Robin Shepard

​Life in Wartime
 
I used to be like you, until I became more like myself. Now I’m unrecognizable. The world slings its tiny arrows into our armour, and many perish before realizing how lousy life can be. Battlefields are littered with the lives of the young. And those are the good guys. So much has changed since my last lobotomy. I barely remember how I got here. It’s been eighty years since the invasion, and yet every morning is a bloody red rag of a new beginning. My barista tells me humanity is on a journey from negation to affirmation. I want to believe her, but my macchiato is cooling on the counter. There are two kinds of people and I’m all three of them. When you dig a little deeper, you’ll understand you’re better off where you are. 
 
**
 
Asteroid
 
There’s too much to think about, between 5G death pulses and nanobot replicants in the bloodstream, and I know I’m not getting enough fiber in my diet. It’s taken me some time to shake those bad habits, like an old girlfriend whose smell you can still taste. I am what I am, but I’m not what I used to be. If it weren’t for my magnetic charm people would float away from me. I’m not trying to hide my feelings. I just don’t want to be discovered so easily. There are eyes everywhere, on light posts and under the eaves of buildings. There are voices that tell you when to stop and when to go. The whole thing is backwards. We should be born old, having already lived a full life, which we unwind until we come to nothing. Believe me, it’ll be easier to evaporate once the asteroid arrives.
 
**
 
The Art of Being Indifferent
 
There are bigger things at play here and that’s why I’m not flummoxed and otherwise flabbergasted at the pace of this creeping chaos. The less control I extend to solving unsolvable problems the better the world appears. I call this attitude “cultivating a cosmic nonchalance.” There’s power in believing in one’s own powerlessness. I’m never irked by my own irrelevance, nor exasperated by my own inconsequence. But I’m neither a heathen. Whoever’s in charge must know what he’s doing. Unless it’s a woman, in which case I’d understand the insanity of the situation. But God’s no more a woman than a man is a goat. But then again, maybe not. He/she must have a good sense of humour though. This world is one big hairy rib tickler. I’m good for a few laughs, then it’s time to settle down and get unserious. If I forget to set the alarm, wake me before it’s over. I wouldn’t want to be late for the surprise ending. 
 
**
 
Message for Those Who Care to Know
 
If it’s one thing I hate, it’s hate. I hate hate and those who hate. And I hate to say it, but if we don’t stop hating, we’ll soon be consumed by hate until it’s all we know. But what do I know? I’m only the messenger, so don’t kill me. That would be hateful. The things I hate are mean people mostly. I could just kill them. I also hate broccoli, earwigs, hip hop, and store-bought torn jeans. If I could roll them all up into a ball I’d kick it to the moon. And I love the moon. It’s so quiet there, with its freezing air and bone grey craters and its forever face, like the woman I love who sends me to the moon when I think of her standing there in its shadows. She is both light and dark and she hates it when I remind her of that.
 
**
 
Adventures in the Travel Industry
 
On any other planet I’d be worshipped for my singularity, my particular quark, strangeness, and charm. I’d have my likeness stamped in profile on a silver-tinted medium of exchange. You’d be able to spend me into oblivion, purchase time shares in every time zone, keep that summer tan all year. But I’m always pretending to be worth more than I am. At least you’d know that I love you, my little spendthrift. In fact, I always budget enough for unexpected heartache. I’d never abandon you to an untimely eclipse or leave you unaware of the next vortex out of town. I’m strictly expeditious when it comes to changing addresses in mid-sentence. Like the time I bought our one-way tickets to Venus during the off-season. You thought we were going to Europe. The fact is, the exchange rate is horrible there. But if you meet me on the dark side of the moon, we’ll wax heliocentrically. Everything has a way of turning out alright once you’ve arrived somewhere else.
 
**
 
How I Survived Without Getting Shot
 
I’ve had about enough dying to last several lifetimes. Everyone’s been dropping like flies. Speaking of which, I see that steaming pile of shit you call the president is up to his asshole in alligators again. Serves him right. He’s made a killing off killing people. It says here you’re immune to gene therapy. That won’t make you very popular where I come from. But did you know that there are more dead people at funerals than found anywhere else? I mean, outside of government, of course. And they’re getting younger every day. I’d like to live long enough to declare, “I’m not old, just a little bent out of shape.” The truth is, I never thought once about getting the jab, knowing those rat bastards didn’t care whether I lived or died. 
 
**
 
My Life as a Cartoon Character
 
No one ever called me the Space Cowboy. I’ve never been accused of being the Gangster of Love. But I can string a trout line and a country boy can survive. That being said, I’m now officially at the start of my four-year cycle of binging and purging. A month from now I’ll be the Duke of Earl. It doesn’t take much to impress me. If you can fry bacon and sing The Banana Splits Theme Song at the same time you’re the girl for me. I did show up as Major Tom at the wedding of my cousin Ringo. His band played and I got a blowjob from someone who looked like that chick in Peter, Paul and Mary. What was her name? Anyway, no one ever thought I was going to be amount to much. After I slough off all this old skin, I’ll do my best Bugs Bunny and we can dance the Hully Gully. Then you can tell me how I remind you of someone else. 
 
**
 
The Children’s Hospital Daily Devotional
 
All those crippled kids on the tube, Lord, how long will this go on? Won’t you please do something, or at least change the channel. The suffering is enormous, but they’re smiling at me and it’s hard to turn away from the armless boy painting a rainbow with his toes, the girl with the crushed, cartoonish face, the contorted violinist bowing his instrument between his two metallic fingers. I want to believe they can be happy, these adorably deformed performers, but they’re not performing. They’re looking at me and pleading with me. They’re too real, living in another country, in an unknown dimension. I can’t cross into their world. I can’t exile myself to satisfy their want and need. I’m not that distorted, warped and contorted. I’m not crooked or collapsed, twisted, bent and buckled. I’m not any of these things, am I Lord?
 
**
 
A House is Not a Home
 
The house is sick in its bones. The prognosis isn’t promising. Its internal organs are failing. Its memory is beginning to fade. The doctors believe it has suffered a series of strokes and is now brain damaged. The house doesn’t know what day it is. It no longer recognizes its friends, the appliances plugged into its walls, television, vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, computer. The lamps that once taught it to see, radio that taught it to hear, furnace that taught it to speak. The house no longer knows its own mind. Its circulatory systems of water and electricity are drained off. A cancer of parasitic vermin has moved into its architectural soul, thriving in the deep bowels of the basement, multiplying in the crowning head of the attic. The windows watch its sad demise, and the walls hold up as best they can. The floors mourn the weight of sorrow, while the roof refuses to speak of it. The house has been given six months to live. Well-wishers are welcome to drive by slowly and pay their respects.
 
**
 
 
 
Robin Shepard edits an award-winning Studebaker car club newsletter and is still trying to get the old band back together. His work has most recently appeared in Flash Boulevard, Friday Flash Fiction, Dog Throat Journal, Rat's Ass Literary Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and Beatnik Cowboy. He lives in California’s great central valley.