What to read (right now) V

By Josh Spilker » Burlap sacks and the Titanic, that underground bomb shelter and becoming Polish.

What will you do when your pirate ship crashes and all you can think of is the Titanic? Perhaps read "Notes on the Notebook of Five-Year Old Neurotic" by Joseph Cassara @ Pank Magazine with nice, helpful subheadings.

Pre-James Cameron Movie Fantasy

Before the release of the movie starring Kate Winslet—who was the only person that really mattered in that movie besides Kathy Bates—I had this fantasy of being on the Titanic the night it sank. In this fantasy, I am a boy wearing something that resembles burlap. In this fantasy, I am looking at myself instead of looking from within myself. In this fantasy, I am completely devoid of emotion, as if I am completely aware that I will either be saved because I am a child, or aware of the fact that I will soon drown. Then, like most things, it comes to an abrupt end.

"It's a Family Thing" by Hailey Heikkinen @ Necessary Fiction

The day after Isa’s middle school has a bomb threat, her parents contract the installation of a yellow steel tube slide twisting down from her second-floor bedroom along the staircase to the garden on the side of the house. The same company is installing a fire pole in the center of the house leading to an underground bomb shelter.

"Johnsoniski" by Faith Gardner @ Bananafish

You decided a while ago, during that course on Native American Literature at your newfound city college, that you were going to renounce your whiteness. You called your grandmamma, who talked to you for an hour telling you all about the family tree you never cared about until right now. Apparently you’re a quarter English, a quarter German and half Polish. That’s something! Being white is nothing; being European is nearly just as bad. But being from Poland: now that’s specific, that’s somewhere.

Posted on March 01, 2011. More on: stories, literature, codex