TOADSGOBOAD: January 2008

Dallas Pimiento

Book Four, Bronco Fury

Sterile Aggregate Speaks for Patriarch

A gifted chancellor when properly medicated, Owen Wrister offhandedly announced at a cabinet meeting his intention never to sneeze again. Acknowledging the applause of his colleagues, Wrister continued.
“How’s that report on health food and vegetarian options in Germany coming along?” Wrister directed his question to Audi Nutmegs, the minister of such matters.
“Are you asking me?” Nutmegs asked.
“Yes, Mr. Nutmegs. I’m most interested in what your team has to say on the subject.” Wrister bounced his pen up and down on its clicker.
“Excuse me, chancellor,” begged Nutmegs, “But why did you tell us that stuff about intending never to sneeze again?”
Wrister turned his pen over and tapped the table with the operational end. “Well, I just thought that, as my colleagues, you should know about what’s going on in my life and the way my mind is working lately.”
“Ah, I see.” Nutmegs tilted his head back. “You want us to be watching for the first signs of insanity so that we may take appropriate action.”
“No, that’s not it.” Wrister shook his head.
“Well, don’t you think it’s a bit dodgy,” Nutmegs made a wavering motion with his hand. “To be so concerned about trying to stop oneself sneezing?”
“No, I don’t.” Wrister affirmed. “Not at all. I… Look here, Nutmegs, do you like sneezing?” Before Nutmegs could reply Wrister carried on. “Do you like having this completely unnecessary explosion of the mouth and nose come over you for no good reason? Don’t you find it a completely worthless experience?”
“I haven’t really given it any thought.” Admitted Nutmegs.
“Hmm.” Wrister stared hard at Nutmegs. “Haven’t given it any thought. I could have told you that without asking. I bet you’re still not done with that report, are you?”
“I’ve got the damn thing right here!” Nutmegs pulled a thick folder out of his case.
“That’s so like you.” Wrister paid Nutmegs no heed. “You’re not really paying attention, are you?”
“I’m paying attention to something right now.” Nutmegs assured him forcefully.
“I bet you didn’t even notice that I’m holding back a fart right now.” Wrister sneered.

Flower Lord Has Come to Feed

The Tall One emerged from the aircraft’s cargo hold tucking his cowboy-style shirt into his comfortable chinos without bothering himself about undoing his belt or fly first. He simply used his broad hands like spatulas, doing nearly as good a job as Sprint Tubnuts, who watched him emerging and tucking, could have done using the other method.
“You the Tall One?” Asked Tubnuts of the Tall One.
“That’s what they call me.” The Tall One replied. His voice was deep and creaky. He was dressed all in pale blue, like a prisoner of the state. On his head was a battered old hat that had many of the same features as a cowboy hat, but could in no way be mistaken for a cowboy hat.
“That a cowboy hat?” Tubnuts asked the Tall One as he accompanied him to the front of the aircraft.
“Hold that thought.” Said the Tall One. He leaned into the cockpit and spoke with the pilot. “I appreciate the lift.” He said.
“Anytime, Mike.” Tubnuts heard the pilot reply.
“Your name Mike?” Asked Tubnuts as he followed the Tall One across the tarmac.
“No.” The Tall One squinted at the makeshift terminal in the distance. Innumerable wrinkles, cut deep by the sun and the wind, surrounded his eyes.
“My name’s Sprint Tubnuts.” Tubnuts informed the Tall One matter-of-factly.
The Tall One glanced at Tubnuts. An observant man might have noted the slightest break in his stride.
“That a fact?” He said. “I knew somebody name of Tubnuts. Long time ago.” He added in a tone like that of a wheel at an abandoned mill shifted slightly by the breeze.
“Really?” Tubnuts’ eye was caught by the glint of metal at the Tall One’s wrist. “Who?”
The Tall One did not answer. He put his hand to the door of the terminal lounge and entered. He looked about for a moment as Tubnuts, momentarily forgotten, squeezed in behind him. He followed the Tall One’s gaze but saw nothing of interest, just the usual crowd of indifference.
“What you looking…” Tubnuts began to speak, but was cut off by the Tall One’s hand suddenly at his throat.
“Where’s Dr. Fungroid?” The Tall One demanded in a low growl.

Feeble Bedspread

A trail of small surrealist wooden idols, each wearing a short skirt of cheap, printed cotton, led Orbis LeGregg and Lyndon Franker from the site of the proposed Pepsi dumping and reclamation station over a thickly wooded hilltop to the wreckage of the Kebob strike force’s fake spacecraft.
LeGregg gestured at the front quarter panel with his walking stick. “You can tell it’s an inferior grade of metal.” He said. “It wouldn’t last thirty seconds in the rigors of space travel.”
“Strange that the Kebobs should have gone to so much trouble to manufacture a replica when the real things is so readily available to them.” Franker mused.
“Well, we can’t hand about here all day.” LeGregg stood up from a cursory examination of the bumper stickers on the rear of the craft. “The girls will be arriving from the college in about an hour.” He consulted his watch, the one item bearing the mark of his military service that he had kept.
“Wait, LeGregg.” Franker pointed at the side of the wreckage. “These scorch marks are painted on.”
“I told you you could call me Orbis.” LeGregg reminded his friend.
Observing the two middle-aged adventurers from his tiny platform high in a nearby tree was one of the Kebobs, an ancient race of bipeds from the smaller of the two moons. Intrigued by the sound of the imminent arrival of college girls, the Kebob, named Screwrider in the Kebob tongue, selected an insect from the cache at his disposal. These specially trained flying termites were capable of carrying messages for their masters. Screwrider fitted the hastily scrawled note into the insect’s back pack and sent him off to alert Wheatneeder and Trink, his two friends on the strike force.
Twenty minutes later the latter two Kebobs were reading Screwrider’s words.
“College girls.” Wheatneeder rubbed the inside of his lips with a finger.
“Yeah, human college girls.” Trink said with distaste.
“You don’t know them like Screwrider and I.” Wheatneeder smiled wickedly. He knew he had a wicked smile. He practiced it in the mirror each morning.
“What are you going to do, wear a human mask?” Trink asked sarcastically.
“Oh, we won’t need to.” Wheatneeder promised. When Trink shook his head at Wheatneeder the latter assured him that he was coming along.

The Fireman’s Bouquet

“Much better,” Thought Karen, “To begin the book on a friendly note, given the amount of misery to come later on.” She had tentatively titled her book The Fireman’s Bouquet, but trying to be professional, she was willing to allow her editor to change that to something more commercial should he see fit.
“What will the book be about?” Doober asked her as they sat together in the over-sized rain barrel.
“My marriage to Bill.” She answered.
Doober stiffened suddenly. His eye was at the traditional knothole that the rain barrel factory had supplied. “They’re coming.” He said.
“Relax.” Karen whispered. “This is going to be great. Remember, you can’t be a writer unless you have first-hand experience of what you’re writing about.”
Doober nodded. He knew Karen was right. After all, she had been writing far longer than he. According to her plan they would wait until the Kebobs were directly in front of the rain barrel and then stand up, frightening them and gleaning valuable experience that he could them put into his own book, tentatively titled Give Me Back My Bollocks.
“Now.” Karen hissed. She and Doober stood up before the Kebob troopers.
“Boo!” Karen shouted. When she smiled, there was something similar to Doris Day about her face. Photos taken later at her autopsy failed to determine what that something was.
“Where are the college-aged human girls?” One Kebob, Dillwhirler by name, demanded of the mocking stars.
“Perhaps we read Screwrider’s message wrong.” Suggested Mirthy, another Kebob in Dillwhirler’s patrol.
“Perhaps it was in code.” Added Unsagerable, yet another of the unsavory aliens, who didn’t look all that different from humans except for the presence of short vestigial horns on the tops of their heads.
“Perhaps it was all a trick!” Dillwhirler cried, hefting the rain barrel into the air.
Lying mangled on the ground nearby, Doober deliriously began rethinking his book idea. “Maybe I’ll call it The Fireman’s Bouquet.” He thought. “It will be about the disparity between my dreams and the actual life I’ve led.”

