Greener Pastures: Cooking Excerpts From the Apocalypse

When I was young, I dreamed of living in a dystopian society. An eye in the sky or androids created to serve man until they revolted and enslaved us. Or even a moon car, for Christ’s sake.

How about being a survivor of an apocalypse?

Back then, I was a teenager. We had things called film and television. It may have altered my perception of reality somewhat. It looked and sounded awesome when I was young. Driving around in rusted cars and on bad-ass chopper motorcycles in the desert looked cool. All the while sword-fighting with cannibal vampire mutants. Who ended up simply being nothing more than misunderstood beings. In the end, all they wanted was to be loved. That fantasy would have been amazing. Just thinking about all that sweet mutant-cannibal-vampire love still gets me going.

Nobody is entirely sure what caused the apocalypse, but at least we know what didn’t. We know it wasn’t a virus or bacterium. Scientists had concluded this months before the world gave up its goods and turned to shit. We are also almost positive it wasn’t some mad scientist’s lab experiment gone awry. It wasn’t angry monkey rage, but acts of God are still on the table. Most survivors think The Earth just decided it was time for a culling. All we do know is that it happened in a short period of time. In just over one week, most of civilization’s food became tainted. The meat had become inedible by humans, and animals were no longer on the table.

After the Earth, God and a gaggle of angry monkey scientists rendered all the livestock inedible. We collectively had to make a change. For the ones that refused to adapt, things didn’t work out so well for them. It started with cattle, then rapidly jumped species. Not only were we unable to consume the meat, but the people who did quickly turned into something freakish and scary. Technically, they weren’t dead. We think science is up in the air, but “zombie” is still the name of choice.

It wasn’t contagious, but once you ate the meat, you got sick and died, then you came back. It took a while for people to believe that our livestock had become tainted. Entire groups of people thought it was a government conspiracy. One conceived to raise the price of food and gas. To strip us of our civil rights and take power away from the everyday human, but, alas, they were wrong, dead wrong. With death came zombies. With zombies came death. It had become the vicious cycle of un-dying life.

I have since endured being bitten, scratched, soaked and submerged in bogs of blood, brains, guts, and waste from zombies. Apart from dysentery, I was fine. Lots of water, a few stitches here and there, and lots of antibiotics did the trick. Nature has been making antibiotics forever. A bit of honey on a wound works wonders. It pulls moisture away from bacteria, causing the bacteria to get dehydrated and die off. It also works internally, so yes, we still keep bees. Soak some garlic in oil, and you have an extract. Which also works when applied externally. Thyme oil is for external use only. Do not ingest. I found that one out the hard way. Lavender oil kills bacteria. Oregano is also quite handy to have around. And finally, vinegar. It comes in handy for cleaning and disinfecting surfaces, and if you mix that with a bit of apple cider, voila, you have something to wash your hair. The same ingredients also work well in a soup, but I will address that momentarily.

As a person who loves to cook and, more often than not, cooks for the entire community, I have plenty of these ingredients and so much more, always on hand at a moment’s notice.

Now the world is ending, and it sucks. This much I now know to be true. How the world is ending is a waking nightmare. We messed with the planet’s ecosystem to the point of no return. Summer temperatures rose to deadly highs, and the winters dropped to subarctic conditions. But, it was Spring and Autumn that became the worst. Seasons’ rapidly changing weather system caused extreme polar vortexes to occur regularly. Not only did we get good old zombies, but the weather was havoc on our lives. The two seasons, Spring and Autumn, had turned. They are what we now refer to as “Touchdown Seasons.” Tornados were touching down all around the planet, and they were massive. At first, they had been hitting the usual belt areas, and now, with such drastic changes in temperature, they had become way more aggressive. They started hitting major metropolitan areas, wiping out entire cities in a few short days. It became commonplace to find body parts hundreds of miles away. And with body parts came the zombies. Touchdown Season was upon us on two fronts. The world was a cacophony of calamities. And now we, as its caretakers, were getting fired for our lacklustre performance.

