We’ve felt pretty fortunate here in the last year to publish stuff we really like. Stuff we REALLY like. What does Artifice Magazine say about it? They say about their stuff “The things we like, we like more than we can stand.” Rather than go ahead and be “original” I’m gonna just piggyback on that sentiment, just in terms of the untoward things we editors at Untoward have enjoyed.

You cut ties with everyone you talked to and decided to live in the rafters of the place where you work. You wanted to become The Phantom Of The place where you work. That, I think, is where things started to really go downhill.

The little boy droops in the chair, and we tell him to sit up straight; he must have good posture. Doesn’t he know that The Ballplayer is coming? He will be here any moment. He’s not taking time out of his busy schedule for just any little boy. The Ballplayer is tall, and we’ll need both faces in the tight shot, so stop the fucking slouching. You can sleep when you’re dead.

Wow, let me start off by clearly stating, W-O-W, wow-we. And let me next say, thanks, thanks to each and every contributor to Untoward. And every reader, too. All of you readers, contributors and contributor-readers, thanks for making this what it has been so far: a lot of fun to put together, among other things. I’d love to elaborate further on exactly what this has been so far (see especially “among other things”), but I think that belies the point somewhat.

He edged out of the aisle not turning his back to the woman. There was a man at the check-out and a young lady behind the register, running a bottle of Armor All over the scanner. They each stopped what they were doing to watch.

The woman was now yelling, reciting verses from the Bible. She shoved Dennis, and he knocked over a display of suntan lotion and fell over the cardboard shelving. In the commotion a man in a blue smock stepped in to calm the woman down. Dennis scrambled to his feet, and dashed out of the pharmacy. He scurried through the sliding doors, sneakers hissing on the sidewalk as he cut around the building and down the street, not noticing the soda still in his hand until he was halfway down the block. It was hard to believe that that had all happened because of the helmet. He adjusted it on his head and fingered the strap. He took a long pull of soda. It tasted good, probably better than if he had stolen it on purpose.

Just like your whole life, always tryin’ to fit in, growin’ up the only boy in a family with five older sisters, gettin’ slapped by your dad when you wore a sun dress to look like them, gettin’ befuddled looks from your ma when you tried to stick a tampon up your urethra. It wouldn’t go in though, it was too much like you, it just didn’t fit in.

We wander into strip malls. Suddenly, the shelves of TJ Maxx Are filled with ceaseless wonder. I can see myself using that hair dryer That jacket or that pair of what were once expensive shoes. I would use these things every day of my still living life.

Ramone showed up yesterday morning. We’d had a fruit fly infestation earlier in the summer, but those little guys are gone now, drowned in a vinegar solution my boyfriend bought at the drug store. Ramone is fifty times their size. His tiny translucent wings make a noise like a food processor or a lawn mower.

Stanley got on his favorite medical website and researched whether brain tumors could migrate down the spinal cord and exit out the bottom. But he found nothing except the case history of a boy in Indiana who grew a small tail and began barking at people. After reconstructive surgery and years of psychotherapy, the boy had recovered and eventually become a successful liability lawyer.

I’d better call Dr. Bob tomorrow, thought Stanley, before I start barking at people, or worse, start suing them. He jumped when a car horn blared from below, and then rushed out of his office and down the steps to where Liz was waiting in the car, the engine running.