thrash fiction

by Jan Hassmann

wielding the six of steel and flaunting the black faded idol you descend through the hazer's syrupy breath and trace the tangle of grimy XLRs writhing like life-giving roots to the tattered set list taped to the scuffed stage sticky with spilled shots and torn by splitting high-top Chucks and as you hear the sticks call four your finger rolls the volume and you scrape with the thick pick and hit the one hard and the gain is ten and the tubes glow and hiss and all the screws start to twist and rattle and the snare spits like gravel and each kick makes the blackened boards bounce and the low tom hum though it's taped up with a black X and the low E slithers and sways like a sidewinder in the slow narcotic strobe and the room crackles as you hit the fuzz and drench the surging pit with the sweet and so sirenian feedback and you watch as they raise their begging hands with smudged blue stamps and make them wait before you flip to neck and let the flat fifth drip off your fingers and you ride the sustain and thrust your bends into them like tongues and your lips take the jolt every time you kiss the bruised fifty-eight and there she is entangled in the boiling crowd and the glittering sweat flies off her flaring hair like diamond rain every time she spins and as you jump with the last crash and the heat runs down your brow and the salt sears your eyes and the hazer breathes one more time into the roaring thunder your looks lock and you let go, blinking in the light upon you.

Photo of Jan Hassmann

BIO: Jan Hassmann writes in beautiful Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He has appeared in Seaside Gothic, Dishsoap Quarterly, WireWorm Magazine, Stone Circle Review, Sparks of Calliope and elsewhere. He’s on X: @ItsJanHassmann.