‘Carnivores’
— Reneé Bibby
This story is not what you think it is, and that’s what makes it a marvel. In the span of a few paragraphs, Skinner spins a family drama that is saved from being cripplingly maudlin by the charm of the narrator—a Venus Flytrap. A home-office plant, whose sole flora companion is a spider plant, the flytrap proves to be a sympathetic, unreliable narrator watching the family grief unfold. While the family flounders in their sadness, the flytrap is exactly what we need—a keen perspective that shows us the merit of cheering, of hoping for a happy outcome.