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The Rain Made Nudity Impossible

I wanted to stay friendly enough to get called on the phone and, from time to time, fucked.

Having feelings only takes a bit of practice. And, for whatever reason, this seemed to be the key to the kind of heart I was looking to parasitize, ever since my boredom had eclipsed everything else. Being home alone was like trying to entertain a cat.

The phone rang. I pressed the vibration against my forehead, long enough to see things. Before the last pulse, I answered:

Have you made up your mind?”

It gets old talking about the void all the time.”

I stirred the spaghetti with one hand and cradled the phone in the other. The sauce thickened her voice. Meatballs dodged a wooden spoon beneath small bubbles.

The baby,” I said, I think we should eat it.”

That’s funny.” There was a long pause before she finished the thought, I was thinking the same thing.”

We started looking forward to the weather’s revolutions. Called each other murderer, swirled one another’s faces with red paint. My bones quivered between her teeth, softer than tapioca bubbles. Lost all track of time.

Spring sounded against the roof. Rain punctured each poncho, cold as medication.

We copy and pasted the email associated with a craigslist ad headed: WILL PERFORM MOST SURGICAL PROCEDURES.

His singular status had coddled him. White hair spritzed beneath the military style cap. He was trained in a war. I didn’t ask which. Our emails back and forth consisted mostly of him complaining about a world I wasn’t sure was real. He didn’t want compensation or validation—he needed a spittoon. I opened my mouth, obligingly.

David Kuhnlein

Twitter: @princessbl00d
IG: @princessbl00d

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