Insecure-Writers

There is an old adage that you can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies. This is not something that has ever vibed with Milkman. After all, idiocy attracts idiocy. Just look at politics, for fuck’s sake. A truly great hero would fight dangerous villains, not random people he meets in the street and assumes are actually supervillains despite all evidence to the contrary. As a point of fact, Milkman has spent more time than is possibly healthy wondering why his own personal rogues’ gallery consists of a single deranged performance artist, the former special adviser to Boris Johnson and his own social worker; yet not for one second entertaining the idea that, as the common denominator, he could be the problem. The story that follows illustrates this. For it was in The Year After The Year After The Year of The Three Prime Ministers that Milkman found himself locked in a multi-storey car park, armed with nothing but his wits, while facing a terrifying hoard of weirdness. The

How can we admire a clipped Rose? It is not that she is removed from the earth of her birth, Or from her sisters and mothers that cultivated her. But rather that, in an abrasive gesture, we admire her without her thorns. What are we teaching our Daughters? That we live in a world where submission is held in the regard of womanhood? And that as natural creatures, they should be culled of their natural design? And be kept in manners that would illicit their silence? Just as ours has been evoked by absence of testimony to this regard. I would not have our Roses clipped. I would have them bear their thorns. For I believe they have them, So that each Rose can grow separate and apart among the bush. And so that each Rose, in this fashion, grows unique and pleasing. And in consequence the entire bush is reaped of singular sights. With each stem growing so as not to harm its sisters. And each stem being insured in this regard that it will receive its full batch of luminous Sun. And be

Pusung, 9 km north of Pyongyang. 0800 (local); 2 June 1965. Three weeks ago, the enemy had crossed the former DMZ. That was the inescapable fact of the matter. Nothing the Korean People’s Army had been able to do had restored discipline in the rank-and-file of the military. It didn’t seem to matter how many people they shot; the cowardly bastards kept deserting. The General Secretary kept demanding wholesale imprisonment of the families of anyone that had surrendered; as if they could actually tell who had surrendered and who was dead at this point. Marshal Ri Dong-hyun was convinced that the General Secretary’s already tenuous grip on reality was finally slipping. Ten days earlier, Kim Song-ae, the General Secretary’s second wife, had boarded a plane at her husband’s insistence along with three of his four children and was sent to China. Their aircraft was reported as being shot down by PLAAF interceptors, with no word of survivors; however, the General Secretary refused to believe

Jay opened his eyes, looking up at the popcorn ceiling he was lying under. He didn't need to look at the clock to know it was late in the afternoon. He sighed, realizing that he had missed his online class lecture again. Jay slowly sat up, rubbing his cheek, trying to convince himself to get out of bed. Even though it had only been a week since he finished his last commission, his funds were running low again. He would need to do another commission. Hopefully, one higher paying than the last one and one that required less effort. Sitting up with a groan, he cradled his forehead. Looking over at his dresser, which was in the middle of puking up papers and socks, covered in many different glasses, filled with either ancient cold coffee sludge or lukewarm water, he finally gets up. Stumbling around his room, he walks down to the kitchen, slamming his foot accidentally against the only kitchen chair. "Ffffffffffffffff-" Jay starts to yell out when he's interrupted by the doorbell's loud

Pusan, provisional South Korean capital. 0437 local; 23 October 1964. Air raid sirens screamed across the city, dragging the citizenry from its collective bed and sending them scampering for cellars and makeshift Anderson Shelter-like structures. It was a familiar routine by now. People were expecting the Communist “Beagle” bombers to reach Pusan maybe an hour after the sirens first sounded. They had plenty of time. Tonight was different. Two minutes after the sirens sounded, ten 785-kilogram high-explosive warheads slammed into the city. There was seemingly no pattern behind this targeting; the bombs seemed to drop anywhere within a six-kilometre radius of the city centre. They weren’t focused on a particular factory, warehouse complex, military barracks or even the airport. Casualties were high. Maybe a thousand civilians were killed outright as they headed to communal shelters, or in one case when a new apartment block collapsed on top of its sheltering residents. Air defences

Chapter Zero: And so, it was for Naught The moon rose to its peak position in the sky. A young woman perched on the ledge of her window, the curtain pulled back to allow the cool, pleasant evening air to waft in. Trickles of moonlight struck the hardwood floor, illuminating the meager belongings allowed in the residential rooms of the university, playing tricks on the young woman’s mind. The trees seemed to dance in the strong autumn gusts and the water from the fountain occasionally overflowed, in the courtyard below. The lack of light allowed shadow folk to snake out of the rose bushes. The young woman did not enjoy the darkness that invaded her room at night and opted for a different scenery, burning every candle she had and even stealing the candles of her classmates. But tonight, she hadn’t found a candle to light her room and the woodsman hadn’t returned with the lumber to light her hearth. She feared the night; it seemed that even the courtyard, the place where she would read

Today, I opened my front door to find intestines on my doormat, coiled up like a snake sleeping in the sunlight. And all I could do was sigh and call the cops again. Every third of the month, I'll open my front door to find some organ or body part lying on my doormat. As if it were a gift or a package I ordered. For some reason, they are always clean, like someone carefully washed off the blood, viscera, and evidence on them, leaving no trace of the culprit or whatever violence they performed. The first time it happened, they left me an appendix. I remember crying for several days. Nowadays, I've accepted it. I don't want to. I know what's happening is horrible, but it has been going on for so long that I've grown jaded to the horror of it. It's a part of my life now, a part I never wanted. The first time the police came around, they searched my tiny apartment, combing it for anything suspicious. They searched the surrounding area as I waited around nervously. After an hour or so

Edgar looked over to the bench in front of him before quickly erasing the line he just drew. He wanted to get this sketch right and impress everyone in his amateur art class. And this new statue was perfect. It was a statue of a young lady sitting on the park bench, her face frozen in an eternal peaceful expression, her stone-gray jacket billowing around her, and her hands outstretched in front of her. Sometimes a dove would land on top of her hands and rest there, the perfect spot for cold windy days. Edgar sighed as he tried to redraw the woman's hair. It was a short hairstyle, but it always seemed to change with each passing day. It was maddening. He set down his pencil and rubbed his hands together. Even with the gloves on, his hands were so cold that they felt like they were about to snap off with the next gust of wind. He breathed into them, hoping his breath was enough to warm them up for a few more minutes. The tiny bit of heat revived them for about a minute before getting