Flunge

Watching the smallest of wrens tear up an eyeball can be a frightening experience. The wren needs to be relentless when digging in; it doesn’t have the weight to hover idly before attacking from above or pull one blood vessel loose from the others and unravel the morsel in one scoop. No instead, the small, feathered creature must skip around the pupil, following its every turn; the wren must move faster to confuse and distract. A beaked flick across the cornea, that most fragile of pouches, must be aimed to pierce like a fencer’s foil–up and down in one move. With luck, the beak might catch on an extruding vein, to drag closer the taffy-wire optic nerve. Then the gravy sac of iris will leak, leak its color into a puddling staining spill, its last attempt at defense.

     Still the wren is forced to pull hard, lay down claw marks confirming the frenzy of the attack. The ravaged eye leaks and leaks until the pupil itself only senses movements shading its own, which it can no longer in its disabled state, identify. The slashing assassin has to move through every balled layer to impair.

     And the wren wins when the pupil suctions snail-like in its own iris juices, balls up in surrender to be the stickiest and most unappetizing snack for the gullet. Ignoring this fatty runoff, the wren will instead feast on portions of the optic nerve full of protein, the condiment gravy sac.

    Whatever is left behind as unpalatable, pigeons will come consume in the hour.

About the Author

Michele Merens won 2nd place in our 2nd Annual Napkin Microfiction Contest (May 2022) with the award winning story FLUNGE. Michele won a cash prize and will be published in Indie It Press’s 2nd COURAGEOUS CREATIVE Anthology: Volume II, in 2023.

Michele Merens – I am a writer and playwright living in Milwaukee. My novel, Inside Our Days,  was published by Muriel Press in 2020. I am a Barnard College Senior Scholar in Creative Writing and member of the Dramatist’s Guild.