Brad Rose

Chatbot

Thanks to those killer bees, I don’t know if I daydream too little, or nightmare too much. Of course, landfills are known to catch fire. Last night, like a baby, my clothes slept on me. At some point, everything is bound to fall asleep, even if it’s just due to a technical knockout. Like inexplicable violence, the weather changed – knives of wind, sabers of lightning. As I woke up, I wondered, Do subjects ever really agree with their verbs? The purpose of a chatbot is to convince you that you’re talking to a real human being. Their names and faces may have been altered to protect the innocent, but even if their voices are better than the ones in Heaven, the drugs they do are exactly the same.

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Face Down

Got my payday loan, so I’ve already started my secret science project. In fact, I just finished my first batch of home-made razor blades. The anesthesia helps. Brains aren’t designed to work 24/7, you know. Fortunately, I have a lot of experience working with disaster. My think tank is often only half-full, except for my automatic thoughts and the subdural advertising. At the risk of stating the oblivious, that’s why the dead are insensate. It sticks to them like a refrigerator magnet.

Because I like the way my invisible car lines up with the empty parking spaces, I spent all day yesterday thanking myself. If you think about it, that isn’t as funny as you might think. For example, when at last I’m buried face down, wearing my secret agent pajamas, only Satan will see me smile.

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About the Author

Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles and now lives in Boston. He is the author of five collections of poetry and flash fiction: Pink X-Ray, de/tonations, Momentary Turbulence, WordinEdgeWise, and No. Wait. I Can Explain. Six times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and three times nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, Brad’s poetry and fiction have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The American Journal of Poetry, New York Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, Clockhouse, Folio, Cloudbank, Baltimore Review, 45th Parallel, Best Microfiction 2019, Lunch Ticket, Cultural Daily, and other publications.