Angry Façade

Their fake discography, laid out on a grid and thoroughly annotated, was complete. Now Orbis LeGregg and Lyndon Franker could sit back with bananas in hand and watch the various moons overhead, occasionally glancing over at four hours worth of work.
“It was worth it.” LeGregg sighed. He drew a long, inedible string off his banana and flung it into the trash receptacle.
“Yes it was.” Franker agreed. He looked up at one of the moons and wondered if he would ever get to see its surface.
Tunneling beneath the pool house in which the two old men lounged, Mr. Cosmonaut and his government appointed apprentice Hank worried over the high chlorine reading they were getting on one of the scopes that lined the dashboard of their tunneling craft.
“And what does that tell us?” Mr. Cosmonaut asked Hank in a fair approximation of the Socratic method.
“That the lads’ pool is just above us?” Hank answered hesitantly.
“Yes, yes, of course, but more than that.” Mr. Cosmonaut rolled his hand about his wrist.
“That it has more chlorine in it than it should?” Hank guessed.
“Yes, but why?” Mr. Cosmonaut’s legendary temper was showing through the mask of sage-like impassivity he was trying hard to maintain. Who was the government to foist this novice upon him?
“I don’t know, Mr. Cosmonaut.” Hank hung his head sadly. The green navigational light lit up his scalp, revealing a regrettable tattoo under the greasy black hair.
Mr. Cosmonaut fought the urge to bash the young man with a clipboard of some other nearby object. “It means,” He grimly smiled with a fatherly crinkling of the eyes, “That regular maintenance of the pool is not the first priority of the two hooligans, whom we have come to codify.”
“They’re up to something.” Hank concluded triumphantly, redeeming himself temporarily.
“Exactly.” Mr. Cosmonaut leered, turning the tunneling craft upwards. “But what?”
“By the way, LeGregg,” Franker asked. “When did our band break up?”
“When al the moons were new at the same time.” LeGregg suggested dreamily.

Ghosts Perpetuate the Salad Bar

A particularly annoying janitor stood before the globe slowly turning it about with one hand as he stared over the top of his thick glasses at all the fascinating shapes.
“Just ignore him.” Harling advised the six comrades who had joined him at the table.
“It will be difficult.” Vance shuddered as he noted the crust clinging to the hem of the janitor’s t-shirt. “But for your mother’s sake I will try.”
“You honor me with your effort.” Harling stood and bowed. Vance responded by strewing the table with a pocketful of his business cards.
“Viet-nam.” The janitor said aloud.
Harling glanced at him. He turned back to his comrades with a smile. “Now,” He said, reaching into his coat. He withdrew a wad of paper that, unfolded, covered most of the table and obscured all but two of Vance’s cleverly designed cards. “This is a diagram of the sultan’s head. As you can see from the retrograde alignments both in the anterior and sub-spatial conduits,” He gestured with a Butterfinger brand candy bar that he planned to eat for lunch later. “The extended household to which the sultan’s head is attached is in for a rough autumn.”
“New Guinea?” The janitor shouted, perplexed. He turned to the men at the table a few feet away. “What was wrong with the old one?” He asked. His ginger-colored moustache was thick with crumbs.
“Indeed.” Morrison nervously replied, smiling.
“Please, just ignore him.” Harling reminded Morrison.
“Harling,” interposed Ralphs. “Forgive me for butting in here, but I think I speak for everyone here at the table when I ask, Are you going to share any of that Butterfinger with us?” He laughed jovially, casting glances to left and right that brought everyone into the laughing spirit, at least momentarily.
Norbert stopped laughing first. “I thought you were going to ask why Harling wants us to ignore the janitor.” He said.
In the sudden silence that followed Vance spoke solemnly. “Norbert, this is for Harling’s mother.”
“Trapped in a harem.” The janitor said aloud, apparently without realizing that he had done so. As all eyes turned to him, the janitor put both hands on the globe, bent his head close, and began to lick the Ottoman Empire.

Denied Counselling

The expression “heavier than a sardine-filled pumpkin” has its origins in an anecdote concerning the young Beeethoven. For years historians ignored the expression and denied the veracity of the anecdote. For a couple of years after that a few historians sought to find the origin of the anecdote itself while the remainder of their colleagues had moved on to researching the cinematic precursors to Star Wars. Now it is my privilege to reveal the source of the anecdote, while leaving the interpretation of the expression to others whose college degrees entitle them alone to such duties. What the anecdote actually is remains unknown.
It is to Dibson’s Combined Treasury of Despots and Quiet Riot Chronology that we must turn. As the only known copy is in the so-called “Thieves’ Library” in the coastal village of Rammikin, we will mount our magic carpet, taking care to bundle up for summer is at last ending, and direct our thoughts southward to the obscene peninsula on whose shoreline Rammkin sits like a bubble against the wall of a toilet bowl.
“I’ve had quite enough of your nonsense.” You shout. “Let me off!”
Go ahead and shout, I instruct you. No one can hear you up here. As you struggle at the embrace of the heavy coat I point out our destination below. No time to listen to your contemptuous pleading; we are plummeting to earth with only my hands on the carpet’s tassels to steer us.
There it is, I tell you: the “Thieves’ Library.” It is a weather beaten old mobile home on the overgrown lot behind Big Mack’s Package Store. I explain to you that the magic carpet, being “magic,” easily fits into the inner pocket of my sport jacket, but you don’t seem to be listening. I would wonder about the origins of your odd custom of clutching the religious medallion about your neck, but, as I explained earlier, I have no college degree allowing such speculation. My only job is to haul you about the country while government agents ransack your apartment.
Dragging you inside the trailer, I greet Burke, the fat man watching TV inside. What do you think of that, I ask. Isn’t she a doll?
“But, where are the books?” You ask, looking even more frightened than when the airplane almost hit us.
Ain’t but one book here, sweetheart, says Burke, and that’s the phone book. He is a character, that Burke!

