At Least He Enjoyed the Coleslaw
by Jeff Foster
Leslie Dennison sat alone at his table inside Shelly’s Clam Shack. He sipped on his raspberry iced tea and then took a bite out of his buttery lobster roll. The coleslaw dish was licked clean. Around him, diners shoveled clam strips, clam fritters, fried shrimp, and other Clam Shack delights down their throats.
Behind him, Leslie noticed a lobster tank. A lobster stared blankly at him.
This unnerved Leslie for some reason, so he turned his back and picked up his lobster roll. But before he took another bite, he paused and felt a pang of guilt. He looked back at the lobster in the tank. It kept its black eyes on Leslie. “I could be eating one of this lobster’s relatives,” he thought. “Perhaps its wife or husband or father or mother!”
Leslie decided then to change two lives: his and the lobster’s. So, he stood up, turned to the tank, and fished out the lobster (who he decided for no real reason to name Lilly). He then ran out of the restaurant and onto the beach toward the ocean. Clutching the lobster, Leslie jumped into the water and began swimming. The waves batted him around, but he was determined to get Lilly home.
He swam as far as he could. Eventually, he tired himself out and just sank to the bottom, where a small group of lobsters was milling around.
“Here,” said Leslie, placing Lilly in front of the biggest lobster, who appeared to be their leader. “I saved one of your fellow crustaceans.”
Lilly, who couldn’t care less, scuttled away in a poof of silt.
The head lobster stared at Leslie for a moment then said, “Who gives a fuck?”
Jeff Foster, who holds a Ph.D. in English, teaches at the University of New Haven. His work has appeared in such journals as deComp, Confluence, Bending Genres, NanoFiction, Foliate Oak, and Ampersand Review. If he weren't a teacher, he would probably be an assassin. Or maybe a barista. Whichever offered the most flexible hours.