Six-Eyed Kitten
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andrewkozma.net
Six-Eyed Kitten
@andrewkozma.net
2.4K followers 330 following 3.9K posts
A writer of poems, plays, stories, novels, and essays. Rep'd by Jessica Sinsheimer.

Edits for Reckoning

http://www.andrewkozma.net/
http://patreon.com/thedrellum
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We gathered beside the ocean and the ocean pulled away from us. That's when we knew we were doomed.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows a group of people on a spit of land at low tide. Several hold crosses and one is dressed like a priest. They all seem to be black. On the other side of the spit is a forested land, while the shadows of palm trees drape over a few onlookers close by. Above the texture lies the text Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group and below the picture lies the text love (a recent Afro-Baptist tale and 'tory). The back reads: We gathered beside the ocean and the ocean pulled away from us. That's when we knew we were doomed. From just off the newly revealed shore, just a crashing wave or two beyond the edge of the water, we saw the new versions of ourselves we were being called to be. They looked back at us, those water-logged husks, and their eyes were imploring, asking for forgiveness or understanding. They would not come to us. We had to go to them. They were evil and ugly and yet there was a draw. Evelyn went first. We could have gone back to town easily, but she instead stepped out onto the wet sand and disappeared under it. Her new body smiled, all its teeth so visible, so sharp.
December 31, 2025 at 11:08 PM
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Once the sun priests were gone, no one had any idea how to get the sun back.
A postcard, front and back. The front is a photo of the Northern Lights (text along the top reads Northern Lights, text along the bottom reads Alaska). The picture is of a night sky with a vast swath of greenish-blue light across it, the dark silhouettes of treetops in the lower left of the photo. Stars are visible on the rightmost non-lit side, while they just peek through the bright Northern Lights. The back reads: The sun scattered itself across the sky, leaving the entire world in mostly darkness. The sun priests (they called themselves scientists) explained that the sun had thought there was enough of it to provide day everywhere with just a little thinning, but it had been wrong and the sun priests were sacrificed because how else does one take revenge on the sun? Once the sun priests were gone, no one had any ideas on how to get the sun back, so instead we took to the darkness. We stopped describing things visually and turned to our other senses in hope they'd make up for the loss. They didn't. We cried and smelled salt, felt the moist cold. Our skin heated with embarrassment. We heard smiles and treasured the clack of strong teeth. When the sun came back, we were surprised at the sudden warm balm, but we'd gotten out of the habit of vision, so we sewed our eyes shut.
December 30, 2025 at 5:04 PM
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This is the bridge we do not cross.
A postcard, front and back. The front is a black and white picture of a bridge in Paris which is apparently Le Pont Neuf. The photo is taken from one side looking over the river at an angle to catch the bridge and the trees and the five or six story buildings beyond. There are some streetlamps, but no people. The back reads: This is the bridge we do not cross. On the other side of the bridge is the other half of the city and we do not go there. From this side of the river, that far part of the city appears empty -- that is, until you step on the bridge. People report seeing different things, but the most common are these two: 1) a glory of warm light and sidewalks full of people so happy, so content, you can see their smiling faces clear from two blocks away, or 2) a maze of emptied streets, light harsh as a dissecting table, and the feeling of being watched, of being judged worthy of further study. Those who have stayed too long on the bridge -- unmoving, entranced -- lost themselves, becoming unresponsive, taken home by loved ones only to vanish days or weeks later. Some are found washed up on the banks of the river. I myself have seen a few in that lit city.
December 29, 2025 at 8:51 PM
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This field is where we all died.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows a faded, black and white photo of a landscape that seems barren and covered in scrub grass. The top of a cliff seems to be at the bottom, and low, rolling hills lead up to the horizon. White posts are stuck into the ground in a weaving line up from the left and to the center top. Text written in white on the photo says: Site where troop e skirmish line was annihilated. Horses and horse holders for troop c and d were trapped in deep ravine in foreground battlefield montana The back reads: This field is where we all died. I will tell you it was in my dream and you will discount it, but the dream was real and our deaths will be, too. White sticks were planted in the field, and when I approached I realized they were bones. They were spines, fused into immobile poles, each marking a death. So many spines, and so many deaths, even though it is just you and I who died, who will die, who have already died. The two of us are sewn into the seams of linear time, holding it together for all, each stitch another body of ours laid to rest.
