This story is part of a new web feature: the calendar Pinup Series. We'll be bringing you great new work online each month. —The Eds. Miniature Buffalo
by Jen Gann
My wife got the idea that our coats needed spring cleaning, so we went into the closet and unzipped every last one. We smelled springtime vacations, the time we puttered across the lake in a shiny, blue boat. We remembered winter and the pretend penguins we finally settled on to decorate the yard.
We shook a green coat, and a herd of miniature buffalo spilled out. Their torsos were the size of soup cans. They scrambled on the carpet, lowing. There was a tiny stampede from one side of our walk-in closet to the other.
"Are they dangerous in real life?" my wife said. "When they're full-sized?"
I looked at her. "How did this happen?”
My wife and I closed the buffalo in. She turned off the light and, a second later, turned it back on. She shrugged. "Seems like they'd get confused and think it was nighttime."
I pointed out what was already confusing.
"Still," she said.
The coat was my wife’s, long and green. The sleeves hit about two inches above her wrists. Seeing them poke out thrilled me. We spread the coat on the table and examined it. The lining was dimpled with tiny hoof marks. My wife brought a speck of brown lint to her nose and sniffed.
"Oh my god," she said. "Turds."
I held the coat up. We couldn't figure out how the buffalo had been inside. We tried to remember if there was anything off-seeming about the coat or our closet. We couldn't.
"A mystery," my wife said. She tapped her chin.
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