The Missingest Man in America
The man—erect with a mane of white hair and yachtsman's deep tan—must
be a professor. This man was a gift and gifts were doubtful. “You are
the Devil, then.” Sister Joyful stood her ground. “Satan?”
“I am Joseph Force Crater; I am a judge of the New York State Supreme
Court. I am not the Adversary. Your chastity is safe with me; I am a
Democrat.”
|
Magnetic Betty
Betty explained the problem. “And so you see, things fly
through the air and stick to me when I walk by. None of my friends mothers
will let them play with me.”
“A tricky business,” replied Dolby Jenks, World’s Champion Detective.
“Not my field, I’m afraid, Betty. I would suggest that you find different
friends with different mothers.”
“Browntown is very small, Mr. Jenks,” Betty said. “Everyone knows me.”
|
The Last Teddy BearThe
Bayberry Bear arrived before the baby. Frankie and Steve named Young
Henry’s new teddy-to-be Gandolfini after an actor in their favorite
television show, The Sopranos. The teddy bear, Gandolfini, came in the
mail toward the end of Frankies third trimester.
“Tony Soprano is the definitive alpha male,” said Steve Jelinek, his
hand in a bag of taco chips.
|
The Tirewoman Gabriel
“She’ll be back healthy as a horse and rosy as a pippin.”
Sylvia really says this. She means my wife. Horses and apples speak
of health. Sylvia’s veiled promise and Helens distant death are not
to be spoken of.
“...and there are these injections I hear about...” She means antibiotics.
Streptomycin and mountain air. If Helen were tubercular and gone for
the cure, they would have had her back in six months.
|
The Beewolf
The tall, yellow-robed insect's breath wreathed him in a
juniper miasma of trade gin and cloves. “Help two poor wanderers on
their way. All donations are receipted and deductible.” The beewolf
flourished a portable calculator from which dangled a beribboned notary’s
seal. “We seek the forgotten quest.”
“You are talking to a gum machine,” observed his human companion.
|
The Moose in the Noösphere
Ben Neptune saved his potato water; there was no waste in
Ben’s house. Fingers of frost had joined in a tight interlacing across
the surface of the stewpot. Even in death, Ben looked to the future;
he had frozen with his potato water close at hand.
“Had he been depressed?” they would ask. Depression, suicide resulting,
would appear on the coroner’s report. Case closed.
|
The Return of the Orange Virgin
The stone heads—Cow, Goat and Manticore—were malign at first
glance, the distillation of a dead craftsman’s nightsweats and horrors.
The Orange Virgin rose and transferred a kiss from her fingertips.
“Fare-thee-well, friends. Keep my secrets. We go to perform great works.”
Goat’s lugubrious striped vanilla tongue lay across the floor; the Cow’s
blind eyes stared at nothing.
|
E Pluribus Human“YO, BABE!”
A man’s voice blared at Grenadine McKenzie, “SURPRISE, YOU’RE PREGNANT.”
A craggy male face bloomed before her.
The face was a hero’s face, Lance Davenport from Rights of Spring. There
was an odor of patchouli.
|
The Francher
An odor of mint attracted the francher to an unpromising
patch of brown scrub. It spread its fetlocks, a legacy of embedded Przewalski
horse genes, and arched its neck down to feed. It munched contentedly
for some minutes then collapsed. The francher’s nostrils flared as it
gulped at the thin unsatisfying air.
Under the brilliant glare of the high, dry sun its knee joints cracked,
emitting soft popping sounds. An Andean vulture circled closer.
|
