Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum

This is a partial transcript of the interrogation of Ahmed Almasri conducted by Sgt. Leigh Ann Simmons on December 26, 2025, three days after the liberation of Gaza, two weeks after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and three months after Greta Thunberg and her fellow humanitarians, aboard the Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship, Madleen, went missing after their third attempt to deliver food to the war-torn region.

Simmons – What can you tell us about the disappearance of the Madleen and its crew?

Almasri – The first thing you must understand is they treated us like animals… the Israelis… worse than animals. We were constantly being moved… pushed farther and farther away from our homes. We were trapped with no where to go. No food. No water. They wanted to watch us die slowly… to feed their hunger for revenge. And then a ship came in the night… like a gift from Allah.

Simmons – What happened next?

Almasri – We welcomed them into our arms and into our hearts. We treated them like family. We helped them unload their ship. They brought sacks of rice and formula for the babies. They were smiling… so happy. They wanted to help us… to feed us… to treat us kindly. It was a blessing. But it wasn’t enough.

Simmons – What wasn’t enough?

Almasri – The food. The kindness. I wasn’t enough to erase what we had been through. All the war… all the killing… the constant movement… it was like living in a kind of dream we couldn’t wake up from. Nothing seemed real.

Simmons – Where is Greta Thunberg and the crew of the Madleen?

Almasri – You have to understand… they were so clean… so pink. They smelled like the salt air of the open sea… not like the filth we wore day after day, our bodies caked with dirt and blood and feces…

Simmons – Where is Greta Thunberg and the crew of the Madleen?

Almasri – You have to understand… they brought food for hundreds… but there were thousands of us… crammed together… desperate… hungry… willing to do anything to feed our families…

Simmons – Where is Greta Thunberg?

Almasri – [silence, agitation]

Simmons – Where is Greta Thunberg!

Almasri – We ate them! All of them. It was madness… but it was also a blessing. Many more would have died if we hadn’t done what we did. We sank the ship and blamed it on the Israelis.

Simmons – And their bones? What did you do with their bones? They have families, too, who want to give their loved ones a proper burial.

Almasri – The bones? We ground them up to make our bread.

Simmons – Why? Why would you do that?

Almasri – Because. They were free. We wanted a taste of what that was like.

End transcript, December 26, 2025, U.S. Army Contingency Operating Base, Gaza City.

Hoarder Hook-up

The two met at six a.m.

while preparing to dive the same dumpster.

Instead of fighting over territory,

they decided to throw fingers for dibs.

She had feral eyes, so he let her win,

then threw out an invitation.

“I’ll let you see my collection,” he said,

“if you let me see yours.”

The glint in her eye was like cracked crystal.

“It’s a deal,” she said, “but you first.”

They couldn’t decide which night was best,

so they went to his place then and there.

It was your typical hoarder’s paradise,

a paint-chipped, two-story Victorian.

When he nudged open the door, her eyes grew wide

at the maze of junk that greeted her. 

It was like an all-you-can-eat buffet

to a three-hundred-pound foodie.

A pound of pure, uncut cocaine

to an 80s rock star fresh out of rehab.

She didn’t wait for him to close the door

before letting her hands go to work,

caressing his collection of mannequin parts

and probing bins full of rubber stoppers.

Jars full of twist ties, buttons, and bottle caps,

boxes of straws, napkins, and packets of ketchup.

She oohed and she ahhed and she rubbed this

and she rubbed that until she gasped.

His bed was a mountain of stuffed toys,

lost toys for lost boys and lost girls,

unicorns and dollies, monkeys and teddies

each dirty and torn and losing their stuffing.

It was here she fell in love without even a nudge,

and together they lay amid the debris,

a clutter much better than the collection of memories

each would rather forget.

The Hacktivist and the Feminazi

He hacked into her organization’s server,
she followed the bread crumbs and tracked him down.
He had long hair and weighed no more than a buck twenty,
she was thick and butch and wore a leather corset.

He was minding his own business at an internet cafe
when she stormed in, slammed his laptop shut, and said “Gotcha.”
He was about to plead the fifth when he noticed her dimples,
just above her corset and below her halter top.

She had dropped her cell phone and had bent to pick it up,
looking back now, he knew it must have been intentional.
He said, “Hey, Dimples, why don’t we work together?”
She took a seat and said, “I’m listening.”

He asked her what she did when she wasn’t feminazi-ing,
she asked him was he always this much of a dick.
They shared a plate of vegan hot sauced tofu bites,
and a large low-fat fair trade latte.

He had this plan for hacking the top one percent,
the corporate cream in need of a skim.
She suggested targeting known sexist CEOs
who settled lawsuits and had non-disclosure agreements.

He diverted funds into feminist non-profits
with a few keystrokes and some self-destruct code.
She thanked him by taking him to a hotel room
for a GMO-free wine toast and some S&M.

He should have known he was being used,
his ego hacked by the oldest trick in the book.
She was probably off with her feminazi girlfriends,
boy what he wouldn’t give to be a fly on that wall.

But he was stuck, ankles bound, handcuffed to the bed,
wearing nothing but shame and a ball-gag in his mouth.
Eventually the cleaning lady would let herself in,
but by then Dimples would be long gone.

Ogle

In this age of twist and toggle,

of zip and zap and zoom,

with flesh-on-flesh a risky dawdle

and no money or time to groom,

sex becomes a VR fingertip 

fist pump beatbox boom,

time zones zip codes sometimes

continents removed…  

But intimacy without its wiggle and wobble,

its mouth-agape hot breath shuffle,

its fumble and tumble,

its nibble and fondle,

is no intimacy at all but a romantasy,

a fancy ogle that conveniently keeps us apart.