Inadequate Medicine

Plaid field caps set at a jaunty angle atop heavily starched hair remained the hostesses’ distinguishing characteristic even as their shirts were changed from white to pale blue and their navy blue skirts to khaki trousers. Vera checked her appearance in the front door of the industrial microwave oven and hurried to Mr. Clackenspoon’s cabin with his drink.
“Thanks, sweetie.” Clackenspoon’s assistant took the glass and bottle of tonic from her. The side of his face twitched spasmodically. Vera tried to catch Clackenspoon’s eye before the door was shut in her face, but the great man was deep in conversation with a severe-looking man in a black suit. He had been put aboard by a government cruiser yesterday. It was all mysterious.
“If I could just make eye contact with Mr. Clackenspoon…” Vera sighed. She changed the toilet paper in the staff restroom while Myrna washed her hands.
“And then what?” Myrna asked her co-worker.
“They say he’s lonely since his wife died.” Vera remembered the articles in the tabloids.
“Well, I’ll say this for you honey, when you dream, you dream big.” Myrna left to attend to the clutch of foreigners in section TT.
“Does anyone yet suspect the truth?” The mystery man, Kent Broker of the Night Bag Division, asked the reclusive billionaire and former professional wrestler, Doug “Forky” Clackenspoon.
“How could they?” Replied Clackenspoon. His face wasn’t what one would expect of an intelligent, bipedal bear. Electrolysis and extensive plastic surgery had made his appearance acceptably human. The truly surprising thing about Clackenspoon however, was that he was actually a female, a female bear once called Panchya from the nomad camps at the foot of the Krogi mountains. She coughed once after sipping from the glass of tonic.
“Are you alright?” Asked Broker.
“This is warm.” Clackenspoon complained.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Said the assistant, taking the glass. “Shall I have the hostess punished?”
“We don’t have time for that.” Clackenspoon croaked. “Just get me some ice.”
After the assistant had left the cabin, Broker said, “He’s in love with you.”
“Love is an illusion. Power is the ultimate reality.” The wealthy, but dying bear growled.

Hobgoblins of Their Own Tri-Corned Beef

Fabulous stories about the gentrification of the Mordint brothers circulated around town. Miss Pinkwrath listened to one such story and stood up near its conclusion, throwing up her hands and shaking her head.
“I don’t want to hear any more such nonsense!” She cried. “I knew Weldon and Marie Mordint and they would never have brought up their boys to turn so easily into gentry!”
“But, it’s most likely true…” Oliver the owl attachment assessor started to say as the lady dashed away. He sat on the simply made, but overly padded love seat with his mouth open, an unfinished cup of chicory balanced on his knee and another on the upturned packing crate before him. He turned to Sylvanus, the servant, standing against the wall several feet away. The man was in the shadows, but his white wig could clearly be seen.
“Have you ever seen such insanity?” Oliver asked.
“It is not my place to say, sir.” Sylvanus replied.
Oliver considered a moment. “No, of course not. It was foolish of me to bother asking you anything other than where are those muffins, I asked for them over ten minutes ago!”
“I’ll go see about them, sir.”
“Please, do.”
Sylvanus left the room, walked down the corridor to the back door of the large structure, and crossed the stone-strewn dirt alley to the kitchens. He could see Miss Pinkwrath in the distance, flapping away to her house like a big, flightless bird.
“It’s cold out today.” Sylvanus announced as he entered the kitchens. Rose and the Clarkson girl were pounding dough at the marble-topped counter.
“It’s always cold in the eighteenth century.” Rose answered in her deep, work-worn voice. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“I guess I have nothing to compare it to, no point of reference.” Sylvanus cocked an eyebrow like Mr. Spock as he coolly deliberated upon the observation.
“I’ll be a lot happier when we move further along in time to some more warmly remembered period, like the 1900s.”
“Muffins, Rose, muffins. Do you have any muffins?” Sylvanus asked.

Try One of Nine Church-Approved Coping Mechanisms

Ambulatory hats, driven into the right hand sleeve of Lyndon Franker’s large shirt, mumbled to each other in a near panic until Cabler, who wasn’t really a hat at all, but some kind of South American feline with a few well-turned neuroses, cleared his throat loudly and began addressing them in tones chosen to calm and inspire.
“My friends,” He said. “Friends, please calm down and listen to the voice of inspiration. Joey, Lou, will you two shut up and listen to me!” He shouted at two young hats who stood at the opening of the sleeve laughing and joking.
“Yes, Cabler?” Asked Joey, turning about, his eyebrows arched in mock curiosity. Lou, distinguished from Joey by the ring of yellow feathers sticking out of his band, grinned idiotically at his friend’s boldness. Each of the boys wore a string of alligator teeth. This made them look “tough,” they thought.
“Thank you.” Responded the cat-like creature, who wore a baseball cap duct-taped to his head as it as too small for him and a chain around his neck with the word “HAT” spelled out in alphabet charms. “Now, I’d like you all to remember…”
“Oh my god!” Lou screamed as a green tentacle snaked around the circumference of his girth (the thickest part of him) and dragged him out of the sleeve. Everyone ran to the opening, leaving Cabler, who shouted “No, that’s what they want you to do,” alone.
High overhead, Lou dangled at the end of one of the monsters tentacles. Another of these reached out and plucked the string of teeth from him.
“Not so “tough” now, are you?” Laughed the monster.
“Somebody do something!” Babbled Mrs. Weems, who wasn’t really a hat at all, but a meeting coordinator from Norcross that looked suspiciously like a hat in many ways and had only joined the stampede into the sleeve to see what all the fuss was about.
“He was your friend, Joey.” Colonel Christian Right barked. “You go out there and…”
“Are you insane, old man?” Joey screamed.
It was the monster himself who committed the blunder that led to his downfall. After eating Lou, he decided to reach into the sleeve again for more treats, but couldn’t remember which sleeve it had been. He chose the wrong one and was seized by the great hand that lived inside.

Anarchic Compulsion to Bake

Gil was hustling back to the little hut he playfully called “The Dog House” when he spotted the gorilla.
“Could it be a man in a costume?” Gil asked the puppet on his left hand.
“It looks too real for that.” The puppet, Chandler Goodfellow, spoke louder than Gil liked and of course the latter shushed him aggressively.
“What are you shushing me for? Don’t shush me!” Goodfellow was one of these people who cannot stand to be shushed. I think it’s because they feel their freedom of speech is being threatened.
“Chandler,” Hissed Gil, “There’s a big gorilla sitting in the middle of Mrs. Henderson’s xeriscaping!”
“I’ve got eyes! I can see!” Chandler snapped.
Ordinarily Gil would have reached the so-called “Dog House” by now, but the weight of the exchange of words had slowed him down. In addition, Goodfellow had begun flailing about, trying to shake off the hand that Gil had clamped over his mouth. In the struggle, Gil tripped over his own feet and fell down the dandelion-covered hillside to land stunned merely inches from the door to his little hut. As he looked up at the sky at a cloud that looked like a man hoisting a cake topped with antlered high-steppers instead of candles, he heard a strange grunting sound. He rolled over on all fours and saw the gorilla poking at Goodfellow, who had apparently flown off Gil’s hand in the fall to land face down several feet away, with a stick. The grunting, Gil suddenly realized, was coming from the puppet and not the gorilla.
Like a brave man, Gil began inching forward, determined to rescue the anthropomorphic glove.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Henderson called from the top of the hill. Gil and the gorilla turned to look at her. Even Goodfellow seemed to be making an effort to look. “Get back!” The old pioneer woman ordered, waving at Gil. “That’s a gorilla!”
“I can see it’s a gorilla!” Gil said through gritted teeth.
“It’s not a man in a costume!” Mrs. Henderson bellowed.
“Help me.” The puppet had finally managed to turn over under his own power and gasp out in a weak little voice that was heartbreaking to hear.
“That’s my puppet!” Gil pointed from the door to his Dog House, where there were many other puppets stored.

