THREE MICROS by Evan Jerome Williams

THREE MICROS by Evan Jerome Williams

Carl

Carl is a cobra with nine eyes. Carl has seven too many eyes, and none of them see well. He has difficulty finding eyeglasses that work for him on account of his extra eyes.

Carl needs eyeglasses to read. He is a scholar studying applied reptilian physics, a discipline primarily concerned with asteroid-detection and trajectory-disruption techniques. Carl needs eyeglasses so he can protect us.

Carl found an eye doctor who used to be a pirate. The eye doctor poked out seven of Carl’s eyes with precise stabbing motions, then made as many eyepatches with equal precision.

Carl looks like a badass. He has the right number of eyes for eyeglasses now. Carl is going to save the world. 

 

This Is A Threat

I bought an orange sweater at the mall and decided to wear it to my dermatology appointment. Dermatologists study my skin because it is multi-layered, and that is unusual. They want to understand it. When I got there they asked me to take the sweater off. “Please, sir,” they said, “we need to see your layered dermis.” I couldn’t take it off. “I can’t,” I told them, “It’s a new layer of my skin.” I tugged at it. “See?” I said. They walked to the other side of the room to consult their notes. They consulted one another. They all nodded and came back. The dermatologists fanned out around me. “This is a threat,” they said. “Take off your sweater,” they said. “Take off your sweater so we can study you.” They anaesthetized me and peeled it like a sunburn.

 

Amos

Amos is a man I met in a hot tub. Famous. Famous Amos in a hot tub with me. This makes me famous. Amos says so, in the hot tub where we are both famous. Amos has cookie shorts. Chocolate chip, I think, or raisin. Raisin cookie shorts for Mr. Amos in the hot tub.

We are in Hawaii. I can’t remember if I mentioned that. Famous people are more common in places like Hawaii. Maybe I should omit this detail. Or alter it.

Amos is a man I met in a hot tub. Famous. Famous Amos in a hot tub with me. This makes me famous. Amos says so, in the hot tub where we are both famous. Amos has cookie shorts. Chocolate chip, I think, or raisin. Raisin cookie shorts for Mr. Amos in the hot tub.

The hot tub in Arkansas. Arkansas where few famous people are found at leisure. Arkansas, so unfamous as to be infamous for its unfamousness. Mr. Amos and I, famous, in the Arkansan hot tub. “Do you want some cookies?” he asks. “Yes I’d like that,” I answer.


Evan Williams is a Chicago-based writer thinking about surrealism and the Anthropocene. His work appears in DIAGRAM, Pleiades, and the Bennington Review, among others. He is the author of “Claustrophobia, Surprise!” (HAD Chaps, 2022), the Reviews Editor at X-R-A-Y Lit, and one-third the editorial brain behind the temporary journal of prose poetry, Obliterat.

Art by Bob Schofield @anothertower

Read Next: THE ELIMINATION DIET by Alexandra Wuest