Unserious postmodern paintings.

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

The caiman had been asked, three days prior, whether the river would flood. It blinked once, then opened its mouth and said,…

The swift had been practicing heroism for three weeks, defined by the manual as ‘unflinching persistence in the face of negligible stakes.’…

The skua had not come for fish, nor for shelter, but because the pier leaked in a way that made the air…

The albatross had promised to deliver a letter to the lighthouse keeper by noon. It arrived three days later, damp and missing…

The jay had expected a whole peanut. It had watched the human place it there with deliberate care, then leave. Now, only…

The mink had accepted its doom with the quiet resignation of a creature who’d read too much Schopenhauer and still believed in…

The swallow had flown three hundred miles that spring, not for nesting, not for feeding, but because it had heard, secondhand, that…

The mug had been ceramic once, warm and unremarkable, until the office IT upgrade insisted it ‘embrace modernity.’ Now it flickers intermittently…

The hornbill had been waiting for the Wi-Fi to return for seventeen hours. It had tried nudging the router with its casque,…

The hartebeest had been coming to this classroom every Tuesday for three years, convinced the chalkboard would one day solve its existential…

The myna on the sill had been told it was the first of its kind, but each morning it saw the same…