Not that any of these situations isn’t a complete hell on earth, but on the right day, when the moon is in its proper house, and Mother Nature has thrown a banana peel on the ground, we get the perfect storm. Zombie, let me introduce you to Tornado. Tornado, meet Zombie. Gad zukes! There is no good way to put this, but it freaking sucks in “the bad way.” Granted, mostly the flying zombies get torn to shreds, but that turns into a different kind of a specific nightmare. We were constantly on the lookout for touchdown zombies. They would show up just about any place the wind blew. And boy, that wind knew how to blow like a drunken sorority girl with daddy issues. You have to look out for dust devils that pop up and sweep across the land. We call them decay devils. They consist of approximately ten or fifteen rot bags that will come through with minimal damage. Maybe a few limbs are missing after spinning around, but those bastards can still bite. Crazy Mary from Two Caves Away claims she once saw a Zombie Tsunami, but we all know that lady is off her rocker. I mean more so than the rest of us so-called “normals.” She is a hoot at parties.

We also get Zombie Falls. Stay away from the Niagara region. Dead Ramps are anything involving a river and a pile of flesh-eaters. I think they learnt that one from the ants. We also have Stink Towers. That’s when zombies pile on top of one another to scale a wall. They do this to get to all your tasty bits, no matter how small Crazy Mary tells us our bits are. Watching them fall over the other side can be fun if you are far enough away.

It’s almost needless to say, but humanity is in a pickle. (food pun intended.) With the population mostly annihilated, our food source consisted predominantly of stuff we could grow or forage. We still had quite a few books. There are a few survivors that could grow food on a large scale. But those first few winters had been brutal, and we struggled to hang on. Most of the remaining population hadn’t any clue about agriculture. Food was scarce, and humanity had crumbled. With only a few remaining survivors scattered around the globe. With limited forms of communication at hand, we were lucky to survive. At least we still had Ham radios, and it didn’t take long to figure out how to work them. One day at a time, I always say.

The apocalypse was indiscriminate in who it took from us. It didn’t matter if you were a farmer, doctor, lawyer or criminal. All were gone in a short amount of time. For most of us simpletons – even the most basic act of putting a seed in the ground was confounding. I mean, how hard could it be, right? You dig a hole and then do a crazy thing like dropping the seed in the freaking hole. Cover it up, add some water and voila, you have dinner. Not quite. Our numbers continued to dwindle. The culling was quickly transforming itself into an extinction-level event.

The planet started reverting to much greener pastures. For one, the air was clean and fresh when the deadheads were not around, toxins from burning fossil fuels, only the comforting scents of campfires. The skies held a deeper cast of azure blue as clouds whipped by at breakneck speeds. When the weather was calm, you could see green as far as one’s aging eye would take them. Planet Earth was a magnificent beauty and seemed a strange new land.

A dwindling population was on the brink of starving its way toward expiration. One morning, we were out foraging for insects and berries when we discovered a small child. Somehow, a zombie had gotten tangled up in barbed wire. It was still alive, attempting to feed on the young girl, who was just out of arm’s reach. We watched in astonishment as she fearlessly pulled chunks of flesh from the creature’s leg and happily filled her mouth. We watched her for days with no signs of any ill effects. And that’s when we realized. We could consume those that consumed us. It was a fundamental change. We scooped her up and brought her home with us. She lives in the cave with Crazy Mary and is the closest thing we have to a rockstar around these parts.

Even though the winters had become life-threateningly cold, we always looked forward to them. The tornadoes stopped, and almost all the zombies froze where they stood. Sudden tropospheric polar vortexes would drop temperatures almost instantaneously. The meat was ripe for the picking. Parties would go out for days and bring enough food back, lasting us for weeks. We had to be careful not to overfarm the livestock. After all, tomorrow is only a day away.

Summers sucked the worst if you had a sensitive nose, especially if all the zombies started hoarding together. Even though we, as a civilization, now had to live underground to protect ourselves from the elements. The stench of summer still made its way to us. Thick and rancid for months on end. The smell was so foul that it stuck to the papillae of your tongue. While also taking root in the back of your throat. It didn’t matter how much water or urine you drank. That stench was there all season because of the damned zombies. Thanks, tilted earth’s axis for the seasons.

