Icarus Hits the Water Laughing

Chantel Tattoli
· in ,

Once a week after store hours, I take the navy rubber bands off all the Maines and let them loose in the labyrinth. The lobsters sound as if they’re tapping Morse code on the vomit-colored linoleum. At clock-out, for some reason, most of them can be found in the canned foods. (I really have no idea why; I’ve Googled “lobsters + tin-coated steel” and yielded no insight.) But the deal is, if at closing I find any in the threshold of the automatic whoosh whoosh, I take them down to Lake Michigan. The lake will kill them because lobsters cannot live in freshwater, but however it feels to die that way has got to be better than being boiled alive. I’m waiting for the storeowner to put two and two together, but the difference in inventory is lost on him so far.

Chantel Tattoli is a recent graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design’s MFA writing program. Her work has appeared recently at The Millions, Guernica, and The Rumpus.