SHRIEK

A man woke up to the sound of a shriek outside his door! He leapt out of bed and opened the door to see who had emitted the shriek. Nobody was there. So he attributed the shriek to the bite-sized version of himself that had taken refuge in his refrigerator. When he opened the refrigerator, however, he discovered that he had drowned in a pitcher of fresh milk. So he decided to drink his coffee black.

"Shriek" was written one night in Washington, D.C., by me, my sister Jain and my cousin-in-law Keri. We were sitting out in Keri's back yard drinking beer and wine and decided to write a few stories. Each of the stories would be six sentences long and each of us would be responsible for two sentences. We took turns starting off. The first sentence of "Shriek" belongs to Jain. Keri followed her, and I followed Keri. We each took another turn and that was the end. We wrote a handful or two of stories that night before the beer and wine prompted us to go inside and pass out, and the following week I revised a few of them. "Shriek" is my personal favorite.