What will you do when your pirate ship crashes and all you can think of is the Titanic? Perhaps read “Notes on the Notebook of Five-Year Old Neurotic” by Joseph Cassara @ Pank Magazine with nice, helpful subheadings.
Pre-James Cameron Movie Fantasy
Before the release of the movie starring Kate Winslet—who was the
only person that really mattered in that movie besides Kathy Bates—I had
this fantasy of being on the Titanic the night it sank. In this
fantasy, I am a boy wearing something that resembles burlap. In this
fantasy, I am looking at myself instead of looking from within myself.
In this fantasy, I am completely devoid of emotion, as if I am
completely aware that I will either be saved because I am a child, or
aware of the fact that I will soon drown. Then, like most things, it
comes to an abrupt end.
“It's a Family Thing” by Hailey Heikkinen @ Necessary Fiction
The day after Isa’s middle school has a bomb threat, her parents
contract the installation of a yellow steel tube slide twisting down
from her second-floor bedroom along the staircase to the garden on the
side of the house. The same company is installing a fire pole in the
center of the house leading to an underground bomb shelter.
“Johnsoniski” by Faith Gardner @ Bananafish
You decided a while ago, during that
course on Native American Literature at your newfound city college,
that you were going to renounce your whiteness. You called your
grandmamma, who talked to you for an hour telling you all about the
family tree you never cared about until right now. Apparently you’re a
quarter English, a quarter German and half Polish. That’s something!
Being white is nothing; being European is nearly just as bad. But being
from Poland: now that’s specific, that’s somewhere.
