http://42opus.com/ en-us An online magazine of the literary arts. The nurse pulls my legs one way and my arms the other, positioning me to her liking. Her face is beautiful, like a magazine cover, and I lie across the cold metal table like a wounded dog, my side pressed flat against the surface. A long-armed x-ray device hangs over my head. She smiles, and I lose myself in her face, imagine myself wandering into Candy Land; I walk over her gumdrop eyes. My wife is beautiful too, but she's not here. When I told her I was going for some tests she said, okay—you're fine. She said nothing about my tendency to over dramatize or my need for attention. She didn't ask why she should care or if womanizing could cause cancer. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/YnAfZy5yqCY/new-lease Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v9n2/new-lease There's this bar we go to sometimes. It's called The Kingdom of Norway and it's very exclusive. In fact, it's so exclusive we've never been there. No one we know has ever been there and no one you know has ever been there either. If they say that they have, they're lying. But tonight—trust me—we're going. And after that we imagine it will be the type of bar we can say we sometimes go to. There are three of us in the car, which is Matty's and is an old VW Rabbit. Matty is my roommate and he has been since college. Back then we called him Matty and he liked it. "Hey, Matty," we'd say. "What's up, Matty?" "How's it going, Matty?" "Matty, give us a high five." http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/7pTOicmm5CY/the-kingdom-of-norway Sat, 2 May 2009 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v9n1/the-kingdom-of-norway A familiar tickle in her pocket sent a shiver rippling up her spine. The small cell phone had vibrated every day for several years and she still felt like she was touching something paranormal every time she reached to check on it. Checking the phone was an unnecessary habit. If someone was calling, her lilting ringtone would float from her pocket. It only vibrated when she received text messages, and she only received text messages from him. She smiled at the small LCD screen, glowing green and black. "Unknown." She couldn't escape the paradox in that name. The messages sender was unknown, and yet she couldn't avoid feeling like she knew everything about him. Even calling Unknown a "him" was an assumption. Everything she knew was interpreted from the daily messages. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/7JfAA5AeMTs/lors-story Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v9n1/lors-story Jared Witherspoon and Emily Berkeley stood in Sheremetevo II near the departures hall, Emily crying and Jared extremely aware that he wasn't. Emily's hand vaguely steadied her overpacked bags as she looked at Jared, her eyes clear and blue but red around the edges. "You'll text me when you get in, won't you?" asked Jared with his hand on the skin above her jeans. "I'll text you from Prague," she replied. "If that's okay." Jared gave a small, solemn laugh that he gauged just right. "Of course it's okay, baby. Of course it is, my sweet little baby." http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/deoGjlP0bIY/if-distance-had-its-charm Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v9n1/if-distance-had-its-charm I first saw Priscilla at the pawnshop, as the Arizona sun reddened the sky with a rash. It was just before closing. She looked Jamaican to me but maybe I was homesick. Still, something was familiar about her—the gapped teeth, the regal posture, the locked hair she'd tied in an upsweep that resembled a bird's nest. Respectable is how she struck me, unlike our usual female customers with the belly out and the low-rise jeans that show the top of their underwear, underwear that ain't even real, mind you, but the G-string chicks wear these days. When I first come to the States, only erotic dancers wore that sort of thing. Today, even the college girls that I've dated wear panty strings. But Priscilla's skirt come to her knees. Her blouse was modest, a button-down loose-fitting deal which you never see on women today. That let me know it was not brand new. So I think, maybe her money is a little tight, maybe she spends her money on drugs. Carney, the shop owner, says this about many of our customers. See the one with the dirty hair? he'll say leaning in close, She's a tweaker. She's here getting money to buy crystal meth. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/aIY9OP0mpws/secondhand-objects Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v9n1/secondhand-objects Jennifer wakes to the cat vomiting. The sound makes Stephen, the man trying to prove his potential as her kids' fill-in father, jump out of bed like he did when the neighbor kids lit firecrackers in the alley—like trouble, something to reckon with. He's naked, and she tries to swallow the slight nausea she always feels at the sight of naked men—even beautiful naked men, which this one might be said to be, by some. "It's the cat," she says. "She always vomits when I refill her food bowl; she's the binge-and-purge type." He laughs, like he does, at her wit, an unsure laugh that says, I'm not sure that I get it, but I'm good-humored, so understand that I want to get it. I'm trying really hard to get it. He's already pulling on his shorts and t-shirt. He's careful not to let the kids see him without clothes—"Wouldn't want to give them the wrong idea," he says. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/Jvj8EiDk3RE/mae Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v8n4/mae