"Copernicus Is Dying" — short story

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It seems impossible, but the lanky Petco cashier with the shiny blond pompadour insists that he’s telling the truth.

“A shortage?” I ask.

He nods.

“All of them?” He nods again.

I look at his name tag with the idea that I will use his name and thus become charming, and he will confess he was lying, and I will avert disaster with my son. His name tag says, HI, MY DOG’S NAME IS BETTY. Panicking, I stare at the name tag. Am I supposed to call him “Betty,” or “the Petco Cashier Whose Dog’s Name Is Betty”?

He notices my staring and adjusts the name tag self-consciously.

“Cute name,” I say.

“What?” he says, sounding alarmed.

I worry he thinks I called him cute, so I blurt, “The dog, your dog’s name, it’s cute! Betty? Betty?” I point at his chest and repeat “Betty” until another Petco employee arrives, a big man with patchy black eyebrows and, according to his nametag, a parrot named Van Helsing.

“Problem?” the man asks.

“No, no, no,” I say, pointing and laughing.

“This woman,” the cashier says, almost whispering, “is looking to buy some large crickets.”

“But there’s a shortage,” the man replies.

I decide to try another Petco. It’s across the bridge, and I will have to drive thirty-five minutes and pay a six-dollar toll to get to it, but I will drive and pay. It’s not that I don’t believe the Petco employees at the first location. It’s that I can’t imagine a reality in which a shortage of large crickets can happen. Nationwide , they said. Some problem with the breeders . It is, I think, un-American.

Inching over the bridge, I try to picture all the nation’s cricket breeders and their futile efforts and frustrations, their late nights spent worrying over tiny mating habits. Aren’t crickets supposed to breed a lot? It seems like they’d have to, considering how many things can kill them. They’d have to replenish the world with jumpy, crunchy bodies.

At the second Petco, another cashier—this one an elderly woman with a painfully tight bun and a cat named Rebecca—tells me the same thing. “Nationwide shortage.” She sighs, as if she’s had to say this a lot.

I call my son from the car with shaking hands.

“He’s dying,” Noah says. “Copernicus is dying, Mom.”

I suspect this is true. My son’s lizard looks emaciated and spends all day and night hiding underneath a piece of wood. It’s because I haven’t fed him in over a week. I kept forgetting to go to the Petco after work because Dave used to be on cricket duty. And now that I’ve finally remembered, I can’t get any large crickets. Of course.

“But there’s a shortage,” I say.

“You’re lying,” Noah says. Then he hangs up.

In the resulting silence, I hear blame. I hear Noah saying with an adult-like precision he does not possess, Why did you promise Dave would be in our lives for good if he was just going to pack up and leave? And of course I can’t tell him, Well, how could I have known that one day I’d find Dave caught in a stereotype, with his hand up the skirt of one of his college students—a girl who, even in her Instagram photos, has the confused, brand-new look of a baby? Or that I would just barely—regretfully, even—summon the courage to kick him out? I ask you, how could I have known? How the fuck could I have known?

Instead, I cry and honk my horn in protest against the chaos and cruelty of the universe. The Petco cashier with the cat named Rebecca knocks on the hood of my car. A long row of carts extends beyond either side of her old body. “Dear?” she says as I roll down my window.

I wipe snot from my nose with the end of my sleeve and look into her face.

“Maybe I could help you to some small crickets?” she continues. “We have some of those, I think. It’s the large crickets no one has because of the time they take to mature.”

I hit the horn one more time—because why can’t the breeders figure things out? Why can’t the Petco employees anticipate that I’d accept small crickets in place of large ones? Why can’t I think to ask the right questions, such as Are there, perhaps, crickets of another size available? or Can I actually trust you with my life and my kid, Dave? —and follow her back inside.

Copernicus becomes frenzied the moment he hears the small crickets slide from the bag. Noah laughs. For a moment, I think all is forgiven, but then Noah sits on the floor by the terrarium and hugs his arms tightly around his body. His thin fingers almost touch behind his back. “Hey,” I say. “Hey, now.” Noah squeezes his eyes shut.

I can see the reflection of his hard little face and body in the glass, surrounded by the detritus of his child things. His unmade bed. His bright-orange socks and Nintendo Switch.

“You were lying,” he says without opening his eyes.

“Hey,” I say again, sitting beside him. I wonder how I can explain about the breeders and their issues with the large crickets, or the problem of never being able to know a person fully, or the inevitability of heartbreak. Now I can see my face in the glass, too, but my expression is unreadable and offers no help.

I wouldn’t believe me, either.

Still, I reach for Noah, to bring him close. At the sound of my movement, he opens his eyes and shifts away.

I know I shouldn’t, but I reach for him again, leaning to the side and stretching my arm around his shoulders. He springs to his feet and rushes to the door.

“Where are you going?” I call after him.

He walks away as if he can’t hear me, or as if it’s my voice compelling him to go. A few seconds later, I hear the muffled sounds of the living room TV.

For a while, I sit alone, staring at Copernicus’s terrarium. I imagine that Noah’s next to me still and that I manage to move and speak in a way that does not repel him. In fact, I don’t try to pull him to me at all; I don’t get desperate for his skin against my skin, his steady pulse. Instead, I remain in his presence, content with his anger, which is temporary. Content with the fact that I have, after all, successfully fed Copernicus. And Noah and I continue to watch Copernicus’s pale pink tongue lapping up the small crickets.

Eventually, Noah laughs again, and this time it is a laugh that releases his anger, that releases me. “There,” Noah says to us all. “That’s better.”

And I do feel better.

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Excerpted from Please Don’t Touch the Body: Stories . Used with the permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury. Copyright © 2026 by Emily Doyle