Year of the Goose. Carly J. Hallman

participation in the optional post-lunch digestion walk. He turned on the water. He squeezed a bar of soap between his sausage fingers and the soap became goo. He rubbed this goo across his chest and into his armpits, where hair had only just begun to sprout. He grunted; the water was too hot. As he shifted his weight and reached out to adjust the faucet, he lost his footing and slipped on the wet floor. His arms flailed, grabbing out for something, but there was nothing. His head cracked against the tile floor.

      He lay there for many minutes, and in one of those many minutes, his ghost left his body.

      Less than an hour later, Fourteen’s bunkmate, Camper Nine, his eyes still crusty with sleep from his post-digestion-walk optional recovery nap, stumbled into the shower and planted his bare sole directly into a squishy pile of Fourteen’s brains.