Unserious postmodern paintings.

The monkfish had been promoted after the last one resigned abruptly during Q3 budget reviews. It didn’t understand spreadsheets, but it excelled…

The troupial had been reliable for exactly three Tuesdays in a row, which was why the librarian kept leaving it the key…

The roadrunner had not chosen this life. One morning, after outrunning a particularly persistent coyote, it stumbled into a glass building and…

The bristlebird had retired not from lack of purpose, but from an excess of it—having once solved three municipal zoning disputes by…

The bullfinch had been told, quite firmly, that the kettle would whistle at precisely 7:13 a.m. It had waited. It had watched.…

The blackcap had been mistaken for a junior clerk on its third day of unauthorized attendance at the Department of Minor Avian…

The pigeon had been told, by a very serious sparrow in a trench coat, that optimism was a structural load-bearing trait. It…

The bristlebird had been waiting for the mail for seventeen years. It had not moved since the day the letter arrived —…

The chipmunk had spent three years appealing the denial of its nut storage permit, arguing that seasonal hoarding constituted protected behavioral expression…

The greenlet had promised to sing at dawn, but only did so when the light hit the glass just right — a…

The guanaco had been told, by a very serious badger in a tweed vest, that elegance required preparation. So it practiced its…

The scorpion had been practicing mindfulness for three weeks, and today, for the first time, it felt genuinely pleasant — not despite…