lots of marks
for identifying pieces
thermal cat

‘Raw onion’ the watchword he whispers significantly, and ‘French vinaigrette’ the darkness solemnly replies. A shot rings out through the stillness. ‘You’ve been sadly misinformed my friend.’ He fingers a half-week’s stubble. ‘The dressing was last week. Today it’s pickled cabbage on the menu.’ The crumpled heap of soot clutches his spurting belly, whimpering feebly in the dust. ‘Probiotic, if putrid,’ he continues amiably, returning the flintlock to its holster and receding back into the shadows. ‘Green goddess might have sufficed,’ it spits his last words, wooden teeth grinding deafeningly, guts straining against the ball interloping about their property. Quietly, it expires.

reading roadkill
universal standard for
diagnostic codes

Unaware of these petty intrigues, a stoic trollop three stories above, yawning, dumps her guzunder onto the low kingdom and all its august inhabitants in dreary indifference. He finds, even in death, the stench is repellant, offends his delicate nostrils. Vicissitudes.

Jerome Berglund