by Robert Buswell



Sylvia has her head stuck in the oven again. “Don’t try to stop me,” she says.

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” says Emily. “Although it’s rather difficult to attend to this kidney with you in the way.”

“Why dry your kidney?” asks Robert. “And is it safe to have a burner lit with all the gas in here?”

“I have this theory,” says Emily. “I propose that when almost dry the human kidney will assume a certain plasticity, a pliability. When my kidney is leeched of just the proper amount of moisture it will resemble modeling clay. Then I can use it to make beautiful sculptures.”

Anne laughs. “Or you could package it in little yellow tubs and sell it to children. It would be all the rage.”

“I’d rather keep it, thank you,” Emily says.

“Suit yourself,” Anne replies. She nudges Sylvia with the toe of her shoe. “Sylvie, be a dear and make room for me in there.”

Sylvia jumps, hitting her head. “Damn, woman! I was almost there. Quit interrupting me. Go find a car or something, will you?”

“Well, you’re no fun,” Anne says. She looks over at me. “What’s your story?”

Robert glances at me. “Yeah, I’ve been wondering the same thing. You think you have a right to be here just because we share the same first name? I won the goddamned Pulitzer Prize. Four times, Kid. Four times. What have you done?”

“I haven’t won anything, but I do need some help,” I say.

“And what help do you suppose you’ll find sitting at my kitchen table?” Sylvia mumbles from inside the stove.

“I’m trying to build an accurate three-dimensional tesseract and then unfold it into the fourth dimension,” I tell them. “Although I’m not sure that a roomful of poets will be much help.”

Robert laughs, then grimaces and clutches his groin. “This damned prostate is going to kill me. Listen; don’t think that my poetic ability precludes any scientific knowledge. You think that just because I deal mostly with rural themes that I’m some hillbilly hick?”

“No, of course not.”

“Don’t patronize me, Boy. You’ve got some nerve coming in here and telling me that I’m some two-bit bumpkin.”

Emily turns from the stove. “Hush, Robert,” she says. “It’s ready.” She holds out the kidney.

“What will you make?” Anne asks.

“A beautiful lady,” Emily replies. “Then I’ll cover her with flour so she’ll be white and hide her in the cupboard.”

“Wait,” I say. “Maybe we can use it to make the tesseract.”

“No,” Emily says, closing her hands over it. “A tesseract is only a fleeting beauty and when unfolded we may find that parts have disappeared into another dimension. I’d rather the kidney stay preserved in the cupboard forever. In one piece. In one place.”

“Don’t be stupid, Emily,” Anne says, grabbing the kidney. “This guy’s right. A hypercube would be much more artistic than some flour-covered doll.”

“Just let her keep it,” Robert says. “We can use my prostate instead. Come here, Boy. Take this knife and do a little surgery on me.”

“Nonsense,” Anne says. “This organ already has a perfect consistency for modeling. No sense in fishing another out of your posterior when Emily has generously agreed to let us use hers.”

Emily lunges for the kidney, but Anne knocks her down. She leans close to Emily’s face. “Lady, I’m not the one you wanna mess with, see? I’ll strike you so hard that all you’ll hear is a fly buzzing around your head.”

Emily looks down. “I guess you’re right. Let’s build a tesseract.”

“That’s much better,” Anne says, smiling. “Sylvia, get up and help us build, won’t you?”

Sylvia doesn’t move. Anne kicks her and she slumps out onto the floor.

“Stand back and I’ll give her CPR,” Anne sighs.

Sylvia starts coughing. “You don’t need to. I’m not there yet. Just let me finish, will you?”

“Relax, Sylvie. You can finish up with that on Sunday, can’t you? You have guests today.”

Sylvia brightens. “Yes, I’m not expecting anyone over on Sunday. That might be a better day anyway, seeing as it should be rather bleak.”

“Good, it’s settled then,” Robert says. “Why don’t we go down to the park to build this thing? I know it’s late and snowy, but the woods might be an inspiring place.”

Sylvia smiles. “Robert, that’s just the thing. I’ll pack a nice picnic and we’ll all go.”

“No can do, my friends,” Emily says, shuddering. “I’m not too fond of snow or woods or evening.”

