Dashboard Horus: A Bird's Eye View of the Universe

  Colonel Kurtz Slows to a Stop Dr. Robert Hudson has seen a lot of patients who’ve said he’s the only person that listens to them. Some accuse him of listening just because he gets paid to do it. Technically that’s true, but he knows he’d do it for free. People have good stories. Hudson hasn’t owned a television since 2006. He says there’s no point. The stories told in his office are the best entertainment. And Clay Chalmers’ story, he thought, was pretty entertaining. In their first session Clay told Hudson he didn’t have anyone to listen to his innermost thoughts anymore. His parents had died young, he’d never said how, so Hudson suggested Clay write his thoughts down and send them to himself. “I don’t really believe in the mail system,” Clay said. Hudson rolled his eyes. “Tell the truth, I don’t really believe in listeners anymore either.” Clay wrote the letter anyway, and the following week he brought it to the office. “Open it,” the psychologist said. Clay did and, without he...

Matt McGee writes in the Los Angeles area. In 2023, his work appeared in Spectrum , Gnashing Teeth , and The NonBinary Review. When not typing, he drives around in rented car and plays goalie in local hockey leagues. Yeah, sitting in the airport terminal waiting on the flight to San Francisco, where I’ll attend a poetry reading of some bigger names, and hopefully hand out my budding literary magazine. On my left is a man about fifteen years or so older than me, yapping on his cell phone to someone in His office, “I’m sure whatever expenditure you’re asking about I probably approved so just go ahead and do it, it’s fine.” Across the aisle is a woman maybe five years younger than me who’s chatting away with someone in her office. “Yeah, I met with four different people today and what I found out is that they sell absolutely nothing, produce nothing and need nothing. So, remind me again why I came?” To these people, I’m a child. I’m dotting up the California coast, hoping to bend a few e...

Matt McGee writes in the Los Angeles area. In 2022, his work has appeared in Gypsum Tales , Sweetycat Press and Red Penguin . His story ‘Evolution’ will appear in the upcoming David Bowie tribute in Sybaritic Press. When not typing, he drives around in rented cars and plays goalie in local hockey leagues . “Thing is, you don’t have to go really far to travel, you know? I mean, damn bro, we’re only going forty miles and this’ll be like a whole other planet! Yeah!”  Skippy had shouted this at ten minutes past midnight. He’d packed a cooler for the trip, not with snacks and a picnic blanket of course but four fat yellow IPA cans tucked behind Keller’s driver’s seat, like a little secret only they’d share for a night. He’d cheered and hoisted a fresh beer when Keller reluctantly turned the car toward a gentleman’s club five cities away. With sixty of his dollars in Keller’s bone dry gas tank and a cooler of Lagunitas on ice, they traveled along an empty freeway on a cool, damp Monda...