Lazarus and Eurydice went out on a date in that bizarre world where shit that didn’t ever happen, happens. Lazarus hovered between heaven and hell, rubbing at his rotting nose till it fell off, and Eurydice moved always toward spring until winter’s icy fist clutched at her hair and dragged her erotically backward. Orpheus went off to work on his “greatest opus of opi yet.” Eurydice thought about it and decided that a man without a nose is a tad better than a man who knows jack shit about women, and Lazarus thought this might be better than living or dying, or at least as good as either, and after all, she had a sympathetic smile. She ran a little hot and cold but was nothing to sneeze at, not that he could have. For her part, she decided that a man who knew firsthand about death could handle marriage. They registered at LaMerde’s, the most exclusive store that would accept them, and everybody bought them a toaster, and they lived and died alternately ever after, in a nice apartment off of somewhere.
Orpheus went on tour, opening for a none-hit wonder, but you took work where you could get it, and anyway the groupies were always there, climbing up the stairs until he turned around, and they were gone.
JBMulligan has placed more than 1000 poems and stories in various magazines over the past 40 years, and has had two chapbooks published: The Stations of the Cross and THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS, as well as two e-books, The City Of Now And Then, and A Book of Psalms. He has appeared in several anthologies, including Inside/Out: A Gathering Of Poets; The Irreal Reader (Cafe Irreal); and multiple volumes of Reflections on a Blue Planet.