“So get over it,” Sylvia says, stocking a hamper with food and silverware.

“I can’t and I won’t,” says Emily. “You may all go without me.”

“Hey, why don’t we have the picnic right here?” I ask. “Despite some of us being rather fond of winter scenery, I’d just as soon stay warm here.”

“Suits me,” Robert replies.

Anne drops the kidney onto the table. Sylvia presents a charming little meal and we tuck in. “We’ll start with a cube and go from there,” I tell them through a mouthful of bratwurst.

“Go for it,” Anne says.

“I wonder if Emily would be willing to do the honors?” I extend the kidney toward her. “It is hers, after all.”

“She’ll just make a damn doll with it,” Robert says with a scowl. “You’re giving our artistic medium to the one person who is most likely to misuse it and you have the testicular fortitude to call me an uneducated trailer park dweller?”

“I have never called you anything like that,” I say.

“No, Robert, I will make what we agreed upon,” Emily says. She begins molding the kidney into a cube. “What next?”

“Here’s the part I’m unsure of,” I say, scratching my head. “Now we must extend the cube at right angles to itself until it becomes a three-dimensional simulacrum of the four-dimensional object it will become.”

“Here, let me see the damn thing,” Robert says. He begins extending it at right angles to itself.

“That looks good,” I say.

“It better. You don’t win the accolades I’ve won without learning a thing or two about sculpting.”

I watch as he completes the tesseract and smoothes down the rough edges.

“Now how do we unfold it?” I ask.

“You got me there,” Robert says, carefully lying the structure down on Sylvia’s table.

We all stare at the tesseract. Finally, Sylvia jumps up.

“I’ve got it!” she shouts. “We’ll fill the interior with gas. Gas expands. The gas will force the tesseract to expand outwards into the fourth dimension.”

“Wait. Is the fourth dimension even real?” Emily asks.

“I think we’re about to find out,” Anne says. She digs around in Sylvia’s kitchen drawers until she finds a long rubber tube. She places one end of the tube over the oven’s gas nozzle and inserts the other end into the tesseract.

“Would any of you like to read a poem I just wrote about this experience?” Emily asks.

“I would,” I say.

She hands me a sheet of paper:

We who wait – patiently as it were
all – Strive to expand a
tesseract in Vain –
before Death – o’ertakes
and Light – fading –

“So you believe our efforts futile?” I say, handing it back to her.

“Of course not. But it has nice despairing poetic feel, doesn’t it?”

“It does indeed,” I reply.

“Feels more like an unhealthy obsession with dying to me,” Robert says.

“Never mind him,” I tell Emily. “It’s wonderful.”

We fall silent and watch the tesseract.

And we wait.





ROBERT BUSWELL is a world-renowned operatic singer, although he receives little attention in his home country of Burundi. His vocal range has been mentioned by critics as “Truly something which must be experienced in person.” He repaints cathedrals in garish hues in his off time and is currently wanted by federal authorities in Italy and France. He ardently admires and inefficiently emulates his idol, Australian Timothy Minchin,although the feeling is mutual. He drives a Dodge Tomahawk and lives in Wyoming.

by Douglas Hackle



“But Finnegans Wake is a tour de force of linguistic experimentation, intertextuality, and recondite comedy,” protested the vapory-azure, bespectacled, mustached form of James Joyce’s ghost from its containment in the transparent bubble chamber at the center of the room. “You simply cannot reject — ”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Joyce,” interrupted Nigel Vekk, Editor-in-Chief for the Earth Literature imprint of Intergalactic Publishing Limited, “but your book was impenetrable and incomprehensible when it was first published back in 1939, understood only by a handful of academics with way too much time on their hands — the type of people who had never, for example, had the misfortune of being driven to cannibalism as a result of starvation. And that was 10,000 years ago! The book’s relevancy today? Forget about it. I do hereby declare Finnegans Wake by James Joyce retroactively rejected!”

Nigel punctuated his declaration with a loud whack of his weighty gavel against the sound block on his elephantine desk. At the same moment the gavel fell, the intern assistant editor, Lanying Ichihara, began manipulating an array of buttons, toggle switches, dials, and touchscreens on the hulking, sprawling, mainframe-like workstation that stood embedded in the obsidian floor like some mechanical beast, not far from Nigel’s desk. Her rapid flicks and punches resulted in the permanent erasure of Finnegans Wake from every public, commercial, and private database in the known universe.