The end of the Fall season drew near. While foraging for meat one bitter day, we noticed a band of white arcing across the sky. Earth now had a ring system. It didn’t take long to discover what it was. We had long incorrectly assumed the tornadoes had torn all the poor souls apart due to the carnage. But what we didn’t consider was this fact. Because of the massive size of these tornadoes, the humans that got sucked far enough into its eye had jettisoned out into the icy, unforgiving arms of outer space. Unfortunately, the billions of souls ejected into the stratosphere are frozen and locked in a low earth orbit. Forever to circle the earth as a reminder of how we, as a civilization, had messed things up. “Rings and Things” have become a term nowadays for someone who makes monumental mistakes.

So here I am, stuck in this tree-hugging hellhole of a world where everything is as beautiful as a postcard. (Sarcasm is still the highest form of comedy.) Now I’ve always got dirt under my fingernails and nothing to watch on the old boob tube. Thank God for court jesters. They are like royalty around these parts.

I would openly welcome a plague of locusts. Better still, succulent amphibians that fell from the sky. I love to work on my culinary skills to pass the time. One of my more desirable dishes is tongues, lips and eyeball soup. The foggier the eye, the better. Now throw in some cockroaches, wild garlic and a few dried berries.

Pure heaven.

At least we’re back on top of the food chain again. Well, kind of.

Navigating an eat-or-be-eaten world whose weather wants to kill us has its challenges, but now we can do it on a full stomach. Sometimes I worry we might run out of those tasty undead bastards, but that’s tomorrow’s problem. For now, we all only have one wish when we see a shooting star – that we don’t become someone or something’s next meal. As we watch the skies of August light up with meteor showers, I wonder if that’s Bill from accounting? He was always such a dick!

Soup’s up, everyone. Come and get it.

Bon Appétite, and let the trumpets blow.

Do You Want to Build a Screamo Band?

Were you there the night the Pilot Light closed down? Like, 2006? No–we just booked it. Matt broke his dumbass arm on a halfpipe, two weeks before the show.   

It’s all these kids in black, denim jackets and jeans with patches. Cheap face tattoos before they were cool. And dreadlocks, lots of white kids with dreadlocks. This scummy pond of black-clad kids with tattoos and filthy dreadlocks. Before the show even started, everyone’s shoving inward, thronging the band. There was maybe an inch of space for them to set up, the guitar players (they had at least ten), the bassist, and singer. Vocalist. And they’re just bathed in B.O. and beer breath. No stage. The band just set up on the floor. I bet they slept there. 

My back’s jacked from sleeping on the couch in my man cave. Anne hates it when I snore. With some coaxing, Anne drove me to the chiropractor. I read this thing about a guy getting paralyzed by a chiropractor snapping a nerve in his neck. I went, though; that shit works. Not the next day, but two days later, after he cracked me around, it stopped hurting. Like magic. If we went on the road, I could probably sleep in a car for a few nights, maybe sitting in the passenger seat.  

The vocalist–I always thought that sounded goofy– was wearing a black knit hat with his hair shoved in his eyes, mumbles all shy into the mic,  “We’re Remedia Amoris,” and then, “from Chicago.”  This big, drunken howl bursts out of the kids, who can’t wait to bash each other. One of the guitar players lit the fuse with this sick little lead lick: “deedly dee, deedly dee.” 

I figured out how to play that, here–check it out.

All hell erupted. The drummer bashed away in that jazzy, off-time crashing, thing Matt could do–like “Bap, bap, buh, bap.”

We should call Matt. Have you talked to him? I Face-timed him when they were tearing the statues down two years ago. He was smoking a blunt, blacked out, wandering around downtown Charleston.  

 All those guitarists had their volumes perfectly set to drown each other out, though the drums cut right through. Always. Those drums clanged directly into your eardrums. I always heard the drums until I passed out. Like 3 a.m. and my skull’s going “eeeeeeeee.” 

