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**PRINT: KIND OF LIKE BIRDS, by Mairead Case. The rules for teaching writing in the local juvie? 1. Don't talk about sex. 2. Or drugs. 3. Or therapy or suicide. The latest in our new mini-broadsheets series, with new fiction from Lydia Ship as well. We encourage active participation in distribution from any interested parties. Follow the main link above for more.

**PRINT: LIFE ON THE FRONTIER, by Chicago resident and native Kate Duva, is THE2NDHAND’s 33rd broadsheet. Duva's been plying the brains of THE2NDHAND readers for several years now, and her characteristic stylistic mix of arch-weird and arch-real in story makes for an explosively brittle manifestation of reality in this the longest story she's published in these halls, about a young woman's sojourn at what she sees as the edges of American civilization, Albuquerque, N.M., where she works as a nurse in state group homes for aging mentally disabled people. Catch Duva Feb. 8, 2010, at Whistler in Chicago at the second installment of our new reading series, So You Think You Have Nerves of Steel? This issue also features a short by THE2NDHAND coeditor C.T. Ballentine.

**WEB: IN THE AIRPORT Bradley Sands
TWO PRISONERS' WIVES Sean Ulman
CHARLIE'S TRAIN, PART 4 Heather Palmer
WING & FLY: NASHVILLE, THE BRICK COMETH: MARCH 12 | Todd Dills
HIDEOUS BOUNTY: THE FRONTIERSMEN | Andrew Davis
COTTON CANDY AND BURNING TIRES Alexis Thomas
SODIUM VAPOR Zachary Cole
SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL? Jill Summers
MINNIE LEE's FUNERAL Anne Whitehouse


IN THE AIRPORT
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Bradley Sands

Sands lives in Boulder, Colorado. He is the author of the novel It Came From Below the Belt (Afterbirth) and editor of the journal Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Bizarro Starter Kit (Blue), Lamination Colony, The Dream People, No Colony, Word Riot, Opium, Zygote in My Coffee, Robot Melon, decomP, Mud Luscious, Thieves Jargon, Noo Journal, and others.

Nobody will tell us why our flight has been delayed. We are very disgruntled.

Is there someone else we can speak to? A supervisor?

Columbia College Fiction Writing Department

Oh, you are the supervisor? We feel an urge to murder you, but choose to keep our emotions trapped beneath the skin, since we are civilized people, unlike you and your employees. Anyone who treats customers this way is a barbarian.

Why are you preventing us from holding our loved ones in our arms? We haven't seen them in months.

Yes, we understand all the planes have been delayed. You've made it clear. There's nothing you can do. No, we don't want a magazine and a beverage from the airport gift shop. We demand an explanation.

You're blaming the weather? That's ridiculous. It might be winter, but there's not a snowflake in the sky.

No, we haven't looked out the window lately. We will do that now, after we're done visualizing your head as it flies through the air beside a helicopter propeller.

Where are the windows? All we see are mirrors. There are an awful lot of them in this airport.

That's idiotic. Windows can't just turn themselves into mirrors. They are made of an entirely different substance, we think.

Thanks so much for telling us about molten aluminum and silver, smart guy. But how did either of those things get on the back of the windows? Don't tell us a volcano erupted in the area.

No, we're not going to move out of your way, not until you answer all of our questions. We don't care if a disgruntled customer is trying to smash a "window" with a fire extinguisher. We are almost to that point of disgruntlement, but not yet. Still, we applaud his take-charge attitude and plan to assist him by holding you back.

Success...we are thrilled for him.

Why is there another mirror behind the broken one?

We asked you a question, not for your impersonation of a terrified baboon.

Hey, you might want to look behind you. There's a parade of all your hopes, dreams, disappointments, embarrassments, successes, and temper tantrums. They are all coming toward you, waving knives at your throat.

Look behind you.

Never mind, we took our own advice. There is nothing behind you except a roomful of disgruntled customers.

Wait...your parade is marching inside the mirror. The first float rolls closer and closer.

Now we see it, now we don't. Watch your back.

That's disgusting. Can you go somewhere else? We're all trying to maintain a functional digestive system. We didn't pay good money to see viscera pour out of your body.

Oh, look what you've done now -- you're dead and we feel guilty about wanting to murder you. You will always be remembered in our hearts. You were a very good person.

Saying nice things about you isn't making us feel good about ourselves. We will try another technique. We will pretend a living person still exists inside the black shape that has enveloped your body. You haven't given us any other choice. We so enjoy talking to you. We will talk until our parades come to take us away, leaving behind shadows where there once was light.



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OUR FRIENDS AT The Left Hand make great soap, salves, balms and other natural hygiene-type stuff, in addition to publishing a zine and running a book swap, a performance series and more from their Tuscaloosa, AL, homebase. When they offered to make something for us, we jumped. We introduce THE2NDHAND soap, an olive oil soap with a quadruple dose of Bergamot, "for the readers we've sullied..." Price is $6, ppd.

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