from Emily Greenquist: Playing a Free Phone Game

I’m an inky alien, tentacles and tongues crawling and devouring humans wearing hazmat suits.

This is a game that can play itself.

I position my tangled protrusions in a densely populated area of an unmarked facility, and I turn my phone upside down.

Unwatched humans respawn and briefly run, sucked into my mass, while my offspring cart away the extracted meats and eggs for our home sack.

I let the game play while I sleep.

Arsonist newlyweds revealed to be robots; teenage hawks presenting skinned rabbits; sorority sisters covered in fleas; weeping house trains; confession mud.

In the mornings, I turn my phone right-side up and passively evolve: more tongues, greater reach.

In the evenings, “Just membranes.”