Five Stories
The Fomite
Most of my life was spent in that factory. It was like being put in a painting you couldn’t escape. Everyone just stopped and stared at its beauty and strangeness. You could plead with them to let you out, but they couldn’t hear you. Even if you got out, you were likely to live a life as a fomite in another town far away. My parents had long been dispatched by random or destined misfortune. I could still smell them on certain clothes of mine—an odd sweater, an old blanket. Beyond smell and, indeed, beyond all sense, I could tell there were others like me. Very far away. What I learned in that factory—what I survived—you’ll think is worthless. Facts are meaningless. Efficiency is not the work of genius. We should be allowed to meander, to be frustrated. To be still. I know the crying I’ve done alone. I’ve known what it means. Do you?
Nothing Else Now
There’s nothing else now, just pure fish-hanging-on-a-hook pain. Maybe not the kind of pain you’d fear, but the kind that a fish would. The mornings, like murdered chocolatiers, spill sickeningly sweet over everything. They last until the evening when the rank spleen of night swells again. Hear that nothing? Music was always the problem. It constantly interrupted, gave us unrealistic expectations. We came to expect, by the end of certain movements, to be left with a definite feeling.
The Most Exclusive Club
Welcome to the nights of anxiety and dread. The darkness is long and cold. The doctor is dead. Your baby is growing at an exorbitant rate. The pie was poisoned? But that wasn’t what killed you. It was the car crash caused by the heart attack. It’s crazy. Just the day before, another version of the Titanic finally made it across the Atlantic. It seemed like a good sign of things to come. Except that it was carrying nobody. Except—actually—for one man. Who paid the most money to ride the ship by himself. So that he could be the first to join the most exclusive club in the history of the world: the only soul to successfully travel across the Atlantic via a ship called the Titanic.
Highest Honors
Where I come from, the highest prize is being pissed on. They give you a trophy too, and yes, it’s nice, but the higher honor is being pissed on. They tell you not to open your mouth—something about not being a greedy little piggy—but I’ve seen some do it. It’s a little in bad taste but I’ve seen worse atrocities committed in the name of lavishing in one’s laurels.
I know now this is “alien,” “foreign,” or “not natural.” I’ve been a citizen here for long enough to know it all—not just the wide-open mouth—takes on the form of bad taste.
The first time I won an award in school, I was young, and I didn’t know yet what bad taste was. They told me I won the Punctuality Award. I was so happy I got down on my knees and awaited the piss. “What are you doing?” said Mrs. Blankenship. There was an awkwardness in the classroom. My classmates looked at me, on my knees, awaiting my prize. It was hard to parse or understand at the time, but I think that was the first time I felt like what I had earned was different than what I was given.
Coper Or Competitor
I love a ruined reputation. And a singular moth flying into a singing mouth. I grew up in the time of trivia masters and televised self-immolations. I should know how to cope. Even better, I should know how to compete. But I’ve developed a strong sense of denial and self-negation, by which I judge everyone else. What am I saying? I’m saying you won’t be able to keep up. I’m too good at this. So don’t try. Just give up now. Go get a job and build your fortune and family. Take your plaque and handshake after it’s all done. I’m done with you.
Shane Kowalski lives in Pennsylvania. He is the author of the story collection Small Moods (Future Tense Books, 2022). His second story collection, Are People Out There, is forthcoming from Future Tense Books.