Scope Virgin

The woman at the far end of the kaleidoscope

had not been there last week, of this Simon was sure. She was naked or near enough, thinly dressed in a diaphanous veil that left little to the imagination.

“Holy shit!” Simon Alexander breathed on the lens and gave it a wipe with his sleeve.

“I see that I have your attention...” said the woman, “...finally.”

With a furtive glance to see if there was anyone watching, Simon took a closer look.

“You are carrying a beer and a bag of Cheetos,” said the woman. She strode toward the kaleidoscope’s eye-piece, shedding blue veils one by one. “I’d like a beer, too. But you will have to get me out of this thing first, I think.”

“You are the Virgin Mary,” said Simon, who watched TV shows on unexplained phenomena.

“Perhaps. I might also be a bird of ill omen, a carrion crow. Or a butterfly. Whatever. I am celebrated for my hijinks and practical jokes; appearances can be deceiving, howsomever. Only last week I appeared covering the entire leeward face of a mountain in Brazil,” she said. “Thousands came to see the miracle. Many died, trampled in the rush. Compare to this the incongruity of a grown man hiding out behind the garage with a kaleidoscope and a six-pack.”

The kaleidoscope was Simon’s secret—after forty-three years of marriage his only secret. Its twisted barber pole spirals of colored metal foil pasted with stars and crescent moons reflected Mylar purples that shone like the sunglasses of a state trooper. Simon kept the kaleidoscope hidden under the eaves at the back of the garage. He had been temporarily banished from the house while Bonnie spread quilt patterns over all available surfaces. Beer and Cheetos were forbidden inside the house.

“Is this contraption yours?” said the woman. She was surrounded by a pale blue aura. “Good luck for you that I showed up in a portable apparatus.”

“Then you are not the Virgin Mary.” Cellophane crinkled as Simon reached into the bag which he had retrieved from under the front seat of the family sedan. Dinner was hours away.

“You were expecting someone else?”