Featured Story

Foreign Language

Third-Way Fiction

We’ve something a little different for you today, New Pop Lit fans. With Foreign Language, our writer Franz Pantaleon brings you a glimpse of unrequited love; a glimpse that suggests a larger story around it. Franz writes from the Philippines.

You’ve never really experienced heartbreak until you’re forced to watch a foreign romantic-drama alone.

I remember the seat beside me being empty, and all I had in my hand was an unused ticket for the same screening. She didn’t show up at the place we had agreed to meet and I decided against making contact with her to ask if she was still coming. So I went into the cinema alone thinking it would have been a waste of perfectly good tickets.

The Janitor

Third-Way Fiction

Happy Sunday, New Pop Lit’ers!

We’ve got a deliciously wicked story for you today by our featured author Ian Lahey: The Janitor.

Who hasn’t heard about superheroes with wacky, theatrical powers? Powers that by their very eccentricity save the good guys from impossible situations. What if the world was smothered in superheroes, but your only superpower was smarts…

 Ever heard of the proverbial ‘last straw’? The one that broke the camel’s back? Well, it’s bullshit. A straw can’t break a camel’s back; all the straws break it. They’re equally responsible. All of them.

Check out Ian’s previous story, Matt Murphy Private Eye, or his interview.

The Unshakable Kayfabe of Tommy Rage

Third-Way Fiction

Karl and I are pleased to give New Pop Lit readers a special story today: The Unshakable Kayfabe of Tommy Rage, by Alaska-based writer Andrea Gregovich.

Ms Gregovich’s sharp story about amateur-wrestling fandom will brighten your Post-Labor-Day week and inject a healthy dose of pop lit into your Wednesday. Enjoy!

That was the night the heat war between Danny and Sergeant Smackdown culminated in a knockout barb from Smackdown. As Danny stood at the base of the ring, barking wicked old school chants through his hands in the form of a megaphone, Smackdown issued his knockout barb: “I should buy you a saddle for Christmas so you can ride my dick.” The poetics of the thing rendered us all speechless, blinking and mouths agape for a moment on the white plastic patio chairs as Smackdown stood in the ring in his tattered camo pants, basking in the yellowish glow of the crappy spotlights they had rigged up in there and the brilliance of the thing he’d said against the background of his death metal entrance music.