Clover leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette, stared out over the city without seeing it. Uncounted poems had been written about the way the morning sun struck the hills overlooking the bay, but it was just visual noise to him. He picked unhappily at the remains of his breakfast, the scrambled eggs, black coffee, and currant jam on rye toast that he started each day with. He had been camping out in this hotel room for over a week, and the waiting was beginning to get to him. The city’s charms were wasted on someone who couldn’t leave their room.

With nothing better to do, he went to clean the high powered rifle yet again, methodically disassembling it, inspecting and oiling each component part, then methodically reassembling the gun. When it was back together, he broke it down again; rebuilt it and broke it down again. The ritual soothed him, replaced the cacophony of his thoughts with a peaceful white noise.

The sun has swung from morning to late afternoon when the ringing of the phone broke him from his trance. He stretched muscles only slightly tense from disuse, and picked up the phone. He said nothing, but a woman’s voice on the other end of the line said, “It’s time,” and a smile broke the surface of his face for the first time in a week.

The coffee is lousy and the waitress is cheap, but she’s too wise for his patter. “Ditch him and meet me after,” he growls at her on the dance floor. “I don’t walk out on a date,” she sneers, and he goes back to dancing with the mousy church organist he’s insulted into going out with him. The organist can’t dance, and isn’t very impressed with him either, but at least she’s there.

On the porch he tells the organist he’s not going to kiss her. “You’re the type of woman who wants somebody to walk to church with her on Sunday; save your kisses for him.” It’s not a compliment.

“What makes you think I wanted you to?” Her face is cool and insulting as she closes the door on him.

He nearly wakes the neighbors trying to get into the waitresses apartment, but she throws him out on his ear. “Come with me,” he pleads, “I’ve got big ideas. Ones that pay off.”

“Come back when they do,” she says, and turns out the porchlight. Murder, slow and bloody, lights in his colorless eyes.

Abandoned so long ago their very domestication seems a myth: flying rats, they call them, trash birds. But neoteny can’t be so easily unwound—abandoned pets go feral, not wild, and some part of the deep structure of their bodies cries out for the old communion, the hand that feeds, the voice that smiles.

Fearless, they live near us, in the artificial cliff faces of our cities, even as everything eats them. They were bred for meat, for easy digestibility, and not for durability. They lose toes and feet to errant human hairs, build useless nests out of unwoven grass, drink dumpster water, warm themselves on third rails, huddle for some remembered warmth on the cold bronze of the city founders.

In the parks, they descend on every friendly stranger, eager to please, happy to be remembered. In the buildings that still bear their name, the sound of flowing water, quiet music, the cremated remains of the dead; bird song from other birds.

Another year, another futile attempt to create an iconic Thanksgiving horror monster. Bloodthirsty turkeys, sentient mashed potato mounds, sweet potatoes gone sour, you name it, they’ve tried it. The earth cries out for blood, but who has the energy. The days are short, the nights are long, the harvest is in, everyone has eaten too much, the heat is turned on a little too high, nobody wants to kill anybody, they just want to take a nap. They’re spitballing semi-frantically.

Racism? Racist uncles? The real monster is white supremacy? A chorus of groans. You could tell a story with that, certainly, but racism is sadly timeless, untethered from any specific national holiday. Pumpkins and pumpkin pie is rejected as too Halloweeny. It’s a tough holiday, they’re agreed in that, too prominent to ignore, but whose iconography is almost entirely food-based, which is a slender reed to build any kind of compelling visual on.

Eventually they give up and put out another cannibal family movie, and if it’s all mostly just a rehash of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in pilgrim drag, well, everyone’s in a food coma anyway, at least they tried.

Chamomile’s been doing the webcam grind for nearly a year now and she’s just barely breaking even. She’s got a small group of regulars, but nobody’s dropping significant cash on her shows; none of them can afford to. She tried findomming for a while, but nobody bit on that, either, and there’s only so long you can post salacious paypig stuff before you start to look desperate instead of hot. She wasn’t expecting easy money, but, hell, she’s hardly doing any better than freelancing. Masturbating’s easier on her eyes and better for her posture than proofreading, but the disinterest is hard on her self-esteem. She’s doing everything you’re supposed to, techwise, and she’s rocksolid about posting, but she’s just not pulling in enough of an audience.

“Gosh, you’re pretty,” says one of her regulars, and it about makes her cry. Some days are just harder than others, that’s all.