Jeremy Maddux > Recent Status Updates

“DUDE!” he shouted, spreading his empty hands. “WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?” The driver looked annoyed. “Nothing personal,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard over the roar of the wind. “You gotta die.” Lou tried to look disappointed or confused,though he was neither. Just what I wanted to hear, he told himself. Aloud he said, “Oh. Okay. As long as it’s not personal.”

'The roar of Isaac’s sword as he activated the rocket thrusters was loud enough to rattle Liam’s teeth. A burst of light followed and Isaac stepped forward, the wide, razor-sharp slab of iron screeching through the air in a wide horizontal arc.'

Sword with rocket thrusters!? I think I finally overcame my dry spell with reading.

'Did you pick up this venomous piece of literature for entertainment? Did you want to live vicariously through the life of an irredeemable maniac? I hope you’re ready for that late-night train ride where an urban youth sees you reading this and bludgeons you for such sin. If not…perhaps you should try reading something safer, like My Life As An Immigrant Sucks, White People Suck, Weep For Me by Somalian Woman #196.'

'What do you want from this, Red? What are you doing here? Tell me something true, or tell me nothing at all. Best, Blue'

'PS. I’m touched by the research effort expended on my behalf. Mrs. Leavitt’s Guide is a good one. Now that you’ve discovered postscripts, I look forward to what you could do with scented inks and seals!'

'There is a river flowing inside Girl’s body that floats up out of Girl whenever Girl breathes. Brothers other than us might say, that’s no river, that’s just some girl breathing out her girl breath, but us brothers who made Girl and us brothers who believe Girl, we know a river when a river’s what we see.'

'There are people here in this town, in this dirty river town with this dirty river running through it, who will be quick to tell you that what happened to our father, when he walked out into the river, was that he, our father, in the river, drowned. But us brothers, we are here to tell you this: that our father, when he walked out into the river, no, our father, he did not die. He lived is what our father did.'

'The runner enjoys running when she need not flee a lion. Sex improves when decoupled—sorry—from animalist procreative desperation (or even from the desperation of not having had sex in a while, as I’ve had cause to note after my recent two decades’ sojourn and attendant dry spell).' This is such a stupid take for a pseudorobot to have.

He couldn't wait to find out which kill would be voted number one and then post about it for his three online friends to read. They lived in a home for special needs kids and would have to wait their turn for supervised access to the computer. They’d be beside themselves hanging on for the result, rocking excitedly, helmets bashing the headrests of their electric wheelchairs.

I was heading toward a mythology of survival, leaving behind in my rotting limbs a prehistory of one thousand and four hundred years of hate, vainglory, and putrid nostalgia, under the clear sky of a false Andalusia where our murder has been in the making since our birth.

Bouanani, Ahmed. The Hospital (p. 55). New Directions. Kindle Edition.

'Honestly, I’m not used to the stinging sensation of humility, but this time, when we meet, I must be sure it’s the last time. For the final arena, I chose something personal, something close to the epicenter of my creation. The trail I leave stops right at my sister’s grave, where I wait kneeling down before a simple stone block with bronzed placard.'

'I was as surprised as the stingray when the spear hit. As I watched in amazement, the stingray went straight up, then flapped his wings and took off like a bat--with my spear! I took off in the opposite direction.'

This one is probably going to be a real melancholy read, but I heard it has a better ending than John C. Lily's dolphins.

'Darkness does not bother her. Her eyes do not work like normal eyes. She scents the air, and olfactory analytics flash into her brain, offering a trail. At a particular niche, she draws from her satchel a small tube that sheds red light on the skeletons arrayed within. The first time she does this, she finds nothing. The second, her light glints off a pulsing stripe on this femur, that jaw.'