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Instructions on Baby-Care

1/30/2022

by DANIELLE RESH

Baby Toss by Shane Gorski | Flickr

I would not advise it, but if you happen to find yourself irrevocably in the position of having to care for one of the horrid things, there are a few techniques you should be aware of beforehand.

When you place your pointer finger on the structure protruding from its face and intone “bop!”, a small squealing sound will emerge. Now, you can either repeat the provoking action and achieve the desired effect again, or you can leave it alone in its highchair and go fix yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

If you choose the latter, expect the following:

It will begin as a small squeaking noise. Then, like a train chugging closer, the screech will grow and grow until it is all you can hear. An abyss will swallow its face. If you peer in, you will see a black hole, and maybe a few cheerios.

The Great Literary Academic Chews Over His Past ™

1/16/2022

by RAYFOX EAST

Book 2 by Rupert Jetson | Flickr

Tamara bustles into my study with some shopping. She is cheerful because she does not think as deeply as me. She twitches her nose at the cigarette smoke - another bad habit, like my womanizing. She calls me ‘Professor’ and flutters around the room, tidying my books for me. The subtext here is that we totally banged but I was too sad and wise to sustain it.

She is my daughter’s age. My Daughter Doesn’t Speak To Me™.

Tamara’s blouse lifts above her waist as she dusts and gives me an erection which is Darkly Comic. I think about her body for a paragraph. She is nice and idolizes me for reasons which are surely obvious to the reader.

Scrub

1/2/2022

by JOE MILLER

Never Hail a Yellow Crab by scottabbott | Flickr

They were all collapsed and lifeless. These wet, deserted bath toys fragmented and discarded in the tub next to me. They were lying there with nothing to do, and me no different, so I made up backstories for each of them while I sat on the toilet attempting a shit. My three-year-old, Kayla, was still asleep in the room next door. The toys usually floated around the water playfully but with the tub drained they looked paralyzed and vulnerable. I tried to make up hopeful stories for them, but it didn’t work out that way. Every time I began a happy story it just went downhill for them.

There was Griffin, the down-on-his-luck sea turtle who hadn’t told his wife yet that he’d lost his supply chain analyst job at the glitter company. And then poor Chuckles, the swordfish comb suffering from imposter syndrome who attributed all his anxiety to not getting into Wash U medical school when he was just a little wide-eyed fishy. I tried to make them happy with their stories. I did. But no matter how I started their happy story, the glass, or bathtub in this case, was always half empty.

Instructions on Baby-Care

The Great Literary Academic Chews Over His Past ™

Scrub

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