Twitterature

by Alexander Aciman

  D Albert: Hey bro. Iʼm going on a journey. Mind sending along some pistols? Thanks.

  One of us three must die. I have the pistols. A bullet for Albert, my rival? Or Lotte, my love? Or . . . me?

  I am so very sad, far too sad to kill another human being. It must be me.

  Lotte will feel bad after I shoot myself in the head and lie under a tree for twelve hours. She will run into my arms. Here goes!!

  @WholeLotteLove

  Wertherʼs funeral today. Anyone going? I canʼt make it so somebody give my condolences and regards. Whatever. Thx.

  The Sound and the Fury

  by William Faulkner

  @MauʼBenjamin

  Golf. I love golf - that and my good sister. She smells like trees. Sure is cold out here! Hard to tweet, blind, with hands in my pockets.

  There I go aʼ bellowinʼ again. Everyone tells me to hush but I think I am the only one who sees the terrible tragedy befalling my family.

  Iʼm so disinclined to change. Apt metaphor for a Southern clan trying to resist the inevitable changes in the American Sou—ooohhh, a fire!

  @Compson-OG

  Though I escaped the South where my dying family drove me mad, Harvard remains a terrible and dreary place.

  Also, why wonʼt that watch stop ticking? Who needs watches? Doesnʼt everyone just count time in their head constantly like me?

  Canʼt help believing Iʼll never truly escape my roots. My fatherʼs voice in my head. Reductio ad absurdum my fucking ass.

  The image of other menʼs dicks in my sister also plagues me. So many dicks in my dear, dear sister.

  Did I set her straight when the young man who knocked her up beat me up? If I could restore her virginity by will alone. Oh. Time for class.

  Told father that we had committed incest. He refuses to believe me. At least I tell a tale better than my idiot brother Benjy.

  Madness comes anyway as my mind rambles through thoughts of all the dicks in my dear sister. Also my own terror and neurosis.

  The eye. The terrible eye. To Maine I go to escape Cambridge, and the dicks. The dicks. I must protect the women!

  I keep forgetting to go to class. Impossible to focus on geometry with my sisterʼs innocence angling through my head.

  I canʼt express myself. Iʼm worse than Benjy in some ways. Perhaps thatʼs irony. Donʼt know. Didnʼt go to class.

  Mind fogged. Can think only about the tragedy of the Southern family. We are all mad in our own way. Where are those flat irons?

  @Jas-Z

  Iʼm surrounded by fools whose lives signify nothing. Dead father, suicidal brother, whore sister. My mother loves me and only me.

  Time to get those Negroes working. It seems their family is on the rise, as ours moves ever closer to the grave.

  @Dilsdo

  Easter Sunday. Maybe finally find peace with these old crazy people. Taking Benjy with me to Church.

  Oh God, this shit will never end. Crying and crying and the sound and the fury!

  Everything has settled. Weʼll just go out for a nice Sunday ride in the carriage. Fuck. Took a wrong turn. Wailing and wailing. Epic fail.

  The Story of My Life

  by Helen Keller

  The great tragedy of my life was when my dog jumped off a cliff because he had a ridiculous name.

  Of this I was unaware, for I could not hear. The whole world sounded absurd, if you consider abysmal silence and eternal void absurd.

  I constantly misbehaved, and disobeyed my parents. Little did they know I could not hear them. They mistook deafness for impertinence.

  They wrote me notes. They yelled at me. They brought down right and proper discipline, but it was all a loss!

  The truth dawned on them: I was both deaf and blind.

  What a perfect storm of inconveniences. Itʼs like a comedy of errors!

  They punished me by rearranging the furniture, putting plungers in the toilet, and placing doorknobs on the walls.

  I sustained a serious accident when I was ten, when I picked up the waffle iron. I burned my face even worse when they called back.

  WHO IS THIS WOMAN WHO KEEPS PUTTING MY HANDS IN MY MOUTH. A PEDERAST? CAN SHE NOT HEAR ME SCREAM? I CANʼT.

  Of course I canʼt drive: not because Iʼm deaf, or blind, but because Iʼm a woman.

  People often confuse me with Anne Frank.

  This led to the best ʻOvercoming Adversityʼ essay. The result: a blind, deaf, illiterate woman got into Harvard. And so did I.

  I believe the admissions officer thought I was ethnically diverse. You know: black. Or a foreigner. And a woman.

  Wonʼt someone please at least pity-fuck me? Sex with a blind and deaf chick must at least be a novelty.

  Just donʼt put your hands in my mouth. I donʼt do that.

  Iʼm a really good premise for a joke. I mean, Iʼm literally disabled in every single way. Itʼs kind of cheap comedy.