December 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
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All of the rest of the world was drowned.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows a beach with the water to the left side and the forest to the right. A few people stroll along the beach and there are umbrellas and tables in the distance, as well as a few boats close to shore. Closest are the stump and other remains of a palm tree. The back reads: All of the rest of the world was drowned, the island the last place above water. It was a big island, and yet still most of the population of the world had drowned trying to reach it or waiting to be admitted to the island. There was only so much room and the most insistent, the rich, were the first to arrive and the first to be refused. They'd had so much of the old world tight in their grasping hands, and what use had that wealth been, what use for it now that nothing could be bought? All the artisans and engineers and poets crowded the shores, and the rich were left to rot.
December 27, 2025 at 3:46 PM
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Who cursed him? And why does it give me such pleasure to sit and watch?
A postcard, front and back. The front shows a picture of Paris down La rue Royale from to the side of the street facing what looks like a museum. Cars are parked along the side and driving down the road. People are eating food on a streetside cafe. And one man stands just beyond the parked cars, looking as though he is about to cross the street. The back reads: The man in the street prepares to cross the cobblestone road. This happens every day. And every day the old men and women eat their lunch at the counter facing the road and watch him. I sit with them now, even though I am not old and I am not hungry. The man is tentative where he stands, just beyond the line of curb-parked cars, always almost just stepping into the gaps in traffic. Except there is no gap, not today, just as some days there is no traffic. His actions are the same. The old men and women bet amongst themselves as to whether he'll make it across today. So far, he never has. Some days he gives up and some days he dies, but he always returns, and tries yet again. Who cursed him? And why does it give me such pleasure to sit and watch?
December 26, 2025 at 3:13 PM
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The Christmas little girl and the Christmas cat are at your door.
A postcard, front and back. The front is an old illustration of black on yellow with a little child holding a branch of something in front of an open door with a cat at their side. Above the picture it says Christmas and below it says Greetings. The back of the postcard reads: The Christmas little girl and the Christmas cat are at your door to wish you a Merry Christmas. Please, do not open the door unless you are certain you have been good. They are cute and friendly and very deadly to those undeserving, teeth and claws and fingernails strong and sharp. Keep the door closed no matter how cold it is outside, no matter how much they shiver. They will not die. They can not die. The holidays are littered with doorsteps now dressed in gore the color of mistletoe berries.
December 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
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His name was stricken from the record, all our knowledge of him erased not just from written history but from our collective memory.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows a sign with a background of trees as though posted in the middle of nowhere (though it is actually Uvalde, Texas). The sign has a drawn face at the top of it of an old man's head looking at the viewer. The sign reads Garner Museum Memorial Home of Former U.S. Vice President John N. Garner Open to the Public North 3 Blocks. The back of the postcard reads: Dear M, can you believe that even the employees of the Garner Museum don't know who Garner was? After his disastrous two-week stay in office, his name was stricken from the record, all our knowledge of him erased not just from written history but from our collective memory. What John Garner did was certainly deserving of such a punishment, we can only assume. And still this museum, where, upon entrance, all knowledge of Garner is held, in its absence, walls of blank portraits, unsigned documents, the signifier emptied out.
December 24, 2025 at 3:56 PM
andrewkozma.net
Another ironic example of when the US was used as a comparison for freedom vs authoritarian countries, also from the Zand book.
What is the difference between the Soviet Constitution and the American Constitution? The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of gathering. The American Constitution guarantees freedom after speech and freedom after gathering.
December 23, 2025 at 6:41 PM
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The US government is struggling to catch up to Soviet Russia. Here's a joke from POLITICAL JOKES OF LENINGRAD collected by Arie Zand in 1983.
