6 stories by Dean Kissick .

The Desert Palace

by Dean Kissick

On the streets of Koreatown, a woman was howling in Spanish for her missing dog, which had one ear yellow and one mauve: a locally famous dog, Casper recognised it from the billboard for the grooming shop next to the weed dispensary on Olympic-Vermont. Huge purple flowers drifted over the sidewalks.

Anna-Sophie has a Drink on Sunset

The other day, my mother handed me a pot of yoghurt, cultivated from my great-grandmother’s vagina, across the antique wooden breakfast table, before I had had even the first of my morning coffees. But, of course, I tasted a spoonful out of politeness. It was gloopy and unpleasant.

A Person under a Train

Some years ago, I took a train and somebody jumped in front of it. It was a hot summer morning, a beautiful morning, in the south of England and I was taking a train from London to the coast, rushing through the best kind of countryside: rolling hills and shimmering crops, giant white horses etched in chalk onto hillsides, stone circles rotating through glades of bluebells, gangs of young men growing hot and overexcited, bake offs.

A Sugary, Fluorescent Smog

“STORM IS A REALLY GREAT GUY. I THINK IT’S A SHAME THAT HE DOESN’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND,” lamented an amplified voice on the television, through the locked door. “SO, ONE OF THE GIRLS FROM THE CLUB THAT I MANAGE…” The door-to-door Christian paused in the corridor outside.

Confusion

EXT. PARK. A London park in autumn. Ducks float in fountains. Leaves blow in the breeze. A vast white tent is visible through the trees. Inside that tent is an art fair | INT. ART FAIR. An evenly lit, and exactly white-walled gallery stand. CONCEPTUAL ARTIST is having a conversation with HOLLYWOOD ACTOR.

The Footballer with the Crystal Ankles

Walter loved football from his very first touch, on that dusty path outside his house, where he played under the shadows of the coconut palms. He was born, rather unusually, with both of his ankles made out of crystal but his mother and father loved him nonetheless.