by David C. Porter
At the supermarket this day an employee is stacking
individual marshmallows in front of a cardboard standee
of a single enormous marshmallow being engulfed by
bright orange and yellow false flames and some man has
taken one of the sets of the Value Save Classic Heavy
Duty Microwave Ready Disposable Paper Plates (8.5”
200 Count) and ripped off the wrapping and is taking
them off the stack one at a time lifting them to his
mouth and methodically biting into each plate and
tearing at it with his teeth spitting out the torn pieces
throwing it all on the floor on top of a fast-growing pile.
A woman in her forties is watching this with me and
leans over and whispers this into my ear: “They want
to kill everyone, you know. All the real citizens.” I ask
her “Who?” and she shakes her head and looks at me
like I asked the most stupid and obvious thing (but
maybe I did) and she says “You must still be stuck
in their shit cage,” meanwhile everyone stops what
they’re doing to look out the windows up at the sky at
the storm clouds quickly gathering I notice they’re
glowing a sick shade of green and that approaching
between them from the indifferent heavens is a low
fortress of danger rotating slowly in a blue polygon.
David C. Porter is a writer and photographer from the American northeast. He edits Keep Planning (keep-planning.net), and writes Garden Scenery (https://gardenscenery.net/). His work has also appeared in various other places. His first novel, NTTN, is available now from Organ Bank Industries (https://www.organ.fail/product/nttn/). He can be reached on Twitter @toomuchistrue or via his website (https://davidcporter.net/).