Two With Water - First Dose

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN THE FUTURE IMPERFECT BY EMILY NEMENS

I had sex with Billy Gervais last night. I have a Spanish quiz this afternoon. The future imperfect contains the whole, plus a suffix, the latter accentuated sufficiently to hold one's attention to its closing syllable. I practice conjugating the future imperfect as I walk across campus and into the library. Bailaré, bailarás, bailará, bailaremos, bailaréis, bailarán. There will be a quiz on these forms later today: how to make verbs ending in —ar, —er, and —ir into events that I hope will happen in the future. Futuro; this half of their title is indicative enough. Future means that something will come. But the imperfection of these verbs, this makes me confused while walking up the stairs. I check my phone. Billy has not called. I push against the glassed door and into the library. I find a dictionary at its appointed podium and spirit it away. It travels between my hip and my bookbag, heavy as I cross the reading room and down the stairs, through the stacks. Thud onto my study carrel. Imp imp imp. Flexed thumb flips towards these pages while still standing; as they near I ease into my seat.

INTERSECT BY KRISTIANA COLÓN

Sometimes completely normal people do very inappropriate things. We notice this all the time, don't we? The quiet, mousy school teacher that drives to Colorado with her 7th grade science student. The kind-eyed bus driver with a sex dungeon in his basement. We suck our teeth and wonder how we missed something so perverse. We gird ourselves against the possibility of the world's hidden sickos. We tally up the idiosyncrasies, the moments that should have given it all away, the passing thoughts that should have raised a flag. I fear I have become one of those people. I hope that my co-workers will not pass such whispers about me over their cubicle walls. I may be a stalker.

DRUG SCREENING BY ROBERT DANIEL EVERS

It's the stink of blood and chemicals, I think, as I bounce my knee impatiently on the thin brown carpet pulled tightly against the floor like the last remaining lifeboat in an impossible ocean of dirty, hidden linoleum. The blood is in tiny transparent tubes and is kept in oxygenless chambers and is used for medical research only.

THEY TOOK ALL OUR FURNITURE BY REBECCA ROBERTS

They’re sitting across from me in the reception area. I can’t tell from the tone of her voice whether she’s sad or angry or just tired—probably all three. It’s as though her ability to express emotion has aged with the rest of her. They both have sagging faces, and are really adorable for an elderly couple—he has a fishing hat on and she has a kerchief.

I'VE LOVED AND LOST AGAIN BY BENJAMIN HARMON

Flaccidly it hangs between my legs like a broken arm. I can feel her heart beating in her legs as I run my trembling fingers up and down the inside of her thighs. Her skin is pale and her pubic hair is neatly trimmed. I kiss her neck and it smells like springtime, like damp clothes soaking up the sun, now lightly speckled with the sour bitterness of my bad breath. With every touch my muscles cringe and tense up.

SOUTHSIDE CHILD BY REBECCA O'NEAL

Do plastic bags grow down from trees and fall
onto the ground creating shards of glass
to wither into concrete slabs of joy?