Trundle is a Word I Use to Remind Me of Your Love

Internal fabrications of the necessary chemical compounds were vital to the continued efficiency of the anteater unit. Ward knew that. That’s why he continued to monitor the sulfuric discharge long after the others had taken refuge in the solarium.
Late on the evening of the fourteenth he was surprised to see little Annie and her grandfather the wizard Galston approaching the desk at which he worked out those long, important calculations.
“We brought you chocolate.” Annie gushed as Ward looked up.
“Why, hello there.” Ward’s voice sounded hoarse. His exposure to the fescal rays must be reaching the saturation level. “Good to see you, Galston.”
“Ward.” Galston said simply, taking the other man’s hand in his own dry, sandpaperish one.
As Ward ate the chocolate with much more hunger than he had intended to reveal and more even than he had known he had, the wizard observed him closely. “Annie has been much concerned about you. We all have.”
“Even our statesmanlike consul?” Ward barked a laugh so bitter he nearly shed a tear.
“Demortes may not show it, may not even be capable of showing it anymore,” Galston sounder older than the white beard that had grown so long its tip was tucked into the top of his left boot made him appear. “But, well, I can’t remember what I was going to say.”
“The toxic by-product!” Annie gasped, looking up at the old man.
Galston chuckled sagely, ruffling the feathers that grew in such profusion on the child’s head.
“Galston,” Ward moaned, his forehead almost touching the unfinished diagram, “I can’t complete the sterilization. Not without some sort of calculation-making device.”
Did a look of fear pass over the wizard’s face? It was hard to tell in the stroboscopic light now filling the room from the unchecked reaction raging outside.
“Come back with us to the solarium, Ward. At least we can all die together.” Galston urged calmly.
“And you call yourself a grandfather.” Ward hissed sourly.

Cowboys Eat String Beans in Rapid Rotation

The job paid too well for Connings to quit his job, much as he loathed it. Monday morning was a typical example. He had had to help Gumphrey transport a shipment of blood pudding to the secret submarine base at the northern tip of the island and hadn’t gotten back to the trailer that served as their office until that afternoon. Lunch had been a cold homemade burrito on the road and he still had his usual duties to attend to.
It wasn’t until almost six thirty that Connings returned to the tiny cottage that Gumphrey provided for his use.
“I’m back.” Connings called softly. One thing he definitely didn’t want was for Gumphrey to hear him talking to someone. He was supposed to be living alone.
“Where have you been?” Angela asked as she came into the main room.
“Hold on.” Connings whispered. He selected an LP, Hot Rats, and put it on the turntable to cover their voices. With a weary smile and an exhalation of relief from his pursed lips he dropped onto the sofa, stretching out an arm invitingly for the slim young girl with the long blond hair. As she joined him on the sofa, sitting close to him, and pulling his long arms around her, Connings relayed the day’s whole, miserable trip.
“Mr. Gumphrey must be crazy!” Angela cried.
“Just ambitious.” Connings corrected. He disagreed with his employer about most things, but he did respect him as a criminal genius and a master of planning and manipulation.
“But to consort with the Dramatic Navy…” Angela’s wide mouth gasped at the boldness of that very bad man.
“I know, I know.” Connings sighed. “Did you happen to make anything to eat? I’ve got to go to sleep soon.”
Angela sat up smiling happily. “I’m becoming a regular little housewife.” She said. “Come and see.” She drew him off the sofa and to the little space in the kitchen where the table stood laden with a variety of good things.
Connings was too hungry and tired to talk at first, but as he sat back in his chair after completing his meal, he started to talk to Angela about their getting married.
“Seth,” Angela began, using Connings’ first name, but was interrupted by the buzz of the intercom. Gumphrey wanted to speak to his right-hand man.

Limbs of the Prophet More Flouncy than Before

Peanuts being the preferred food of the false elephants of Technorodeo, Phlux, hoping to make it past them to the bunker, had secured a large supply. There were so many, infact, that the load was too heavy for him. He had had to rent a small table-headed automaton to help. On the night of his planned assault on the bunker, however, he and the automaton, each carrying half the peanuts, had stepped out of the front door only to be called back by Janelle.
“And where do you think you’re going?” She demanded, standing in the doorway in her comfortable bedclothes.
“Tonight’s the night, Janelle.” Plux sounded crazed. “Don’t stop me now; I’m all liquored up.”
“I thought I smelled Port.” Janelle’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m due back at the rental store in the morning.” The automaton said, trying to help the situation along any way he could.
“Stay out of this, please.” Phlux instructed. “I’ve got to go, Janelle. “Will you wish me luck?”
“In my experience, there’s no such thing.” Janelle’s pajamas were patterned with armed Yodas and menacing Count Dookus.
“Ha-ha, Obi-Wan, very good!” Plux suddenly wished he had time to stick around and talk. It was something he had wanted to do for several weeks, have a good long talk with Janelle.
“Good luck, Mr. Omartian.” Janelle said. She closed the door.
Phlux sighed deeply. He wanted to say something hateful, but he knew his voice might be heard inside. Instead, he turned to the automaton and instructed him to follow. As they reached the edge of the yard the automaton said, “Women can be a bother.”
Phlux snorted. “How would you know?”
“I have heard the guys at the store talking about them many times.”
Not ten paces later they encountered the first of the fake elephants.
Janelle watched them offer a peanut to the creature from the parlor window.
“How can you stand it?” Asked Mrs. Bottomitt behind her.
“Stand what?”
“Staring into the darkness like that.” The old lady shuddered.
Skilled in the Oversight of Peasant Labor

The prune bitch, hollering down from the tiny window of her one-room apartment in the uppermost portion of the tower, made no sense at all to Lincoln Stratos and the boys from the Relaxation League. Stratos made a quick phone call to his mother.
“Are you getting this?” He asked.
“Of course.” She answered. “It’s on all the news sites.”
“Can you understand any of it?”
“Is she saying something about digging for clams?” Stratos’ mother suggested.
“I don’t know. But I doubt it.”
“Why don’t we take our washing elsewhere?” One of the Relaxation Leaguers asked Stratos after he had ended his call.
“You boys do what you like.” Stratos flipped down the visor on his helmet. “I’m going to get some information.”
As his former companions dragged their bundles down the hill Stratos knocked firmly on the little door set deep in the wall of the tower. On the other side of this door a squat old couple sat working intently at a jigsaw puzzle.
“He’s knocking now.” The male half of the couple announced.
“Who is?” Asked the female. She held a completely orange piece between her fingers, looking for a place to put it.
“That guy that’s on the news right now.” The old man pointed at the telenet screen built into the door of the oven.
“Better open the door, I guess.” Sighed the old woman after a glance at the news. “Here, you take this.” She handed the old man the orange piece. “I can’t see where it goes.”
Stratos stepped into the room boldly as the old man asked, “Becky, where’d you get this? I don’t see any orange in the picture on the box.”
“How do I reach the prune bitch’s apartment?” Stratos demanded.
“Straight through… wait a minute,” Becky interrupted herself. “Are we on the news right now?”
“This transmission has been diverted to an entertainment site.” Stratos shouted as he dashed up the stairs the old woman had indicated.
“Becky, where’d you get this orange piece?” The old man asked again. On the oven door a close-up of his withered hand holding the strange piece was superimposed by the words “THE END?”