  I hope my physical disabilities wonʼt overshadow my accomplishments.

  All Quiet on the Western Front

  by Erich Maria Remarque

  @RemarquableTale

  Iʼve always heard, ʻPaul. Listen to adults, and teachers.ʼ You too? Well, donʼt. We could be in Hamburg cracking open a Holsten instead.

  Basic training was pretty soul-crushing. Corporal Himmelstoss was a cruel martinet! Like the principal, but school sucked more.

  Lifeʼs been pretty rough here. The days pass, people die. Soldiers donʼt get workmanʼs comp, either.

  Oh, weʼre just hanging out, waiting for bombs, snipers, gas. Hate the poison gas most. That stuff really stings.

  Corporal Himmelstoss showed up. What a fruit. He wants to be our friend. Well fuck him, and his crazy German last name.

  Itʼs summer. They say weʼre due a vacation . . . TO THE FRENCH FRONT! This is gonna be a trip to remember. Whereʼs my camera?

  Weʼre just fighting, kickinʼ ass, not even taking names. Eat my bayonet, clowns!

  Summer vacation is over. Wow, a whole bunch of our comrades died, didnʼt they? At least I have their pictures.

  We are close to a town. We can finally get some poon-tank.

  The men I fight with are my brothers. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. Oh, another one of my brothers got shot.

  Iʼm on patrol, and I see this French soldier. I beat him up. Then I look at his body and see that heʼs human, like me. Quelle surprise!

  I guess war is war.

  The war is going poorly for us Deutsche-folk. Never thought weʼd lose. At least this will be the war to end all wars.

  I get to go home because of poison gas. I hope I donʼt die before we see the end of this -

  To Kill a Mockingbird

  by Harper Lee

  @BooScout

  Thanks to Andrew Jackson, a series of commotions occurred resulting in my brotherʼs arm being broken, dashing his hopes of gridiron glory.

  More specifically, it all started when this wise-ass convinced us we should draw the town freak out of his basement.

  Jem and Dill and I keep leaving him gifts, but he wonʼt come out. But weʼre so young and innocent.

  My brother has to babysit a morphine addict. Sheʼs ninety. It seems sketchy to me, but Dad says we just have to do it.

  Why does Dad say such LAME shit? I donʼt want to walk a mile in ANYONE elseʼs shoes. Toe jam, nail fungus, athleteʼs foot anybody? Gosh.

  Dad always preaches about the ʻright thingʼ and stuff. What does a heroic, moral single father/populist lawyer know about the right thing?

  If I didnʼt know better, Iʼd say he was fighting for the REDS. Dirty pinko bastard.

  My dad has been appointed to defend Tom Robinson. More like Uncle Tom Robinson, if you ask me.

  Tom accused of raping a woman, but Iʼm pretty sure they just got it on. Canʼt a brother get some tush?

  Went to the trial. Tom seems innocent. Also, it occurs that our town is full of racists. Perhaps only the eyes of a child can see the truth.

  Is it weird that the
youngest, least worldly-wise person in town comprehends reality most clearly? Itʼs an insightful irony.

  Dad totally embarrassed Boozer Bob. Iʼm sure this wonʼt come back to bite us in some way. Also sure sun rises in the west.

  A womanʼs house burned down. It was pretty sad watching her entire life go up in smoke and flames, except that fire is so AWESOME.

  All-white jury convicted Tom. That was surprising. I figured ten minutes of deliberation meant that the verdict was close.

  Dad out all night at the jailhouse. I donʼt really have a comment. Heʼs a pretty cool guy. Good looking too, like Gregory Peck.

  Please wear green in solidarity with Tom Robinson. Heʼs totally, like, our Neda.

  Uh oh. I think my innocence is gone. Also, Boozer Bob stalking us everywhere. Itʼs getting kind of creepy.

  On the way home. Hard to move fast in giant, silly costume. Is that Boozer Bob behind us again?

  Long story short: Boozer Bob stalked us, tried to stab us, but Boo Radley FINALLY left the basement. Not sure what happened, but weʼre OK.

  Boo Radley makes men fall on their own swords. Heʼs like Octavian Caesar, and Boozer Bob is like Cassius with a brewski and gout.

  The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

  by Laurence Sterne

  @ACockAndBallsStory

  Most narratives open as the story begins. I shall start at the night of my conception. Ever think about your parents doing *it*?

  Iʼm not born yet, but I should begin my tale because Iʼve got a long way to go and I tend to get distracted. Brace yourselves.

  Still not born yet, but my parents are looking for a midwife, and boy, this midwife, sheʼs got a whole life story, wanna hear?

  AUTHORʼS PREFACE: Dear Sirs, you will find that my story is of great consequence, and a marvelous one indeed!

