Slap

By Sarp Sozdinler

I was about to witness Kershaw’s first career no-hitter on TV when chunks of meat started to pour from the skies and slap the ground. Our house rattled as we rushed to the windows and watched the raining flesh paint our neighborhood in barbecue sauce. Most pieces were about two inches thick and curiously rectangular as if they’d just been processed for industrial use. One particularly large bite resembling Dad’s bedside Bible smashed the windshield of our neighbor’s car and piled on what I took for a lung, a pair of catcher’s mitts, and three kittens snuggling each other in the driver’s seat. Everyone ran about left and right, unable to escape their fair share of meat slaps. An elderly pedestrian shouted it was a sign from God. My wife said it must be the meat vomited up by the buzzards. Whatever was the case, it was impolite at best of the skies to not give us a second chance. Of the meat to not spare us the smell. On and on they fell in front of our eyes, one hitter after another. Bad they went. •

Sarp Sozdinler’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Scaffold, Trampset, Hobart, HAD, DIAGRAM, and Maudlin House, among other journals. His stories have been selected and nominated for anthologies, including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. He’s currently at work on his first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.