September 1, 2022
MORE HUSBANDS The husbands have a plan. The plan is to make more husbands. More husbands, more problems, is a thing the husbands have never said. The more husbands there are the more husbands there will be. That's math. Husbands beget husbands. The city will be full of husbands. Husbands will spill from the upper stories of apartment buildings. Husbands will clog the canals of Amsterdam. Husbands will walk across the Grand Canyon on the bodies of other husbands. There will be so many husbands that husbands will seem interchangeable. One husband is much like another husband in the dark. Even now, the orchards are full of husbands, ripening in the afternoon sun. The farmers' market sells fresh, young husbands every spring. But artisanal husbands are not cost effective. The husbands are building a factory to modernize the making of husbands. Now every husband working the line has their hands on just one part of another husband in production. Some of the beauty of creation is lost, but speed is everything. One day a husband will ask his husband to get him a glass of water, and that husband will pause over the kitchen sink, looking out the window. He'll see a wild husband furtively slinking across the front yard, then duck out of sight into a culvert. There but for the grace of God, says the husband, but he shivers all the same. (Rebecca Hazelton)