NO SUCH THING AS FREE PIZZA by Narimaan Shafi

‘Free pizza,’ was my friend’s bribe to make me pet-sit Bernadine, the latest addition to her menagérie.

‘But I don’t like spiders,’ I said. Bernardine was a red-kneed tarantula.

‘She’s in a glass cage and can’t get out,’ my friend assured me.

So film on, drink in hand and pizza on the way I was pet-sitting Bernardine. She didn’t move, just sat, or stood. I wasn’t sure which. An odd creature, with an eye for every leg. The same as humans but I didn’t think of that at the time.

I skirted past Bernadine to get to the door when the pizza arrived. Her proximity made me shiver.

The glass cage caught my eye as I took my first bite. Where was Bernadine?

Narimaan Shafi is in the UK. She is wondering if the pile of flash fiction anthologies in the corner of her room is about to turn sentient and speak to her.

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