A Hole, Gone Fishing, Fish Outta Water by Eve Greenlow
Peter held his breath. Georgia’s cheeks stung. Ennis had to pee.
“Should we call someone?” Peter asked guiltily.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have bet her fifty bucks that she could icefish with only her hands?” Ennis’ breath reeked of IPA.
“You could have stopped her!”
“I’m toasted. What’s your excuse?” Ennis walked up next to the fishing poles and unzipped his pants.
“You piss on me you die,” Chase spoke hoarsely from the hole in the lake. Georgia cheered and pulled her out. She undid her jacket to reveal the bulging eyes of a fish. She glanced at Peter.
“Suck it.”
*****
Ennis closed the door behind him, leaving the frozen lake. He set down his bucket of crappie. One flopped out of the bucket and onto the floor of his cabin.
“Ah, son of a bitch” Ennis bent down to reach for it when he received a face full of fins. Stunned, he stumbled backwards and caught himself on the windowsill. Out of the corner of his eye Ennis saw flashes of green and amber emerging from the fishing hole outside. He tried to rationalize what he was seeing. His gaze returned to the bucket. All of the fish were looking straight at him.
“Shit.”
*****
Detective Delmar looked down at the janky hole carved into the icy surface of the lake. The body lying next to it was essentially a popsicle.
“Hey rookie, cover up Mr. Hiefield here,” he shouted at a fresh badge. The green officer, startled and freezing, started towards the corpse with a sheet. He stepped on the sheet and flew face first onto the ice, sliding right into the fishing hole. Delmar quickly grabbed his ankle and yanked him back onto dry land.
“You are a sorry excuse for a cop, you know that?” Delmar yelled.
“But pretty good bait, right?”
“These are three separate pieces that I wrote for a micro-fiction contest earlier this year. I didn't submit any of them because the category I got for the second round was comedy which is a genre with which I'm not comfortable. After the contest I just felt like they were too short or incomplete to send anywhere. The prompt was to include the action of ice fishing in the comedy genre and contain the word ‘excuse.’”
Eve Greenlow (she/they) is a black and queer writer who was born and raised in the golden state of California. She is currently earning her MFA in Creative Writing from City College of New York. Her twitter handle is @earthsfirstlady.