Somebody said you got a new friend

did you know that in the United States she can receive the death penalty for mailing you a snake?

that in fact this is the only situation in which it is possible to receive capital punishment for attempted murder?

that no matter how many people she harms with all the guns and knives she can fit in your 2 refrigerators, as long as none of them get harmed to death, the worst fate she could ever expect to suffer is life in prison?

that if she detonates a bomb in the third story guest room, shattering your priceless all-glass ceiling fan on the second floor below, if she stabs your eyes out so you can’t watch any more angry reviews of Adam Sandler movies, if she throws you out of the unfinished window in the attic, but you survive, you won’t get to watch them administer the lethal injection to the person who wronged you like you once said you’ve always wanted?

that the only possible way she could end up in the electric chair, or the modern equivalent of the electric chair because they don’t actually do those anymore, without successfully killing anybody is if she took herself to the post office with a venomous snake in a crate, or anthrax in an envelope, or a bomb in a larger envelope/smaller crate, then got it stamped and ready to ship off to your shared address, not realizing that you never check the mail and that as a consequence any snake or poison or bomb she or anyone else might send to you is doomed to ultimately stagnate and die, neglected and non-lethal?

I’m giving it my all, but

No? Sorry, it’s loud in here, do you need me to repeat any of that.

Sean Noah Noah is a non-binary writer and lapsed stand-up comic living somewhere in the American Northeast. The stories have shown up in Reflex Press, Eunoia Review, Bizarro Central, and Plus Literary Magazine. You can find them on twitter at @SeanNoahNoah.