Fiction

Little Animals
by Mike Hampton

The cafeteria is quiet. The only exception is a television playing cartoons in the corner, but no one is watching it. Since it is lunchtime, I'm waiting with surgical gloves and a bucket full of detergent for the first patient to vomit. One of them always vomits during meal times. I've worked here long enough to know what to expect. The staff members all believe that they do it on purpose. The directors say they can't help themselves.
     I look down the first folding table at the plastic trays—red, blue, yellow, the cheery colors of a Lifesavers roll—and waiting for one of the patients to start heaving over their trays. They all eat with plastic spoons that can't be broken...

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