IT GETS MUCH BETTER THAN THIS
Our baby is gone. Let’s have another. Let's have date night. Let’s adopt a stray. Let's prudently start a college fund. I’d like to get love. I’ve not had anyone’s full attention in a long time. Your hair and mouth. Your blue green. Come heat your skin.
But I used my work voice, which she cannot ever hear. She’s always saying, “My friend Shadow” this, “My friend Shadow” that. Some of us hate stories about people we don’t know.
A man walked up to my wife and said, “Your ultraviolet beauty is invisible. But the birds see it.” The man is not still standing there. He mosied off. And, look, it was a good line. He is my friend Shadow too.
Our strategy through life had been policiary— good cop-bad cop—but without her, without context, I’m just a pig. I’m as virile as a mule. And this gentleman wants to talk about optics?
Even the zoo was accused that their bears were people in costumes. The press release said, I am a bear. Most mornings, there are red and blue strikes at the window, cardinals and jays. A stork once. But take it from me. There is no life on Mercury. There is no life on Venus. There is no life on Mars. There is no life in the asteroid belt. There is no life on Jupiter. There is no life on Saturn. There is no life on Uranus. There is no life on Neptune. But the moons.
THE EMBARRASSMENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL
Could I discuss something terribly cliched but that I’m experiencing now for the first time?
I saw the see-through girl last night. Another reckoning. That shit's been trying to creep up.
Let’s talk in the hallway. We can have this conversation in my office. There are levels of secrecy. I’ll tell you in the parking lot. Text me when you get home.
We are probably in the quiet between the event and when I understand it.
I turned the volume up. They’re building an extra hospital. Whoever you are, you seem happy. But be quiet, this is also a hospital.
Sean Ennis is the author of CUNNING, BAFFLING, POWERFUL (Thirty West). He lives in Mississippi.