My Cardboard Balcony

Semi-Solid Squash by Belinda Roddie It had stayed too long in the sun, and so it reeked of hung over mornings and coffee stains left to linger on pant legs, tucked under rotten wood from eight am to five pm. She threw it out after a while, but the odor stayed, and it was so potent that the next door neighbors couldn't sleep and loudly complained of newfound symptoms of depression and ennui.

The animal was very versatile, from what little the scientists would tell us. They wouldn’t mention the term “hybrid,” or “combination,” or even “mutation.” Essentially, they had spiked a poor creature’s little brain with enough chemicals to shut down every organ in a person’s body, and yet the thing had lived and breathed and smiled with fangs and a lolling tongue. So it was versatile. It was so depressing that it was almost “aw” worthy.