Mad Season
by Howie Good
A voice says with something of a giggle, “You can open your eyes now.” I obey automatically. And what’s the first thing I see? An empty train stalled between shuttered stations. All the wise men agree that being sleep-deprived isn’t the same as being deprived of sleep. With summer almost over, the light unravels even faster than the laws of physics would seem to allow. It’s just a matter of time before someone pokes a rifle out a window. We’re going to need some of the constancy and courage of those conscientious little birds that pick the teeth of crocodiles.
The Philosophical Foundations of Nostalgia
by Howie Good
While I was there, I kept thinking, “What the fuck am I doing in Texas?” It was impossible not to imagine some prior catastrophe, a dry white season that had turned whole towns to dust. Of course, I’ve been other places that display the same amazing aptitude for misery. When I feel like that, I sometimes just grab people. They can enter and even change the story to suit themselves. There’s a lot of revisiting the past. Everything flying around loose lands, and then the souvenir hunters descend from all sides, stepping over guys bundled in boxes and sleeping bags.
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Howie Good is the author of three recent collections, I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books, The Titanic Sails at Dawn from Alien Buddha Press, and What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press. He co-edits Unbroken and UnLost journals.