Someone You Can Build a Nest In

by John Wiswell

Shesheshen liked priests. They tasted righteous.

Inside her chest, where humans put their lungs, she placed an open bear trap. It was her prized skeletal possession. It did not trap bears anymore. Instead, she kept it as a secret pair of jaws, for when people needed to be bitten.

There was a sophisticated pleasure to terrorizing and devouring someone who thought they were above everyone.

Gods never showed themselves to humans even when they dumped miracles on them, which Shesheshen thought was wise. If humans got used to the presence of gods, they’d probably hunt them for profit and glory and other nonsense, just as they did to monsters. Gods were smart to keep a light touch.

Weaknesses were a human invention. They called it your weakness if they fantasized about murdering you with it.

Shesheshen had survived years as the last of her father’s children, in a motherless life. Civilization would not slay her.

Armed humans played games with the lives of non-humans.

Nobody actually helped each other. That’s why people had religions, hoping gods would provide help where people refused.

She envied islands, things that got to spend their entire existences surrounded in water, untroubled by hunters. Nobody stabbed and poisoned islands.

Bedrooms were made out of bad habits.

Talking was awful when you weren’t threatening people.

Romance was awful. She couldn’t even do something as simple as murdering rude people anymore.

Humans loved complaining about the smells of places. By sheer frequency of behavior, it was their second favorite thing, after going in private to defecate.

“You don’t ever dream?” “Monsters prefer lurking.”

One didn’t build a body out of a single kidney. You took several kidneys, and yards of intestines, and at least one pancreas. Getting a body to walk took so many organs and rigging and support.

Time was the sort of thing you had to care about when you belonged to more than yourself.