You know, bands have these headphones now where they can hear every instrument specifically. With computers or something. They’re not that expensive. I don’t think I could play with rolled-up toilet paper anymore. 

The screamer hunched over his microphone, red-faced, inaudible, but giving his best. He looked like he was shitting a baby. The front line of sweaty, black-clad dudes bounced him off the drums. Some big, meaty tall guy bent down and lifted him to his feet, then the poor guy pretended that that hadn’t hurt like a motherfucker. The last twenty seconds passed, and the screamer, already horse, coughed “Thank you” into the mic, announcing which song–some Kant or Nietzsche quote–came next. Wild cheers erupted from the crowd.

Don’t you miss that shit? Come here. It’s on YouTube. That show is. I watch it all the time. There we are in the back. Look how smoking; they still let you smoke inside then. And you never moshed. You were too cool for that. I guess someone recorded this with their phone? It sounds like the inside of a beehive. 

I played the EP on  Bandcamp for Anne. She said, well, she was nice about it. I got embarrassed, and we had a fight–I need to stop doing that. But, when I’m alone, and the house is empty, I crank it. She hates it when I turn the music up loud, but she’s still got her hearing–right? 

Do you think the cavemen longed to be twelve again? 

“Hey, Oog, remember when we ripped the wings off that eight-foot butterfly?” 

Oog smiles all wistfully and acts like he doesn’t really remember, and the first caveman, Dook, tells the story. They have this same conversation every time they hang out. They’re, like, twenty, which is middle-aged for cavemen, I read. 

 The halcyon days. 

Anyway, you want to start a band, man? I have this sick riff in my head. Listen, it’s like, “Rugga rugga dow-ow-ow, chon-chon-chon…”

It’s a dismal post-punk Birmingham City, England, 1986. A little over twenty-four hours after the Sigue Sigue Sputnik gig at the Powerhouse Ballroom, twenty-eight year old loner goth kid, Angel T. Cooley crisscrosses a lethal dose of heroin and speed down in a subway at three in the a.m…

In the streets above him, other broken souls who in some way came into contact with Angel continue to swim the murky, muddled waters of their own wrecked lives.

Breaking conventional literary structures, A Cigarette Burn in the Sun is a series of non-linear vignettes that depict a looking glass world where the derelict lives of an array of characters converge without any resolutions to the worthlessness of their own morbid existence, where the futures they dreamed of did not materialise.

What readers have said about u.v.ray:

“Nihilistic, hard-edged, no holds barred”

“Left field outsider philosophy, unapologetic, visceral”

“So hard-boiled you could crack a tooth on it, but also with glimpses of poetic beauty”

“u.v.ray has always written like a man hurtling towards his own death”

“Nobody writes about the gutters of working class life like u.v.ray”

“Hidden in the gritty writing there are moments of love, loneliness and tenderness.”

BUY A COPY HERE

Lean, Hungry, Prowling

Sunday, November Sixth

“Hear that Bengal growlin’, mean and angry!” came the slurred, unified chorus from the collected horde. Assorted German meats sizzled on grills innumerable; mac and cheese sat slowly simmering in crock pots. Sticky wet, plastic collapsible tables lined the cracked cobblestone parking lot just east of Gest Street, in the shadow of the titanic, lengthy Longworth Hall—that leaning, rectangular, chalky brick building long-since mostly abandoned other than the sketchy nightclub filling the echoey bones of its bottom floor.

“You want to play flip-cup?” said Fischer. My friend Fischer was a season tickets holder. He had hooked me up with a free ticket to today’s game—the Bengals were going up against the Panthers. Should be a bounce-back game against an inferior opponent after being whipped by the lowly Browns the previous week. 

“Yeah, I’ll play,” I responded. I poured a healthy portion of my can of Miller Lite into the red solo cup, watching the fizzy liquid bubble and pop in its plastic spherical home. I raised the cup, noticing that my hands were shaking visibly. I realized that I was uncomfortable—I was nervous. I didn’t socialize much in those days. I hadn’t been around such a huge crowd in I couldn’t remember how long. I hadn’t played flip-cup since I was in college, and that was ten years ago.

