Sebastian Malloy – Page 10

Zombie Chickens and Poultrygeists

Rivi and I are sitting on the porch at Boone and Tina’s new house, where they have given Rivi a temporary (or permanent, because who can really say) room in which to live. I have been over helping them to unpack, which has mainly consisted of carrying boxes up a...

Timothy Hutton Popsicles

What’s the temperature, Kenneth? Rivi texts me. 12 degrees right now, I text back. With a wind chill of -11. Her typing indicator winks an ellipses at me for what feels like thirty seconds, then pauses, then goes again for another thirty. Finally, her message pops up on the screen: Fuck....

Perpetual Drama Machine

“The power’s out,” Rivi says, on the other end of the phone line. “My madness is beginning to set in.” “Your madness set in years ago,” I say. “That ship has sailed, hit an iceberg, sunk, and was swallowed by a sea monster way before today.” “Don’t make fun of...

Panic Buying

My phone buzzes with a call while Hunter and I are in Grossett’s General Store, grabbing cheese sticks and pizza slices. I pull it out of my pocket and see that it’s Tina, in another time zone from us, three hours behind. “Hey,” I say, answering the call. “How’s tricks...

Cinnamon

There is a letter from Viola in the mailbox this morning, amongst the junk and the bills. It is too cold outside to read it at the top of the driveway, so I wait until I am settled in near the pellet stove. Dear Sebastian, I picked up Boone and...

Curated From the Dusty Archives

Twenty Year Storm

The rain is pouring outside, Biblical and a little unsettling. It pounds against the window of Viola’s attic, and the window rattles in its frame against the wind that whips down from the atmospheric river currently pummeling the west coast. “Well,” Viola says. “Guess we aren’t going out on the...

Ghost From the Archives

Headphone Girl

“I’m setting fire to my Twitter,” Viola says. “It’s too much of a fucking mess. That whole place is imploding so hard that it’s going to suck into itself and black hole the entire thing into another dimension.” We are sitting on the roof of her house, just outside her...

Ghost From the Archives

A Dead Man’s Gum

“So,” Viola says. “You know those carnival rides with the swings? The ones that spin and spin and raise up, and you’re going forty miles an hour in a stomach-churning circle that’s supposed to be fun, but really just make you want to vomit on everyone that’s standing down on...

Ghost From the Archives

The Immediate Past

Donuts of Evil

The light through the bedroom window is bright, horribly bright, and focused through the bent slats of the Venetian blinds like East German spotlights during the Cold War. First thing I do is get new curtains, I think to myself, once I am awake enough to be somewhat coherent. Or at least hang up a sheet. I fumble for my phone on the small table beside the bed, and check the time: up at the crack of noon. Too early to suit my tastes, but seeing as I’m awake already, I decide I might as well get up and have…

Crime Scenes of Christmas Future

Rivi insists on helping me to unpack, although I try telling her that it isn’t necessary. “Shut up,” she says cheerfully, and starts taking my books from the banker boxes in the living room. “Go do something in the kitchen,” she says. “Make yourself useful.” It’s a change, this apartment, but it’s temporary and necessary: one bedroom, kitchen, bath, living room. Space enough for living and for writing, which is all that I am in need of just now. The plan is to stock up on unhealthy boxed meals and caffeinated beverages, adopt a flexible bathing schedule, and…