CLARIFYING LIES ABOUT THE INTERNET by John Wiswell

I need to the clear the air. The internet has not diminished attention spans. People were never able to take in more than four paragraphs of information unless it was formatted into The Top Ten Best Asses in Hollywood. There were never newspapers, magazines, novels, letters, or epic poems that entire tribes memorized verbatim. No one ever intended you to finish a short story in a single sitting. Man did not evolve to read the entire Nutrition Information on the side of a cereal box, and certainly not to figure out how much saturated fat he was actually consuming in four bowls of the stuff, unless someone first designed an app for doing so. Except man has never had the patience to design an app. They are found in the wild, caught, captured, domesticated and price-coded by Apple. Contrary to your memory, you could not spend all day reading for pleasure when you were a child. You sat by the window and dreamed, wished and prayed that someone would put videogames on a phone, and you sat there doing nothing more than this wishing until it went on sale. You should not feel badly for skimming Cracked to get to the next item, or for only reading the funny captions under their stock photos. Nor should you feel bad for having the same NYTimes article open in your browser for two weeks, perpetually intending to finish it. It cannot be finished. If you had the superhuman will to consume every sentence, you would find that the writer herself did not finish it, instead trailing off into a series of vowels and punctuation marks. This was the result of her bravely passing out from the effort of trying to sustain thought. This is hazardous and should not be attempted for so long as you can get Angry Birds at a discounted price. I’d go on, but then I wouldn’t have the mental stamina left to tweet about Twitter going down for half an hour tonight. Farewell.

JOHN WISWELL writes daily at http://johnwiswell.blogspot.com. His fiction has appeared at Weird Tales, Flash Fiction Online, 10Flash, Every Day Fiction and Untied Shoelaces of the Mind. He is working on his second novel.

THE TORNADO THAT DESTROYED EVERYTHING AND MADE EVERYONE HATE HIM BUT THEN THEY DIDN’T: A STORY ABOUT TORNADOES AND FORGIVENESS BUT MOSTLY TORNADOES by Nick Mohoric

There once was a beautiful tornado named Michael. He was known throughout all the land as Michael the Mangler after his penchant for mangling the crap out of a ton of dudes’ and dudettes’ faces when tearing across the open plains. This wasn’t his fault; in fact, Michael was the sweetest tornado one could ever know and he only wished to bring joy to all those he met along his journeys. Unluckily for him, and those he mangled, his crazy strong winds were known to rip the nails out of houses and throw them, along with any other heavy or razor-like objects, toward the quivering crowds of onlookers.

“Watch out below!” he would yell as he flung a house on top of some ladies sunbathing topless for to get as much tan on their boobs as possible. They never heard his warnings, never heard his sweet nothings, they would just hear the sound of his rushing winds swirling around them.

As a Category 1 tornado he fell in love with a young girl in a neighboring town named Rose. She was not like other girls her age. Her parents sheltered her and as a result her life was in her books. Michael was not used to this type of girl; all he knew were the girls that were outside chasing the boys while trying to impress them by watching them play sports, flipping their hair in the sun in hopes of catching themselves in that perfect light. He only saw Rose as she went from her home to school. He watched the way her skirt moved at the slightest updraft, the way her hair seemingly floated behind her, the slight upturn of her lips as she read her book while walking down the sidewalk, the inevitable way her body intertwined with some random passerby when she didn’t see them coming.

She was perfection.

Michael finally worked up the courage to speak to her at her home shortly after she arrived from school. There would be no one else there in case he were to embarrass himself. The second he got near her house he ripped the door off the hinges; his nerves were getting the better of him. Rose rushed into the room to see what was with all the commotion and was immediately sucked through the hole the door used to fill, straight through Michael’s whirling self, and slammed directly into a tree.

She lay there inert. Michael had killed his first love before he could even introduce himself.

This began a vicious cycle for our poor tornado. He flew into a downward spiral of depression (what people don’t realize is that tornadoes normally spin in an upward spiral of happiness). The realization that he could never have what he wanted most, a love in his life, only added to the winds raging within. With each passing day his wind speeds rose until he was a Category 5 ,wandering the city in a fury.

