We Need to Do Something

by Max Booth III

Once I heard her refer to those tiny black heads people get on their faces and necks as “n-word babies”—only, she’d actually said the word. Of course, Dad had thought that was the funniest thing in the world. Thank god for cancer.

The way they act around one another, it’s less like a marriage, more like an epic rivalry. Maybe that’s what all relationships are like. Maybe nobody actually loves each other. They just argue and fight and have babies and scream and break things and eventually everybody dies. The outcome will always be the same, no matter what anybody tries to do. Everybody dies. The end.

Sometimes I can’t decide what would be worse: if we died from starvation or if we never died.

“I’m a good boy,” the dog says from the other side of the door, only it’s not a dog at all, not with a voice like that.