Town Towntown

In Town Towntown, the people do people things that townpeople do.

Issue 8

https://manyworlds.place/issue-8/odin-meadows/

by Odin Meadows

Note: This work is best viewed on a widescreen device.


In Town Towntown, the people do people things that townpeople do.

Now, townpeople not from Town Towntown are still townpeople but they’re not Town Towntown townpeople, but still townpeople.

Now me, well, I’m not a Town Towntown people, not a townpeople neither. Nobody’s told me what I am.

See, Town Towntown townpeople don’t like not Town Towntown people and not Town Towntown townpeople don’t like not townpeople.

So me, a not townpeople, try to do townpeople things, but I seem to do them in a not very people way

                or

                                I do people things in a not townpeople way but still people, still a people thing

or                               

I do

not-people things in a very not-people way and the Town Towntown townpeople and the not Town Towntown townpeople both can see it.

So I go to the Town Towntown library, talk to the Town Towntown librarian and I ask, are there people that are not townpeople but are still people and do people things but maybe not townpeople things?

She looks at me, not like a Town Towntown townpeople, not like a not Town Towntown townpeople, not like a not townpeople people. No, she looks at me like a not people, a not people at all not people.

She can see it.

I scream.

She screams.

We all scream.

You know the rest.


Odin Meadows is a first-generation graduate with a BA in English from Yale University currently living in the midwest with his husband and two dogs, not too far from the rural town where he grew up. His work has appeared in Mystic Owl Magazine, Impossible Archetype, Palette Poetry, and more.