How to Make Leftover Cupcake Stew for Your Redneck In-Laws on Your 10th Wedding Anniversary

By Tom Walsh / Issue 18

1. Gather the cupcakes you saved over the last ten years.

- Four vanilla creams from your wedding, the first time Bill’s brother Todd tried mashing his tongue down your throat, until you kneed him in the balls.

- Five red velvets from the Thanksgiving at which Bill’s sister Janice collapsed in a meth-induced seizure, knocking the sausage- and chestnut-stuffed turkey into the kitty litter box.

- Six rainbow cupcakes from your brother’s memorial, the ones that everyone refused to eat after Bill’s brother, the Mayor, called them “faggot flags.”

- Nine of last year’s eggnog-latte specials, which Bill’s father said tasted like “skunk piss that’s set out too long” just before he knocked your mother-in-law’s tooth into the Christmas punch.

2. Crumble cupcakes in bowl.

3. Use stiff brush to mix, lightly, with three cans of Bud (not Light).

4. Distribute mixture into ramekins.

5. Heat in microwave.

6. Serve with divorce papers.

7. Slip away to Vegas with Alice, the baker who’s been your frosting all these years.

TOM WALSH writes from northern California. His flash fiction stories are in or forthcoming in Hobart, Lost Balloon, JMWW, Janus Literary, Dead Skunk, The Cabinet of Heed, The Birdseed, and elsewhere. He is an assistant editor at Flash Fiction Online.