Right before lightning struck, something crackled in the kitchen. We were going to go to the protest then we didn’t go to the protest, the weather. Our neighbor is a cop with a pretty nice singing voice. We hear him when he takes out the trash. We cut down the holly bushes and now the branches look like some medieval defense mechanism, but there’s a better view from the hammock. We’re definitely going to the next protest.
We went to the next protest — and where does the time go? — and a racist tried to start some shit that the guy who taught my son chess finished. Good for this town, some of which tries hard. The police chief said, “I’ll take a meeting with anyone” though this whole thing was meeting-like, and his goofs had beaten up a guy not that long ago right in the highway whose name I should have looked up. It’s June in Mississippi and it’s not clear if my son will ever go to school again, but we thought this was educational.
At home alone, I have cookies — that I baked — for dinner. Mind you, the fridge is packed, the freezer is full, and the pantry is stacked. Standing in the heat has killed my appetite. Still, I can hear them down at the bandstand, the long line of concerned citizens who wanted to air their grievances into the microphone. But there were people noticeably absent. My son’s teachers, that would have been nice. It’s hard for me to say what’s important these days.
Deplatforming is a word I just learned and some stranger on Twitter is having the worst night of his life. Our dogs are playing and it’s really just a fight with no teeth. The new puppy, whose dreams I am now a part of, has found a toy that belonged to a dog we had to have euthanized, defeated by blindness and probably undiagnosed cancer. His old ghost has reappeared, wagging, though is unwanted.
About The Author
Sean Ennis is the author of CHASE US: Stories (Little A) and his flash fiction has recently appeared in Passages North, Hobart, (mac)ro(mic), Tiny Molecules, and BULL Men's Fiction. More of his work can be found at seanennis.net