Finnegans Wake was effectively annihilated.

Lanying pushed a final button to send the ghost of James Joyce back to the Other Side.

“Nooooooooooo!” the spirit cried, arms outstretched as its misty, ectoplasmic form rapidly faded to nothing, leaving the Dead Author Summoning bubble empty.



The year was 12,011 CE. Over the past thirteen or so millennia, many great writers had produced many great books, not just on Earth but also in the seven other known star systems that were home to intelligent life forms. The problem was that this prodigious output never saw a break. After one generation made its contributions to the ever-expanding literary canon, the next generation of immortality-seeking scribes would put in theirs, and the next generation theirs, ad infinitum. Not only that, but each intelligent world was naturally curious to read and study the great and not-so-great literature of the seven other intelligent worlds — in translation. As an inevitable consequence of this situation, too many books came to be in existence, both in terms of classics and more forgettable fare. Too many to decide which ones should be taught in schools, too many to adapt into films, too many to even catalog.

Certainly too many to read.

To simplify life, the United Federation of the Known Universe established Intergalactic Publishing Ltd. (IPL) and, in doing so, abolished all other book publishers. IPL became responsible for the publication and dissemination of all new ebooks in the universe. However, IPL’s more important function was to oversee, maintain, and make occasional upgrades to a supercomputer that reviewed the universe’s known catalog of books to decide which ones should stay and which ones should go. And with the advent of advanced quantum-based, spiritworld-communication technology, it seemed only proper for IPL to take the time to inform deceased authors when their work was being retroactively rejected.



Nigel extracted a Twinkie from his desk drawer. Elbows resting on her console and holding her somewhat sour face in her hands, Lanying waited impatiently for her superior to devour the snack cake and give her further instructions.

“Okay,” Nigel said, wiping Twinkie cream from his lips with his sleeve. He squinted over at a holographic screen projecting from an iridescent pinhole at the end of his desk. “Next on the docket is . . . Moby Dick by Herman Melville.”

Lanying worked the board — typing, tapping, pressing, punching, pulling, flicking.

A moment later, the blue-glowing ghost of Herman Melville materialized in the diamond-polycarbonate composite bubble. The apparition’s thick shock of hair was combed away from his forehead, his bristly beard roughly square-shaped just liked in his portraits and few surviving photographs. Dressed in formal nineteenth-century attire — frock coat, waistcoat, necktie, trousers — the spirit looked scared and confused, not to mention blue, both literally and figuratively.

They always looked scared, confused, and blue thought Nigel.

“Greetings, Mr. Melville,” he said. “On behalf of Intergalactic Publishing Limited, the universe’s last publishing house, I would like first to apologize for this sudden intrusion on your afterlife. But the burden has fallen on me to inform you that your book Moby Dick is scheduled for retroactive rejection. In compliance with said rejection, all digital and paper copies of your book will now be permanently wiped away from existence.”

His spiel always brought the spirits to the moment so to speak — that scared, where-the-hell-am-I look rapidly drained from Melville’s visage, replaced by an expression of shocked disbelief.

“Moby Dick? Muh — muh — my Moby Dick?” the phantasm stuttered. “Why you can’t do that. I mean, not to sound the braggart, sir, but Moby Dick is one of the enduring classics of earth’s literature.”

Nigel leaned in toward his holo screen, familiarizing himself with the details of the case.

“Yes, that appears so, Mr. Melville,” he concurred several beats later. “However, your book is not being rejected due to any lack of literary merit. Moreover, it’s not on the rejection block due to any fault of your own. The culprit here, rather, is the organic, evolving nature of language itself. The specific problem that developed with your book is nearly as old as the book itself.”

“You see, not too long after your death, the word ‘dick’ morphed into a slang term meaning ‘penis.’ Unfortunately, as soon as this happened, it spelled the inevitable doom of your novel. Granted, it’s a testament to the brilliance and profundity of your symbolism-packed whaling adventure that it has survived as long as it has. But nowadays, there’s not a high school teacher in the universe who can lecture on your book without the whole classroom snickering, giggling, or else engaging in full-force, pants-peeing laughter whenever the teacher or a classmate utters the d-word during discussion. Particularly among the younger generation, it’s simply no longer possible to discuss Moby Dick seriously.”

