We Are Thinking About Printing A Book Of 72's

You can hold it in your hand and show it to your parents. The size/contents of the book [print-only 72's? artwork?] will rely on what money we have, which right now, is zero dollars. If you like this website and/or desire a book, please consider donating. There's a button to your right if you scroll down, it's marked KP. Thank you for reading! [This post is still seventy two words.]

One Hundred and Nineteen

It was as if the inner circumference of X's vast, spherical head were composed of one long, narrow road snaking, shifting and tangling into a coagulated mass of hopelessly inefficient transport purposed for aiding a tiny bespectacled man on a rusty unicycle, pencil stub behind his tufted ear, peddling fervently through dips, valleys and cobwebs in a desperate attempt to animate X's correct linguistic functions in a relatively timely and inconspicuous fashion.

Ninety Five

The squirrel had a burger bun the size of its torso. Did you know on Ruibulon "burger bun" is a term of endearment. In our apartment a "bergerbun" is an extreme cuddle position requiring years of training to execute. One day cuddling will be an Olympic sport. I will wear a sequined onesy splattered with official Ruibulonian colors and the cameras will watch me hug myself, shoulderblades protruding, grimacing with competitive fervor.

Chicago Friends, Tomorrow [7/23/08] at 7:30

Please join us for an open reading of selected stories, all seventy-two words in length, from SeventyTwoWords.com this Wednesday at the Loose Leaf Lounge in Lakeview. Please bring your own seventy-two word stories. Any topic. Not one word more or one word less. If you think this number is arbitrary, we'd point out this paragraph is only seventy-two words long. And doesn't that just seem perfect? Not one word too many.

Eighty Four

Today the adolescent sparrow thought about how wouldn't it be grand if there were a deliciously juicy berry or perhaps the smallest nibble of birthday cake (sans frosting, you know) that could function as a sort of instant coma, a sort of self induced catatonia, why not, and wouldn't it be marvelous if she could just wake up several months from now, dewey-eyed and slender, memories stripped, spreading her wings and yawning?

Seventy Eight

At sunset, Stella and Jordan walked along the edge of the ocean, watching the scuba divers wriggle out of their gear, wet rubber squeaking pugnaciously, gritty with sand and gull doings. Jordan pulled from his breast pocket a tiny kitten-face-shaped book, it seemed like, but no? Stella looked on curiously, glee blossoming, turning this way and that as Jordan unveiled, unfolded, unfurled out and out and out a pink, gleaming, razor-sharp machete.

Seventy Two - The Origin Myth

The King Princess fell to Earth from the lost planet of Ruibulon, an inch and a half tall and ever-so angry. She came to enslave, but a kindly Simian fed her hotdogs and smooched her cheek and, full of offal and love, she sprung to human proportions - so quickly she broke her ship. She fears the Ruibulonians will not recognize her when they come for rescue. Still ever-angry, ever-growing, she waits.

Seventy One

I am the specialist, I am fundamentals. I make assumptions, I do my research, I am flawless, I know it all, everything, and every day I stare and compute and I wonder what lovers past, present, and future, what they would think of her, what would they do. I am the expert. I am her follower. I am the one when her right ear is hot, I am the one clicking Next.

Sixty Four

So a few days ago I had a dream that I was in Sarah Jessica Parker’s bathroom and her friends really loved me and I had this boyfriend, this perfect boyfriend who was Jerry Seinfeld but not Jerry Seinfeld and I was pissing in her toilet and someone else was there, moving things around and watching me pee. I am sad, I mean it. I am sad and fierce, smelling of tuna.

Fifty Nine

Nobody on the crowded train wanted to sit next to Barbara the wombat. Everyone thought about it, independently, but decided against. “For the best,” they thought, not understanding why. People packed in. Women’s bunions pushed against their pointed shoes, pulling the leather taut like tiny painful boobs. Men tried reading standing up, but only stepped on women’s bunions. No one understood the reek of Barbara’s ennui as they quietly stared, inching away.

Fifty Seven

Somewhere between satisfaction and complacency, 4 things were lost. That night we drove silently hand in hand, sucking whiskied berries, buzzing through stoplights and as I watched the sides of your lips pucker and swirl, feeling my lungs sink deeper into my ankles - heaving - way back behind my eyelids I cried. I've faked it this whole time. We are here, quietly nude, spitting piles of wet sand both waiting, waiting.

Fifty Two

By week's end I will meet the crying lot, their teeth smeared with ostentatious song. And as I breathe in deep as much as can be bought, all the while I'll sense a rotting in my lungs. They'll tell me, "Tread light on that which will be lost," and to "Pussyfoot around the fibs that bond you." But forty years later bearing wands, they'll tell me, "Wands, they ain't so easily forgot."

Forty Five

Listen, as it was, it was a horror. He stood on the rooftops, a literal giant. Cloaked, digits sprawled with a birdcage in each hand, he peered into windows, afraid, and imagined for a moment surprising himself with what it would feel like if those painted walls owned him and not the other way around. Inside, the men gestured wide, hats atop heads, lips spreading sideways, all looking outward, holding their breath.

Thirty Nine

Thinking about the second side of her experiment, the inside of my stomach started to itch. I looked, unfocused, at a spot to the right of me and then my top lip curled into a crescent, waiting. I'll make you with pulp slurry, Jon, I will compose you. I will drink your nervous twitches while you stare ahead unmoving, I'll watch your lanky body eat hunched over, apologetic, and I will wait.

Thirty Two

The kitten went to the grocery store to score a handle of Seagram's. When he got to the liquor aisle, he saw he was too small to carry the bottle to checkout. He was persistent, shrewd, he had a plan. He stood behind the bottle and pushed with all his might. As the plastic bottle crashed ceremoniously to the floor, a granny put him in her pocket to feed her pet crocodile.

Twenty Five

I am screaming out and still no one believes me. Not ideal, but it’s alright. Listen, one day staring out at the sky, I saw pin holes in tin foil and a giant glowing provolone wheel. That day I asked him What Do You Mean and he said, You Know The Rest, and even though he is wrong and he is wrong and I probably do not love him, he is right.

Twenty Four

I want storms and tirades and fucking and documentation. I want to live inside a photograph of a box full of letters, every one addressed to me. I want a retrospective on what could have been in a volume of novellas with the theme of Guilt, I want an epic poem in size 72 font laser printed on my foyer wall. I can smell them, and they won't let me have it.

Twenty

‘Why are my poops so big?’ I will ask this now. On a good day I can eke by with a double flush, but most days I require my plunger's assistance. ‘I wonder if poop this size is normal or healthy,’ I think. ‘I wonder if excessive whiskey bulks up poop somehow, with its chemicals.’ ‘What is a good plunger,’ I sometimes think about. ‘I should get a travel one, in case.’

Sixteen

Jessica and Sugar Pie were mice living in a condo in the city. They could be mother and daughter, they could be lovers, they could be just friends, no one knows for sure anymore, least of all them. One early evening, Sugar Pie was smoking a joint on the fire escape when a small streak of sun exploded from between neighboring buildings. She tried hard to keep it in her hands, glowing.

Fourteen

Julie was busy hating life and walking home with groceries when she slipped and fell on the ice. A dozen eggs tumbled all over. Julie was filled with apathy and hatred; she kept very still on the pavement staring at the clouds feeling her butt get colder. Meanwhile, a snow fox climbed out of the sewer and snatched up 4 eggs for his wife so she would bake him a pie, already.