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**PRINT: SMALL COUNTRY, by Lauren Pretnar, is No. 28 in our broadsheet series. Pretnar, a frequent contributor in recent months, has crafted a grand wedding tale, a deft rendition of the raw emotion of life forever tugged by the past, present and future. This issue comes with an excerpt from Spencer Dew's wonderful new book, Songs of Insurgency.

**WEB: THE PLATYPUS: PART 5 Zach Plague
RACCOON IN THE WHITE HOUSE Mickey Hess
MOLE Cassie J. Sneider
TRUMPED OUTRIGHT Kyle Beachy
WHAT DAY IS SUNDAY Lauren Pretnar
WING & FLY: AN INTERVIEW WITH BROADSHEET 28 AUTHOR LAUREN PRETNAR | Todd Dills
THE STORY Meghan Austin
THE ANTIPURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE: MONKEYSUIT, 2 | Andrew Davis

THE PLATYPUS: PART 5
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Zach Plague

In the previous installment, art-world czar the Platypus, pursuing a bum lead on his quest for the gray papers, happened upon Punk into a peep-show theater. . . . This serial is excerpted from Plague's first novel, Boring boring boring boring... Plague, from Chicago, will be a featured reader at our Birmingham Art Walk event Sept. 5.

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The Platypus sat with his cigar lodged between two stubby fingers and his head cupped by two stubby hands. He was slowly opening and closing his jaw, stretching it. Something he did when he felt a headache coming on. Ice cracked lazily in the glass of scotch on his desk.

THE LEFT HAND: Soap, Lit

They were going to string him up. Ring his neck. Things were on the brink. The situation was out of control. He had lost track of Ollister. His idiot men had. Which made him think the whole thing with Adelaide was a ruse, a clever decoy. And now he didn't know where Ollister's next move was going to come from. Which made every nerve ending in his body constrict. The White Sodality would be furious if they knew the extent of it. The Platypus would find himself on the chopping block, all sticky tar and tickling feather. Isadora would leave him without so much as a glance. He would end up on the streets, of New Orleans perhaps, eating only grapes and cheese, selling small reliefs in the French Quarter, just to get a goddamned drink.

He would stay after the punk kid. He had a feeling the girlfriend was about to come around. They were still out looking for the gray papers. But without Ollister, all these things were pointless.

The glass crackled again, and the ice shifted position, cubes bobbing to the top like stricken whales. The Platypus stared at the glass, at the amber snakes of light it drew on his polished desktop. He wondered what a photon was.

He needed distraction. He picked up the phone, grimacing. He had to fire the designer of his latest yacht. The man was intolerable, and devoid of imagination. If he wanted a fencing salle, stripper's pole and miniature greenhouse on his latest ship, he could find someone to tell him yes.

He put the phone down softly. He opened and closed his jaw. The headache was not going away.

PART 6


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