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Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

"Not enough room to swing a duck."

Flash

Ducks

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

The old man fed the ducks every morning, rain or shine. Locals called him harmless. They looked out for him. When he didn’t appear for… Read More

a woman standing outside a diner in the rain

"This is looking familiar."

Flash

Déjà Vu

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

She walked into the diner, deja vu thrumming like static. The bell above the door chimed. It always did. Same waitress, same burnt coffee, same… Read More

"Music doesn't lie." (Jimi Hendrix)

Flash

Their Song

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

The guitar showed up on his porch, strings slack, fretboard scarred–much like him. No note, just a cigarette burn by the bridge: her signature. He… Read More

Yin and Yang image, one half is yellow with a red smiley dace, the other halfd is red with a yellow frown face.

"Never trust anyone who wants what you've got." (Eubie Blake)

Flash

Envy

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

Envy slinks in unnoticed, wearing admiration as a disguise. It studies, compares, corrodes—from quiet jealousy to raging resentment. We crave what others have, ignoring what… Read More

"Anybody seen any chicks?"

Flash

Incels

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

Incels rebrand as blinking fireflies. They pitch celibacy as performance art, and meals for one as haute cuisine. Investors chant “sigma grindset” in Latin. TED… Read More

"From Sanskrit to the suburbs."

Flash

Yoga

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories 9 months

Once a Sanskrit whisper of serenity, yoga is now a suburban flex-off with poses like “Smugasana,” “Social Media Savasana,” and “Downward-Facing Mortgage.” Yogis chant “om”… Read More

“I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats.” (Eckhart Tolle)

Flash

Cats

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories, Brevity is the Soul, flash fiction, Micro Satire 10 months

At 3 a.m., the cats held their nightly meeting. Socks proposed world domination again. Whiskers seconded. Mittens licked herself. By dawn, they’d knocked over a… Read More

B-27. B-27."

Flash

Heaven

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories, Brevity is the Soul, flash fiction, Micro Satire 10 months

The most exclusive gated community in the universe–harp music and clouds mandatory. Entry requirements are fluid but seem to involve good behavior, belief systems, or… Read More

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.