The early morning sunlight bleached the lines from his face even as it seared a precious memory into his soul. Not long ago, it was dark, and not just dark, but opaque black dark, the peculiar kind of darkness you find at 4 am in a club where the walls are painted black. Even then, amidst the abyss, there were signs of the light to come, where blue neon hints at the dawn sky, and the glossy black surfaces sparkle like morning dew. Even then, he closed his eyes against the breaks in the darkness, fighting to stave off what was coming, testing his resolve against the bringer of light, of mornings, of mundane responsibilities, job, commute, commitment. Of course, he would fail, but the burning of the smile lines and the crow’s feet from his young but fatigued face served a small victory, rendering him younger to the morning eye, a five minute victory over the onset of time.

She was here. He knew it before he saw the note she left for him with an arrow pointing west.

He lit a cigarette and stepped off.

 

– Danny Grosso

Continuing the expeditions of Jeff MacNelly, James Kilpatrick, and Eugene McCarthy, with apologies.

The Benghazi

A Frankenstein monster of patchwork innuendo, mismatched parts and all, this pathetic creature fits within no accepted single branch of the animal kingdom. More acclaimed by horror novelists than zoologists or historians, the Benghazi was rumored to have existed in some form for ages but was dismissed as an improbable, silly, vainglorious fabrication of stilted imagination. Of late, the creature’s awful appearance has made its existence all too real for some. Its nature frustratingly straightforward in its crookedness, its habits awfully stubborn, it is a mind-numbingly plodding creation, stuck in the rut of its own making. Too dim and solipsistic to do much more than rehearse circular arguments with itself, the Benghazi mostly sits around developing sores that fester in time, leaving the creature, eventually, untouchable.

 

-Danny Grosso