Someone You Can Build a Nest In

by John Wiswell

“Nobody talks to me like this,” he said. “Do you think you could threaten me a little more?”

Her intentions weren’t sinister today. She just needed to get rid of some bodies.

Many were encased in metal ribbing and metal plates pulled tight with hide traps and metal buckles. If they ever called Shesheshen deceptive, they ought to reflect on these quivering sacks of meat in metal shells.

“What I heard is your family raised you to think being hurt by them was the only valuable thing, and eventually you realized it was a lie and ran as far as you could. And one more thing.”

True love was a woman sinking up to her elbows in her viscera, delicately removing hooks from her rigid tissues.

“Angry about you defiling the corpse of the sister that I . . . that I murdered?”

I ate the bandits that attacked us. I think we both agree we did not like them.”

“You want me to name you, and you don’t care what? The puddle of my girlfriend’s parts doesn’t care so long as I talk to her?”