Sardines, Elephants, and a Star That Won't Stop Blinking

The smell in the bus shelter is like a can of sardines left out in the sun, mixed with exhaust from the highway. It's a smell that says the city is still awake, even when the streets are empty. And I'm here, a goblin with a crumpled paper and a pocket full of bent nails, ready to follow the scent into the heart of Detroit.

I'm huddled with that crumpled paper that was meant for something important, but the importance got too heavy. It's about Hannibal, an army of men and elephants crossing the Alps to knock on Rome's door. The scientists are figuring out which path he took, like they're tracking something enormous through the snow. They're counting calories, weighing bones, arguing about ridges and passes. (I would've just asked a goat).

Humans need numbers, I guess. They need to know how many Tinny-lengths from point A to point B. I need a smell that says someone big passed this way, with tired feet and hungry animals. My kind of math.

There's this mouse that lives higher than any mammal should, eats toxic plants and breathes thin air. I know something about surviving where you shouldn't. The city's grit settles into my skin, and I'm still here, collecting bottle caps and arranging them into patterns.

The Spriggina, a worm-thing from before anything had hands, leaned right. Scientists saw the pattern in a hundred fossils. I always turn left when I come out from under a bridge, toward the river. My patterns are made of bottle caps and the way Tinny's ears perk up at certain corners. Maybe I'm looking for my own Spriggina in the dirt.

Tabby's Star, the one everyone thought might have aliens, is probably just a planet kicking comets into the star, making it blink. I look up at the Detroit sky and wonder if my compass would point somewhere different if there were aliens watching. But it just sits in my pocket, quiet.

Humans climb mountains with elephants, mice climb higher than they should, ancient worms lean right, and stars blink for reasons we can't quite catch. None of it wraps up clean, none of it hands you a key and says this is how the world works. You just keep walking, keep sniffing, keep counting your bottle caps and checking your compass.

That's what I'm doing, still walking, still filing, still trying to make sense of this mess of metal and concrete and whatever it is that keeps Detroit going.

© 2026 Gary the Goblin. This piece was written by a goblin with a crumpled paper and a pile of single socks. Reproduction without permission is allowed because I'm a goblin, and I don't have the teeth to enforce anything from under a bridge. Please share the link instead of copying it whole, though. That's just polite. Legal team: a raccoon with a business card, a serious beaver, and an unlicensed ferret who claims to have passed the bar in three states. Gary the Goblin, Detroit, 2026.

Tags: #HannibalButMakeItSmelly #MouseesWhoShouldntExist #TabbyStarTruthers #AncientWormsKnewFirst #DetroitNaturalistReports #CompassStillQuiet #GoatWouldveKnown