I met an alien named Stevie behind McDonald’s who said if I got the cash together, he would take me and my wife on his flying saucer to his planet that was made entirely of drugs. At first I wasn’t sure. But then I was like, “OK, why not?” Our own planet already had blocked tear ducts. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with the money in time, just some “white boys” – the street name for Xanax. A year later, pigeons strut around outside the McDonald’s with tiny cowboy hats glued to their heads. Sometimes I forget he was even there.

Howie Good is the author of The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and The Trouble with Being Born (forthcoming from Ethel Micro-Press).