he wanted to be a dentist. but you would not assume it by looking at him. a curl of his cracked lips revealed fence posts veneered in coffee and nicotine. the hum of teeth chipping machinery narrated his awkward gait as he walked the four blocks home to his studio apartment. when it was summer in the city he did so with his shirt unbuttoned and the flaps of his cotton blouse would hang like curtains framing his hungry body. his room was filled with venus fly traps. the carnivorous plants were his army and when he caught a carpenter ant or earwig he would feed the crunchy carcases to his soldiers. today there was no sustenance for them and the sight of the plants empty gaping jaw was too much to take in for the sad man. it was like seeing a starving child call out in agony. he touched a fork prong to the cilia fibers on the inside and it slowly collapsed on nothing. he stepped back and cried over this cruel trick he played.