Published in 2013 by This Land Press, edited by Jeff Martin, and lauded by The Paris Review as “the literary equivalent of a high-wire act,” Imaginary Oklahoma is a collection of flash fiction stories about Oklahoma by writers who may or may not have ever been here. In 46 stories to commemorate the 46th state, some of today's most important writers, each paired with an artist, provide their take on "the Oklahoma of the imagination."
We're proud to bring some of these stories to The Pickup—some with This Land Press’ accompanying podcast episodes—to help you dream your own Oklahoma dreams.
Referring to the past, “back in the day,” we moved through the jungle late at night.
The night is a jungle, usually habituated by tigers. Our undergarments were stained with fear of tigers, eyes of tigers in our drawers that blinked as we ran, far from each other, constellated as pool balls after a hard break, hips slammed to table, solids separate from stripes. We mistook each other for tigers. Eventually we had our undergarments off, completely naked, as is usually done in protest of tigers. We raised diamond yellow flags, and paraded through the jungle of baize, the stacks of quarters on the pool table shaking with each stomp of our feet as we protested the tigers that stalked us and the tigers we feared we’d become.
We walked late at night, from one jungle to the next; led by someone’s older brother who had given up his pants years before. We all thought we’d give up our pants soon enough. The diamond yellow pattern of fear attracts tigers, is mistaken for a strange tiger’s wink in the dark by territorial tiger eyes. In this way, patterns encroach upon and destroy themselves. In this way, tufts of fur and bits of elastic band scatter in the wind. We lost many friends on our way home from the pool hall. Some were eaten by tigers. Some turned into adults. In a state shaped like a gun you must choose between the barrel and the chamber. When you live inside a hatchet you are the handle or the blade.
