The opportune beauty of dramatic departures.

by Joseph Reynolds. Excerpted from his novel, Of Lunacy and Valor.

By the middle of the day after Dr. Keating’s death, Carrigan’s sleep was no longer dreamless. In fact, he dreamt with intent and purpose, for his dreams were a preamble to an event he would live very shortly. He dreamt of Jane Kiley. There would be a funeral. There would be an opportunity.
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The city is filled with red and white. It’s the country’s birthday. One hundred and forty six years old...

It’s not easy to wake up every morning to be George,
to have the strength to greet the day, to see with clarity,
feeling more than one can think.

To slowly and gently fix a collar spread—
stiff, but quite perfect.

To pluck splintered cedar trees
from brogue leather tips and to raise with horsehair,
strands of invisible thread,

and then to tie a bow—
loose and even, as if tailored on the fly.
Seamless it must look, to know how to be.

By the middle of the day after Dr. Keating’s death, Carrigan’s sleep was no longer dreamless. In fact, he dreamt with intent and purpose, for his dreams were a preamble to an event he would live very shortly. He dreamt of Jane Kiley. There would be a funeral. There would be an opportunity.

I WALK to the doorway; the man is inviting. He motions for me to enter. A dirt floor, unknown particles in the air. He pulls a dirty plastic chair from a neat stack by the entryway and I take my seat, explaining to him why I am here. The laminated list of research questions rests in my hands as my breath becomes labored.

...READ MORE of Danielle Susi's Notes from R3-C4: 'The Chicken House'

She flicks back up through her messages. She scrolls down terraces of conversation. Grey, blue and green bubbles. All icy-cold. All dismissive and alienating and horrifying. You are there reading this with her but she has no idea that you are there reading this with her.

Think about whether you’ve ever read a newspaper over somebody's shoulder.

XV
Life is a mega-deal

XVI
Lapsed into steam and fell against the bathroom wall
my mind’s eye bleeding gay semen
the suspect angles of light on the sink
and the mirror
and the reflections again
of the perspired neck and sternum
wet dew of mushroom and chicken pluck of youth
Wilkes Booth suicide

Bent apostles looked on: the view marked by waves and whiteness strewn across aptitude; a fluttering flightless sea with tides of white-hot intensity. Patiently. Harmful; eve. Caressing the soft foreskin of the window of dawn, currents cried out from the heavens of hell; trees dropped the fruit sold by merchants in the streets; scalding pricks of iron-clad serpents slyly tucked themselves in, curled folds of amniotic webs: gilded gold. Shine through fortresses and forests and fish and fish and masks. Holding pears and horns and bare pretentious mime. Soothed handles, they prayed. Chipped and maimed. Sand embedded in the follicles of their sleeve. Crying out with sad truths of disaster and spoken force. Riding cyclones they embarked, soft and greased and practical. Flown aviation into the dusk, they spoke. Increasing levels of abysmal makeshift arks, they spoke. Apples and peaches and nectarines abandoned and instead they ate rampant festered ointment intended to lay at rest. Hence virtuous rhymes were learnt, again.

I walk to the doorway; the man is inviting. He motions for me to enter. A dirt floor, unknown particles in the air. He pulls a dirty plastic chair from a neat stack by the entryway and I take my seat, explaining to him why I am here. The laminated list of research questions rests in my hands as my breath becomes labored.

Bijan Stephen's “Suckin’ down a pop,” Cam replies, after a slight pause.

I’D asked him what he was doing via text. Twenty-four hours ago, we (minus Cam, our tap-dancing fisherman) were somewhere hazy in Midtown. Ishaan, whom Lars would go home with later that night, controlled the music while nursing a glass of some brown liquid; Diesel was on his third pop in twenty minutes.
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There once lived a man who was more concept than man. Not made of flesh or of bone, he was instead nothing more than a brain. The brain of a serial killer. And the brain of a serial killer that had been implanted with false memories of being an artificial person. The person who the brain thought he was had never existed.

I’d asked him what he was doing via text. Twenty-four hours ago, we (minus Cam, our tap-dancing fisherman) were somewhere hazy in Midtown. Ishaan, whom Lars would go home with later that night, controlled the music while nursing a glass of some brown liquid; Diesel was on his third pop in twenty minutes.