Joshua Walker

‍I Built a Time Machine Out of Monster Cans and Regret and Now Greek Mythology Won’t Leave Me Alone

The time machine screamed.

It was two empty Monster cans,

a corroded AA battery,

a 1995 Subaru Legacy with no brakes,

and a shoebox full of cursed Arby’s receipts.

I floored it through a pothole outside Enid

and woke up in Olympus:

which is just a strip mall in flames,

everyone naked, arguing in Latin,

and there’s a Panera Bread

where the oracle drinks soup and weeps.

Aphrodite smells like a rave in a septic tank.

She cornered me behind a dumpster

and said, “You ever been loved so hard

your teeth vibrate out your face?”

I tried to run—tripped on a love poem

someone wrote on a napkin

with goat blood and Axe Apollo.

Zeus shows up wearing the face of my dead uncle

and says, “Don’t make this weird.”

Then morphs into my 6th grade teacher

and asks if I believe in destiny

or just badly timed nudity.

I threw up on his sandals.

He turned into a goose

and sued me for emotional damages.

Hercules is doing squats with a live horse.

He keeps shouting, “Wanna see me lift trauma?”

Then hurls a vending machine

through a portal that leads to

Gary Busey’s subconscious.

Medusa works the Wendy’s drive-thru now.

She asked for my number,

then handed me a Polaroid of my soul

and whispered,

“You blinked first.”

Orpheus won’t stop tagging me

in thirst trap lyre videos

with captions like

“Just lost her again… capitalism is a labyrinth.”

Dionysus handed me a red solo cup

filled with gasoline, glitter, and screaming.

I drank it.

Now I taste colors and fear phone calls.

My toga is made entirely of unpaid parking tickets

and one expired Denny’s coupon that screams

every time I blink.

I asked Hermes how to get home.

He just giggled and gave me a

Bed Bath & Beyond gift card

signed by Nietzsche.

Now there’s a minotaur in my bathroom

reading Kierkegaard aloud

and crying over expired Lunchables.

Zeus is texting me selfies again—

today he’s my ex’s cat.

Tell the timeline I’m sorry.

Tell my Subaru I forgive her.

Tell the gods to stop mailing me

erotic poems written in crayon.

I don’t want to be enlightened anymore.

I just want to go back

to drinking Monster

and feeling nothing.

‍ Like a Viking

Sometimes a man has to do something, I thought,

when I saw you walk in.

Words felt unnecessary.

This was already understood.

I crossed the floor like it belonged to me—

like I’d done this a hundred times

and never once been wrong.

You stood up.

Good.

I swung first—

clean, direct, no hesitation—

exactly how these things are supposed to go.

You didn’t move.

Not ideal,

but not disqualifying.

Thirty seconds later

I was on the floor

taking a more tactical view of the situation.

I got up.

Obviously.

You don’t stay down

unless you’re trying to prove a point.

You put me back there again—

caught me mid-adjustment.

It happens.

I stood up a second time—

or was about to—

my legs just needed to catch up with the plan.

You were laughing.

A little early for that.

I laid back down for a moment.

Let things reset.

No reason to rush a finish.

When I woke up

there were lights,

voices,

people behaving like I’d lost control of things.

I noticed my tooth was gone.

Didn’t feel critical.

Still—

I think it goes different next time.

Timing was off.

Surface wasn’t great.

You got a favorable angle early.

I mean—

he only got me

because I’d been drinking.

Right?

Vanna White Broke My Heart by Cheating on Me with Augustus Caesar

It started with a fortune cookie

that said, “Your lover spins more than wheels.”

I laughed.

I shouldn’t have.

Vanna White, goddess of consonants,

lover of vowels and vengeance

had Caesar in her phone as “Big Tiber Daddy 🍇”

and told me she was “just filming a promo

in Pompeii.”

Next thing I know, Augustus is shirtless

in a mosaic jacuzzi,

wearing a laurel crown and smirking like

he invented taxation and foreplay.

I confronted her.

She said, “Et tu, Wheel?”

Then yeeted an iPad into a bowl of ambrosia

and vanished into a cloud of perfume

and syndicated betrayal.

Now I live in exile

in the booth of a Chili’s off I-40,

where Alex Trebek eats croutons

one at a time

like each is a philosophical proof.

He never breaks eye contact.

He whispers,

“What is: loneliness.”

Meanwhile, Richard Dawson sits cross-legged

on the carpet beside the salad bar

reading The Brothers Karamazov

to a pack of feral Boy Scouts

who keep asking if Ivan gets redemption

or just vibes.

I tried to call Pat Sajak for closure.

He sent me a fax that just said

“Buy a U”

followed by a doodle of a crying centaur

holding a margarita.

Vanna’s last voicemail said:

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,

but our love crumbled in one commercial break.”

And now I just sit here,

staring into my soup,

trying to forgive history

and forget

how Caesar moaned her name

in iambic pentameter.

‍Joshua Walker’s work has appeared in Potomac Review, Solarpunk Magazine, Kelp Review, and elsewhere.