Working his way toward the center of town, he watched the people run in horror. They couldn’t escape him, though; he was too fast as he pelted them with rocks, sticks, tires, hot dog carts, kittens, cats, beer bottles, bums, window shutters, car glass, newspapers balled up really fucking tight and soaked with some water and maybe pee (he couldn’t tell), apples, dirt clods, sex toys, regular toys, dirty clothes, farts, and ultimately their own limbs as he cried “Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself.”

In his heart he only wanted their love, but he had come to believe he was only capable of pain so he figured he would play the part. The self hatred and doubt that he grappled with consumed him as he stumbled from town to town. This blind rage that drove him was a blessing and a curse: the air was filled with screams of terror because of it, but it ultimately made sure that he wasn’t aware of his surroundings and on one fine day Michael stumbled upon a McDonald’s purely by chance. After ripping the roof off he was suddenly filled with thousands of freshly cooked hamburgers, fries, and shakes that were so awesomely packaged that the shake did not get sucked out of the cup. With this knowledge he probably would have chucked that food at all the people around but instead he continued on his rampage, finally tearing the walls and roof off of a nearby orphanage. This added debris forced the food to fly directly into the open mouths of all the starving orphans.

Michael was a hero! The town rejoiced!

But then they realized all the people he’d murdered and the millions of dollars of damage he’d caused and hated him again.

NICK MOHORIC makes a living organizing sex tips for women’s magazines. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Flapjack, and can be heard imbibing copious beers on the Literally Drunk podcast. Almost never, he reminds people to “readmyfrigg.in/blag“.

THE ALIEN by Thom Young

There’s this alien in my room. The other night we were playing cards. “You son of a bitch, try that shit again and I’ll kill your ass.” The alien didn’t like cheaters much less me as a roommate. I came home one day and she was on the couch. I was startled at first, but she warmed up to me. It seemed strange the alien didn’t look like you see in movies. The alien looked human. Huge aliens tits and tight alien pussy. The first few days were great. We talked about her planet. She lived on Venus. It was hot as fuck she said. I told her about my day. “I usually get up about six and make coffee. Put on my tie and go to work. I sit at my desk and stare at a computer.” The alien laughed. “You get paid for that shit? You’d be unemployed on Venus.” I guess the alien had a point. My job was stupid. The alien ate me out of house and home. “Bring some more of those cheese things.” “You mean Cheetos?” “I don’t give a fuck what they are, just get them.”

I barely had time for myself. Not that I did much. I usually just ate a TV dinner and watched Johnny Carson. Then I jacked off and went to bed. The alien liked to stay up all night. She watched sappy romantic comedies. The damn television stayed on. “Listen, I gotta go to work. Do you mind turning that down?” “Shut the fuck up Larry. Go get me some more cheese things and beer. Don’t buy the cheap shit either.”

The next few weeks were hell. I didn’t get a wink of sleep. I had to have a talk with the alien. “Listen, we need to talk.” The alien laughed and wiped cheese dust on the sofa. “You want to talk now? You son of a bitch.” “Yes.”

The alien and I sat down one night after her movie. “Look, you’re great and all but I just need break.” “A break?” The alien laughed and slammed a beer. “If you don’t shut the fuck up Larry, I’ll murder your ass.” I saw no point in reasoning with her. The alien had news for me though. “You know that night you got drunk with your buddies?” “I don’t remember.” The alien grabbed her stomach. “Now I’m carrying your baby.” “What?” “You don’t recall fucking the shit out of my pussy?” “No.” “You were drunk as shit and stuck it in. Now we got a baby.”

“Larry, go get me more Cheetos and dill pickles. I got a craving. You did this to me.” I left and got in my car. It was a strange night. The clouds hung low. A fog that surrounded everything.

I pulled the Ford over. I lit a cigarette and stared out the window.

THOM YOUNG is a writer from Texas. His work has been in 3am magazine, Word Riot, Thieves Jargon, The Legendary, and other sundry places. He enjoys fine tobacco and women.