AcmeShorts

The stillness of Sheila's fanny-pack was beginning to unsettle him. She hadn’t taken it with her, as she usually had, and he thought it was beginning to smell. Where the hell was she, anyways? She had told him she was going for TCBY with Jill, and that had been during the beginning of Oprah. Now Eyewitness News was almost over. There was something on about a rally at a local abortion clinic.

Without moving his horizontal position on the couch, he reached over to the fanny-pack and lifted it. He took a closer sniff, and his nose hairs went up in hackles. The smell reminded him of cooked cabbages, coupled with the wrestling room at his high school. He sat up and readjusted the angle of his whiff to the pack. Slowly, he unzipped it. His olfactories literally almost shut down.

Suddenly, his kitten, Pounce, jumped from the back of his couch, knocking the pack out of his hands. Pounce began tearing away at it, partially sticking her head inside, gnawing on something. Quickly getting to his feet, he snatched the pack up, spilling its contents onto the carpet. He picked up Pounce with his other arm, her claws and teeth working his forearm. The thing on the floor was yellow, halfway tucked into a sandwich bag. At first he thought it was raw chicken. Then he knew. He knew now where Sheila had gone, and what she'd forgotten to bring: the abortion clinic. To protest. Certainly, this wasn't hers. Maybe she'd get on the News, he thought.