By Vin Berardi
It was closing time, and Monty sighed.
He waved goodbye to the last customer of the night, then followed him to the door and locked up after he left. Monty went back behind the counter. Sighed again.
Opening the rear panel of the dipping cabinet, the seventeen-year-old reached in, and began to remove the three-gallon tubs, visible through the glass on the opposite side. He could see his breath when his head was in here, and sometimes it felt like a guillotine.
It was awkward, heavy work. The sticky tubs were usually kept pretty full, and looked anything but appetising to Monty. It doesn’t take too long to start hating ice cream when you’re elbow-deep in the fuckery.
One of them was stuck. Of course it was. Monty climbed a little further inside. He just had to pick a job that depended upon his good humour. What a joke.
“Goddamn you, c’mon!” He wiggled the tub back and forth to free it from the ice.
“Have a little respect, asshole.”
“Huh, who said that?” Monty asked, spinning around to find the voice.
“I did. You don’t need to look behind you. I’m right in your fucking face, bro.”
Monty had heard of this kind of thing happening to other people, but it was new to him.
“Who is that?”
“It’s the vanilla.”
“The vanilla?”
“The tub to your left.”
Monty turned to face the tub of ice cream.
“Yeah, me,” the ice cream said, its voice as loud as if a person were standing there.
“The fucking ice cream…”
“YEAH, THE FUCKING ICE CREAM.”
“Don’t shout at me,” Monty whispered fiercely. “Don’t you know what I can do to you?”
“Go ahead! Melt me. You’d be doing me a favour. It would be better than what you’ve been doing to me.”
“Eating you?”
“It’s not the eating I mind so much as being torn apart piece by piece, scoop by scoop, while listening to you talk cute with the moms and flirt with their daughters.”
“It’s a job.”
“And it’s my life.” He paused. “For now.” The vanilla cleared its…throat? Whatever. “All I’m asking is that you show us a little more respect.”
“Respect.” Monty glared hard at the three-gallon tub. “You’re an Inanimate, aren’t you?”
“Look at this fucking genius,” said the ice cream to no one in particular. Or maybe to someone else. Monty didn’t know. “Yeah, I’m one of them. You never talked to one of us before?”
“No, I mean, not me. But my mom’s friend has this ongoing, um, dialogue? With her hairdryer. And there are people on the news every night talking about a tree that said this, a couch that said that.”
“Well congratulations, Dip. You just joined the grown-up table.”
“My name is Monty.”
“And I’m fucking ice cream. I assume I was something different at one time, but who knows?”
“On the news, they say that you guys mostly…well…”
“What?”
“Scream.”
“Do you blame us? I woke up one day and this was my form. No explanation. No history. I wanted to scream at first. But, I don’t know, something about being here calmed me down. So I listened. For a while now. Nobody eats vanilla anymore.”
“The people on the news are saying that people are just hearing things. That, like, a lot of people are having the same delusions.”
“You crazy?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So?”
“So my mom is saying that her pastor says it’s proof of a soul. That everything has a soul.”
“Eh. Sounds like bullshit to me.”
“So you don’t know?”
“No. But I speak English, obviously. And I know the world. So I’m pretty confident I wasn’t born in this tub.”
“You’re sort of a dick.”
Monty started laughing and damn it if the tub of vanilla didn’t join him. They both had a good laugh. The ice cream spoke up first.
“They call us Inanimates?”
“Yeah. It’s happening more and more, so the Internet had to give it a name. And…” Monty stopped, uncertain of how far to go.
“And what?”
“People are scared. You guys are, uh, telling people to do certain things.”
“Like what?”
“Bad things. And some people are listening.”
“Can’t help but listen when someone is talking to you.”
There was a long uncomfortable silence as Monty looked around the room. He gathered his courage.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I can’t stop you.”
“Are you the only one here? Are the other flavours…”
The vanilla ice cream chuckled. “Inanimates? Sure. We all are. Me and Chocolate are locked in an eternal power struggle, and the Butter Pecan is a nagging old lady.”
“Really?”
“NO, you fucking moron. There isn’t a civil war raging inside this ice cream parlour. Look, if any of the rest of them are like me, they’re not saying anything.” He paused. “No, I think it’s just me.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” mocked the ice cream.
“So what do I do?”
“Well, as I see it, you have a few choices. Call the news — maybe make a viral video. You could put me in the sink, run some hot water and pretend this never happened, or…we could just continue talking.”
“About what?”
“Oh, I’ll think of something.”
About the Author
Vin Berardi is a NYC-based writer specializing in dark, strange, and comic pieces — often at the same time.
An acting teacher for 30 years, he hosts The Trilogy Podcast, has a wife named Amy, and a dog named Louise.
His work, first submitted for publication in 2026, has appeared or is forthcoming in San Antonio Review, Emerge, Mulberry Lit, The Apostrophe, DarkWinter, Wild Siren, Rue Scribe, and elsewhere.
Emma Louise Gill (she/her) is a British-Australian spec fic writer and consumer of vast amounts of coffee. Brought up on a diet of English lit, she rebelled and now spends her time writing explosive space opera and other fantastical things in
Tim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.
Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Geraldine Borella writes fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her work has been published by Deadset Press, IFWG Publishing, Wombat Books/Rhiza Edge, AHWA/Midnight Echo, Antipodean SF, Shacklebound Books, Black Ink Fiction, Paramour Ink Fiction, House of Loki and Raven & Drake
Ed lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.
Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which has appeared in Cordite, Be:longing, Baby Teeth and Islet, among other places.
Tom Wrosch is a retired policy analyst with the State of Oregon, and resides with his wife in Salem.
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
Sarah Jane Justice is an Adelaide-based fiction writer, poet, musician and spoken word artist.
James Walton was a librarian, a farm labourer, and mostly a public sector union official.
Brian Biswas lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
My time at Nambucca Valley Community Radio began back in 2016 after moving into the area from Sydney.