Corpulent Conundrums in the Antiquity of Science

Don't take your face off just yet. You've barely grown into it he said. Thoughtlessly. Measuring the distance between skin and bone as he would ingredients for any stew. Leftovers. A poor man's feast. Ice cream sundaes in a power outage. Taste me now or I become your poison.

She was wearing a nightgown she knew had been worn before. By several women previous. Laying in the same bed. Next to the same stranger. Gurgles of an uneventful paradox broiling in her uterus. What happens. What has. Tolling in her chest. Marking each hour as it happens. As it always had happened. Be she in her own time or theirs.

See how this one fits, he offered. Uninterested. The scars make your frown less intrusive. The rabbits won't fuck anymore. And you're partially the reason. Nothing is ever born in this world without a pretense. Without facades. Ones that fit better than yours does right now.

And now, after all, is all we have left. We left the future behind. We've forgotten the past. Now is all that's left to determine if we'll ever be again.

The dogs were sleeping quietly on the back porch. The moonlight grooming what was left of their barks. Warnings to strangers to keep their distance. At least, the obvious ones.

By the time she'd gotten back to herself it was too late. She already knew, but was still determined to go there.