3:AM Magazine

Fishboy wound up peddling dope in the Projects, just like the Dealer knew he would. He’d sit out on a busted bit of playground fence listening to ratty old cassette tapes on a stoneage Sony Walkman one of the Project kids had swapped him, waiting for the business to rock up. He was the only peddler anyone knew who arrived early, like he was the one hungry for a fix & not the kids, which in a manner of speaking was true. He even had the sales pitch down to a fine art, like the product wasn’t already selling itself. Let it be known he was only in the biz on a short-term basis while he searched for renewed creativity, him being an incog rockstar on the down-&-out, or the up-&-up, depending on how he was inclined to spin it at any given time of day.

An extract from Glasshouse by Louis Armand.

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And the presenter nods too, yes, very interesting, very unexpected, very — he nods. There is some silent nodding among everyone on the studio, and too much nodding going on, for too long, there can be such a thing as too much nodding, so they get taken off the air by the shrewd director concerned about ratings, to give way to a live transmission from St Pancras International, and everybody is happy now, everybody in the set can relax and stop playing their parts. It’s already 11:07am and the police are still working and the emergency services are still picking up pieces of flesh, bones, and bloodied items of clothing, and putting them in bags. We can’t see them picking up pieces of flesh, bones and items of clothing and putting them in bags but we can imagine it, because the reporter on the site — with her immaculate hair and a perfect fake tan matching her accent — details this for us.

An excerpt from Fernando Sdrigotti‘s Shitstorm.

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“Yes, my friend,” I hastily said to him. “And – you see? – my nose tilts to the right; but I know that myself; there’s no need for you to tell me; and my eyebrows? Like circumflex accents! My ears, see, one protrudes more than the other; and here, my hands, flat, aren’t they? And the joint of this little finger is twisted. And my legs? Here, this one! You think it looks just like the other, do you? Ah, no, it doesn’t! But I’m aware of this myself, and there’s no need for you to tell me. Good to see you.”

Excerpt from One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello.

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There is a pause in the noise, then a whirring: the building is catching its breath. I’m certain – it is reaching after speech! The walls turn into cheeks. Air stirs in the throat. There: the mill is inhaling slowly, its cartilage creaks. But it is only a resting breath; and if anything, the slight breath only distils this speechlessness.

A stone goes ‘​✱!​’

I watch pale dust clouds flickering through the entry-hatch – the rock’s ghost floats towards the light, drawn along a pathway of sun.

By Ed Cottrell.

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A lazy type of earnestness was rampant; it was easier, actually sort of vital, to be serious about the endeavours. And furthermore these hobbies were appealing! Meaningful and delightful and with potential to better personal intrigue. When a new project took hold, joy and confirmation saturated the crowd; every comment, every idea, every constructive tidbit all glossed and fortified. Shoes on your feet would look newish. Voices grew hoarse from invigorated chatter. Giant notepads were reeled out and scrawled on, discarded motions peeled off into scrunches that blew wonkily across the ground. I collected these notes, all of them that I could. At nighttime I would place them in a polythene bag and walk them back to my portacabin.

By Caitlin Ingham.

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I realise that the mycelium turn clockwise as they grow, turning the letters “y”s to “g”s and “r”s to “o”s.

By Gordon Collins.

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“There’s the pistons!” said the boy with some excitement. He reached in and tried to pull the engine block free. It didn’t budge. The boy kicked it with the heel of his shoe. Nothing happened. He tried to force the screwdriver between the block and the gearbox, but there wasn’t a razor blade of space. He couldn’t wedge, lever or force the obstinate lump.
“If I had penetrating oil,” said the boy, “I’d have it out in a flash.”
“But you don’t have penetrating oil,” said Kevin.
“No,” the boy replied, “but I do have petrol.”
Kevin looked at me and said, “He’s got petrol.”

An extract from Barry McKinley‘s novel, A Ton of Malice: The Half-Life of an Irish Punk in London.

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Gazed at the sky and saw the words asymmetrical panel fashion and soldiers. Talked about self-care and cover letters with this young woman from Iowa. Her name was Jill. Wrote short stories and titled it superGeodesic Theories IX and sent it to Dave Toschi. Prayed for nearly nine hours. Gazed into the putridturquoisepitchblack sky. Felt the energy of the helluniverse. Chemical.

Excerpt from Lonely Men Club by Mike Kleine.

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On Friday May 25th, 2018, Ireland will hold a referendum to repeal the 8th amendment of the Constitution of Ireland. Currently it gives equal right to life of a pregnant woman and her unborn foetus. Abortion in Ireland is illegal, even in cases of rape, incest, fatal foetal abnormality, many health problems, including if a woman is being treated for cancer. Obtaining an abortion can lead to 14 years in jail.

But neither moves. He lies back, pressing his body to hers, still sweat-slicked, his elbow jutting like a jetty into the sea of her skin.

“I’m a bad sleeper.”

She had noticed the under-eye grey, the only distracting thing about his face. Later, she wakes, dead-armed from curling into him, and sees him scrolling and scrolling, the blue light interrupting the dark.

By Sinéad Gleeson.

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I remember now. We were in a room constructed of steel and concrete, underground and inside the sewer system. Our third meeting. Each wall framing a pane of thick, frosted glass and the powerful light that lit us hanging down behind this glass and making the picture. The narrow channels like tiny rivers on whose banks were reptiles and rodents, everything small and brown, and Cairo’s human waste bobbing and ducking before us, buckled and bloated. Where we were there was no bad smell and the room was pleasant. Like, I felt as though we were in one of those see-through submarine cockpits, the ones which turn the ocean into an endless fish tank. Only, instead of the blue and green—the seaweed, sunken ships, and wondrous creatures—we had huge cockroaches clustered round rust patches and shit and decomposing limbs, and somewhere in the background the voice of Abdel Wahhab: Me, my torment and my love of you, all together and alone. Where will it end with you, you who forgets us all?

By Youssef Rakha.

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