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**PRINT: Our 30th broadsheet, GIVES BIRTH TO MONSTERS, by Chicago-based Spencer Dew, is a tale of one man's small heartbreak, the backdrop to a contemporary landscape of well-meaning but ultimately shallow political activism, fractured communicative lines, and more ultimately enduring drives toward total inebriation. In classic Dew fashion, he'll have you laughing all the way to brink of the void. Dew is the author of the short-story collection Songs of Insurgency **WEB: MY OWN PERSONAL GLOBAL WARMING Christian Rose
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MY OWN PERSONAL GLOBAL WARMING
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Christian Rose
Rose lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he teaches at a public school. His work has appeared recently in Word Riot, Main Street Rag, The Modern Drunkard, JMWW, DeComp, Denver Syntax and Zygote In My Coffee.
I turn off the alarm, trying to hold onto the last slippery shred of a dream I was having.
The mayhem of the bedroom is there waiting for me when I open my eyes, the scattered boxes and clothes and drawers and hangers that, two months after Mary's move-in, still haven't been put away.
I hear the struggling hum of the air conditioner that can't quite keep the room cool, and I can't imagine any of this stuff ever being anywhere but scattered all over the floor. Not in a month, not 20 years from now. This thought and the air conditioner's shortcoming combine. Sweat pushes itself through my pores as I realize: I've lost it. I can't remember my dream.
I feel the tension in my jaw that's been there all along, growing as I slept. My teeth ache as I remember the drawing the hygienist made to illustrate my problem, my molars then and now. They looked like melting glaciers, victims of my own personal global warming.
"You're getting to the age where you risk causing permanent damage," the hygienist said. "You need to do something."
For now I slip my tongue between my teeth so I can't grind.
Mary puts her head on my chest, snuggling close.
"It's time, hon," I tell her.
"Five more minutes?" she asks sleepily.
I close my eyes to the chaos of the room. I reach for the dream but it's gone.
"Five more," I say, and I hold her close to me, despite the heat.
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