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The Squirm


by Smiley McGrouchpants, Jr-Esq-III


               The Squirm had many tentacles.
               One was on the bus right now.
               “Oh, you can kill us,” he was saying. “You can kill us all!”
               He was being sarcastic.
               The bus driver put the bus in gear.

               Dave's mom was crying again.
               Dave was dating his uncle's girlfriend's daughter, and — ugh! — had knocked her up because — ugh! — she wanted to be closer to him so — ugh! — she had stopped taking her birth control pills.
               Bitsy cried, listening to them argue all night.
               She knew she should have encouraged Dave to move out of the house.
               Before age 31.

               Snot's dripping down her finger as she wipes it from her baby's nose and flicks it into the grass.
               “Eww!” her friend says. “Eww!”

               The Squirm was keeping the light on. The squirm didn't like people coming over from Europe.
               The squirm had graduated, evolved: Keeping low to the ground. The squirm couldn't sleep.
               No going back now.
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