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Cool Zone Media.

Book club, book club, book club, book club.

Hello, and welcome to the Coolzone Media Book Club, the only book club where you don't have to do the

reading, because I do it for you. And this week, we have a little sweet treat for you. The last

couple weeks have been heavy and serious. So Hazel and I thought, hey, what's a better palette

cleanser and an enchanted graffiti turf war? You know, it's the kind of thing that we've all dealt with.

Today, we are reading clashing slash complimentary.

It doesn't have the word slash in there.

It's just a slash.

You probably figured that out.

By Rafi Klyman.

This story is from the 2020 collection Transgalactic Bike Ride, which is edited by

Lydia Rogue and is part of the Bikes in Space series for Microcosm Publishing. The story is fun,

it's weird, and you know, I hope you like it. And if you don't like it, well, you probably won't listen to it all.

Clashing slash complimentary by Rafi Klyman.

Charlie tagged in four very specific places, the chain link fence near her old middle school.

At the subway stop, her mom used to take to work, on the corner by her family's old apartment building, and in the dead end brick alleyway

between a warehouse and a flower shop. The latter was her favorite. Her mom had loved flowers, and putting her mark there and then buying one of the

long-stemmed $1-dollar roses by the front felt like paying homage. Charlie put the rose in the

living room of the apartment she shared with her father and replaced it every couple of weeks.

The shop had a basic enchantment that kept the flowers bright longer,

...