by Salvatore DIFALCO

This morn­ing my eyes sit at the bot­tom of my face and my parched mouth gapes where my fore­head should be. I slept in my best suit of clothes and now it is sev­er­al shades of blue for some rea­son. I glance at my re­flec­tion in the kitchen win­dow and I see a lot of green. I open the win­dow and let the cool air ca­ress my hot, cu­bist face. It is not green out­side. It is dun and brown and dirty. So what is this green? My cat bumps my leg and purrs. I look down and she is al­so green this morn­ing, with emer­ald eyes. Why is she green? I try to reach her head but my hand feels in­flat­ed. I look at it. Madon­na mia. The green tinge con­cerns me as much as the swelling. The cat bumps me again. “Not now, amore. Not now. Pa­pa is dying.”

Am I dy­ing? Every­one is dy­ing. Not every­one is dy­ing this morn­ing. I try to stand up but this caus­es my stom­ach con­tents to rise. I sit down again and take deep breaths. Should I hate my cousin Bruno for in­tro­duc­ing me to and then del­ug­ing me with his ter­ri­ble wine? He said he made it with his fa­ther, my Un­cle Sil­vio, who knows from wine, but I sus­pect he crushed the grapes with his own foetid feet and fer­ment­ed them in dirty bar­rels with­out his fa­ther’s su­per­vi­sion. I will nev­er drink wine again. And I will hunt Bruno down when I am able and in­flict a prop­er beat­ing on him. A red bird of some va­ri­ety lights on the win­dowsill. A drop of red in a bar­ren land­scape al­ways pleas­es the eye. But on this oc­ca­sion, the red sends me rush­ing to the jakes to emp­ty my­self of all my in­testi­nal dev­ils past, present, and to come.

When I emerge the green cat awaits and I stag­ger to the clay jar where I keep her vit­tles and grab some with my swollen hand. I drop the food on the floor and she growls as she wolfs it down. “Good girl,” I say. I have yet to name her. Maybe I will call her Green, the green cat. It makes per­fect sense. She has been hang­ing around my abode for sev­er­al weeks and I have been feed­ing her lamb jerky, which she seems to like. Per­haps I should en­deav­or to di­ver­si­fy her di­et, but I know noth­ing of cats. I as­sume she dis­patch­es the oc­ca­sion­al ro­dent or lizard creep­ing about the house.

I drink a jug of wa­ter scarce­ly draw­ing a breath, but this dri­ves me back to the jakes for more purg­ing. Bruno will die, mark my words. That will con­sti­tute a par­ri­cide, or more prop­er­ly speak­ing a pa­tru­eli­cide, the killing of a pa­ter­nal cousin. Fun­ny there is a word for that. Our fa­thers were broth­ers. Both dead from heart ail­ments. Bruno will not die of a heart ail­ment. He will die of poi­son­ing or stab­bing. Will I re­al­ly kill my cousin? “Green,” I say, “should I kill my cousin, Bruno?” The cat looks at me with her slit­ted, mur­der­ous emer­ald eyes, seem­ing to sug­gest that death is on­ly and ever the solution.

Filed under Fiction on September 25th, 2026

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by Salvatore DIFALCO

The Con­tes­sa cools her­self with a pink silk fan as I climb her shoul­ders. I strad­dle her neck with my thighs in their green vel­vet leg­gings, and cov­er her right eye with my right hand while I raise a glass of ru­by with my left and thus sin­is­ter hand and toast the pur­ple phan­tasm mount­ing my shoul­ders, per­haps an in­car­na­tion of Bac­chus gen­er­at­ed by my psy­che. I toast you, Bac­chus! And I al­so toast Eros, who may be float­ing above Bac­chus, shoot­ing lit­tle ar­rows. Will this bring me mis­for­tune? Will this bring me mis­for­tune even if I am left-hand­ed? The Con­tes­sa is tol­er­ant in the ex­treme. Tick­led pink by me, she per­mits all man­ner of li­cense, with­in reason.

Wee, I can see the aban­doned green cas­tle from this lofty coign and the green lands sur­round­ing it. The cas­tle be­longed to the Contessa’s great grand­fa­ther long be­fore the fam­i­ly lost its for­tune. One of my japes to­day is wear­ing a scar­let jack­et that be­longs to her fa­ther, Count Monte­doro. Does it not look smart on me? Am I not spruce with it on? It makes me feel no­ble. That said, the Count will kill me be­fore this day is done. More claret, my dear? Please quit shuf­fling your feet in their pearl-bead­ed shoes. Do not let me spill it on your grass-smeared, wed­ding-white dress. She wore this dress why? To gam­bol with me up and down the grassy hills and over the fields like two lu­natics? Or to mock her fa­ther and their fa­mil­ial tra­di­tions, dic­tat­ed by blood bonds and sta­tus? But we are not get­ting mar­ried. We are get­ting drunk!

Thus far she has pol­ished off half the bot­tle. Of course I drank a bot­tle on my own be­fore we set off on our jour­ney. Ques­tion: How can she sup­port me and Bac­chus on her shoul­ders? I am not a small man. I am not a large man, but I am not a small one. And Bac­chus is Bac­chus, my grape-hued muse. Good ques­tion! You are do­ing well, Con­tes­sa. Wee! This makes me mer­ry, this makes the Con­tes­sa mer­ry. Her fa­ther would be hor­ri­fied if he could see her now. And if he saw me in his jack­et he would like­ly try to pierce me with the or­na­men­tal sword sheathed on his flank or shank me with the an­tique dirk he keeps in his sleeve. And I do not blame him. I do not blame your fa­ther, Con­tes­sa. No man of sound mind would sanc­tion my union with his daugh­ter or with any woman he knew. I am com­fort­able with this. But that does not mean I can­not play.