Upon uttering the word “dick,” Nigel was unable to suppress a genuine chuckle of his own. He succeeded in stopping it from becoming a full-fledged giggling fit, but not before a Twinkie crumb shot out from his nose and bounced off his desk onto the floor.

“See what I mean?” he said. “Case in point.”

“Well, that’s no reason to annihilate my magnum opus,” Melville said, a note of despair creeping into his voice. “Can we not just change “Dick” to — oh, I don’t know — Duck maybe? Yes, yes, yes. Duck. Let’s rename the book Moby Duck. That would be perfectly agreeable with me.”

“I’m truly sorry, Mr. Melville, but it’s a little too late for that. You see, there’s just too many goddamn books out there, sir. The easier, faster, and cheaper solution here is to destroy your book, not revise it.” Nigel then cleared his throat before raising his voice to sentencing pitch. “I do hereby declare Moby Dick by Herman Melville retroactively rejected!”

THWACK! sounded the gavel.

Lanying deftly manipulated the controls, zapping Moby Dick from the fabric of being.

“No, you simply can’t do this! You mustn’t! You . . . nooooooooooooooooo!” the ghost of Melville cried as it evaporated back to the Great Beyond.

Nigel yawned, glanced at the time indicator at the top of his holo screen. 11:17 AM. Damn, the morning is just dragging, he observed mentally. I have to learn not to look at that stupid clock every ten minutes, that’s my problem, I have to . . . .

Nigel’s eyes dropped a few degrees, honing in on the next scheduled rejection.

He’d heard rumors of the possibility of this particular retroactive rejection taking place sometime within the next few hundred years. But they were just that — rumors. He certainly had never expected it to take place under his own editorial watch.

Holy shit . . . .

“Um, er, next on the docket is . . . the Holy Bible by, um . . . God.”

Lanying stared incredulously at Nigel.

Eventually, with his face contorted into a confused grimace, he asked, “Does the summoning module even have the capacity to do this?”

“Maybe,” Lanying squeak-croaked.

The two sat in relative silence for a spell, the only sound the steady hum of the two neutrino-antiquark reactors attached to Lanying’s station.

“Well, I guess we should probably give it a go,” Nigel said, straining to keep his voice steady.

“Okay,” replied Lanying.

Type, tap, press, push, punch, pull, flick . . . .

A bead of sweat sprouted on Nigel’s temple, gravity worming it down the side of his twitching face.

The entire rejection chamber began to shake as if struck by an earthquake. The usually unwavering volume of the twin reactors’ humming crescendoed as if the power sources were experiencing overload and on the verge of meltdown.

A few tense moments later, God materialized not inside the summoning bubble but in front of it. At first He/She/It appeared in the form of a spinning sphere of brilliant green and purple fire humming in sympathetic vibration with the reactors. The dazzling light dissolved as the sphere elongated, transforming into an anthropomorphic form: an elderly, white-bearded, white-robed patriarch, not unlike the Renaissance God pictured on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The room ceased shaking, and the whir of the reactors fell back to normal volume.

“Greetings, guh — guh — God,” Nigel faltered. “On behalf of Intergalactic Publishing Limited, the universe’s last publishing house, I would like first to apologize for this sudden intrusion on Your, uh, divine affairs. But the burden has fallen on me to — ”

“I know what burden has fallen on you,” God said, his stentorian voice resounding through the high-ceilinged, domed room.

“Um, yeah. I guess You would know. So it’s probably unnecessary for me to inform You why Your book is being retroactively rejected, right?”

“Wrong. I do not know why it’s being rejected.”

“But, uh, I thought you, like, knew everything?” It was a question.

“Far from it. I could know everything, sure. However, I choose to know most things but not all things, lest omniscience make My existence dull and devoid of possibilities and wonderment. But regarding this rejection of the Holy Bible, let Me take a guess. Is it being rejected because of the abundance of numerical errors found in the Old Testament?”

