The Rialto Books Review vol.014
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The Rialto Books Review vol.014 includes Oubliette by Brendan Mitchell, I Depart a Stranger, pt. 4 by Alex Ranieri and The Sally Act I Scene III by Russell Block, and an excerpt from The Ways of God to Men vol.2 by T.F. Murphy.
Oubliette
by Brendan Mitchell
Night started, I was at the bar on my phone doing nothing. Watching four-inch women gyrate until my eyes produced tears. But I felt good, I felt lofty and satisfied. Couple cocktails, decent music, got to pet a cat. All in all it was an hour and change before I met the one they called Honey. She sniffed my neck and said she was a hound for trauma-stink, she was gonna lay truth to bare, she kept saying, oh the mulch, the mulch you call a brain. I told her I was around for a while, yeah, until they start getting mad back home.
It was only a few hours after that when we put balaclavas on and things got funny.
I was a slippery little parasite, far from the host as I could get. Honey and I in a pedicab, in a swirl of lime neon and tungsten night. Honey’s hand on my thigh. Wind, humid air...bitter aftertaste. I can’t stop smiling, I’m a little too drunk. Honey had canary yellow eyes and the high cheekbones of a lioness.
What can I say?
Sometimes you crane your neck into the moonlight and in the glint you get chopped.
I Depart a Stranger
by Alex Ranieri
Other men might have shown their discomfort, and brought the dinner to an end; but Jonathan would not. The departure of his son affected him in no way, other than to produce an evident care in chewing the last portion of his chicken, and in cutting his last mushroom to uniform pieces with exactitude. Anna pushed the remainder of her meal about her plate half-heartedly. Maeve had wholly abandoned the pretense of eating, and stared still at her lap. Robert fancied she ground her teeth audibly. As for himself, Robert shared enough family feeling with his brother, as to consider a wasted chicken a misfortune; and with the remains of a hearty appetite undiminished by anxiety, he cleaned his plate. The silence was unbroken except by the sounds of mastication, and by the occasional cracking of one of William’s joints.
Only once he had thoroughly finished his meal would Jonathan say, “I think we’ll skip the coffee, William,” a signal that the general tone of the room was not wholly unfelt, and that Jonathan, at least, would not continue to lead the pageantry into masochism.
The Sally Act I Scene III
by Russell Block
Francis. How comes it that the minder of my every move is nowhere to be found when all depends upon the turn of a spanner, would that I could locate it? My misplaced sense of loyalty is a greater hazard than any hazard else concealed in this staging ground untrained hands have worked to raise. What dangers the union would not stand is a reflection of theperilous minds that imagined such a scheme. Come to mention it, no boss oversees this roustabout, and for once, although like enough a prisoner, I am free within this cell to do as I will.
Enter Edison
Edison. Francis, are you shirking work, or returning that tuneful favor the birds render us in kind again? In any case, I know you are not singing our praises.
Francis. Where goeth they goeth the Lord, you know?
Edison. What word they put in for you will surely outweigh the work you put off putting in for us. But why do we not get back to it, lest we find ourselves overwintered hereat, this hull, whose promise is our daily goal, familiar more with icicles than freshwater’s tender throes?
The Ways of God to Men vol.2
by T.F. Murphy
* Read it in The Rialto Books Review vol.014 *
