I swallowed a parrot and a harmonica in a drunken dare last night. Both are working fine this morning, but the reactions of my co-workers are alarming. The low end of the harmonica is lodged against my larynx; the parrot is in my left lung.

Every time I breathe, I make a deep, wet vibey sound through the harmonica that comes out my mouth and a bit through my skin. The parrot, she hears this, and mimics it; her reproduction, though, on its way out of my left lung, goes through the harmonica again, this time the high end. From my mouth unbidden, all day, comes this altered mimic.

This altered mimic music, she hears, the parrot.

And repeats.

But it is never the same, her mimics and my breaths. Lows and highs, back and forth in wet stereo, different every time.

I think later today I'll go stand in a tunnel to see what this would sound like with a perpetual echo. Before the parrot dies.

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