...where they shortly find
themselves packed into mass graves, crammed closer to one another than barracuda teeth, billeted together by the thirties in low rectilinear tins, stacks
of ten, three deep, eyes unblinking in the dark with only foul-smelling oil and their fellows as company.

A sardine who makes it to Slanty’s conveyer belt has had it rough already. First, you’ve got the whole drowning thing. Add to that the horror of disorientation—the sky is absolutely terrifying to a fish.

An ingenious suction device removes any remaining viscera, and you and the rest of your little silverdart chums are flumed down the line to your stamped, numbered, and bar-coded cell, stuffed alongside whomever is nearest until the tin is full. You’re squirted with noxious oil serving as food coloring and preservative,
and then the lid goes on.

And then you wait, perfectly preserved. You might wait forever, subject to the vagaries of a capricious and cruelly ironic fate.

For example: One can only assume thousands of sardine cans have been purchased through the years by sailors, and brought aboard merchant ships.

It only stands to reason, then, that a few, a very few, of these tins must have slipped accidentally overboard, or their ship sunk beneath the waves, thirty sardines returned to their natural home without ever knowing it, all hoping through long preserved centuries, all waiting for the turn of the key, blinding light, mastication, oblivion.

All this goes through Boyd Ligneclaire’s head as he slices the fish at the conveyor and sluices them down the chute, then uses a plastic suction snoot to whisk the entrails to parts unseen. His fingers work brainlessly, while his mind roams the deep sea.

He’s decided his work will begin with an epic tour-de-force written from the point of view of a sardine—from egg to can and then (herein lies the genius) *beyond the can,* into the great deceased with twenty-nine of his closest friends.

Think of the titles, then think of the poems.

“Apse Street Blues.”
“Neon Chapel in Daylight.”
“Self-Portrait in the Blade of a Cannery Knife.”

Boyd slices and suctions Boyd slices and suctions Boyd slices and suctions.

He rarely misses a fish. Nimble.

Those dexterous digits have kept him employed at Slanty’s through grim layoffs, and this same dextrosity landed him his other paid gig—part-time, by far more lucrative, and brokered by Donk: information-gathering, spying, even the occasional burglary.

Boyd prefers the burglary. High-end merchandise, highly technical thefts, no tracks left, no evidence created. In quick, out quick. The occasional picking of a particular prosperous pocket.

The job at the cannery keeps the authorities from sniffing out the secret job, while the secret job keeps him flush. But his third occupation keeps him sane, sets him apart. Occupation number three is writer.

Yes, the litterateur of Loony Island, the keeper of its flame, the immortalizer of its story, air father, the artistic sheen of the word made real in the flesh of the cranium, ah! It’s occupation number three he lives for. It’s his inner glory. It’s his secret strength.

He’s shit at it.

This is Donk’s opinion, and as Donk’s one of Loony Island’s few readers, it should be Donk’s opinion Boyd most values; however, in matters literary, Boyd remains unflappable. Donk expounds, but Boyd’s expression alters little, and his confidence not at all. There’s no arguing with Boyd.

There’s no *not* arguing with him, either, at least for Donk.

"You’ve written three pages in your whole life.”

“Well.” Boyd, leaning against a wall, striking what he hopes is a devil-may-care pose. “Three pages, yes. But. Three *perfect* pages.”

“They’re junk.”

“You have an imperfect understanding of my intent.”

“I’d hate to think I had anything approaching understanding of your mind.”

“Someday, you’ll sing a different tune. I’ll join a writer’s colony and make contacts.”