I wake up lying flat out in the entry hall closet we never use because we are too lazy to open the door. I’m lying on boxes of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios I had wished into being. There are even some extras to make a pillow for my head. Melted chocolate is streaming out of the boxes like cookie blood. I can hear Maggie snuffling at the doorway.

Trevor Noah released a video the other day describing how looting illuminates the brokenness of the social contract: If George Floyd can be murdered, publicly and deliberately, police—and if this is not an aberration but part of a pattern—then there is no rule of law.

Just in case it was too subtle, let’s revisit recent events moment by moment, using building blocks to understand Noah’s explanation. Call it The Social Contract for Dummies.

I wake up lying flat out in the entry hall closet we never use because we are too lazy to open the door. I’m lying on boxes of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios I had wished into being. There are even some extras to make a pillow for my head. Melted chocolate is streaming out of the boxes like cookie blood. I can hear Maggie snuffling at the doorway.

Fast & Short is a flash fiction collaboration between eight Literate Ape writers. Each was tasked with authoring one piece of flash fiction that would be combined to create a single short story. The writers’ flash fiction needed to serve two purposes: 1) Stand alone as a unique piece of flash fiction and 2) Serve as a vehicle for building a larger story and driving that story forward. Here is that developing story.

We are all connected . . .

I finally met my mildly reviled neighbor . . .

it looks like our beloved past-president has come out of retirement / hiding / wealth-making / whatever he’s doing with his fancy foundation, at a time when the nation is abandoning allies, abandoning core principles, abandoning the Constitution . . . to criticize THE WOKE for being judgmental.

What the hell do you say to that? OK, Boomer?

Louise walked out into the waking morning with an ache in her throat and neck she identified as the desire to cry.

There’s a reason why the flames lick higher and higher…

Morning has broken.

First me, then you, then the country

strewn left and right, spoiled