother is upon me now, braiding my hair. And nagging. She always nags. Clean your boots after working. Brush your hair. Stop being mean to your little brother. It’s never ending with her. She yanks on my hair as she sloppily braids. She is done now, and it’s time to get dressed. I am the middle child. The most unloved. I am rewarded with my elder siblings’ old rags, while they receive newer clothes. As for my younger siblings, they will receive the rags I wear now when they become ...

          Sergeant Mooney was raking over the mass of limbs, debris, and blood-soaked cloth when something caught his eye from out of the rubble. Traversing closer to the object, he realized the thing that had caught his eye was a red piece of paper. It was a sexy red, the kind they’d paint on the sign of a sleazy motel frequented by pimps, prostitutes, and drug dealers. As if this was its purpose in another life, the red piece of paper lured Mooney over to the chest pocket of a young boy.           After 6 months overseas, Mooney knew now that all the inhabitants of the small nation they had occupied were the enemy. Seeing the face of a dead 10 year old boy who had lost both of his arms was not the same for him as it would have been for a civilian back home. They would see a poor, defenseless boy blown to smithereens. A life wasted. Innocent killing. He saw a threat neutralized. If this individual was not face down dead in fro...

I awoke in the early morning to frozen feet. The discomfort of such a thing is unparalleled in the world. If one comes to acquire frozen feet–whether that be in the bed, kitchen, or living room it doesn’t matter–they are soon to realize the magnitude of the discomfort. I looked down towards my feet only to see that my blanket had been thrown from my bed onto the floor beside me.  I turned to look at my wife, but she was not in her usual place next to me. With a sigh of discomfort I sat upright and took in the room, filled with morning sunlight.  In front of the bed stood a large armoire made of dark mahogany. Our few clothes we chose to bring lay in it neatly. A nightstand stood guard on either side of the bed. My things lay strewn atop the one on my side, while my wife’s things were set neatly on her own. Pictures of dead cowboys and galloping horses hung on all the walls. A cowhide was strung across the wall above the bed.  My upper body became cold from sitting upright...