A timid family of Blind Sniffers, taking turns sniffing a daisy. Notice their color-shifting camouflage, which, apart from their incredible sense of smell, is their most essential defense against predators. Sniffer steaks are best served with citrus, as they can taste quite gamey.
How to swim (or, what I’ve learned in swim class):
Keep your head below water.
Be a fish. You love the water.
It’s fun to pull yourself through water. It’s like thick air. It’s like Jell-O.
Breathing is overrated and unnecessary.
Keep your goddamn head below water.
Pear-shaped people have a built-in pull buoy.
Make sure your swimsuit can handle your awkward maneuvers. Otherwise it might fall apart while you’re swimming, and then you’ll have to play it cool while diving for the lost strap.
Don’t stare at the instructor’s aging aquatic mammal body. One day you too will look this strange.
Feel the water with your forearms.
Aim your hands for the center of your fish line.
Keep your damn head below water.
Pull each stroke with your whole torso, not just your hands.
Think about every little motion.
But don’t think too much about it.
Jeb was a park ranger. Bill was a sheriff.
One day Bill took Jeb out to lunch. They had a nice time. They fell in love. Marriage it wasn’t legal for them yet, so they moved to a cabin in the woods and taxidermied simple woodland creatures together. It was a happy life, until Jeb blew up.
Bill was in the cabin going through his glass eye collection when it happened. When he heard the blast, he immediately knew that Jeb was gone.
He sat quietly for a long time.
Then he got the keys to the Subaru, he got his shotgun, he got all the leftover dynamite, he packed himself a nice salami sandwich with mustard, and went to get his revenge.
The only recognizable thing he found at the site of the explosion were Jeb’s boots, standing upright in the center of a crater.
The remains of the truck were in orbit over Manitoba.
But Bill wasn’t sheriff for nothing. He was smart. He used his senses. He sniffed, he scratched, he dug, he burrowed, at last unearthing an ancient bunny burial burrow. Jeb must have unknowingly trespassed, incensing the wildlife, sealing his doom.
Bill stuffed all the dried up bunny mummies into the Subaru, loaded the burrow with dynamite, and blew their sacred area up the rest of the goddamn way.
Then he went home and feverishly worked on taxidermying the ancient bunny mummies all night, gluing them into embarrassing poses for all eternity, as he waited for the retaliation of the forest.
A scratching sounded at his door, but it was nothing. Only a stray mountain lion.
Just when dawn touched the horizon, the bunnies came for him.
Bill was prepared.
They tripped a wire in front of his cabin door.
BOOM.
Up went all the bunnies, Bill, his cabin, and six acres of woodland besides.
He got revenge. He left his mark. But he did not win, as he knew he wouldn’t. No man can defeat the Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks.
Another collaborative masterpiece between Cowdog Creatives and myself.
This is kind of silly. I barely remember writing it.
Life is a cold flowing
Unassuming
Concatenation of lifestyle choices.
We mindlessly move
In the direction
In which we were pointed.
Is there more?
Who cares?
We can feel the wind
We can see the green
We can laugh
We can chew
We can do anything.
There is hot tea
And warm cats
And somebody to fill your water bottle.
There are toilets to pee in
Women to love
Men to admire
And creepy dolls to burn.
There are books to read
Books to write
But maybe I won’t start tonight.
Sarah D. Silvey 