By Constance Reeder

For this effusion of JPT, we peek into the warped world of Raimundo Craven, acclaimed short story scribbler, as heavily redacted by Snobby Magazine’s editor, Rusty Hillman and Craven’s ultragirly widow, Tessica Gallon.  This piece is a minor (well, sort of teeny) and hitherto unpublished tale from 1975, when Craven was briefly sober, called “Thud.”  (You figure out what that means!)

            Joe walked down the street, thinking of Georgina.
            He didn’t know why.  He’d lost the pints of Old Grandad that kept him from going crazy again.  He smacked his lips and then felt embarrassed.  What if his mother overheard?  She’d have him in the drunk-o clinic like a rifle shot.
            [Here 11 pages of MS. are severely blotted by multiple rings made by bottles and/or glasses. That’s OK, because the lacuna creates one of those famous non sequitur narrative leaps for which Craven became famous.]
            Angela felt the baby move slightly.  She felt blissful.  Or at least not depressed.  That was most unusual for her, and she knew she had three more months or so of this feeling.  She hoped it wouldn’t abate.  What a word!  Abate.  She envisioned an angleworm writhing in italics on a hook.
            Then a 1967 Dodge Reliant swirled around the corner as she stepped off the curb.  There was a muffled sound—“thud!”—and Angela’s body rolled down the gutter.  Her eyes opened and closed like a china baby doll as she died.
            Across town, still thinking of Georgina, Joe parked his 1967 Dodge Reliant and found the half-pint of Old Grandad he had dropped.  The bottle was cracked, but none of the precious fluid had escaped. 
            Life was good. ###