FANZINE

That’s not a horse. That’s an insect of some kind.

The more I talk, the more questions you ask. And the more unselfconscious you get around the farm. It’s great. I love seeing you relax and open up. I figure the more I say out loud…

Every sentence is a strip of flypaper. You catch more flies with speech. My voice feels like ground gravel rubbed into my ears. My glasses are permasmeared with fish-oil.

When I was a baby, my groovy uncle warned me about the future. It’ll sound like a cliché, he said, that helmeted insect horses with proboscis cocks will fly up into your info-farm, but be warned: it’ll happen. There’ll still be public transportation, but it just carries you along the walls of the abyss. You won’t be jaded and take your cell phone for granted. You won’t be like, Man, I thought I’d miss being allowed to eat while I read.

[A teenager stands, holding a sheet of laser paper, and asks the group if she can read her erotica aloud. Her braces are simple. Her boyfriend sits behind her, on a log, holding a stick of burning incense between his teeth. A few priests rest near a cistern. Everyone looks uncomfortable.]
I wrote this for school.

Peter puts his hand on Molly’s. Her rings don’t hurt. The chambermaid bustles in, breaking up the vibe.

“Charlie,” Molly tells the chambermaid, “Can you do that later? We’re working on problem sets.” Peter studies the carpet until the chambermaid leaves. Molly crosses her arms and takes her T-shirt off.

Peter eventually thanked me, which was a huge turn-off. Which is a misleading phrase. It’s turn-ons that are big. Huge turn-offs are actually quite small. They’re like little diseased birds that fly into your mouth, freaking you out and making you crash the car.

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Andrew Leland maintains goodjobbb.wordpress.com. He lives in San Francisco