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At Least 100
By
Josh Olsen, Jun 14, 2008
“At least 100,” KT said, answering a question I had not asked.
It was late. She was drunk. The car drifted over the center line. I grabbed the steering wheel, but she slapped
my hand away.
“100 what?” would have been an appropriate response, but I did not want to know.
Geese
By
Josh Olsen, Aug 19, 2008
We stopped the Acura on Madison’s west side.
After 36 hours of toll booths, SUVs, and orange cones, the transmission needed a break.
KT scribbled in a book titled Totally Sudoku! and I buried my nose in Saul Williams’s latest book of verse.
“It’s published by MTV,” I said to KT who devoured quick doses of her most recent addiction. “Maybe I should send
them a manuscript.”
A flock of Canada geese flew low over the park dropping green shit on everything below.
The Natatorium
By
Josh Olsen, Aug 19, 2008
A boy in Gabriella’s swimming class threw a fucking fit.
“Why must you always test me?” asked his red-head mother, shaking him violently.
She wanted to leave, but couldn’t find the natatorium exit.
*
“What the fuck is a natatorium?” I asked KT.
“A pool,” she said.
“Nat-a-torium?” I repeated.
“Yes,” she said, exhausted. “Look it up, if you don’t believe me.”
I said the word was bourgeois.
“Well, I think people who say bourgeois are bourgeois,” KT said.
“Marx wasn’t bourgeois,” I replied.
“Have you ever even read his manifesto?” she asked.
*
The boy was small for his age, impish, and he smiled in response to his mother’s anger.
It was 9 AM on a Saturday.
Gabriella practiced floating on her back.
The red-head shook her son.
The impish boy smiled. I was hung-over.
Josh Olsen teaches writing and literature throughout Metro Detroit.
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