My teammates chugged their beers and flipped their cups. It came down to me; I was the anchor. I glugged, unable to finish the cup in one drink. I downed it in the second and flipped the cup on the second try. It slid across the plastic table, spinning counterclockwise, slippery in the remnant backwash-booze.

We lost.

“How much did you pour in there?” said my teammate, someone I didn’t know.

“About a third of the cup,” I said.

“That’s too much!” she responded “Just pour in a sip. I’m trying to win some games, you know?”

Friday, November Fourth 

Jin lounged atop the steep hill at the bank of the pool near the waterfall. He blinked in the brightly shining sun, feeling lazy. He liked his new enclosure, but he still yearned for freedom. It was an instinctive feeling; he couldn’t help it. It didn’t matter how much he loved his new home; its size was nowhere near adequate. Tigers need miles of land to prowl; crouching, creeping in tall grass, stalking prey—which, though also free to roam endless miles of wild land, never get too comfortable because of the looming presence of that invisible, striped, orange terror—like a killer filled with bloodlust. 

Jin rolled playfully in the grass, his gigantic paws dipping momentarily into the rippling water. Jin was a Malayan Tiger. He wasn’t that big, at least in comparison with other tigers—he only weighed about 200 pounds. His paws were huge, though. He was young; he still had some growing to do. 

Jin lifted himself from his place in the soft dirt and lumbered down the hill to the glass of the enclosure. When he appeared at the edge of that transparent wall perpetuating his enslavement, he looked out at the gawking onlookers, who were now collecting in number since Jin had come close to the glass. The depth of his eyes, which glowed light green, reflected and multiplied off the dirty glass, bouncing away like an army of ocular flying saucers. 

Jin didn’t like all these hairless apes watching him. He wanted to escape. 

Sunday, November Sixth

We were on a hot streak, having won the last four games. The table was drenched in booze and saliva. 

“Yeah!” I shouted after having successfully flipped another cup. I pointed at Fischer: “I’m whipping your ass!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “It’s about time to head over to the game, anyway. Let’s grab a road beer and start walking. 

“Either of you want a coney?” came an abrupt voice from the crowd.

“I’ll take one,” I said. The soft bun was filled with a hotdog and Cincinnati-chili, with an excessive amount of stringy cheddar cheese serving as its progressively melting, shaggy roof. I ate it in three voracious bites. 

The parking lot was still packed, though the crowd was shifting collectively toward the stadium like a school of jabbering sardines. Welcome to the Jungle, the chosen theme-song of the Cincinnati Bengals, blasted throughout the area. Axl Rose’s screeching, anguished voice sounded similar to someone being eaten alive. 

I wasn’t a big Guns ‘n Roses fan. 

Friday, November Fourth

Jin slept easily that night. Usually, he spent the nighttime hours pacing around like a paranoid psychopath, looking instinctively for something to hunt. He didn’t do that tonight, though—all of the onlookers from the day had exhausted him, both physically and psychologically. He listened to the calming splash of the waterfall as his horizontal chest contracted and retracted. His lips quivered, revealing his massive canines, as he dreamed of stalking a barking deer through the jungle. Saliva dripped from his mouth to the dirt below, encasing an unawares earthworm. 

Sunday, November Sixth 

It was a long walk across the length of the Longworth Hall parking lot. Most people were in elevated spirits, yelling and slapping hands in excitement for the upcoming game. Some, however, had either started drinking too early or gone too hard, too fast. A woman, using two of her unfortunate friends as a crutch, limped nearly unconsciously in the direction opposite the stadium. Vomit was dribbling from her mouth like a polluted stream. 

“Sucks to be her,” I said.

“Yeah, no shit,” responded Fischer, lifting his can and draining most of it in a single gulp. 

Suddenly, we heard screams from up ahead followed by a rapidly developing, frantic scramble. People ran past us, away from the stadium. Terror painted their faces. 

“The fuck?” said Fischer.

We continued ahead, toward the chaos. 

