Home’s got Hyenate feeling like forgotten bologna in a dusty old can…
Written by Mar Ovsheid
AI Art Collab by Kiki Ren
Girls Before Swine
Home’s got Hyenate feeling like forgotten bologna in a dusty old can, so she runs-runs-runs away until she reaches the train tracks on the outskirts of town. An engine lumbers toward her, and she hops aboard the caboose. Hyenate jumps a train that is full of swine and headed for the slaughterhouse. Some of the pigs are destined to become pork chops, the fat ones fated for bacon, and the smaller ones’ sinews will likely be ground down into dog food.
Hyenate tries to push the beasts away from her, but they smell the crackers she’s shoved in her pockets, crushing her until she’s cornered and can hardly breathe. By the time the attendants pull the steel doors wide, corralling the passengers with their electric prods, Hyenate smells, looks and screams like a pig. Her pleas of “I’m a person! I’m human! Get me out!” just blend into the eruptive racket of gnashing teeth and shocks and squealing.
As Hyenate falls to her knees amidst the stampede, crying out for anyone to see her or help her or save her, a zap from the killer’s wand strikes sparks between her eyes and she falls to the shit-flooded floor. A fine line of blood trickles down her forehead and into her hand, and she primes it on her pointer finger.
“Devil me and seal me up in a can and send me back home to Springerton.” she scrawls in designer-red across her forearm.
If she had better luck, making it further down the conveyor belt, she would’ve met the Tin Butcher. But bad luck is what brought her here. Whatever fortune she had left pools in the corners of the train car as the other pigs eat her alive.
About the Author
Mar Ovsheid is a spoilsport who tragically dropped, and lost, her sea monkeys in the carpet as a kid. Her work has been featured in Roi Fainéant Press, Los Suelos, Mulberry Literary, and oranges journal, among others. Mar works as a housekeeper and is visible on Instagram.
About the Artist
Kiki is best described as 45% Elvira, 45% Dolly Parton, and 10% Danny Devito. Though she’s always been a lover of all forms of art, technology has always been her forte. She studied computer science for four years before dropping out and coasting through life in various retail management positions. That’s until she found her true calling: being an embarrassment to her family online. When she’s not whipping up websites or blessing the world with memes and generative art she’s hunting for oddities at thrift stores or reading the most disturbing pieces of experimental fiction she can find.
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