The door closes and a deadbolt slides into place. The man is alone in the alley on the shadow side of a dumpster, a rolled paper bag where his money used to be. The man slips the parcel into his suit jacket, stiff-legs it to the car and locks the doors. He inspects his purchase. He\u2019ll have just a taste. The chemical whispers him home.<\/p>\n
His daughter waits at the door with her reading chart and bursting grin. They have a deal: 30 stickers and he buys her Sparkles (the name precedes the animal). They make these books too short, he thinks. Should\u2019ve made it 60 stickers. When he hugs his daughter, she\u2019s momentarily pressed against the parcel in his jacket.<\/p>\n
Sparkles. The yipping keeps him up most of the night, but that\u2019s not the problem. It\u2019s the other thing, his system. Over the months, he\u2019s established a rotation of hiding places: garage, air vent, basement rafter, sock drawer. He\u2019s learned his wife\u2019s sleeping patterns\u2014out by 11:30, sometimes up for a glass of water at 2 or 3\u2014and knows how to cross every floor without a creak. Sparkles complicates things.<\/p>\n
They have a mouse problem, his wife is pretty sure. Sparkles is pawing at the garage door and whining at the air vent. Sparkles goes crazy whenever she\u2019s in the basement. He changes the system\u2014attic, tool shed, left boot, geraniums\u2014but the animal follows. His wife wants an exterminator.<\/p>\n
He goes into the woods and digs a hole.<\/p>\n
Each night, once the house is asleep, he goes out back to his hole. The floodlight on the house burns across the backyard but stops at the woods. On his knees, he clears away a patch of dirt and twigs and leaves. He lifts a scrap of wood and removes a metal box. Within, his substance is sealed in a freezer bag. He preps and consumes it with slow, tiny movements, then sweats and twitches in the dark. Crickets and tree frogs carry on around him.<\/p>\n
There are sensors on every door. A polite computerized voice broadcasts entrances and exits on speakers throughout the house: Front door open. Back door open. Each night, he climbs out and in through an open window.<\/p>\n
No matter how careful he is, his return always wakes Sparkles. He rushes to the animal\u2019s crate to soothe her, to whisper assurances as the street-lit room spins and compresses. This doesn\u2019t always help. Sometimes the whimpers become growls. The growls become barks. Sometimes Sparkles crashes against the side of her crate, panicked tail beating as if they\u2019re in the middle of a home invasion. She smells an intruder.
\n <\/p>\n
\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013 The door closes and a deadbolt slides into place. The man is alone in the alley on the shadow side of a dumpster, a rolled paper bag where his money used to be. The man slips the parcel into his suit jacket, stiff-legs it to the car and locks the doors. He inspects his purchase. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-fiction","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nEric Hawthorn<\/strong> lives in Philadelphia. He works full-time as a blogger and researcher for a real estate company, but would rather spend more time writing stories. Recent publications include Timber<\/em>, Thrice Fiction<\/em>, & Metazen<\/em>. He studied writing at Naropa University. To read more of his work, go here<\/strong><\/a>.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"