Chris Clemens

Listen to Chris’ story – read by Jo Clark

It’s possible I’m not understanding correctly, but I do know that a raccoon doesn’t belong in this rooftop garden. So just glide off, or bumble down the crumbling bricks, or whatever it is that you do. 

Oh, don’t look at me that way, with your paws beneath your chin, and your bandit eyes! I haven’t any apples; not one.

Fine: a single scavenged apple. Here! Yes, you want to wash it first, but how? You shall have to depart my roof, you see, in order to consume this premium apple. To find water. To locate sustenance.

There are community rumours, you know. Letters in the wind. Banners in the clouds. In some language or other, your name means “wash bear”. You are declared a fastidious scavenger. So, please: spare us both the indignity of further confrontation.

I see you have discovered my rain barrel, Mr. Raccoon. Unfortunate. Preparedness is important, we know. Have you heard what’s happened to Arizona? Are raccoons worldly, connected? Your fingers look like a baby skeleton’s, but your ears pay attention.

By all means, enjoy a swim in this sweltering heat. Cooling off makes sense, but now I shall have to dump all that rainwater. I was hoping for a dip myself, later.

Your folded wet wings won’t be of much use for a while. Although, looking at you now, fur all bedraggled, I’m beginning to doubt you can fly. Maybe the stories about wings … well, stories lie sometimes. How did people ever know for sure? 

Before?

Listen, while you’re here, have you been sampling my tomatoes at night? Stop taking a single bite out of everything, you wasteful rogue. I can’t afford to get sick like –

Like … 

Like?

It’s nice to have somebody to share things with, but you have to see that you are biologically disgusting, even without wings.

Do not stare so reproachfully, Mr. Raccoon. Here: one last apple for the road. If we are to survive here together, it will be with decorum and restraint.

Chris Clemens lives and teaches in Toronto, surrounded by raccoons. Nominated for Best Microfiction 2025, his writing appears in Invisible City, JAKE, The Dribble Drabble Review, Apex Magazine,
and elsewhere.

Read more from Chris:

Here on Trash Cat Lit – ‘Servants of the Destruction’
Invisible City – ‘Pretending’