Antigone’s Brother is probably dead and I
am spitting up mucus in a pearl-white
bathroom while fighting down a festive
thanksgiving panic attack. Antigone sits
atop the closed toilet seat to my left; she
sways under clawfoot grief and the knowledge
that her sweet potato pie didn’t come out quite right.
Aliens took Antigone’s Brother last week on his way
home from a late-night CVS shift shifting purlescence made
his eyes reflective like an animal and the Aliens
were looking for an animal. They found Antigone’s
Brother. Funny boy—he was supposed to carve the turkey.
I also brought a sweet potato pie. I forgot to check
the group chat before coming. Mine’s from kroger
which is where the Aliens first went for victims, but
they didn’t realize all the turkeys were already dead.
They took a couple anyways. To respect the culture
they also took a deli counter worker who has not been missed
yet, except by her punch in punch out clock she punched
her uncle last year and hasn't been invited back her cutting
skills will be missed but no one will say anything. They
wanted Antigone’s Brother to explain what Humans mean
by the Ontological Question, but he dropped
out of college halfway through Sophomore year
and mostly just listens to NPR podcasts on his walk home
from work which only ever ask questions of why
incision through his heaving open casket chest, right
down to his spine, gutted and conscious and considering
the symptoms of his own probable demise. Intrusive Alien
thought: You could fit some stuffing in there, make a meal. My mucus
globbing up the drain should be studied. I don’t think it’s mine.
Wylde Parsley is sometimes a writer and always a cryptid enthusiast. Their work has appeared or is upcoming in Birdcoat Quarterly, New Flash Fiction Review, Vagabond City Lit, Rio Grande Review, Every Day Fiction, and various other publications. He can be found on Twitter at @emjparsley.