Nine Ways to Eat a Watermelon

By Robin Silver

Cut in half, with a spoon, immersed in a wartime movie. The Great War is best, followed by Vietnam, but any will do. Hopefully, there will be at least one passionate kiss before you hit the rind.

Off a paper plate, sliced in triangles, fingers of your writing hand grasped around the green, the other hand under the table, to hide the discreet reserve of seeds.

Sucked through a straw placed in a hole carved with a penknife and spit into the trash can. Carefully, so as not to ruin the integrity of the rind. It is the best bong you’ve ever smoked.

In the fifth grade, on a class picnic. Jeremy, who everyone calls Germy, who sits across from you in math, tells you that if you swallow the black seeds a watermelon tree will grow inside your belly. You tell him that watermelons don’t grow on trees. It is years before you drunkenly make the connection between “seed” and something else, quite similar in size to a watermelon, growing inside your belly. Continue reading…

Mary

By Fei Wu

It has been six months since my epiphany.

On the morning of my conversion, I was staring at the sterile white linoleum that lines the floor of the underground lab where I spend my days, indolent in artificial light.

Mary, the peroxide-blonde office slut had ensnared me in a tiresome flirtation. She slid up to me that morning wearing too much lipstick and much more eye-shadow. She purred a greeting, and brushed her arm casually against mine. The smell of her overwhelmed me, it was rosy and rotten. Her scent distracted me from my work with its fetid desperation. I stared at her through my glasses; making sure the glare obscured my disgust, and forced a smirk that I knew would make her thighs twitch. Mary was puppyish in her devotion to me, convinced I was a genius, that my aloof exterior was a shell for a lonely, suffering soul. This was partly due to a bored manipulation on my part, I’d casually left some scribbled lines of maniac poetry on my desk for her to see, and she’d eaten it up. The rest of her delusion stemmed from a deep, almost dogmatic faith in clichés. Her cubicle was covered with inspirational quotes, some of which she had written out in painstakingly cramped calligraphy — because a personal touch is never too much!

Continue reading…

PROFIT

By David Foote

I am… that is, I was, a broker with Dalian Futures in Shanghai. I had a gorgeous 3 bedroom apartment in Century Park with wood floors through-out, views of the river and a hot tub in the ensuite bathroom. Bay windows like you wouldn’t believe and a pretty but boring, blue eyed bitch of a girlfriend. She wrote “Celebrity Image Consultant” under profession on her visa forms, and didn’t give a tupenny fuck how many kids in Guangzhou she’d sent blind hand-stitching her new gucci pumps. The jungle is no place for bleeding hearts after all.

If that all sounds like some gutless middle manager’s twisted wank fantasy… if indeed you should experience jealousy, do not panic. That is the reaction my lifestyle was intended to provoke. Every empire has it’s Nero after all. In the sage words of Axyl Rose, “nothing lasts forever not even cold November rain”. Continue reading…

A Story that Kills Dreams

By Ryan Carter

We were riding beside one another, cutting off traffic. He said, “I want to cut off a piece of your cheek and keep it in my pocket. I can carry it with me.”

He said, “I want to cut off one of your lips and keep it with me.”

I said, “Would you pull out my eyelashes?” He said, “What is the meaning of eyelash?”

I said, “After you pulled out all my eyelashes, you could blow dust in my face? You could tie me up in a chair, and throw dust through a fan, into my face?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Would you enjoy pulling out my fingernails with pliers?”

He said, “Yes, of course.”

Continue reading…

Serene: The Green Eyed Monster

By Darcy Fisher

The monster hides in the closet waiting for my lights to turn off because, at that time, it is not seen. Only felt in the winds of darkness, its green eyes peak through the slats defending its status and staring at me when I sleep.  Its big teeth bearing, sharp, as it rubs its bloated Buddha belly growling for my attention.

The monster was first sighted at the market hiding in the aisles of oranges in peak season. The apples stared violently, while customers picked the oranges over them.  “I was always chosen!” said the apples.  “We were chosen over any other since the beginning of man!” the apples muttered.  “Now I am the apple of their eye,” the oranges said with condescension and winked at the apples. The apples pouted, thick-skinned, wakened and bruised. The monster hid in the dark corner of the mom and pop fruit stand on Fu Min Lu laughing, and then vanished in the misty air of morning.

Continue reading…

HAL’s Mad Tea Party: Two Lumps

That’s right folks, time for more tea, check out these lovely little crumpets from our gals D and K below!

Dena Rash Guzman – All the Tea in China

Katrina Hamlin – New Home

All the Tea in China

By Dena Rash Guzman

The man in the tea shop glances up at us, opening his yellow smile like smog. My hands are hovering over sliced dried lemons. Hovering. A month later, after consumption of those lemons, my mouth will hover over my American toilet.  The lemons were poisonous. So much in China is poisonous. So much anywhere is poisonous. Poisoned. I don’t know yet about the lemons. I’m in the tea shop, wanting them, knowing how long it takes to make them at home in my oven. In my head I hear “Suzanne.”

I am going to bring home tea and lemons all the way from China. I will feed people these things. No oranges. No need. They are too heavy whole and I like California oranges. I like tangerines.
Continue reading…

The Policy

By Lindsay Redifer

Lee is sitting on the newest HP Inkjet in a just a blouse and heels. I frame the shot one more time — the logo has to be nice and clear.

“Lee, move your feet a bit. I need to see those ink cartridges on the desk.”

“Okay!”

God, that voice. It’s like a cat whining into a garbage disposal. I try not to think. Just work. Just do. “Action!”

The printer starts spitting out glossy pictures of female eyes, crystal clear and beautiful on double-bond off-white paper. Lee moans and begins to masturbate wildly.

“Urrrhhhhnnnnoooohhhh!!!! The quality! Oooaarrggghhhh!!!” I shudder, but I seem to be the only one.

Ang, our script girl, stands watching without expression. Ang is Burmese and therefore banished to behind the scenes while Lee moans and grunts in the spotlight. Ang’s big, soft eyes are the same as those spewing out of the printer, over and over and over.
“And cut! Okay, let’s set for scene 8. Someone get Fat Man.”

Continue reading…

New Home

By Katrina Hamlin

The small blond girl opens the door, and steps out onto the landing. She drags a big suitcase with broken handles. She’s late.
A Chinese man – timid stance, mid-50s – is standing at the top of the stairs.
He is shocked to see a small blond girl on the landing. He spills a “Hello” before he can stop himself.
“Nihao,” she replies, and turns to rattle the keys into the lock. She’s used to her own novelty, and those looks, which come with a reflex “Hello”.
“You live here?” he asks, watching.
“Wo zhu zai zheli. Wo de jia.” She zips the keys into a hand bag, and moves to push past, to the stairs. The plastic wheels rumble on the concrete floor. Continue reading…

HAL’s Mad Tea Party: One Lump

Tea.

The British love it, the Americans throw it into harbours, Canadians put maple syrup in it, and the Chinese most likely invented it. Whether you serve it with one lump or two, tea has always been “steeped” in history. It is mysterious, sexy, dangerous, and deadly. A lot of people seem to have a lot to say about tea, which is why we here at H.A.L. have devoted an entire groupthink to this most noble beverage.

Sit back, relax,  pour yourself a spot, and enjoy…

Danielle LeClerc – Chinese Tea and the Bone Cup

Ginger wRong Chen – A Perfect Cup of Tea