Category: Bad Survivalist

Bad Survivalist Poetry: “The Dark Knight Contemplates the Metaphysics of Pleasure” by Raza Ijaz

The Dark Knight Contemplates the Metaphysics of Pleasure “You’ll leave me?” —Bruce to Alfred, The Dark Knight Rises What is pleasure, I think, as I beat up this goon of Bane. (I’ve been thinking a lot these days, as I beat people up, since Alfred kept his word and left). Is pleasure something I felt…
Bad Survivalist: “Under the Orange Tree,” a short story by Emily Unwin

Under the Orange Tree “Everyone in America has an agent,” Judy says. Mary Virginia has just picked up Judy from the Seville, Spain airport. Judy sits in the passenger seat. MV is trying to sell a Christian self-help book. Her knuckles are turning white. Her boyfriend’s mother, Judy, fiddles with the meditation beads around her…
Miriam Gershow: “Nature Stories,” a new nonfiction for Bad Survivalist

Nature Stories 1. The GPS gets us lost on the way to the boat launch. We backtrack and I take out Google Maps on my phone. We argue, but familiarly. My husband says he’ll know it by sight. I tell him when he’s on the wrong road, but get left mixed up with right. Turn…
Two Bad Survivalisms by Zedekiah Gonsalves Schild

Good in a Crisis I can elevate that glassfoot above your heartapply unflinching pressure to that chain of woundsthat began with bitter cactus rind balm for the sun. I am good in a crisis a Swiss army knifeof bullshit I know / the plastic seat of a squad car feels likeit has space for cuffs…
Bad Survivalist Short Story: “Progress” by Derek Fisher

Progress TurtlePhone and Positively Pete! roll across a hellish expanse of the Mojave Desert. Roll, and drag. TurtlePhone, equipped with wheels under his plastic frame, is rolling comfortably enough. Positively Pete!, wheel-less, and without autonomy or propulsion, is dragged by the green tail of TurtlePhone, an appendage of hard plastic and pointy at its tip,…
“There Is No Answer to the Simplicity of Weather,” a collaborative poem by Leigh Chadwick & Mitchell Nobis

There Is No Answer to the Simplicity of Weather My dreams are nothing but a wall of owls. I wake up all eyes and twisted thumbs. The birds are back in pre-dawn spring. I’m stuck in an alarm clock of sweetness and tweets as the river pushes heavy with dead winter and trash. Benches are…
“Bounty,” a Bad Survivalist Flash Fiction by Michele Finn Johnson

Bounty Marian’s halfway through her beginner Peloton class when she hears her husband, Luke, scream—What the hell? She slows her pedaling, listens for his lazy follow-up—Have you seen my socks? Did you drink all of the almond milk?—anything that means Marian doesn’t have to try and unclip herself from this mechanical beast. Snails? Are those…
Bad Survivalist Short Story: “In the Afterlife Your Landlord Is a Witch” by Maggie Nye

In the Afterlife Your Landlord Is a Witch She does not wear a pointed hat around the property, except in winter. And the hat is not so dramatically pointed as to be ridiculous. The underside of the brim is lined with white rabbit fur. It looks warm and stylish. Your landwitch also keeps a huge…
Bad Survivalist: “What Makes You Feral,” a short story by Julie Wernersbach

What Makes You Feral PIPE BURST. COME EARLY. She rushed. What did she expect? A pipe shattering in mid-air, hard water bursting from the metal and plastic ceiling in frozen shards, an icy scream hovering above the Junior Prom dresses. But when the woman got to work, the emergency was only water on the floor,…
“Netflix Closed Captioning,” a poem for Bad Survivalist by Jeffrey Hecker

Netflix Closed Captioning [Rapid downbeat funky relaxed happy soulful witchy jazz music starts playing] [Wurlitzer muffles sobs] [Cadavers gurgle blow bubbles that suck and pop] [Ceiling fan blade claps like elephant seal] [Upbeat demented ska funeral music stops playing] [Flava Flav’s Unga Bunga Bunga remix starts playing] [Dime drops into coin-operated dryer not enough to…