Category: Bad Survivalist

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

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, which…
“There Is No Answer to the Simplicity of Weather,” a collaborative poem by Leigh Chadwick & Mitchell Nobis

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 free unless you’re poor. I think about church, but…
Bad Survivalist: Three Poems by Ryan Clinesmith

Apocalypse I ——An apocalypse is an enzyme of separation, salt turned sugar, apples oxidizing, blue death, survival as the catalyst to enjoying sunsets, closing your eyes in a Mecca-crowd, a 42nd-St-New-Year’s-Eve crowd, closing your eyes only after looking around to see you are the crowd—— or it’s the time, a block before we got back…
“Bounty,” a Bad Survivalist Flash Fiction by Michele Finn Johnson

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 snails? …
Bad Survivalist Short Story: “In the Afterlife Your Landlord Is a Witch” by Maggie Nye

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 hound-sized rabbit for a pet. There are many…
Bad Survivalist: “What Makes You Feral,” a short story by Julie Wernersbach

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, all the way to…
“Netflix Closed Captioning,” a poem for Bad Survivalist by Jeffrey Hecker

[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 activate spin] [All…
“Nude Fridays in Whitelandia,” a Bad Survivalist Short Story by David Winner

The Zoom Wake Pretty soon after Louis’ passing, I had an idea. Zoom wakes were everywhere, but this one would have been different. On our six screens, you would see our bare chests. We range from our twenties to our fifties, but like Brooklyn Peter Pans, we are known as the “boys.” An old-fashioned characterization…