WUNK Issue One

Here’s everything turned in so far (in its raw form / not reflective of final layout). You should make something rad and add it to the magazine! As things get submitted, they will be added to this page. Works in progress are listed at the bottom.

All The Men I Ever Shot

Fiction by Mykle Hansen
Painting by Ro Hebert

All the men I ever shot are standing around me, bloody and translucent, voicing silent disapproval as I shoot another god-damned man. He dies. I killed him. Soon he’ll be standing right beside those other coward pussies, all of whom I shot, all of them lifeless curses, all of them scared to lay a pussy hand on me or I’ll kill them fucking dead some more. I kill ghosts. I am that bad.

Those yellow ghosts avert their eyes from the carnage. It reminds each one of them of the terrible day they met me. Their poor shadowy constitutions -- they blow apart when they sneeze, and wave their weak dismembered parts at me. They moan a fuckload. I kill them fucking dead some more, as I do every goddamn day. Brings me joy, it does.

The fucker I just killed is lifted halfway off the floor upon the wings of angels, who drag his dead ass down the hall and toss him in the stairwell. Off to hell or someplace, I couldn’t care less where. The angels don’t stick around. They know I’ll kill them too.

Now the hall is swept clean by the ghosts of all the women I ever shot. I never shot a fucker who didn’t die, especially not a woman. In the room they come and go, weeping, moaning, silently shuffling about, casting shaming glances, like I’d give half a fuck in a hailstorm what they think of the things I did. The things I did are the things I’ll do again. 

The ghosts of the women pick up the dead man’s bloody hat and hand it back to the dead man’s transparent yellow ghost who trembles in the doorjamb, craven eternal. I kill his ass a second time: Blam! Blam! Blam! with the gun the good Lord gave me. Those other ghosts avert their eyes.

I leave the killing place. Out the front doors gathered staring on the sidewalk are the ghosts of every child I ever shot, hundreds of them, standing there, waiting for my permission to play. One little ghost child holds a football under his arm. I pull my gun and blow his ass to Parnassus. The others scatter like smoke as I descend the cold stone steps to the truck. The ghosts of their parents file out behind me gasping as I laugh.

(continued)

All the dogs I ever shot, crushed beneath my boots or drove right over, are waiting for me in the pickup truck with their sad begging eyes on me, their ears drooping like melted wax, wagging their damn ghostly tails, searching for the part of me that isn’t about to blow their mangy heads off. They’re looking for a heart that just ain’t there. I blast them away, Blam! Blam! Blam! With every bullet another stupid mutt oozes back up to stupid mutt heaven. Those dogs never learn.

Oh, God-dammit: now my dashboard is full of goddamn bullet holes. I turn the key, but there ain’t even a click. There’s red juice running out under the engine and a stink of fuel filling the cab. I get out and shoot the truck a couple more times, right in the headlights, but it don’t seem to make a damn difference.

For a second I almost begin to regret shooting my horse. But then I remember: that no-good horse lied to me. He had it coming. I got no regrets, never had, never will.

So it looks like I’m gonna be a-walking down that long, lonely road. But before I go, I show that truck just who I am. Windshield, radiator, left front tire: Blam! Blam! Blam! Dead, dead, dead. Killing’s all I’m good for, and that truck is well and truly killed. Serves it right for leaving me high and dry. I watch it start to glow, turn to golden smoke, lift off its springs and float up toward that junkyard in the sky. Then I turn and start a-walking down that long, lonely road.

I a-walk down that long, lonely road a good stretch. It’s boring as shit. Ain’t nobody to kill. Every coward in this podunk pit stop is hiding from me. The paving’s full of potholes and all the shops are closed. I kill a cat, some marigolds, a mailbox. They all go straight to hell. But it just ain’t the same as killing a man. 

Then I get to thinking about lunch. A few miles down that long, lonely road, out at the edge of town, I a-walk on up to the In-N-Out Burger. In there, the ghosts of everyone I shot on that fateful day when I shot up the In-N-Out Burger are sitting there clutching the ghosts of their food. They’re sitting still as tombstones, staring straight ahead, hoping I don’t get a hankering to kill them all another time.

I kill them all another time. Feels nice. But I’m still hungry. So I rustle up the ghost of an Animal Style Double Cheeseburger. But it’s insubstantial, empty, tastes like nothing but a handful of ground-up wind and fried smoke. And there ain’t no fizz left in the soda machine, and no ice neither. 

I sip on a wax cup of warm iced tea and feel myself growing meaner, angrier, blacker inside. Someone’s gonna die for this.

Best Job In The World

Comic by Lily O’Donell

Back To You In The Studio

Fiction by Colin Keating

B: Hello and welcome to the six o’clock news. I’m Brian Robertson.