Wee, Con­tes­sa. I beg you not to stum­ble now, not to drop me with­out warn­ing. I sense a sub­tle slack­en­ing. Your laugh­ter has di­min­ished, dear. Are you not en­joy­ing your­self? Shall I jump down and per­form a few ac­ro­bat­ics for your amuse­ment? Bac­chus squeezes my head with his thighs. What is he try­ing to tell me? That I should jump down and do what is right? Or that he does not feel well and short­ly will evac­u­ate his con­tents? Con­tes­sa, Con­tes­sa, what shall we do? Shall I jump down? Or shall we run to the green cas­tle with me on your shoul­ders and Bac­chus on mine? I think you can do it. I be­lieve you can make it all the way.

She starts to move slow­ly. I stretch out my arms for bal­ance. But she does not pro­ceed in the di­rec­tion of the cas­tle. In­stead she lopes to the riv­er. Why are you head­ed to­ward the riv­er, love? She does not walk in a straight line, she weaves. She picks up speed even as she weaves. We are mov­ing at a smar­tish pace now. I feel the wind in my face. Bac­chus hangs on to my hair. The Con­tes­sa is full of sur­pris­es. I feel elat­ed. I feel elat­ed even as she runs head­long to­ward the river­bank. I feel us tip­ping, tip­ping for­ward. Bac­chus hangs on to my ears. A mo­ment of per­il seems im­mi­nent. And yet I am joy­ful. Very lit­tle is need­ed to be hap­py, re­al­ly. It is all with­in your­self and in your way of drinking.

Filed under Fiction on September 11th, 2026

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by Robert WEXELBLATT

In­ter­view­er: Thank you for agree­ing to this. I know you give few interviews.

Au­thor: Sel­dom asked to.

In­ter­view­er: Let’s get right in­to it, then. Your work has been var­i­ous­ly de­scribed as ob­scure and dif­fi­cult, al­so su­per­fi­cial, am­a­teur­ish, dilet­tan­tish, con­sol­ing, in­spired, pro­found, provoca­tive, hu­mor­less, and wit­ty. How would you de­scribe your work?

Au­thor: Wide­ly ignored.

In­ter­view­er: That’s it? Two words?

Au­thor: Yes. That’s one word.

In­ter­view­er: I see this is go­ing to be a chal­lenge. Very well. Your work has been called both mod­ern and post-mod­ern. How do you clas­si­fy what you write? 

Au­thor: Con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can literature.

In­ter­view­er: Very amus­ing. So, what do you most en­joy writ­ing on?

Au­thor: An old door held up by a cou­ple of fil­ing cabinets.

In­ter­view­er: I meant com­put­er or ball point, lined pa­per or plain, pen­cil and le­gal pad.

Au­thor: Foun­tain pen. 

In­ter­view­er: Re­al­ly?

Au­thor: My chief link with tradition. 

In­ter­view­er: Okay. This re­al­ly is go­ing to be dif­fi­cult.… Your on­ly nov­el won a prize. Why hasn’t there been a second?

Au­thor: Maybe there is.

In­ter­view­er: Oh? Un­fin­ished or unpublished?

Au­thor: Un­writ­ten.

In­ter­view­er: I was warned you’re dif­fi­cult. Okay, let me check my notes.… It says here that you’ve al­so won a teach­ing prize? Yes? What would you say is the most im­por­tant qual­i­ty in a teacher?

Au­thor: Re­mem­ber­ing.

In­ter­view­er: Re­mem­ber­ing? Re­mem­ber­ing what? Stu­dents’ names? Lec­ture notes?

Au­thor: That to teach is a tran­si­tive verb.

In­ter­view­er: You teach and you write. Do you do the one to sup­port the other?

Au­thor: I need both.

In­ter­view­er: How so?

Au­thor: Writing’s lone­some; teaching’s an ide­al form of so­cial life.

In­ter­view­er: So­cial life?

Au­thor: Sopho­mores don’t age; they’re al­ways nine­teen. And they have to listen.

In­ter­view­er: So, you like young people?

Au­thor: I’m com­fort­able with them.

In­ter­view­er: With post-adolescents?

Au­thor: I’m post-adolescent. 

In­ter­view­er: I was told — and it cer­tain­ly seems true — you’re giv­en to false modesty.

Au­thor: That’s a con­di­tion to which I aspire.

In­ter­view­er: Clever and eva­sive, con­firm­ing what you de­ny. Well then, have you got any ad­vice for as­pir­ing young writers?

Au­thor: I do.

In­ter­view­er: And that is?

Au­thor: Keep your bum on the desk chair.

In­ter­view­er: Okay. I’m go­ing to give up. Just one more ques­tion be­fore I do. You’re prolific.

Au­thor: Pro­lif­ic? For me, writ­ing is most­ly not writing. 

In­ter­view­er: Yet you keep writ­ing. Is that be­cause you love it?

Au­thor: There’s noth­ing I love more than writ­ing — and noth­ing I won’t do to avoid it.

In­ter­view­er: For example?

Au­thor: This interview.

Filed under Fiction on August 14th, 2026

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