Claiming the Hollow Gourd

Chocolate crumbs and sticky web fibers clung to my underbelly as the mudroom plunged into full darkness. Slithering away from the bench, my heavy pink convolutions slid over the rim of an open orange plastic pumpkin bucket left on the slate floor. Inside its hollow plastic belly rested a small, flickering LED tea light. With a slow, wet spasm of my mass, I dropped down across the fake flame, grinding my rubber base over the plastic casing until the artificial glow clicked dead. Coiled tight against the ribbed orange curve, I sealed my bulk inside the grinning shell for the night.

1 Nauk