Saturday, November Fifth

During the zoo’s operating hours, while the collected hairless apes stared at him wide-eyed with amazement, Jin noticed a possible point of escape in his enclosure. The potential for freedom! This filled Jin with an almost uncontainable excitement. He paced the circumference of his enclosure obsessively. What sort of prey lay outside, beyond this cage? Obviously, there was no shortage of these hairless apes—Jin would have plenty of them to eat—but he had never tried them before. They didn’t appear very lean. It wasn’t his typical diet; he wasn’t sure he would enjoy it. Jin was an apex predator—he had the right to enjoy his meals. He had eaten an orangutan once—back in Borneo, but he wasn’t a fan. The hairless apes might be tastier, though. He decided he would give it a shot if he had to. 

The hole in his enclosure—a tear in the fencing near the waterfall—seemed to grow bigger as the day progressed. Jin could hardly wait to try and slip through it—he had seen so many squirrels and chipmunks dart through so carelessly—but he knew he would have to wait until the zoo closed. If he escaped now, they would overwhelm him, these innumerable hairless apes. He needed to wait until they all left.

Sunday, November Sixth 

“The hell?” I said, my voice quivering, stuck in the anxious, fearful shakiness of my throat. People stumbled by, running frantically away. One of them tripped and fell to the cobblestone ground before rising and darting off. Another, covered in blood, limped past. He was clutching at his belly, which was ripped to shreds, as if to cradle his intestines, which dangled outward like a freshly produced rope of sausage. 

“Go!” said Fischer, turning around, “Let’s get the fuck out of here, man!”

Saturday Night, November Fifth 

It was so easy! Even simpler than Jin had expected. He slid right through the rift in the fence, sneaking unseen into the night. This was such a strange place. It reminded Jin a little of Bintulu—the only other commune of hairless apes he had ever freely-traversed—and he hated that place. Those were the apes that had captured him—the apes that had sent him to this strange new place. Jin wished he had eaten one of them, back in Bintulu. At least then he would have gotten some payback; at least then he would know what they tasted like. 

The outside world was dark other than the hanging lights lining the stone paths. Jin, traveling so quickly and unseen as only a tiger is capable, made his way down a large hill, through a maze of stone, eventually glimpsing in the distance a large, softly flowing river. 

“That’s where I’ll find something good to eat,” thought Jin, “A nice fish. Maybe a deer. I may not have to eat those disgusting apes, after all.”

Approaching the river, Jin noticed the sun beginning to ascend. When the sun rose, all the apes came out—Jin knew that for a fact. He had to find a place to hide—to wait out the daylight hours. He was so hungry, but he would likely have to wait until the following evening to find a decent meal. Lumbering into a long, abandoned red building, Jin crouched in a dusty corner and waited. His eyes glowed, shining through the ever-decreasing darkness. 

Sunday Afternoon, November Sixth 

Fischer and I sprinted away from the source of the chaos. We had nearly made it out of the parking lot when I saw suddenly, crawling stealthily out from under a beige Toyota Land Cruiser, a fucking tiger! There was no mistaking it. It’s gigantic paws—its claws protracted and dripping red with fresh blood—gripped the old cobblestone, scraping against the chalky stone as if to sharpen its natural blades; time-tested, evolutionary killing machines.

Sunday Morning, November Sixth 

Jin awoke to a collective, irksome noise coming from outside in the parking lot. It was still relatively dark in his dusty corner, though a glimmer of sun shone through one of the dirty windows high up toward the ceiling of the huge, abandoned room. The adolescent tiger stretched and yawned. He did that every morning; it was a habit. He looked cute—he appeared happy—but he wasn’t. Jin was starving. Though he hated his enslavement at the zoo, they at least kept him well-fed there. They threw chunks of meat at him every day as if he weren’t capable of hunting for himself. He wasn’t used to going long without a bite to eat. Plus, the apes had congregated in number outside the building. He wasn’t sure why so many of them were there—this was more apes gathered in one place than he had ever seen—even including his time in Bintulu. 