At an international medical conference, a group of physicians shared their experiences informally between the delivery of scholarly papers. A French physician lamented: "Our problem is that we successfully treat a patient's rheumatism, yet he dies from cancer." A Canadian physician agreed: "The same thing happens in our practice. We treat a man of jaundice, but he dies of a heart attack." A Russian physicians angrily interjects: "Everything that you say is nothing but bourgeois ambivalence. We, in the Soviet Union, treat our patients, say, from pneumonia, and I can assure you that they die from pneumonia."
December 23, 2025 at 6:30 PM
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There was no treasure on Treasure Island, the locals said.
A postcard, front and back. The front is a picture of an island in the middle of what appears to be a lake. The picture is in black and white, taken from one shore and looking over a veil of trees. The island is a hump covered in trees. On the horizon is another coastline. The back reads: There was no treasure on Treasure Island, the locals said. They said the island itself was the treasure, and yet that didn't stop the treasure hunters. Though the locals invited them in openly--their money was a boost to the local economy--the hunters often snuck onto the island at night, believing the locals purposely deceitful. Yet the locals were only telling the truth. There was no treasure on the island because they'd removed it themselves long ago. The island was the treasure because it turned those sneaking hunters to profit, transforming their trapped bones to pure gold.
December 23, 2025 at 3:10 PM
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We can be modified with simply a glance at the wrong thing.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows two pictures in front of a light blue background over the words Fairbanks, Alaska. The right pictures is of a statue in the middle of a flower bed with a person looking at it from the flower bed. The left picture is of a column that reads Welcome to Fairbanks the Golden Heart City. The back of the postcard reads: Dear S, we hide our faces here not because of who we are, but because of what we might see if we left our eyes unblindered. It is a strange land I find myself in, a strange land I now call home, if only since I can't imagine readjusting to the life you call normal. The thing is, I never realized how much there is to see, that we are FORCED to see, our eyes pumped full of so much information we have no control over and no way to verify. Just as a computer can ingest a virus simply by opening up a PDF or a phone can be infected by scanning a QR code, we can be modified simply with a glance at the wrong thing, an object or image designed to hijack our minds. I write this through a careful window of vision. I have forgotten what you look like but don't dare chancing your picture. Safe in darkness, ~A
December 22, 2025 at 6:37 PM
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We built the country for the oil.
A postcard, front and back. The front is a picture of a forested wilderness with mountains rising in the distance. Running through the picture is an oil pipeline right along a road, a giant metal worm-like structure cutting through the otherwise empty wilderness. Along the top the picture is labeled Alaska. The back reads: We built the country for the oil. We established laws for the concept of supply and demand. We paved roads for the pipeline. We let the trees establish a border so the pipeline did not have to see those that protested its existence. We gave the pipeline AI so it could voice both its thanks and its discontents. We believed oil was what the pipeline was transporting, but none of us could recall the last time we saw oil or even a gas station with a ready supply. Highways grew into graveyards, all the cars abandoned where they'd died and left to rust into benevolence. We'd thought we'd built the country for oil, but maybe we were wrong. We put our ears to the pipeline and it was warm as breath. From inside we thought we heard something, something like screaming, but it was too late, we admitted.
December 21, 2025 at 5:44 PM
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(the bride's body caught on a rock or current or drawn into an underground stream)
A postcard, front and back. The front shows the Bridal Veil Falls in Telluride, Colorado. A large waterfall pours out of a solid rock face with a building on the cliff above it and forest-covered mountains rising further up, and forested slopes angling down toward where the water falls. Text along the bottom reads Bridal Veil Falls, Telluride. The back reads: The old tradition of removing the bridal veil has been discontinued. It was fun and exciting, yes, but there were several injuries and several more disappearances which could either be because of death by drowning (the bride's body caught on a rock or current or drawn into an underground stream) or runaway bride syndrome, which is simply another kind of death. In this tradition, after the vows, the bride would jump from the top of the falls and, mid-descent, would rip the veil from her face, revealing herself fully to her husband/wife and the entire wedding party. And many a time it was revealed that the bride was not the woman everyone supposed, but it was too late, the leap had been taken. Sometimes, the revelation made, the husband/wife would follow, letting fate determine their fate.
December 20, 2025 at 5:15 PM
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Apparent AI 2026 art calendar for sale in Barnes & Noble.