Easy-to-Build Motorized Tripod

Pablo Casals knew within moments of shaking the hand of Santa Claus that here was a man who appreciated the cello.
“It was something beyond mere words.” He later recalled in his highly idiosyncratic English. “It was akin to ESP, although, of course, I am quick to dismiss such beliefs.”
Although Santa Claus was often reticent on the subject of Casals and would often refuse to answer interviewers’ questions about their relationship, he is known to have told Ronald McDonald that he put Casals in the same category as Jorge Luis Borges, “Latinos with class.”
The occasion of their first meeting was a fundraiser for Ann Landers’ ill-starred run for the newly vacated Senate seat from Pennsylvania in 1974. Although Casals had been dead for nearly six years by that time, he was still a formidable conversationalist and a much sought guest at such gatherings.
“He would have had a lot of fun at Studio 54 later in the decade,” Omar Sharif mused to me recently over an intimate dinner of fondue and halva, that addictively delicious treat from the mid-east. “But he had decomposed to the point that Disco would have been an impossibility. A ‘no trump,’ as we say in bridge.”
Santa Claus’ marriage to Ali MacGraw was foundering; he attended the fundraiser without her. Alone by the open pit barbecue, downing his fifth scotch, and nearly in tears, Claus was introduced to Casals by their mutual acquaintance Milton Berle, who just wanted the famed cellist out of his hair.
“Santa,” shouted Berle, cigar in one hand and the scruff of Casals’ neck in the other. “Got someone here you really should get to know, Pablo Casals, the dead cellist. Pablo, this is Santa Claus, or Papa Noel, as they say in some foreign country of another. You two guys get acquainted while I find the exit.”
After shaking hands and staring at each other blankly for a second, Casals said, more as a statement than a question, “You like the cello?”
“I make ‘em. Well, toy ones.” Answered the once jolly old elf.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a toy cello.” Casals commented.
“Are you calling me a liar? By god, I ought to…” Santa Claus broke off, sobbing uncontrollably.

Russell Foresees Tangible Results

Southern accents being synonymous with stupidity and the kind of blind nationalism and loyalty to granddaddy’s thought processes that Stuart Munkie hated, he had done his best to purge his own voice of any trace of the dreaded accent he had been immersed in since birth. So, on a bright Wednesday morning when the rain had finally washed away the pine tree pollen, when Munkie placed a call to Conception Records, he spoke with a warm, rich, well-rounded tone that made him sound like a newscaster from no specific region.
“You say you’re Stuart Munkie?” Asked Wanda Gravely suspiciously.
“That’s right, Wanda. My new album is finished and ready to go.” Munkie patted down his hair and imagined the plump, but sexy Wanda sitting at her orderly desk.
“Hold on a minute, alright?” Wanda instructed Munkie. She put the phone down and went to the control booth of studio B. She walked in on Terry Data screaming over the intercom at Ward Broadz, the guitarist for Poontucker.
“And don’t give me any more of your hairy-legged excuses!”
“Excuse me, Terry?” Wanda tugged at Terry’s sleeve.
“What is it?” Data whipped about, eyes blazing.
“There’s somebody on the phone claiming to be Stuart Munkie.”
“But it’s not?”
“I don’t think so. He doesn’t sound like he’s from the south.”
Data left the control booth to speak to this imposter. In the studio, Broadz and Poontucker’s singer, Ash Gifford, discussed matters.
“This is a really cheap studio, isn’t it?” Broadz asked.
“Yeah.” Gifford agreed. “I think we really fucked up coming here.”
“Well, there wasn’t anywhere else we could go, was there?”
“We could have recorded it ourselves.” Gifford suggested for the twentieth time.
“I will not do some Trout Mask Replica piece of shit home recording!” Broadz snapped. He had had enough of this idea. “We’re going to do a professional album in a real recording studio with a real producer!”
“Well, you’ve got one, haven’t you?” Gifford said sarcastically, gesturing at the window to the control booth, where Terry Data once again sat.
“That’s right, boys.” Data said over the intercom. “And I’ve just spoken to a real professional musician!”

Womens’ Restroom Engaged By Prankster

The word “nourishment” made David C. nauseous. The way a certain preacher from his youth had said the word had forever ruined it for him. The preacher, an obese ma with curly black hair, had used unnecessary lip movements when speaking. “He looked like a rhinoceros eating an acacia thorn.” C. would have described the man, had he enough imagination to come up with such a phrase.
A couple of the naughtier goats had taken to chanting the word below C.’s cell window, but the effect was not quite the same.
“They sound cute.” C. murmured to the woman laying beside him.
“Brother David!” Gasped a robed figure at the door bearing a candle of stunning brilliancy. This figure, joined by two others, crowded into C.’s cell and lighted the candle on the small table by the bed.
“I’ve never seen this woman before!” C. declared. He got awkwardly into his monk’s robe while the woman pulled the single thin blanket up so far that her painted toes were exposed. “How did you get in here?” C. asked her. “How did you get my clothes off?”
“Brother David, we will take this matter up with the abbot.” The first monk said sternly.
“It was the Devil!” C. cried, as if having suddenly solved the mystery.
“What are those goats doing down there?” Asked another of the monks. “Begone!” He yelled, sending the two goats away laughing. “And you, woman, why do you not speak?”
“She’s a mute.” David C. answered for her.
“And how would you know this,” demanded the last of the monks, an old man bent with age and poor nutrition. “Brother David, if you have never seen her before?”
“Anyone trained in the medical arts as I have been can tell it at a glance!” C. gestured dismissively at the bed.
“David, honey, I need a cigarette.” The woman announced.
C. sighed heavily. He reached under the bed and withdrew a box brimming with all manner of banned substances.
“Want some Lor-tabs?” C. sardonically offered his soon-to-be former brothers as he fished out a pack of smokes.

Financial Support Reckoned On

Carriage bolts held the gravy stained tear duct to the third enamel positilion in such a position that thirty small families of the gopher clan were able to cross from the bakery to the zoo before raw dough fumes sickened them all. Teeda, a mama gopher, stood on a bench before the polar bear exhibit clutching a facsimile of her baby and wondering why fruit as an ingredient in a food product was usually symbolized on the packaging by a picture of the sun.
Teeda’s cousin Ted the Tweed sat atop a trash canister looking jealously at Teeda. He wanted a facsimile of a baby. Once he had tried to make one out of an old flour sack stuffed with pink Play Dough, but had become disgusted with his efforts within minutes of dancing about with it.
“Was it more sickening than the raw dough fumes?” Asked Gonzaga Shrumt, the alligator attendant, after being told the story by Ted the Tweed’s good friend Mrs. Contilda.
“I could not answer to that. The flour sack and its contents were destroyed long before I was born. And, as to the raw dough fumes, to be honest, they don’t really bother me. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.” Mrs. Contilda confessed this last in a whisper. She didn’t want her fellow gophers to know how out of step she was.
Brakefield, the leader of the surviving gophers, stood at the train analysis junction assembly of the gravy stained tear duct with his newly chosen lieutenant Hansom Beercake. “Do you think the fumes have cleared yet?” He asked, peering at the bakery.
“Hard to tell.” Beercake answered. “We could send over a guinea pig.” He meant this literally. Some of the wealthier gopher families owned guinea pig slaves. There was less moral outrage about this than one might expect. After all, had not the gophers themselves once been the slaves of the capybara?
This proposal, however, was met with a firm refusal from all slave owners.
“We’ve just started housekeeping duties,” complained one matriarch, “And you want to take away my help?” She and her friends were overseeing the washing of the dishes in the little pond the flamingos stood about in.
“I’ll volunteer.” Ted the Tweed stepped forward once he heard the situation.
“You’re a brave gopher, Ted the Tweed.” Brakefield intoned manfully.
“I only ask that I be given a real facsimile of a baby if I survive.” Ted the Tweed added. He hid his disappointment well on being told No.