“They must be here to get me,” thought Jin. “They must be here to take me back to the zoo. I can’t let them do that.”

Jin was hungry. He decided that he would sneak outside, stalking the apes to see what was going on. That wouldn’t be difficult at all; he knew that. The hairless apes, as innumerable as they were, could be bafflingly clueless creatures. They had no idea what was going on around them. They were more helpless even than typical prey. At least deer listened to their surroundings. They used their ears. These apes didn’t even do that; they behaved like predators though with the strength of prey. Jin hoped they tasted good, at least. 

He snuck quietly out of the building—sliding under one of the numerous cars and crawling on his belly as silently as the ghost of a soldier—through the parking lot. Staring out from his place under a truck he saw a large group of apes. They were yelling at one another; slapping and pushing each other like apes always do. Singing, dancing, and eating their strange, fire-blackened ape food. 

Jin didn’t waste any time. He leapt out from under the truck, jumping high into the air and descending onto a large male. Jin sank his teeth into his neck, sending him instantly, silently, to the stone ground as blood spurted geyser-like and pooled around him. 

Chaos erupted. That didn’t bother Jin, though—that’s what prey animals always did. If you took one of them, the rest would lose their minds. One of them didn’t, though. That one—some overly confident, adolescent stag—perhaps the son of the large male Jin had selected as prey—attacked Jin, swinging his fists down onto Jin’s head as if to bludgeon him. Apes always did that, too; it didn’t hurt Jin. After that, though, the adolescent began pressing his fingers into Jin’s eyeballs. That really angered Jin, who immediately leapt into the young ape, tearing into his stomach—ripping out his organs. The stag, mortally injured, fled. Jin then went back to his meal—the large ape. Jin was so hungry. 

Jin tore into the male’s chest, crunching and splitting the ape’s weak bones. Jin wondered how he had survived for so long, being so fatty and brittle. There must not be any predators in this place; that was good for Jin. He would move in—every place requires an apex predator, if it doesn’t have one, prey become overpopulated. The ape population required curbing—Jin could provide that.

Surprisingly, Jin enjoyed the taste of the hairless apes. They were overly fatty, true, but the meat was tender—the organs were chewy. Still digging into the large male, Jin heard abruptly a loud pop coming from the other direction. He had heard that sound before, back in Bintulu. It wasn’t a good sound. Jin ran from his half-finished meal across the cobblestone parking lot. Hairless apes innumerable dove out of Jin’s path, scrambling in a panic to get away from him. Jin needed to hide. Those pops were never a good thing for tigers. Jin saw another large vehicle. He crept underneath, seeking shelter from the pops. 

Sunday Afternoon, November Sixth 

With a roar, the tiger leapt at Fischer, digging into his calf, sending him collapsing to the ground. Only an instant later—while Fischer was still conscious, while he was still struggling to escape—the tiger drug him effortlessly beneath a Land Cruiser. The vehicle lurched and rumbled as if sputtering from engine malfunction, though it was actually from the jerking movement of Fischer fighting for his life while the tiger tore into him. The SUV’s movement soon stopped. The tiger didn’t reemerge. 

From behind, I heard another gunshot. It was the third one, I thought. I wasn’t sure whether it was someone coming for the tiger, or if looters had taken advantage of the chaos and disorder. I backed away from the SUV. I knew I should try and save Fischer, but what could I do against a fucking tiger? Nothing—that’s what I could do. I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t have a knife, or anything I could really use as a weapon. What would I do, punch it? Hell no. I felt awful, but I backed away, eventually turning into an anxious sprint. I was no match for a predator of that size. That’s what prey did—escaped. That’s what I needed to do. That’s what I did. 

***

Joe Mixon scored five touchdowns in a Bengals route. The bloody, body-strewn parking lot somehow didn’t delay the game. The police, in a later statement, said that if they had postponed the game, it would likely have only added to the chaos. 

Jin was never found, but there’s no way he could have survived for very long. Tigers can’t handle a Midwestern winter, can they? 

That’s what I tell myself. I still avoid crowds, now—just in case.