Fish - Flash Fiction by Susan Tepper with Art by James Eret

Painting by James Eret: Rainbow Trout, pastel on Japanese rice paper.

Fish 

After Clarice I didn’t replace the missing tropical fish.  The dog ate most of them.  I didn’t have the heart.  It happens.  I deliberately cut my wrist the wrong way.  I tried telling that to one of the cops who arrived before the EMS.  He looked toward the window.  Finally he said: Your drapes have dry rot.  I scratched under my T-shirt with the good hand.  How do you know?  My wife, the cop said.  She instructs me.  I sat down on a spindly chair.  Some fake antique Clarice lugged back from Paris.  So.  This cop still has a wife.  Whoopie-do.  Probably does the cop-fuck-around.  Girls hidden all over the city.  His partner drinking coffee guarding the turf from the squad car.  Then they switch.  The last time they came back here, they took the dog.  He’ll be better off at the shelter, the one cop told me.  He’ll be better off here, I said.  There, he won’t get fish for supper.

Susan Tepper is a twenty year writer and the author of nine published books of fiction and poetry.  Her most recent  are a poetry chap  CONFESS  (Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and a funky road novel WHAT DRIVES MEN (Wilderness House Press, 2019).  Currently, she’s in pre-production of an Off-Broadway Play she wrote and titled ‘The Crooked Heart’ based on artist Jackson Pollock in his later years. www.susantepper.com

James Eret was born and raised in Hammond, Indiana. He spent four years in the US Navy and is a Vietnam Veteran. He graduated from the University of Illinois with a BFA in Art. James studied poetry with Paul Carroll and drawing with Irene Siegel. James Poems have been published in The Patterson Review, Serving House Journal, Avocet, Spillway, San Diego Poetry Annual, Iodine Review, DelSol Review, The Poetry Conspiracy, Blue Collar Review. He was the featured Poet at the 2000 NAMI Conference, advocating for those with mental disabilities. He was Writing Director of The Creative Arts Consortium in San Diego and environs and helped put up many Art shows for clients and held poetry readings for clients. He currently works in San Diego Unified School District.