• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Christian TeBordo Christian www.featherproof.com , pay us a visit at: visit a us pay , f stu swell more For mini-book. reading light f eatherproo f anks for reading this this reading for anks T Hey, 1 This story is an excerpt from The Awful Possibilities A girl masters the art of forgetting among kidney thieves. A motiva- tional speaker skins his best friend to impress his wife. A man outlines the rules and regulations for sadistic childrearing. You’ve heard these people whispering in hallways, mumbling in diners, shouting in the apartment next door. In brilliantly strange set pieces that explode the boundaries of short fiction, Christian TeBordo locates the awe in the awful possibilities we could never have imagined. Out on featherproof books April 2010. Christian tebordo has published three novels. This is his first collection of short fiction. He lives in Philadelphia. http://awfulpossibilities.com/ 01 listen to new mixes of their one song, which always sound the same same the sound always which song, one their of mixes new to listen Imagine your brother won’t let you up above the garage except to to except garage the above up you let won’t brother your Imagine word nigger casually. nigger word devil and they all feel in their very cores the call to throw around the the around throw to call the cores very their in feel all they and devil friends believe the white man is the devil, but they don’t feel like the the like feel don’t they but devil, the is man white the believe friends Da Vinci Code Vinci Da thrown in for balance. Your brother and his his and brother Your balance. for in thrown the of dash Wu-Tang Manual Wu-Tang with a a with the and Nuwaubianism of mixture weird a name but his rap name, but the ideas are not perfectly good. They’re They’re good. perfectly not are ideas the but name, rap his but name aren’t rapping, especially Wallace, your brother, which is not his real real his not is which brother, your Wallace, especially rapping, aren’t Imagine they are perfectly good at expressing these ideas when they they when ideas these expressing at good perfectly are they Imagine inspiration. very good, for lack of inspiration, they say. They’ve got ideas but no no but ideas got They’ve say. they inspiration, of lack for good, very themselves the Mongreloids, but they only have one song and it isn’t isn’t it and song one have only they but Mongreloids, the themselves apartment above your mom’s garage. They’re in a rap band and call call and band rap a in They’re garage. mom’s your above apartment two in fact, but he likes them more and they all live together in the the in together live all they and more them likes he but fact, in two than you in school but not bad. He’s got friends, not as many as you, you, as many as not friends, got He’s bad. not but school in you than Imagine your brother’s two grades ahead. He does a little worse worse little a does He ahead. grades two brother’s your Imagine Keep that in mind. in that Keep in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, Iowa. There are no Jews in Brooklyn, Iowa. Iowa. Brooklyn, in Jews no are There Iowa. Brooklyn, Brooklyn. in of friends for what it’s worth but it’s not worth much to you. You live live You you. to much worth not it’s but worth it’s what for friends of You’re in tenth grade and you do okay in classes and you’ve got plenty plenty got you’ve and classes in okay do you and grade tenth in You’re and-listen-to-Marilyn-Manson-because-no-one-likes-me bullshit. bullshit. and-listen-to-Marilyn-Manson-because-no-one-likes-me good reasons, and it’s none of that I-play-too-many-video-games- that of none it’s and reasons, good Imagine you’re planning your own school shooting. Imagine you have have you Imagine shooting. school own your planning you’re Imagine and never any better, and for indoctrination sessions which he calls demanding that the sins of the Mongreloids be visited upon the brother Right Righteous Teaching. Right Righteous Teaching is a combination and the mother and the fetus of the mother and the motherfucker. of esoteric and problematic racial/religious philosophy and horrible 2 They’re demanding retribution and the restoration of a reputation of no word play. White stands for With Hell I Triumph Evermore; black repute, and all I can do is pray they get tired of it before they realize I’m for Belief, Love, Action, Knowledge. The missing c is the white man’s up here, pray they go home. Cancer. Miscegenation is the only hope for humanity. Now when I’m not praying, I’m sleeping. It isn’t as peaceful as it was the Hence, Mongreloids. night my brother left—how could it be?—but you’d be surprised. The Imagine you find the ideas ridiculous at first and still but there isn’t chanting of the angry villagers, the glow and crackle of their torches, much to do in Brooklyn and you like hanging out in the apartment can be soothing enough that I fall asleep despite myself, and though I above the garage which they call the sanctuary, the lab, the thirty- only nap for minutes at a time, I dream, and I remember my dreams. sixth chamber, and eventually start enjoying the teachings, not In the dreams I’m strutting through school in slow motion with a because you believe, but because it’s a very involved and imaginative gangsta lean, arms extended and guns blazing, my black hood barely mythology developing before your eyes and the eyes of the inter- covering my thousand-yard stare, nothing but my erection keeping net, though no one out there seems to be paying much attention. my jeans above my ankles, and all those faces begging me to stop, to Statcounters don’t lie. spare just me, but I can’t hear them even though there’s no soundtrack now, or maybe just the static at the end of the Mongreloids’ album, or Imagine you’re there when your brother has the revelation, and the crackle of torches in the distance, and all those faces are the face of though you don’t see the connection, you can see that it’s utterly Chris Nelson, though sometimes they’re my brother. And I know now spontaneous and that your brother truly believes it. A man will that dreams aren’t reality. I know now they’re a stand-in for something come, a boy really, and he will terrorize a school with the white man’s else, something bigger than a school shooting, like a nudge from God weapons and the black man’s sense of style, none of these himself, that complicated motherfucker. So when I wake I go back to trenchcoats, shiny black fingernails, combat boots, and hockey player praying, that they’ll go away, burn the house if they have to, my mom, haircuts, and this will trigger the revolution, the new era, whatever, so that I can head out for the back yard under cover of night, the tupacalypse. and dig up my bag of guns, and head out east. I could use some Right If you think for a second that this is reason enough to plan your own Righteous Teaching. I need to assess a tax where a tax is due. school shooting then you’re a fucking idiot. But it’s interesting at least. 02 11 04 09 even though you don’t give your own motherfuck about the cops, the the cops, the about motherfuck own your give don’t you though even brother really seemed to be enjoying himself, at least on the screen. the on least at himself, enjoying be to seemed really brother more than she’s getting from Chris Nelson if she’s getting any yet, and and yet, any getting she’s if Nelson Chris from getting she’s than more session at the United Nations, the game sold like crazy, and my my and crazy, like sold game the Nations, United the at session the cops for your own good or because she needs some attention too, too, attention some needs she because or good own your for cops the Anti-Defamation League, the Congressional Hearings, the emergency emergency the Hearings, Congressional the League, Anti-Defamation rap records—and you know your mom will do the same, will call in in call will same, the do will mom your know you records—and rap and Middle Eastern dictators, but how, despite the protests of the the of protests the despite how, but dictators, Eastern Middle and what’s in that bag, or even less—plans, drawings, journal entries, entries, journal drawings, less—plans, even or bag, that in what’s level of notoriety, infamy even, usually reserved for petty African African petty for reserved usually even, infamy notoriety, of level to be digging through their children’s things looking for exactly exactly for looking things children’s their through digging be to Remember how within weeks everyone involved had achieved a a achieved had involved everyone weeks within how Remember Now imagine how pretty soon parents all over the country are going going are country the over all parents soon pretty how imagine Now insistence that the song was called ASSESS A TAX!.

Load more

  4

Copy Link