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Alyssa Mazzoli

He’ll Eat, He’ll Eat, He’ll Eat

hell-foods when he goes to hell, like fire-crackers & other flames, bonemeal, the red skins of snakes. When his boat docks in hell he’ll eat at the first restaurant he can find (the trip to hell being six-hundred days, sixty-hours & six minutes long & nothing but shitty hellboat peanuts for snacking & a drinks cart that appears every forty-eight hours). The first restaurant in hell is a diner called Hell’s Eats and all the tables in Hell’s Eats have red scaly tops like the slick bodies of snakes & the thermostat turned way up to clear tables faster & the jukebox playing Iggy Azalea on repeat. He’ll be served by a mangy dogheaded waiter with a lolling tongue & drooling on all the plates. He’ll order a beetle-burger with dill relish & the waiter will bring him sweet relish instead. His suitcase between his legs & dark flabs of skin under his eyes, he’ll ask where the nearest hotel is & after forking over three bits of his soul for the check he’ll check into the Hilton Hell Hotel & a room on the sixth floor with one set of burgundy drapes. He’ll lay in bed & research the most popular tourist attractions (Mount Bloodmore, the Screaming Tower of Pisa) & eateries & make a color-coded schedule for the following day. He’ll post a review of Hell’s Eats on his Wordpress (3 stars) then watch the damned heave boulders up hills for an hour before going to bed.


Beckham

A small town in northern Canada composed entirely of old hunter homesteads. Population: five. The residents of Beckham are forest animals who found old hunter homesteads and decided to live in them. In Beckham, there is one deer, one chipmunk, one bear, one fish, and one human. The deer lives in the biggest homestead. She painted it white last summer, and everyone agrees that it looks better now. The chipmunk lives in the tallest homestead. A couple weeks ago, he finished adding balconies to the upper levels. The bear and the fish live together in the homestead closest to the river, the only one with a basement. They spend most of their time in the basement. No one knows what they do down there. Finally, the human lives in the southernmost homestead. Even though the homesteads are only ten yards apart at most, she claims that it’s warmer there.


Novelty Cat Wallpaper

Novelty Cat wallpaper is decorated with yellow, orange, and brown cats. The cats have thick bodies and sharp triangular ears. Some of the cats are spotted and some are striped. All of the cats have green blushing cheeks and eyes right at the tops of their heads. Some of the cats sit on each other. All of the cats look out from the wallpaper, out from the wall, and into the homes of the people who have the Novelty Cat wallpaper. The people who have the Novelty Cat wallpaper are the same people who eat microwave dinners off green Tupperware plates. They watch Law and Order and read books about talking animals. They don’t have cats but they wish they had cats. Their wallpapers wish they did, too.


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