Auden Patrick

THE END IS NEAR pt. ii

The thing is, the sky is on fire, the world is falling apart, and youโ€™re standing in theย kitchen frying eggs like itโ€™s any other day and not the end of life as we know it so I gesture to theย window likeย donโ€™t you know thereโ€™s an apocalypse going on, what are you doing frying eggs at 3ย in the morning at the end of the world?ย and you shrug as if to sayย why not?ย and the eggs keep onย sizzling in the pan and thereโ€™s an explosion and the sky turns black for a moment before itย catches fire again, and you donโ€™t even look up, you just swear when the noise startles you soย much you break the yolkโ€”I canโ€™t stop staring at you, standing there in the kitchen in your boxersย like itโ€™s Saturday morning three years ago before all this started and finally I have to ask โ€œwhatย the hell are you doing?โ€ and you blink at me, confused, and
say โ€œIโ€™m cooking for you. Arenโ€™tย you hungry?โ€

Auden Patrick is a genderqueer writer who considers himself a daydreamer, a villain, and a scoundrel. His work can be found or is forthcoming inย HADย andย rejection letters,ย and he can be foundย on twitterย @patrickauden, where he posts bad jokes about top surgery and the novel he’ll never finish writing.