Some girls walk into the country they are from

GIRL SOUP I get tired of being the one to make all the decisions so when they ask me where I want to eat, I say that I don't care, I'd eat anything at this point. Next thing I know, I am face to face with a bowl of Girl Soup and I just can't bring myself. Some of us at the table are in a hurry to eat the soup, they are specifically trying to eat the girls quickly because they seem to know that if you wait too long they turn into cyborgs or robots, and those are harder to chew. I can see that some of the girls are still alive and perhaps would like to be extracted from the soup, but when I squint I see that there are girls all over the floor with varying amounts of soup clinging to their clothes (you didn't think they were naked, did you?) and so there goes that idea. Just at the moment I think I am running out of options, something comes over me and I take a deep breath and I do it, I jump right in there, that bowl of Girl Soup, no one is checking IDs or questioning my size or gender or race or voter affiliation, and I quick round up all the girls in the bowl into a large huddle. We have now obliterated two major problems: huddled together we are too large to eat, and also we've taken care of the problem of the eater. Excerpted from Some Girls Walk into the Country They Are From by Sawako Nakayasu All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.