ISSUE 4 FEATURE

A HORRIBLE FLOOD OF LAVA
Zachary Schomburg

A horrible flood of lava moves quickly into town. The pots in my kitchen begin to rattle. I climb onto the roof and find the horrible flood of lava through my rooftop telescope. When the horrible flood of lava gets close enough, I see it is not lava at all, but a horrible mob of hooded men burning the black night with fiery torches, demanding my head. I wave a fiery torch back at them to scare them off, to demonstrate that I will not surrender easily. They yell in a strange and angry language. It sounds a little like this:

Na na na na kya kya kya.
Na na na na kya kya kya.
Na na na na kya kya kya.
Na na na na kya kya kya.

When the mob gets even closer I can see through my rooftop telescope that it is not actually a mob, but the woods on fire. And not the woods on fire but my fingers. And not my fingers but someone else’s finger, probably Hank’s, pressing unmercifully against the back of my eyeball.

LOVE IS WHEN YOU BUILD A BOAT FROM ALL THE EYELASHES IN THE OCEAN
Zachary Schomburg

When the bats
break

from the mouth of
the cave

hold on tight
at my waist

and if I fall
off the cliff

into the ocean
bury what washes up

beneath the mattress
of my first bed

and when the tide
washes it away

you’ll know
there is no tide

there is only
one thing

and you should
expect a boat.

Zachary Schomburg is the author of The Man Suit (2007), Scary, No Scary (2009), and Fjords vol 1 (2012). He is the co-editor of Octopus Books.