The Litter I See Project

1.  Begin as pie.

2.  Prepare to leave warm fragrant vibes of bakery.

3.  When the moment of departure arrives, don some sort of covering. (Cardboard is a good all-weather choice.)

4.  Travel carefully to a granite countertop in a house with a view and a black Lab named Cecil or Wyatt or Esmerelda.

5.  Be glad you’re not a pork chop.

6.  Sit in cardboard covering on granite countertop, grateful for every minute you are ignored by black Lab (who prays every day that pork chops not pie will arrive on counter) while someone named Charlotte makes dinner, lights candles, pours wine, then drinks most of bottle alone, blows out candles, tips dinner into garbage can while cursing Karl who apparently was supposed to be there at seven but who called at eight seventeen saying he could be there by nine, nine thirty, and was that a problem?

7.  Karl, apparently, is an idiot. He arrives at quarter to ten, at which point Charlotte grabs you (still in your cardboard all-season cover-up) and smashes you against Karl the Idiot’s chest then slams the door. Do not fight the smashing. You are pie, almost useless in this situation.

8. Cringe.  Cringe like mad as you are savoured by Karl (bits of you in his moustache is the worst part) while he stomps back to his car, clutching you to his chest until he’s had his fill then flinging your doughy fruitiness into the shrubbery and, because he can, tearing your cover-up to smithereens. After which he drives off, making that angry peeling tires sound as he goes. He really is an ass.

9.  Prepare for more horror (though not nearly as vile as Karl’s moustache) as CecilWyattEsmerelda presses wet nose on window, whining to be let outside.

10. And Charlotte acquiesces.

11. Soon almost every bit of you will be resting in dog belly, including the cardboard. All but one tiny square. The only proof you ever existed at all.

12. That and dog breath.

13. And, sadly, Karl’s moustache.

♦

When not writing, Carin Makuz  can be found wandering the shores of Lake Ontario muttering about darlings that won’t take a hint. She is a workshop facilitator for abused women and youth at risk. Her work appears in journals and magazines across Canada, the U.K. and U.S., has been broadcast on CBC and BBC Radio and has won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Canada and the Caribbean) but, more importantly… she has read on the Eden Mills Fringe stage in the rain. She combines text with photography, reviews books and chats with writers on her blog www.matildamagtree.com