Almost an Entire Package of Fruit Cookies

Wash meat packed into oaken barrels as big as vending machines was the primary cargo of the Big Woman’s Good Time, an old-fashioned freighter just arrived from the islands in the middle of the picture frame. Snifferson and his talking bird Squimo stared at the lithograph while they waited for the dentist.
“Those barrels are clearly marked, aren’t they?” Squimo remarked. “It seems the artist wanted to make sure the observer knew what was in them.”
“Yep.” Snifferson agreed.
“And yet I haven’t a clue what ‘wash meat’ is.”
“It sounds good though, doesn’t it?” Snifferson, though a maritime romantic, knew nothing about real life at sea.
The dentist opened the door to the small, but comfortable office and entered, followed by a large bird. When he sat down behind the desk, the bird sat down beside him on a vinyl stool.
“Please, gentlemen, have a seat.” The dentist invited Snifferson and Squimo with a wave of the miniature alpenhorn he carried.
“Thank you.” Snifferson sat down in one of the chairs provided and gently lowered Squimo from his shoulder to the chair beside his.
“Now, as I understand it,” The dentist began, opening a folder on his desk that contained nothing of any relevance to Snifferson, Squimo, or the matter at hand. “You would like to have teeth installed in your bird’s beak.”
“Excuse me, Doctor,” Squimo interrupted. “Before we go any farther, I have to ask: does your bird talk?”
“No, I am afraid not.” The dentist glanced at his bird. “Her name is Sirita. I smuggled her out of Turkey two years ago when the avian massacres were at their peak. I’ve tried to teach her to speak, but, so far, no luck.”
“Pity.” Squimo clucked. “She’s a gorgeous creature.”
“Oh, do you think so?” The dentist smiled. “Well, I’ll have to draw her a picture conveying your opinion.”
“She understands picture language then, does she?” Squimo asked.
“She seems to.” The dentist replied. “I must say that you speak very well yourself. It seems a shame to ruin that fine beak with teeth.”
“I need them to eat wash meat.” Squimo’s eyes went cold.

Grubs on China

Rosary Mankenouse, making her debut as a person of importance and notoriety on the set of Polygraph Pajama show, sat quietly on the central sofa sipping tea and waiting for her turn to speak. At the front of the stage, before a small audience consisting mostly of friends, one of the two hosts, Brant Borden, explained the premise of the current episode.
“My associate Kirk Newbold has decided to start his own show within this one. He is hiding somewhere in the studio, interviewing his own guest.” Borden rubbed his hands together lasciviously and smiled. A female friend in the darkness barked out a sharp laugh.
Rosary Mankenouse looked about at the other sofas where an assortment of oddities greeted her. Sharing her own sofa was an older woman wearing a turban. While Borden urged the audience and crew to find Newbold, the woman in the turban leaned toward Rosary.
“So, you’re my replacement?” She said.
“No.” Rosary shook her head. “No, I’m just here to make my first public appearance as a celebrity.”
“Are you angling for your own show?” The woman put up her hand to keep her turban from sliding forward.
“No…well, if I’m offered one. But, mainly I’m an author.” Rosary explained.
“Ah.” The other woman nodded, as if she now knew exactly how to categorize Rosary. She could deal with her now that she understood her.
“And an illustrator.” Rosary added, to make sure there was no confusion.
“What?” The turban woman’s eyebrows lowered.
“An illustrator. Of my own books.”
A look of fear moved out from the woman’s eyes like a wave. She was about to ask if her books were humorous when Brant Borden addressed himself to Rosary.
“We have with us today Rosary Mankenouse, author and illustrator of the new book, Leg Cramps of the Inefficient.”
“Well,” Rosary corrected. “It’s not really new, Brant. It’s…” She was interrupted by a cackle of laughter from the scaffolding above, where Kirk Newbold was suddenly spotlighted. He was sitting there chatting with a regally attired gorilla.

Make it Out to Skip

The next place Rosary Mankenouse took her tale of solitary devotion to art was the Old Black Pig bookstore. Although there were already a goodly number of copies of Leg Cramps of the Inefficient on the shelves, she brought another boxful with her.
“You understand this will be a joint book signing?” The manager of the store wanted to make it clear to Rosary.
“No, I didn’t.” Rosary answered, dropping the heavy box on the table set up for her. She noticed then that there were two chairs at the table. Behind her own was a simple cardboard sign with her name printed on it. Behind the other, however, was a large poster in green and purple advertising No Way Around It, by Dallas Pimiento. Rosary took off her coat and draped it over the back of her chair. As she stared at the poster, glancing once at the locked front door of the store through which would soon issue the customers she must face, the manager, a woman in her early forties unadorned with makeup, but wearing a large crystal on a chain around her neck, explained that they reckoned on getting more traffic with two authors than one.
“That sounds wise.” Rosary agreed, smiling and purposing to face everything like a professional. She sat down, declining the offer of a cup of coffee. “When will Dallas Pimiento arrive?” She asked.
“He’s already here.” The manager had no sooner said this than the great painter entered the sales floor from the back room. “Mr. Pimiento, your fellow author, Rosary Mankenouse.” The manager introduced the two to each other.
“Miss Mankenouse,” Pimiento shook hands with Rosary. “I’ve been looking through your book…some funny stuff.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pimiento. I…I didn’t know you were an author as well as a painter.” Rosary glanced at the bookstore manager, who was heading for the front door. It must be opening time.
“I’m not, really.” Said Pimiento as he and Rosary took their seats. He handed her a copy of the book. “This is a collection of a year’s worth of my paintings.”
“Oh, I see.” Rosary smiled, feeling less pressured.
“With a little story for each one explaining what’s going on.” He added. “Fiction, you understand.” He turned to the first of a line of college-aged boys waiting for his autograph.

I Wash My Hands of the Pope

Gerald sat down in his easy chair with a look of satisfaction spreading across his face. He reached over and switched on the ugly lamp beside his chair and shifted his bottom back and forth. When he was content with his position, he opened the book in his lap and began to read.
“In the ancient cellar Lord Mistletum discovered the box that had once held the memoirs of Black Steve.
‘No more, however.’ Mistletum explained to Captain Sudmush. ‘They have decomposed into nothing more than this brown powder.’
‘Let me see that powder, Geoffrey.’”
“Geoffrey must be Lord Mistletum’s first name.” Gerald thought to himself.
“‘Captain Sudmush examined the powder closely, taking up a small sample of it on the end of the christening spoon he invariably carried with him on a chain along with his mother’s wedding ring.
‘You know, Geoffrey, I believe we could mix this in with our milk and make a highly nutritious beverage.’ Sudmush speculated seriously.
“My old English teacher would have pointed that out as an example of alliteration. Though why that should be so important is beyond me.” Gerald remembered grim Mrs. Raimes, first with his usual disgust at the time wasted at the Republican private school he had attended and second with disgust as himself for still harboring such bitterness after the long years of adulthood. He turned back to his reading.
“‘I don’t know, Carol.’ Mistletum looked dubious.”
“Carol is the great Captain Sudmush’s first name?” Gerald said dubiously. “That’s not a very manly name.” He closed the book around a finger and looked at the cover. On the front was the exciting artwork by Frank Frazetta, a picture of a naked man with a big, meaty posterior fending off a giant porcupine with a futuristic-looking, marshmallow-shooting weapon. On the back was a photograph of the author, Nancy Cow. “A woman would name a male captain Carol?” He thought.
Still unsure, he rose from his easy chair and went into the game room, where his wife sat pulling heavy winter clothing on a mannequin.
“Joey,” He said, “Do you think Carol is a name for a man?”
“Could be.” Joey spoke around the cigar in her mouth. “In Poland.”

