Paige Eaton

Earth Update:

Rivers flow faster if given coffee. [1]

Rivers of coffee flow faster if given cyanide.

Cyanide has been nerfed by 50%.

You can now poison your friends with apple-cores.

Apple-cores are now sold at circuses.

Circuses are now spawnable in packs of five.

Five clowns make a murder.

Temporarily removed insects.

Silence has been increased 40%.

The uncanny has become the recognizable.

Fields have become mass graves paved over with life.

Flowers have grown legs and can have sex to reproduce.

Grapes are now the food for the gods.

Insects have been returned and the world

caved under their collective weight.

First graders have been removed.

Screaming is punishable by death.

If you scream while dying we will kill you again

in a hail of bullets, the only way you are permitted to

die here. [Update retracted as it is not an update].

Second graders pop out of the ground like gnomes.

Gnomes have started showing up to the school in

droves demanding an education too.

Schools have become clouds.

Clouds have been removed.

Shower buff; showers now warm up 12% faster

Ice pellets rain clinking

Tubes of water pressure drain into the lungs.

Crabs now have the ability to run at 50 MPH

Crab legs are now 90% more likely to dance in the mouth.

Fish now spit angry words at their predators.

Humans are now the prey to fish.

The ocean biomes have been nerfed by 50%.

The sleep paralysis demon can now speak

[1] The Earth Updates Twitter account demands rights to all italicized suggestions.

---

Paige Eaton is a recent graduate of Hartwick College, with a Bachelors of Art in History. She is originally from Rochester, NY. Her recent work focuses on surreal and dream-like experiences. Her work has appeared in Word of Mouth, Dark Entries, and her poem, “The Itaewon Tragedy was a Pentadecagon,” won honorable mention for the 2023 Anna Sonder Prize for Poetry.