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They Told Me To |
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by Anne Earney
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They told me the coffee grounds would keep them away, would keep my houseplants safe, keep the cats safe, keep me safe. But now they say I have to sweep up the coffee grounds, the coffee grounds smell like coffee and not everyone likes coffee and the cats are eating the coffee grounds and then doing terrible things, breaking into the house across the street and eating the child's hamsters. And some mornings the cats hang from the screens, bug-eyed, small bits of gray-brown fur stuck to their faces. Their sweet little faces. And the plants are flourishing, all of them, almost all of them – not the one I nearly buried in coffee grounds; that was a bad idea. They told me not to do that.
Anne Earney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Recent work has appeared in Midwestern Gothic, Hayden's Ferry Review, Natural Bridge, REAL, and other places. She is working on a Gothic novel and a collection of interconnected stories. More work can be found at www.anneearney.com.
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