Naïve Adulation

A rum charger installed in the boot of His Majesty’s watch pocket battleship provided the additional power necessary for the vessel to move about on land. Watching the first successful movements from the observation deck at the top of the tallest tower in his winter retreat His Majesty the King slapped his hands together in glee and cried out “Magnificent!” in a voice that could be heard by peasants picking grapes far below.
“What’s he shouting about?” One grape picker asked another.
“He likes your work apparently.” The other answered with a gap-toothed grin.
“Your Majesty approves?” Dr. Rooter asked the king as the latter turned to him with a rare, uninhibited smile.
“You bet I do!” The king stabbed a gloved finger at a button on Rooter’s frock. “I’m going to personally drive that thing over the Flumpig City tomorrow and show little Bobby Aaron just how great his king is!”
Knowing nothing of these plans, Bobby Aaron, a ten-year-old boy in Flumpig City with a recently acquired habit of writing letters to the newspaper critical of the monarchy and the rest of the government, packed his necessities into a book bag and snuck out of the house. He had had enough of his grandmother’s heavy-handed, old-fashioned approach to childcare. If he was right, the circus would be leaving town today on its special, floating train. Bobby intended to leave with it.
“But what are you going to do in the circus?” Asked Bobby’s best friend Turk, whose house Bobby had stopped by to say goodbye. “You don’t know how to tumble or nothing!”
“I’ll sweep up elephant shit if I have to!” Bobby smacked his fist into his palm. “I’m never coming back to this dump!”
“Jesus, I wish I could come with you.” Turk whined. “But my Dad would kill me!”
The next day, as the shadow of the king’s newly altered ship fell over Bobby Aaron’s grandmother’s house, that sour old woman emerged from the front door eating an apple.
“What the hell do you want, Big Shot?” She demanded of her royal visitor.

Heavy Metal Type Doings

The third goat to cross over the bridge found himself welcomed by a throng of ecstatic teenaged fans, most of them girls. While the goat waved and smiled, a little overwhelmed by the scene, a reporter present recorded his impressions.
“One would have thought that our young people would have tired of this by now, but here they are in full force, screaming their heads off. One would have thought that nothing could top the greeting that these youth gave the first goat to cross the bridge nearly six months ago, but I do believe this crowd is even larger than that and even louder, if such a thing is possible. Now, I’m going to try to ask this third goat some questions if I can.” The reporter fought his way through the mass of his fellow reporters and photographers as well as the stern-faced policemen standing about the goat. After a stuggle the reporter managed to ask, “Do you have any advice for the next goat to cross the bridge?”
“There will be no more.” The third goat replied in a shout. “I’m the last one.”
“No fourth goat?” The reporter sounded skeptical. As the police and the goat’s team of assistants hustled him away the goat managed to shake his head at the reporter.
“Well, you heard it. The third goat has claimed that there will be no more after him. If that’s true, I guess we can start calling him the last goat. I know several thousand teenagers who will be disappointed at that news. Back to you, Doug.” The television relaying this report went dark. Captain Sudmush had switched it off. He turned to his colleagues gathered around the conference table.
“That was seven months ago this Saturday.” Sudmush said. “There have been no goat crossings since that time. It seems possible there will be no more. Our agents on the other side can find no evidence of any more goats. However, as you each have learned from the top secret dossiers in front of you, we now face a new visitor to our side.”
“This troll.” Secretary Farnsworth replied.
“Exactly.” Sudmush confirmed. “And where the three goats were, if a little refractory and high-spirited, mostly harmless and fun-loving, this troll is an outright menace: loud, abrasive, and crude.”

Payment is Due When Services Are Rendered

A raw place on Laird Foxfur’s back was examined by the village doctor.
“You should have come to me sooner.” The doctor shook his head as he washed his hands in a tin basin.
“I’m trying to keep a low profile.” Foxfur explained with a worried note in his voice. “I don’t like to come into town if I can help it.”
“You could have sent for me.” The doctor dried his hands on a threadbare kitchen towel.
“You know where I live, and how I live. But I don’t like the idea of anybody else finding out.” Foxfur drew his shirt back on. It was once an expensive shirt, but no one could tell that now.
“You can trust me, I hope.” The doctor sat down on a high stool.
“I trust you to tell me what’s wrong with my back.” Foxfur retorted.
The doctor removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. He sighed. “Laird, I think it’s time you leveled with me.” He said.
“What do you mean?” Foxfur paused in the act of buttoning his shirt.
“You told me you were fleeing from a jealous husband, that you were hiding out there in that shoddy little cabin because you feared the wrath of this wealthy man whose wife you…”
“That’s true!” Foxfur interrupted. “What’s this got to do with my back? What’s…”
“You’re not hiding from any wealthy, jealous husband.” The doctor cut him off. “You’re hiding from the Pica Emperor!” Although he said this forcefully, he mercifully kept his voice down.
Foxfur stared at him a moment, then continued to button his shirt. He sighed. “What if I am?”
“Well,” The doctor drawled. “Nothing. I guess you have your reasons…”
“Doctor Fishfoot, what’s wrong with my back?” Foxfur demanded.
“You have a nuptanail implanted in your spine. And it’s beginning to emit the nuclear detection impulses that it was put there to emit.”
Foxfur glanced at the window in a panic.
“Only the emperor’s surgeons know how to implant the device.” Fishfoot continued. “Or how to remove it.”
“I got to get out of here!” Foxfur hissed.

No Cookies?

After the beans had been delivered Lyndon Franker climbed the steps to the first porch he came to and sat down on a wicker chair. He took off his hat and fanned himself with it as he watched the workmen across the street sawing boards in half. The screen door behind him opened and a woman half his age emerged bearing a glass of lemonade. Franker began to rise from his chair.
“No, no, sit down.” The woman urged him. She sat down on one of the other chairs and placed her glass on the table. “I know who you are.”
“Most people do in this town.” Franker admitted.
“Would you like a glass of lemonade?” She asked.
“Thank you…Mrs. Sharkmath?” Franker guessed.
“Betty Sharkmath lives next door. I’m Tina Smeltow.” Mrs. Smeltow rose from her chair. “I’ll be right back.” She promised.
Even before she entered the house Franker was pulling out the vial of sleeping potion that he would add to her drink. By the time she returned the three or four drops had already spread throughout the lemonade by whatever process it is that additives work their way through a liquid. Franker took a deep swallow of his lemonade and pronounced it good.
“Do you want some more?” Mrs. Smeltow asked.
“No, this is more than enough.” Franker replied as he thought, “Drink it, woman! Drink it, woman!” He engaged Mrs. Smeltow in folksy small talk until she suddenly fell unconscious in her chair. Franker assured himself that she wouldn’t fall out of the chair and went into the house. “This is the best part.” He said to himself. “This feeling of being in someone else’s home, free to rummage through whatever I want.”
He began with the closets in the bedrooms at the rear of the house, puzzling over various photographs and items and noting the similarities between many other houses he had been through. “Why is it so many people have one of these stuffed squirrels dressed in cowboy clothes and mounted on a pedestal?” He asked himself just as he heard the front door open. Reaching into a pocket of his old man’s chinos, he withdrew the paralyzer cylinder. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. Of course, as imperial prefect of this artificial town, he could ramble through any building he liked, but he wanted to keep everyone ignorant of his activities.