  Iʼve just been born, and I had a tragic accident. A windowpane fell on me, and flattened my dic—NOSE. My nose! That was almost embarrassing.

  Chapter XIX: I donʼt feel like tweeting today.

  Penso che sia migliore di non scrivere in inglese.

  What a marvelous thing ******** today it was so ******* and indeed.

  ~!@#$%^(*&^%$##$%^&*(*&^%$#®√̈ø©®œ^̈åƒ˙√¬˚©∂ß

  Fantastic, no?? Arenʼt you glad you can follow my story and everything I say so effortlessly?

  Alas poor Yorick, he dies, alone, in a dark room, much like any without lights, crying, as any widower, whoʼs lost his wife.

  Today I visited a marvelous young woman, tender, graceful, as any girl might be, which is her nature, much as absurdity is mine.

  Today I was running around my chamber, yelling, animals fighting and killing, bleeding, caca and noise everywhere.

  It was like an extended real-time version of the aristocrats without the incest.

  My mother just entered and shouted ʻWTF Tristram, again? What is all this nonsense?ʼ

  @Mom: Itʼs a cock, piss, and shit story, Ma, and the fuckinʼ best of its kind, mother, the best of its motherfucking kind.

  Tristram out, cya in the twentieth century, bitches.

  Respectfully signed, ydnahS martsirT

  Ulysses

  by James Joyce

  @StevieBlunder

  Stately drunk Buck Mulligan came down the stairs singing about coronation day.

  Milkman here. Good for those who donʼt have milk, who know not of milk. Tastes like the first milk I ever had, motherʼs sweet, warm milk.

  What a dull day. Taught, walked, mused, contemplated God, composed a sonnet, and pissed on a rock in the park. What a day.

  @DublinStateOfMind

  Oh how hard it is to be a Jew. My daughter, whoʼs a fine daughter, cannot be my son. Oh that I had a son.

  I spotted a girl, and when I met her, whipped out my love rocket, lit the fuse, and let sparks fly from the end until it exploded.

  Stephen and Buck are drinking in a hospital. Only in Dublin would a maternity hospital have a bar. Oh, those Irish.

  Whan that quente hath birthed her childe into childhede it cryde, and here the scene shall I discryve.

  When the child was born in Dublin, behold, came several drunk men from the town. For thou Dublin, in the land of Ireland, embraces him.

  Now this child, mother born, as are we all, rather infelicitously for she is the most unwise of all godʼs creatures, was put into the world.

  Leak on! Thou dark and wet placenta, leak on! Ten thousand men have fallen slithered out of thee in pain!

  The baby began to speak. By now he was quite old and matured at a ripe age and the story of his life stopped making sense.

  Yo son, that shit was intense. That baby was dumb-smart.

  With my wife now, sitting in a field. I canʼt believe I jerked off in front of that girl. Oh well, what Molly donʼt know donʼt hurt.

  My wife wants to mingle our love juices. AND she wants to have a whole conversation during? Whatʼs wrong with her?

  I was a flower of the mountain, so we are flowers all a womanʼs body yes that was one true thing he said - Aw fuck it, u see where Iʼm going.

  Whose idea was it to limit tweets to 140 characters, anyway? We really do live in a time of brevity.

  Note from editor: Sorry, Jimmy, this means the storyʼs gotta be drastically reduced in size. Make it punchy!

  ORGASM

  Venus in Furs

  by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

  @SacherMasochist

  Hereʼs what turns me on: assertive, forward women who arenʼt afraid to say, hey baby, youʼre my personal property, get in that box.

  What does Wanda mean when she says she doesnʼt understand how a golden shower can get me hot? Who isnʼt turned on by pee in the face?

  Wanda has learned to love the master-slave dynamic. But she thinks me a fool for letting her dominate. Iʼm having a blast! Sheʼs the fool!

  Being treated like a slave produces a super-orgasm. Like Supermanʼs orgasm.

  As the domination increases, the limit of sensuality approaches infinity. Math joke. Eat that, Leibniz.

  Wanda wants to go to Florence.

  Is it weird if I change my name to Gregor and act like her servant?

  Weʼre creating a domination scenario that doesnʼt exist. Pretending is part of the fun, because itʼs not real. Yes, mistress.

  What should I call this fantastic game. Sex charades? ROLEPLAY! Score!

  She hired a bunch of black chicks to abuse me. Are they doing me for the money or because of colonialsʼ rage?

  Wanda came home sad today. I asked if she wanted to talk. She took a dump on me. After all this time we still communicate. Amazing.

  Wanda digs some new guy. I donʼt like the sound of this. She says she wants to ʻsubmitʼ to HIM. Submit? Sheʼs one sick bitch.