Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

EAP: The Magazine Archive

Psyche’s Sisters.

by

by Ed Taylor.

Wait now, let’s get this straight. Only at night he comes, to, he says, “perform a husband’s duty”; demands that the lights stay off, slinks away at sunrise, and doesn’t even say his name? He tells you he’s got a palace the size of a county, but what he does for a living he won’t tell you? Are you out of your skull? Psyche, we love you, but background check? Blood tests? Pre-nup?

            My every wish come true, he is gentle and tender, and my body’s delight. We lie on clouds, his voice is music, and I love him as husband.

Psyche, Psyche, we want you happy, but is he a face to break a mirror? Did he tunnel out of Attica? Why all this hiding?

            It is a matter of faith, he says.

Hello, earth to Psyche? Baby, for our sake, play it safe―while he sleeps, with this candle, peek, and here, take Mace, in case.

            Hot wax fell on his golden shoulder. He woke, and left me. Love, he said, cannot live without trust. He had wings.

See, see? Didn’t we say he was a freak?

One Wrong Step and You’ve Brought on the Last Days.

by

by Ellen Morris Prewitt. Up the river bank from Mother Mary, two groups confabulated over a banner strung at the base of the Memphis Pyramid. The banner proclaimed “Site of Our Renaissance.” A beefy white guy hugged one of the poles holding the banner and shook it. He was trying to dislodge a guy who’d […]

The Massacre.

by

by Alan Semrow.   The day I got here, I met with the head counselor, Ursula, and she told me that I was about to dive head first into the hardest thing I will ever have to do in my life. She said, “This is a community and we are here for you, Marshall. You […]

Garden of Unease.

by

by Marissa Bell Toffoli.   The street cracks a smile, buildings for teeth crooked, looming. Can’t trust the horizon. Shifting surfaces underfoot. Spider, when the wind rocks your web, hang on. Cat, your hunger is too obvious, gives you away before you pounce. Oh! You are too tall to hide here. These bare, skinny trees […]

You See That Window?

by

By David D. Horowitz.   “Horowitz. Ssssssss… Horowitz!” hissed the student sitting to my right. “What’s up?” I whispered back. “You see that window on the second floor?” The student, whom I’d known from elementary school in our St. Louis suburb not far from Ferguson, nudged his head in the direction of the window. It […]

Excerpt from TALES OF THE DEVIL’S WIFE.

by

by Carmen Lau.   Our Courtship This was how I met the Devil: I was walking home from school one day and happened to pass by a little patch of woods I had never known was there. Coming upon a large, smooth rock that still felt of fading sunlight against my palm, I sat down […]

Migration.

by

by Kirsten Rian.   Suppose, then, all the birds in the world line up and perch along the equator–for luck, for love. It is spring and migrating patterns confluence back and forth–give me what I need in the guise of what I want, call it north, south, be it marriage, divorce. Yesterday while walking the […]

The Broken Vessels.

by

by Ronnie Pontiac.   Shen’s father and mother no longer asked the oracle about their own fate. They knew it would arrive soon. They were surprised but grateful that they had so much more time together than they had expected. They missed Shen terribly but they believed that whatever he learned on the farm would […]

EXTERMINATE THE BRUTES.

by

by David Selzer. For Alex Cox   ‘I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.’ Winston Churchill As usual, he dresses for town in anticipation of the King’s summons – which never comes. After breakfast, he reads the Times and the Daily Telegraph, notes Ghandi’s lenient sentence of six years in […]

The Man Who Hated Leonard.

by

by Robert Markland Smith. Everyone loves Leonard. But me, I used to hate Leonard Cohen. I would go to parties, and this poet would be boasting of having had breakfast with Leonard, and having shown Leonard his manuscript. And yes, Leonard loved his manuscript, and do you know Leonard? Why yes, I know Leonard. I […]