spaghetti

by | Jan 16, 2023

Spaghetti season, he said with a sigh. We heard it underfoot. You couldn’t tell if it was communicating with the others or just sobbing. Occasionally Big Jon would stir it with a giant hook, forming glistening piles near the path. On the shadow spaghetti coasts it’s especially intimidating. Little gnomes would use it as housing material, a titmouse would drink red liquid. We would daydream about the gentle burbles of soup season and it would just be spaghetti spaghetti slamming against the windows. Curling around the churches, the skyscrapers. It spilled down chimneys, into overpasses. That’s when you would run for your life, because even as strainers covered the landscape, spaghetti made its way through. It would stick to the wall, but it was toxic.

5 Comments

  1. Robyn Schelenz

    i know it’s a little late but figured i’d post one more in the spirit … thanks everyone, and especially ben and bending genres, for this strange weekend.

    • Sheree Shatsky

      This is delicious to read aloud, the slippery sounds of s as slippery as the spaghetti fever setting in for the season!

  2. Benjamin Niespodziany

    A wondrous final piece to close us out!

    “We would daydream about the gentle burbles of soup season” and “curling around the churches” – this reads like a bonkers fable/premise and it works really well by having a serious tone, despite the slapstick mayhem

    For the final bit, I’d like to suggest splitting up those final sentences, or moving them around and seeing what happens. Maybe something like “It was toxic, in how it stuck to the walls.” or “It would stick to the walls. It was toxic.” “Toxic, how it sticks.”

    I also wouldn’t mind ‘season’ being capitalized at the beginning, as if it’s a known situation — Spaghetti Season

    Great micro!

    • Robyn Schelenz

      thank you ben for giving this one some editorial love, too! i like your suggestions for the last bit. thank you for stoking the surreal for us this weekend, it was a great learning experience to be part of this community.

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