A calendar titled authors and cats with a sepia-toned drawing of Mark Twain and a cat with a book that looks AI generated. A 2026 wall calendar with 12 images of authors and cats that appear to be AI generated.
December 20, 2025 at 4:58 PM
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Do not go to the fountain for answers.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows a statue in the middle of a large pool that I assume is a fountain. The photo is in black and white and beyond the edges of the pool/fountain are people walking through a park with trees and two tall pillars in the distance. This is in Paris en flanant place de la nation (according to the back). The back reads: Do not go to the fountain for answers. Do not pose your questions to the statues crawling over themselves on their island in the middle of the fountain, that pedestal of concrete they've been exiled to. The fountain is in the city center and many use that public square for exercise or to eat their lunch and you have undoubtedly heard the statues then, the way they exhort those around them to ask a question, just one question, please. The first thing is that the statues take payment for every answer, and that payment could be a coin or it could be your ear. The second thing is that the statues tell the truth, yes, but they make the truth true. You must not trust them.
December 18, 2025 at 5:45 PM
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The snow was pink. No one would admit it was because of the blood.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows a mountain covered in snow rising up from foothills covered in pine trees. The light is purple-pink. Text along the bottom of the postcard says Mount Hood. The back reads: The snow was pink. No one would admit it was because of the blood. When the government began asking for volunteers to climb the mountain a few years ago, they claimed it was to keep the trails clear and trigger obvious avalanches. Many volunteered because we are a people who care about our environment. Many never came back from the mountain. When people stopped volunteering, lots were drawn. The military and the police collected those unwillingly "volunteered" and drove them to the mountain, forced them up the slopes at gun point. There were no screams. Those responsible could tell themselves it was painless and their sacrifice was surely worth it. The mountain was quiet. Its slopes blushed deeper and deeper. It would all be okay.
December 17, 2025 at 11:48 PM
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You may! (This is not after The Incident.)
A tiny black cat curled up in a lap with the edge of her face visible.
December 16, 2025 at 10:58 PM
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What really brings out the flavor of the fish is just to set that shit on fire.
A postcard, front and back. The front is an ad for a fish boil in Door County, Wisconsin (as shown by large text on the right side of the card read: Fish Boil - Door County Wisconsin. On the left side of the postcard are three pictures. One is of a boiling cauldron over a bunch of burning logs, the water white and frothy so you can't tell what's inside. Another shows two men in white shirts and jeans carrying the cauldron from the fire. The last shows the cauldron entirely bathed in flame. The back reads: Sure, boil the fish. Saute the fish. Fry the fish, even, but what really brings out the flavor of the fish is just to set that shit on fire. This is why water/fire was invented. Just one tablet in up to fifty gallons of water, one lit match, and BLAMMO the water is gone in one fell swoop and the fish has been flash-cooked to perfection, skin crispy, flesh tender, and tasting clean as if burned through on logs of air. This will be the cooking of the future. No reliance on fossil fuels or batteries or the fickle whims of nature. All you need is water, and you better have that if you want to live anyway! A joke, but in dire circumstances blood serves, too.
December 16, 2025 at 3:13 PM
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No one warned the tourists that it was the river that walked.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows the San Antonio Riverwalk at night, the photo taken from above the river, maybe over a bridge, so that the river centers the picture as it flows away. The trees are covered with lights, as though decorated for Christmas. The sky is a dusky rose as though the sun is just setting. The back reads: No one warned the tourists that it was the river that walked. Sure, there was a walkway along either side of the river, lined with restaurants and bars and shops, but the walking river was the real draw. Or, more exactly, the walking river was why residents wanted to draw tourists to the riverwalk. The river walked. The river stalked. Locals drank coffee riverside and eyed the swells of the river that kept pace with out-of-town visitors. So many people come to San Antonio, and so many people walked the river, and so many people, late at night, drunk off their asses, fell into that river, and so many people climbed back out that it was easy to overlook the few who didn't. In the midst of the happy crowds there were always people with tear-stained faces, inconsolable, until, they, too, found the river.
