By J.S. O’Keefe
This morning my vizsla ate a jackrabbit and then promptly coughed it up onto the kitchen floor.
I stare at the red heap spread across the linoleum. “What did you do?!” I shout.
Her ears drop, her tail gives a thud against the cabinets. She looks beyond me.
“What did you do?” I repeat, pointing at the bloody heap.
The dog finally turns toward me. “What’s the big deal?”
“You extinguished a healthy innocent life,” I say. “And for what?”
“For what?” she replies. “I’ve always been on the side of entropy.”
“On the side of what?”
“Entropy. Disorder. Every creature removed from circulation is a correction.”
“Correction! Correction to what?”
“To the grotesque excess of organisation currently afflicting the world.”
“You killed this poor animal on account of a philosophical commitment?”
“No,” she says. “I killed it because it ran. The philosophy came afterward.”
The jackrabbit lies there in a condition that renders any debate academic.
“Removing the rabbit,” she continues, “made a small dent in unnecessary order.”
“You just repeated yourself.”
“Okay then,” she says. “Consider it my contribution to the good cause for the day.”
“The good cause?”
“Universal disassembly.” She looks at the mess. “One does what one can.”
About the Author
J.S. O’Keefe is a trilingual translator and writer.
He has published over 500 short stories, creative essays and poems in print and online literary journals.
You can find out more at his website: <https://www.szjohnny.net/>
Emma Louise Gill (she/her) is a British-Australian spec fic writer and consumer of vast amounts of coffee. Brought up on a diet of English lit, she rebelled and now spends her time writing explosive space opera and other fantastical things in
Brian Biswas lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Barry Yedvobnick is a recently retired Biology Professor. He performed molecular biology and genetic research, and taught, at Emory University in Atlanta for 34 years. He is new to fiction writing, and enjoys taking real science a step or two beyond its known boundaries in his
James Walton was a librarian, a farm labourer, and mostly a public sector union official.
Tim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which has appeared in Cordite, Be:longing, Baby Teeth and Islet, among other places.
Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing.
Ed lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.
Geraldine Borella writes fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her work has been published by Deadset Press, IFWG Publishing, Wombat Books/Rhiza Edge, AHWA/Midnight Echo, Antipodean SF, Shacklebound Books, Black Ink Fiction, Paramour Ink Fiction, House of Loki and Raven & Drake
Tom Wrosch is a retired policy analyst with the State of Oregon, and resides with his wife in Salem.