K: And I’m Kelsey Chance broadcasting live from the KALM Studios in [redacted], [redacted]. Our top stories tonight:

A pocket of psychic energy from a long-shuttered Hot Topic started evaporating over the city sometime early this morning. Paranormal researchers believe the energy pocket gained sentience and broke off from the temporal flow of the alternative mall chain some time around last spring. Various sightings of the energy pocket have been reported throughout the years, but the reports were dismissed as hearsay or schizophrenic delusion. As the pocket evaporated, various groups of people were turned into party clowns, complete with makeup, honkable noses, and baggy carnival attire. Emergency rooms have filled up at an alarming rate and crisis lines have been ringing off the hook. Researchers are urging the public to stay calm and report any broad or slapstick humor to the authorities immediately. Brian?

B: A used car lot welcomed some new customers this afternoon: ducks! Thanks to this season’s floods, a large, pond-sized pool of water covered the East Burkland Shiny Autos parking lot in East Burkland earlier last week. Witnesses have reported a group of what appear to be mallards bathing and playing in the parking lot pool. No one knows how long the ducks will stay, but one thing is for sure: a crucial piece of infrastructure has been softly reclaimed by the wildlife it displaced, filling the hearts of hundreds of passerby. A surreal and transcendent moment soon to be forgotten, haha. Kelsey?

K: Paul Doobins unveiled his new AI-generated memory implants today and the tech world is abuzz. Doobins premiered the tech at the Scion Tech conference this past fall, displaying a procedurally generated “memory map” that helps fill in the gaps of the hippocampus and the neocortex. FailSafe is already being hailed as a revolutionary piece of technology, but some worry that it goes too far. Early test subjects have reportedly wandered into strangers’ homes, drawn strange symbols on public buildings, and, in a few cases, commandeered forklifts and bulldozers on various construction sites around the city.

D: FailSafe will give people their memories back, help Alzheimer’s patients reconnect with their families, and bring comfort to the mentally disturbed. We have every faith that all bugs will be smoothed out by the time it goes to market. 

K: One test subject claimed that FailSafe generated memories of her own divinity, and continues to claim that she’s a god stuck in the wrong reality.

[ ]: I was born from a giant egg. I pick the blackberries and turn them into birds. For I am the Bird God, pooping on the Honda Acuras of this world.

K: “Reality is simply the sheet we put over the cage,” the test subject continued before wandering into a nearby bramble. Brian?

B: Thanks Kelsey, and for our final story tonight, we’d like to remind our viewers that climate change is very real, very, very real, and there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it.

K: That’s right Brian, what’s the point, really? California is breaking off into the Pacific, the South is sinking into the Gulf, hurricanes and flash floods and forest fires are ravaging the globe, and I sit in my empty apartment without even the energy to cry.

B: And this is what makes you truly despair, doesn’t it, Kelsey? You want to cry but can’t find the tears, can’t find the energy. Viewers, I’d like you to know that I drink two bottles of white wine every night and mix them with sleeping pills. On warm nights I put on my rain boots and trudge down the stairs. The bottom two floors of my house have been flooded for a while. I’ll take a flashlight and wander through the abandoned rooms. One time I laid down on a bed floating through the second floor hallway, the water so high my nose touched the ceiling.

K: The silence is what gets to me. Silence like a drill. It starts slow. You think you’re going deaf. But then you slowly start to realize that you’ve never truly heard silence, real silence, how it surrounds you. Silence is a sound just like anything else. Your body is reflected back at you and all you can hear is your heart beat, your bones shift, your eyes blink. 

B: We’re stuck in an unskippable ad we don’t wanna watch anymore.  Coming up next: toothpaste! Who needs it? Special reporter Wesley Veneers has more.

K: And later, get to know your local Water Baron! Are you owed some food rations? And why do burning pine trees smell so darn good?

B: I wish I could tell ya, Kelsey, ha ha ha.

K: Ha ha ha, that and more, after the break.

Just Friends

Comic by Riley Michael Parker

Works In Progress

Here are a few of the pitches that have been approved, and are currently being created.

LIFE OF LILY by Lily O’Donell - Two more journal-style comics inspired by Lily’s life.

KNEEL TO THE HEEL by Xander Nox Draven & Riley Parker - Photos and interviews with local (bad guy) wrestlers.

MAXIMALIST OVERDRIVE by Cris Villa - Collage art pieces.

LOCALS ONLY by Ro Hebert - Interviews and photos with working class weirdos, like line cooks, strippers, mailmen, bouncers, cabbies, etc.

AN ABSURDIST IN SPAIN by Mykle Hansen - 2 pages of Mykle’s reaction to traveling abroad.

WHY I LOVE A.I. by Tomas Muelling - Satire about loving corporate slop and eating human shit.

PORTLAND NEEDS TO QUIT THIS SHIT - Shit-talking by WUNK staff.