December 15, 2025 at 3:08 PM
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The horse had two legs. It had only two legs. The CEO of Horses R Us told us this was the next big thing.
A postcard, front and back. The front is a pictures of a young horse sitting on the grass so only its front two legs are visible. The pictures is in an oval frame with the the rest of the postcard having a brown background with Corolla written across the top. The back reads: The horse had two legs. It had only two legs. The CEO of Horses R Us told us this was the next big thing. Two legs are hot! Every animal's doing it! In fact the majority of animals in the world walked on two legs! Tom from accounting pointed out this was simply because humans had wiped out most other animals. The CEO thanked Tom for his input and then fired him. Uniformed guards removed Tom while the rest of us tried to concentrate on what the CEO was saying. Turned out, it was nothing that important. A spotlight shone on the two-legged horse. Slowly, awkwardly, painfully, it stood and we clapped, clapped as it fell over, such a miracle, a miracle.
December 11, 2025 at 3:38 PM
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The store was in the middle of nowhere.
A postcard, front and back. The front is a picture of a two-story building with a low-angle peak with letters over the front door that read Honolua Store. The building is dark brown and the roof was red, but is mostly stained brown. A large tree hugs the left side of the building, with more trees and hills in the distance. A verdant green lawn fronts it, no signs of cars, streets, or people. Text in the bottom right under a stylized butterfly reads Kapalua Maui. The back reads: The store was in the middle of nowhere. It was a general store, without even gas pumps to excuse its absence from a town. It had a parking lot, yes, boy it had a parking lot as big as a football field and not a car to be seen on it. Who worked in the store? Why didn't they have a car? Was there a separate employee parking lot? How could the store even justify itself? The building wasn't gigantic, but it wasn't a corner store. Think of a Trader Joe's tucked into a strip mall, minus the strip mall. Aisles and aisles of groceries. A full-blown freezer aisle. A butcher counter already stocked with meat. Walk up to the windows of the store and you'll see happy faces inside under warm lights and shelves that are full to bursting with all the goods you need, all the things you want. The store is here for you. Park your car. Go inside. Buy. Eat. Be consumed.
December 10, 2025 at 4:57 PM
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Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
A pencil dripping blood against a black background with text in white reading Write a horror story using only 3 words
December 9, 2025 at 9:49 PM
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When the water finally rose, it was sudden and inconsolable.
A postcard, front and back. The front is a picture of a man and child in an inflatable boat paddling through white water on a river. A label in the lower right reads White Water Rafting. The back reads: When the water finally rose, it was sudden and inconsolable. The ocean was crying and I found myself crying with it, no matter that I'd never cared about climate change before, couldn't give a damn whether dolphins were caught along with the tuna I craved. The water was at my doorstep, a glassy plane of it flatting out the driveway into the sidewalk into the street as if every house was floating just barely by the grace of god. When the house down the street vanished, dropping straight down into the water and leaving barely a ripple in its wake, I cried again. Not because I knew those people, but because I felt what was going on in my heart. The ocean didn't want to swallow us up. We'd forced its hand. This was for our own good.
December 9, 2025 at 3:35 PM
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When the president claimed he could trap the ocean inside our local mountain range, no one believed him.
A postcard, front and back. The front shows a pair of boats in what appears to be an enclosed body of water trapped between steep mountain walls. The photo is taken from up the side of one of those mountains, in a cleft that looks down on a town that rests on the edge of the water. The green is vibrant and it must be spring. The back reads: When the president claimed he could trap the ocean inside our local mountain range, no one believed him, of course. No one even considered asking why anyone would want to trap the ocean, much less a country that already had command over the seas with its navy, both merchant and military. And yet, despite no one except the president expressing any desire whatsoever to "trap the ocean," the ocean was trapped. The water and all that lived or floated inside it vanished only to be, so the president claimed, enclosed within the mountains, filling a valley that had been, up until that point, dry except for the smallest stream. Now the water rose a third of the way up the valley's walls, though that was still clearly not enough volume to contain the entire ocean. "Ah, but how deep does it go?" the president countered. Those dark, salty waters were never plumbed. For years, dead things kept floating to the surface.
December 8, 2025 at 3:19 PM