by Miel MacRae
“I’m raising your rent.”
“Why?”
“Market price,” you said.
“Like a lobster?”
“Starting first of the year.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred.”
“I…I can’t afford that.”
“Let me know by Friday if you’ll renew the lease.”
“That’s in two days.”
But instead, on Friday, when you went to your cushy home on Forest Park Avenue, when you crawled into your down comforter bed and slid into combed-cotton sheets, two hundred giant lobsters crawled outside your house, waiting for you. And when you fell asleep, they crashed through your brick walls. Broken glass and mortar dust ruined your freshly cleaned Persian. And they weren’t small, no, you were lobster-sized and they were landlord-sized. The biggest one was near seven-foot tall and when it pulled you out of your bed with its front walking legs, you screamed at the size of its claws. The big one skimmed you across the gloss-varnished cherry wood hall, and plunk, plunk, plunk, down the front marble steps. The rest followed while pulverizing the rest of your house.
“Where are you taking me?” you shrieked.
The lobsters didn’t answer. Marched, marched, marched in a parade down Forest Park Avenue to the waterfront. Past the tent cities you’ve helped fill. The lobsters hauled you to the pier and you kicked and you wriggled. Your eyes got wide when the big one opened its crusher claw and your skull cracked with bursting juices.
“How much for the fresh landlord?”
“Market price.”
Miel MacRae’s stories can be found/forthcoming in Daily Drunk, HAD, 34 Orchard, and various anthologies. She is the author of a sad book called The Stories We Don’t Tell. She and her three or four cats can be found in the usual places @mielmacrae.
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Unstamatic 