“No.”

“Then it must be because of the various factual inconsistencies and contradictions that exist between the four Gospels?”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Hmm. Okay. How about the unexplained shift in my personality from the vengeful Deity of the Old Testament to the loving God of the New Testament? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“No, nothing like that.”

The Creator threw His arms akimbo, a look of perplexity crimping His face. “Okay, I give up then. What is it?”

“The Holy Bible is being rejected because Intergalactic Publishing has a strict policy against multiple submissions, at least in regards to holy writ.”

God’s bushy, alabaster brow furrowed even deeper.

“In other words,” Nigel continued with a dry gulp, “only one submission at a time. And at roughly the same time in ancient history, God, You divinely inspired more than a few individuals to write multiple versions of Your Divine Word. Hence we have the Holy Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Hindu Shruti and Smriti texts, Buddhist scripture, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and many other examples of sacred writ.”

“But I never knew Intergalactic Publishing had a policy against multiple subs,” God said, seemingly both vexed and genuinely surprised.

If anyone could have had the foreknowledge to know that Intergalactic Publishing would eventually come into being, and that it would enforce a policy of no multiple submissions, it would have been You, Nigel couldn’t help but think.

“Careful. I heard that,” God said.

Nigel winced and tried to retract his head back into his body like a turtle. It didn’t work. “I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect. I only meant — ”

God waved him off. “Then I suppose you’ll have to reject all My other divinely inspired texts on the same grounds, won’t you?”

“Yes, God. But only the Holy Bible today. My holo file here indicates that our supercomputer wishes to minimize any potential negative cultural backlash by abolishing only one of Your divinely inspired texts at a time.”

“Makes sense. Well, that’s all fine and good with me, actually. You see, I have a new divine text. Though I haven’t yet picked the individual or individuals whom I shall divinely inspire to write it, I would like to plant its seeds in this universe as soon as possible. But it appears I’ll have to wait for all My other divinely inspired texts to be removed — or ‘rejected,’ as you’re so fond of saying. Is that correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Very well. My patience is infinite. Yes, I’m quite certain humankind and the other intelligent life forms in this universe will really like My latest effort. See, I’ve already introduced and inspired this new text into seventeen other parallel universes. As a matter of fact, in four of those universes, my hand-picked, divinely inspired scribes have already completed the physical task of writing the book. Even now as we speak, this text is helping to pivotally shape the histories of those four universes.”

Nigel hoped he wasn’t pushing his luck, but he was obliged to observe the duties of his post. “I wholeheartedly apologize, God, but we will be unable to accept this new submission of Yours.”

“Unable to? What do you mean? Why?”

“Regarding the Word of God, Intergalactic Publishing also has a strict policy of no simultaneous submissions. This means that we cannot accept a submission that has also been submitted to one or more parallel universes. Also, since you’ve indicated that your book already exists in its complete form in four parallel universes, we would have to consider it a reprint. I’m sorry, but IPL also has a strict policy against reprints. However, if You would like to erase this book from both the matter and collective memory of those parallel universes — all seventeen of them — you can then submit it here. But that’s entirely up to You, of course.”

God appeared to be lost in divine thought for a time before he next spoke. “Hmm. So no multiple subs, sim subs, or reprints. Ah, well. Although that sucks, I would not presume to be above the rules that govern everyone else — even though, of course, I totally am above the rules that govern everyone else. Do as you see fit, sir — carry on with this business.”

“I do hereby declare the Holy Bible by God retroactively . . . rejected,” Nigel said in a wimpy near-whisper. He did not slam the gavel home with all his strength as was his habit. Instead, he barely tapped the sound block.

“Oh, there’ll be no need for that,” God said turning towards Lanying as she began to work the controls. God snapped his fingers. “There. I’ve done it for you. All written and digital copies of the Bible have been annihilated. Oh, and save your reactor fuel. I can show myself out.”

With that God vanished from the room.

Dabbing his forehead with a tissue, Nigel sank back into his chair, leaned as far back as the seat would allow, let a deep exhale of relief escape from his chest.

