My little brother made this (what is this color? shiraz? faded rosewood? stale wine? crushed beet?) sketch of me. Follow his Instagram here.
Author: Desmond White
Blog: www.desmondwrite.com
Twitter: @desmondwrite
Instagram: @desmondwrite
Fiction — “To Dr. Sterling pertaining his Artist”
Epistolary fiction about an angry spouse complaining to a magazine about an artist.
Dear Dr. Sterling,
I have a complaint about your advice column, but it’s not about your advice specifically. In fact, I was delighted by your response to my letter on how I should deal with my husband [see Issue 8, 2016]. I was afraid our problems would lead to the dissolution of an unhappy marriage, but ever since I began to act the compliant, chirpy wife, per your suggestion, we not only get along better, but we make decisions quicker.
No, my complaint is about the artwork you feature inside your column, which does not reflect the tone of your advice.
You may need to speak to your artist, Ms. Josie Aurelio, about her visual direction. For example, in your response to my letter, Ms. Aurelio created a diorama (the images constructed out of magazine cuttings) depicting a nude Barbie doll in a wheelchair, her head cut open with a pink, gummy brain floating above her. Jumper cables connect the brain to a 2017 Jeep Wrangler (snipped from a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles ad), in the driver’s seat of which sits a Ken doll, who I can only infer is revving the engine. I found this image to be disturbing and insulting and possibly misandristic. Would you have a talk with the young lady?
Sincerely,
Victoria Greene
* * *
Dear Dr. Sterling
Again, I have good and bad news.
Fiction — “Once there was an empty classroom”
Weird fiction about an empty classroom that develops a taste for the people inside.
During the day, the door remains unlocked—the lights flicked on by a sleepy department head and flicked off by a custodian whose back vac makes her a ghostbuster.
A general lack of students keeps the air icy and free of the muck-must of human bodies, a scent corrupted by cheetos and the cheese of feet, although the room occasionally feeds on students looking for a place to study, romantic couples with forged hall passes, and, once, a red-nosed assistant principal who napped by the cabinets.
Some grease and wet spray still lies on the carpet.
Since classrooms have no natural predator, the room sits, and sits, like a forgotten box of baking soda in the fridge. Its stomach grew between Science classes and a weedwork of wires and pink-feather insulation. Feeding on rats.
Now the stomach sits, hungry.
There was a man once. The first pang of its profession came with the appearance of a bearded teacher. Shaggy, shortsighted as a bear with spectacles, the creature lumbered through the door and fell on the desk.
The room waited, hoping the teacher would attract others.
But the teach hid there, received his paycheck, watched for enemies at the door, put up posters that read, “You never fail until you stop trying,” and “It’s okay to not know but it’s not okay to not try.” Perhaps he operated under that mantra of bibles and baseball movies—if you build it, they will come.
No one came. The room ate the man, absorbed his funky odors. And life returned to the humdrum of air-conditioned lungs.
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Fiction — “The Immortal Dr. Bysshe”
How to stop an immortal narcissist from getting what they want.
“It doesn’t matter” was his mantra.
“It doesn’t matter.”
In the bar, Dr. Bysshe clung to the utter frivolity and therefore futility of human life — its meaninglessness, its atoms, its empty spaces. He would witness a woman pulling gum off her shoe or a video of a school shooter offing himself after offing his class with the same perplexity, the same inquiry of who cares?
Every name, he argued, would be erased. No love, sorrow, contact, or conflict could endure the eternal siege of Time and Entropy.
So we have remembered him. It is our one countermeasure, or consolation.
Although Dr. Bysshe lived a hundred years ago, we remember, and we transmit his crushing spirit forward across state lines and timelines.
We will immortalize his shattered visage, his wrinkled lip, his frown, and his philosophic vision that so neatly suspends us over the Pit, so that all may look on his Works and Laugh, before completing their flight and lying down to sleep in lonesome sands.
Who said it? Donald Trump or a Disney Villain? A Special Presidential Post
I’m surrounded by idiots.
Was this Donald Trump speaking in a rally about the White House, or Donald Trump speaking to the White House about one of his rallies, or Scar from The Lion King?
The most beautiful girl in town, that makes her the best! And don’t I deserve the best?
Insensitive remarks from Donald Trump’s conversation with Billy Bush or Gaston in Beauty & the Beast?
They’re not like you and me, which means they must be evil.
Also
Off with their heads!
Donald Trump riffing on Mexicans or Ratcliffe riffing on Native Americans in Pocahontas or the Queen of Hearts ripping up her citizens?
You are deformed, and you are ugly, and these are things for which the world shows little pity.
Trump texting Tiffany or Frollo twittering at Quasimodo?
I killed Mufasa!
Probably Trump.
You poor, simple fools. Thinking you could defeat me. ME!
Maleficent or the 2016 inaugural address?
You’re speechless, I see. A fine quality in a wife.
Jaffar or Trump proposing to his third wife?
Triton’s daughter will be mine and then I’ll make him writhe. I’ll see him wriggle like a worm on a hook.
Trump.
Published — “Flexible Groups”
Defenestration published my short story “Flexible Groups” in its December 2016 issue (for context, they release an issue every April, August, and December). I was influenced by Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” and my experiences in professional education. One of the members of my writer’s critique called this style “snarky with a soul.” I’m keeping that.
Defenestration is an online publication devoted to humor in all its varieties, and its About page boasts such accomplishments as selling its life story to Christopher Nolan (you might have heard of a little something called The Dark Knight) and successfully defending the Earth from Martians.
Rejection Letters from 2016
In the interest of clearing out my Rejects Page (which is in the menu above) to leave space for a new slew of letters, I’m posting my prose and poetry rejections before 2017. Consider it much needed spring cleaning.
Read if you’re in need of emotional support— the kind that only a little schadenfreude can provide.
Unfortunately due to time constraints we had to cut this from my wedding
OFFICIANT
[Version A] I asked Desmond and Julie when they first knew that they were in love. Des said the first time she farted in front of him, or in other words, at first-smell. Julie said that “the first time I told him that I loved him, I knew right then that it was a lie, but I needed the money.”
[Version B] I asked Desmond and Julie when they first knew that they were in love. Des said, “when I first laid eyes on her Dad.” Julie just stared enigmatically into the distance and said, “Soon.”
Unfortunately due to time constraints we had to cut this from my wedding
OFFICIANT
“Before we begin the ceremony, I would like to begin with a passage from the Bible because I think it elucidates the relationship between Desmond and Julie accurately. This is from 2 Kings 2:23-24: ‘From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy.” Elisha turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.’ Des, Julie, you two are like those bears in the woods. Whatever the Lord calls on you to do, you do it, and you do it together.”
Desmond, Write 