Chicxculub Impactor by Kelsie Hahn
Editor-in-chief Jennifer A. Howard on today's story: I’m a fan of all the stories we publish in Passages North, clearly. But “Chicxculub Impactor” feels written especially for me. Kelsie Hahn couldn’t have known that dinosaurs plus mothering plus check-bouncing – all in under 250 charming words -- equals Jennifer A. Howard gold, but I’m happy for whatever instinct made her send the story our way.
When newly-mother Eoraptor brought home the baby to newly-father Eoraptor, she decided some changes needed to be made. His Herrerosaurus porn went in the garbage (all those juicy haunches! Languishing in the dumpster!). And no more cooked meat, only raw and organic and field-raised (and the salty condiments too! Gone!). She secured plastic locks to everything that could be opened--cupboards and the fridge and the door to the basement stairs.
Father Eoraptor wasn’t allowed to keep anything. No lair where he could keep his precious belongings, no retreat. He once brought a take-out burger home in a bag and she burned it in the grill. Not grilled it in the grill, burned it in the grill. Set it on fire; made him watch it burnl (Oh, and how that grease popped! How it could have, would have, popped on his tongue!)
She cut him off (yes, in that way, no, not in that way). An ice age froze their bedroom. She was too tired, too worried, too worn, too frazzled. A little one in the house that never stopped yapping.
Not that any of it made any difference. In the end, the baby grew up to be terrible (A silverware thief! An inconsiderate motorist! A check bouncer!), and each year old-father Eoraptor watched old-mother Eoraptor cry into the phone and more firmly believed that they should have let the baby take his chances with the basement stairs.
Kelsie Hahn holds an MFA in fiction from New Mexico State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrelhouse, 1/25, NANO Fiction, SpringGun, and others. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Stephen Cleboski.
