Featured Story
Our featured story is "The Peripatetic Coffin," by Ethan Rutherford, which will appear in BASS 2009.
The sound of iron walls adjusting to the underwater pressure around you was like the sound of improbability announcing itself: a broad, deep, awake-you-from-your-stupor kind of salvo. The first time we heard it, we thought we were dead; the second time we heard it, we realized we were.
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| How to Fall in Love (4) |
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The second thing people search a lot is “What is life?” This is another one of those things you can think about when you need to be some place else besides where you are. I like to think about how many people had to search “What is life?” for it to be the second most popular question and that also means how many people go about living and don’t know why. Once I told this to my friend and she started to cry and said I was morbid, but I think that is only because she didn’t understand. If that was true, I would think, “What is death?” I like to think about all these millions of people at their keyboards, thinking to themselves, “What a good day at the office, now I wonder, What is life all about? I better ask Google.” Sometimes they are young like me with ponytails or else grandmotherly types with cats and crocheted afghans on their laps or even dads waiting for dinner to be ready. I tried to look up “How to kiss,” but decided before I even hit enter that it was pointless because what can a computer screen actually teach you. You might think that means I am naïve, but it’s not like I don’t already know all about porn, it’s just not what I need. And I already know it is another one of those things that people might say is a little too ambitious for me, so that limits who I can ask. So besides the commercial for the Zen Progression Alarm Clock™, I am on the lookout for someone to teach me how to kiss. I have a friend who is a little older than me who had her first kiss in a closet and said it was mostly teeth and afterwards she was very concerned that she would have to go to the dentist. Luckily, she is OK. She says not to worry, it will happen. But if you ask me, that sounds just like what you would say if it already happened to you.
Melissa Swantkowski is a writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of New York University and works in museum education. This is her first publication.
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