Lunch

A revolutionary drags a soldier’s corpse through
the plain. The soldier asks the revolutionary if he
still looks good. The revolutionary says yes.
Beautiful, even. They stop at a gorge for lunch.

 ♣♦♥♠

Charity

A billionaire sent a church bell the size of Texas
into space. Later, he hired a peasant boy to fly
up and ring the bell so that, “space could hear
sound for the first time.”

 ♣♦♥♠

Knowing

—Do you know why I have so many balloons?

—For when you want to play balloons with the president.

—That’s exactly right.

— : )

— : )

 ♣♦♥♠

A Title Doesn’t Matter

A retired, alcoholic boxer plays video games
all day. He plays video games of boxing. He
is eventually beaten to death by a group of
teenagers outside of a GameStop. He was
promoting a video game in which his likeness
appears.

 ♣♦♥♠

The Zoo of Thinking

A man has a dream in which he calls dreams
“the zoo of thinking.”

 ♣♦♥♠

Can’t Say for Sure

A woman gives a presentation on the Cyrillic
alphabet. She says, “Russian letters look really
great but it’s hard to read if you only speak
English.” She compares letters from the Roman
alphabet to the Cyrillic. She says, “This is clearly
the letter A.” And, “I truly don’t know what this
symbolizes.”

 ♣♦♥♠

Not Quite

He played cello his entire life and only told his
friends yesterday.

 ♣♦♥♠

With Every Fiber of Your Being

Instead of a beard, he had pieces of Caesar
salad stuck to his face. No one mentioned it,
and he didn’t care to notice, either.

 ♣♦♥♠

It’s Over

He faked his own death to escape society.
Later, he asked his friend what he should now
do with his life. His friend said, “Only a poet
would do what you’ve done. Write a book
about the ocean.”

 ♣♦♥♠

Show

He received a picture of a penis from a phone
number he didn’t recognize. The anonymous
person said, “Do you want to see what my dick
wants?” He received a second picture of the
penis with a little banner on it that said, “World
peace.”

 ♣♦♥♠

Company Time

They were friends in so much as they were
tourists in a strange city, both staring at a
monument to company.

 ♣♦♥♠

Disease

The disease was incurable. The doctors said
this. They named the disease “Steve Miller
Band Disease.” The sick man in question was
not named Steve Miller Band. He didn’t even
get to name his death.

 ♣♦♥♠

Accompaniment

The popular song “She Will Be Loved” by the
popular band Maroon 5 was playing while
Jesus Christ was crucified. Jesus Christ, who
would also become popular one day.

 ♣♦♥♠

Book

He took a creative writing class in his spare time.
Because he worked at the university, he attended
this class free of charge. The instructor was a
famous poet. On the last day, the instructor
announced to the class that she was publishing
a new book. It was the exact book he had just
written himself—with the same title, and the same
order of words. A teenager who narrowly escaped
a mass shooting wrote a letter of support for the
poet, which the poet read to the room. Everyone
clapped.

 ♣♦♥♠

Necessities

They built a prison in the basement of a high-end
clothing store. When asked why they had built
such a structure, a low-level employee said, “In
case we need it.” This employee made little pay.

 ♣♦♥♠

Water

There’s a murderer inside this haunted house.
What else? The soon-to-be-innocent victim is
reading a coffee table book called Water, with
pictures of water in it. He is sitting in the sun
room of the house, looking for words in this
book, but there are only pictures. He leaves
the house, unmurdered, no longer innocent.

 ♣♦♥♠

A Day at the Beach

On the west coast of Mexico, the ghost of
Frank O’Hara is smoking a joint on the beach.
The woman witnessing this goes into shock—
not so much because it’s Frank O’Hara, but
because it means that ghosts are real. She
tries to say something to him, but the words
don’t come. She recalls a line from Oliver
Onions: “Ghosts, it is advanced, either do not
exist at all, or else, like the stars at noonday,
they are there all the time and it is we who
cannot see them.”

 ♣♦♥♠

Nipples

His nipples are so large that his entire body
is one nipple.

 ♣♦♥♠

Mistakes

He forgot to include an Oxford comma in the
novel he was writing, and as a result, one of the
main characters died. He could not revive them.

 ♣♦♥♠

The Return

She pries open a fire hydrant with her bare hands.
Inside is a newborn baby named Laura Palmer.

 ♣♦♥♠

The Weather Was Looking Like How It Was

Unfortunately, it’s snowing in his brain. The head
gets bigger, water leaks out of the ears and nose.
Upon realizing this, he’s surprised to feel a sense
of relief. At least that explains it. That was his
problem all along. But explanations hurt.

 ♣♦♥♠

High School

They unfinished high school in broad daylight.

 ♣♦♥♠

Egg

The yoke of his thinking turned from wonder to lust.

 ♣♦♥♠

Traveling

In Paris, she wore a silk skirt. She visited many
malls and cathedrals and could not stop crying.

 ♣♦♥♠

King

Small boy lives alone inside of castle. Once,
people had lived there. They could have been
related to him, but he isn’t sure. The boy looks
out of a window—the castle’s largest—waiting
for an explanation. The boy’s last name is
“castle” in a different language.

 ♣♦♥♠

Dream

She had a dream that she wrote a book of poems
titled How Do You Pronounce Andy Warhol. She
would go on to write such a book.

 ♣♦♥♠

Ariel

A French duck named Ariel makes everyone’s life
a living nightmare. The duck torments the
residents of the farm. And still, everyone loves Ariel.

 ♣♦♥♠

Parking

He wished to reduce every atom in size to create
more available parking in the borough of Manhattan.

 ♣♦♥♠

Wishes

The man encountered a genie. Instead of making
a wish, the man bet the genie that he had never
once sneezed while sleeping. He lost.

 ♣♦♥♠

Fast Car

A clown car filled with blood is driving itself. It is
an excellent driver: full stops, uses the turn signal,
deferential to pedestrians, etc.

 ♣♦♥♠

Chances

He was bleeding out on the sidewalk. A friend
approached him, concerned. What happened?
“My entire life,” he said, “my whole life, I’ve been
standing next to dart boards.”

 ♣♦♥♠

Synonyms

He moved to a country where there was no word
for spit or spitting. When he tried to explain the
concept to his new friends, they either laughed,
were disgusted, or thought he was making it up.
They stuffed their fingers in his mouth.

 ♣♦♥♠

Slow Learner

A history student stood from his desk and said,
“We need to seize the means of knowledge from
teacher.” The class tied the teacher down with
rope, dividing him into two sections, and ripped
the torso from his lower body. The dismembered
teacher laughed. “I’ve always wanted this,” he said.

 ♣♦♥♠

Biography

Sebastian Castillo lives in New York. He went to
both Harvard and Yale to study three-sentence
biographies.