Nigel took a moment to compose himself. His thoughts meandered. First he thanked God for not striking him dead for his lifelong sins of gluttony, lust, wrath, greed, envy, pride, and sloth. Then he found himself praying to God for forgiveness for presiding over the rejection and annihilation of the Holy Bible, despite the fact that God had been so cool and casual and such an overall good sport about the whole thing. Next, his mind wandered to his customary workaday sexual fantasies with Lanying clad in a naughty schoolgirl uniform and wearing sexy cat-eye glasses.

“Mr. Vekk?” Lanying said a minute later, startling him.

“Oh, sorry,” he said perking up in his chair. “Okay, where were we?”

Nigel glanced up at the holo monitor. “Next up on the docket we have . . . Charles Dickens.”

Lanying sighed. “Again?”





DOUGLAS HACKLE likes to write stories that are bizarre, surreal, absurd, darkly humorous, satirical, horrific, macabre, veiny, vainglorious, childishly stupid or some combination thereof. His stories have [vein poppet] appeared in several online and print publications. Douglas resides in Northeast Ohio with his wife and little boy, and he’s not exactly sure how that blasted vein poppet be gettin’ all up in his bio n’ shit.

by Troy Manning



“Don’t pick your nose or you’ll go blind,” my mother used to tell me.

Sure enough, by the age of eight, we were at Thrifty choosing frames for my new prescription lenses. I liked the green tortoise-shell frames. My mom warned me those were for morons, but, for my own good, she allowed me to persist in my folly.

I sat alone during lunch with my green frames for most of the remaining school year. Many children don’t learn until much later in life just how smart their parents are, and I was no exception. The deterioration of my eyesight increased in direct proportion to the stretch-marks around my nostrils. Though I was truly concerned for my visual welfare, there was so little else to do with my hands after finishing my lunch. And when one begins to feel like a perpetual loser, hardly anything compares with the satisfaction of picking a winner.

My father told me that carrots were good for your eyesight, so I began to sleep with one in each nostril. One morning, I forgot to take them out before going to school. I’m still not sure whether my parents didn’t notice or if they just let me go that way for my own good.

One of the carrots must have fallen out on my way to school, while the other held its ground until recess. I was hardly surprised my malicious classmates didn’t inform me of the conspicuous protrusion, but with the faculty, this was harder for me to fathom. I suppose they thought I was just doing it for attention and so ignored it for my own betterment.

By the fifth grade I was up to bifocals, and supports were installed in my nostrils to prevent their collapsing. I had begun to take up writing and was learning other ways to occupy my hands. As might be expected my stories tended to be about misfits who were always learning lessons that everyone but them seemed to understand.

My first story about a girl whose parents let her suck her thumb down to the bone enjoyed some success. As a result, her popularity among the student-body grew immensely, and she expressed her gratitude by being my girlfriend until the summer before seventh-grade. Although holding her hand sometimes felt a little awkward, I paraded her around campus like a personified Pulitzer. She eventually said it wasn’t in my best interest to be dating in middle-school, and left me for a ninth-grader.

Even though I wasn’t interested in dating him, my next story was about a boy whose single mom grew weary of always telling him not to play with sticks. He eventually put out his eye and had to pay for a glass one with his own allowance. In just two days time, he lost it to a friend in a game of marbles. There was undoubtedly a lesson to be learnt as his mom made him wear a large yellow marble the rest of the school year.

By the tenth-grade the area of my face had grown enough to accommodate the circumference of my nostrils. My eyesight, however, continued to deteriorate and it was hard finding new friends, not having published in a while.

Gratefully, in yearbook club, a girl with no eyelashes took pity on me and wrote a feature about the boy whose parents let him pick his nose until he went legally blind. I showed my appreciation by letting her lead me around like she was my dog. She later apologized profusely to me for parading me around like her mascot, and I confessed to her the dog-thing. We clung together through college and ultimately married. We were a winning combination whose kids didn’t get away with squat.





TROY MANNING is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California. He has recently been taking literature classes at San Diego State University & Cal State University, San Marcos where his stories have been published in the creative writing program’s Cat Ate My Chapbook, Fierce Notes 1 & 2, and the Spring & Fall, 2010 issues of Oh Cat. Other of his stories have appeared in the webzines Weirdyear, Daily Love, & Bewildering Stories.