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The godfather picked up a hatchet from a nearby marble table and asked, “Who will volunteer to put their right hand on this marble table?”

As soon as the godfather finished saying those ominous words, the suck-up placed his right-hand on the marble table.

As soon as the suck-up did so, the godfather chopped off the hand at the wrist.

The suck-up then said, “that’s the cleanest cut that I have ever seen, and my dad was a butcher. But don’t worry, shortly my right-hand will grow back,” and it did.

The godfather then smiled for the first time in his adult life and said, “I see I’m not the only one with superpowers.”

“That’s not my only superpower,” the suck-up said. “I can show you all of them if you like Boss.”

“Come with me,” said the godfather before opening a portal to another dimension, and the suck-up did as he was told.



Steve Castro's poetry is forthcoming in Salamander, SLICE Magazine, and Dryland. An exquisite corpse short fiction collaborative project with visual artist Josh Dorman is forthcoming in 7x7. Kyle Dargan wrote, "Castro is taking his place in a poet constellation with other twinkling voices such as Walid Bitar, Elaine Equi, and Charles Simic." You can read more of Steve's writing at https://linktr.ee/ThePoetryEngineer.
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16 Jun 2025

When I met the young Mr Turing, I had not yet ascended as Autumn’s King. Nowadays it has become fashionable for the sons and daughters of the lesser fey gentry to improve their position in the shifting hierarchy of the Courts by virtue of intrigue, scandal, and the naked blade; but in those times, it was the custom to advance one’s position through the collection of human bagatelles.
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