Lysol is Not a Deodorizer

Orbis LeGregg removed the naked cardboard tube from the paper towel dispenser and sealed one end with a lid off a vitamin bottle and a bit of fast-acting glue. Then he filled the tube with an assortment of buttons, shark’s teeth, and Nazi era coins. The other end of the tube he sealed in similar manner to the first, only this time the lid was from a canister of stop leak copper shavings in an oil-based syrup. He next rolled the tube in wrapping paper with a Batman vs. The Snow Leopard theme. He continued rolling the tube until all the wrapping paper was used. The ends, much longer than the tube itself, he tightly twisted and made fast with orange shoelaces.
LeGregg pushed the parcel into a single nylon hose, filling up the slack in the hose with radishes selected from the refrigerator. He glued the open end of the nylon hose to a copy of an Isaac Hayes LP he had found in the living room. Four suction cups suspended from the ceiling by bungee cords were attached to the opposite side of the LP so that the whole assembly hung down with the toe of the hose approximately six inches from the kitchen floor.
Glancing at his watch with satisfaction, LeGregg packed all of his gear back into his briefcase and headed for the door. Before exiting he opened a small box containing four mice and let them loose on the floor. These mice immediately scampered to the filled, suspended hose and began jumping up and down trying to reach it.
“Too bad I don’t have my camera.” LeGregg said to himself. He descended the wooden steps outside to the panel truck with the words “Bread for the Lunatics!” on the side. A quarter mile from the house he contacted a little known office in the Coca-Cola Company’s regional headquarters via the shortwave transmitter built into the otherwise non-functional horn in the middle of the steering wheel.
“Mission complete.” He reported to the man he knew only as Heinz Lauffer.
“Excellent. Did you get a photograph?” Lauffer asked.
“Negative. I forgot my camera.”
“You numbskull! This transmission is terminated.”
“Come on, Lauffer. I’ll get you a really good photo next time. It’s just that I’m not used to these digital cameras. I keep thinking they’re too delicate to carry about with me.”
“Alright.” Lauffer forgave him.

Your Mother’s Army

Sticky Wiener was a good name for a band, but the band itself proved to be less interesting than its name. Roland Emery, the bass player, wore the same t-shirt in every public appearance. Their songs were all about the male-female dynamic. There were no guitar solos.
“They ought to trade names with Danny Brown.” Gifford Checkerman told his best friend Hale Newboat.
“Danny Brown is a great band.” Newboat explained to the girl he had brought along to Checkermans’ house.
“I know who they are.” The girl, Esmeralda, replied.
“You do?” Checkerman and Newboat both asked. They couldn’t believe it. Most girls didn’t like kick-ass music, much less kick-ass music with a modicum of idiosyncrasy to it.
“Yeah. They’re OK.” Esmeralda nodded.
“OK?” Checkerman snorted.
“They’re OK.” The girl repeated. “But I think the whole point behind their name is that it is boring.”
“What do you think of Sticky Wiener?” Checkerman asked.
“I don’t think anything of them. They’re just there.”
“Good answer.” Newboat approved.
From outside came a deafening explosion just at the threshold of concussive impact. Disoriented, the three scrambled to the window and looked down. A small airplane had crashed into the old well house in Checkerman’s family’s back yard.
“Jesus Christ!” Esmeralda yelled. She ran out of the room and down the stairs. Without really thinking about it, Checkerman and Newboat followed. Outside they caught up with the girl as she was braving the flames from the wreckage, trying to get closer.
“Get back!” Checkerman bellowed.
“Where’s the hose?” She demanded, turning around. Checkerman hesitated, then went to get it.
Newboat stood transfixed, watching the girl moving desperately back and forth. “What kind of fool is she?” He asked himself.

Antiquated Cat Thimble

Orbis LeGregg opened a can of beans and dumped them into a plastic bowl. He took them to the counter and sat down on one of the stools there.
“Why didn’t you just eat them out of the can?” Nukey, the puppet on Quasi the monkey’s right hand, asked.
“Because I can’t doctor them the way I want in the can.” LeGregg answered.
“What are you going to ‘doctor’ them with?” Nukey asked. A curious thing about Nukey was that he could speak even though his manipulator could not.
“Mustard.” LeGregg told him. Both Nukey and Quasi looked dumbly about the counter on which Quasi sat, seeing no mustard. LeGregg sighed, realizing he had forgotten the damn mustard.
Rummaging through the refrigerator he came across a small jar of translucent fluid.
“What the hell is this?” He asked, holding it up.
“Quasi’s eye medicine.” Said Nukey. “Leave it out, please.”
“I didn’t know he had an eye condition.” LeGregg said as he continued to hunt for the mustard.
“Yeah, he can’t read.”
“Can’t read?” LeGregg questioned, standing up with the jar of generic brand mustard he had finally found turned over behind the innumerable containers of apple jelly.
Nukey shook his head in response.
“Well, can you?” LeGregg asked.
“Oh yeah, I can read.” The puppet affirmed.
“Well, why don’t you read to him?” LeGregg sat back down at the counter and dumped a generous measure of mustard into the bowl with his beans. He began stirring them.
“I do.” Said Nukey. “But I can’t always be there for him. Inevitably, as much as it pains us both, sometimes we must be separated.”
“Like when?”
“Like… when Quasi’s taking a bath.”
“And he wants to read in the bath?” LeGregg took a bite of his beans and frowned. The combination was not good.

Charlie Daniels’ Zoologist

Enid waited until Beardtoucher went to feed the rooster to go into the Professor’s study and look through the forbidden book. It was filled, as she had suspected, with cartoons and comic strips she had never seen before, by people she had never heard of. As she turned the pages she paused occasionally to listen for Beardtoucher’s return. What would happen if she were caught looking at the book? She didn’t like to speculate. Finally, with an open-mouthed shake of her head at the sheer quantity of comics, she shut the book and returned it to its place on the pedestal where the dictionary had been kept back in the days of the Professor’s father’s residency. She didn’t wonder over the reason why the book was forbidden to her.
Downstairs Beardtoucher managed to shut the door that led from the basement out to the rooster’s pen using his back. He was holding his mangled right hand with his left, squeezing at the wrist to staunch the flow of blood. “Enid!” He called. “Enid! Get the Professor!” He stumbled to the bottom of the stairs and sat down on the bottom step, breathing heavily and gathering strength for the climb. He called out twice more and, as he reached the half-way point on the stairs, was answered by Enid opening the door above. She cried out and began to descend, but Beardtoucher snapped, “Don’t bother, girl! Just get the Professor!”
“After I see you safely to the top.” Enid insisted stubbornly.
Once Beardtoucher was seated on one of the chairs in the hallway above Enid ran up another flight of stairs and along a corridor to the door to the Professor’s private chamber. She knocked heavily.
“What is it, you inquisitive girl?” The old man asked on opening the door a crack. He was dressed in his burgundy silk dressing gown.
“Beardtoucher’s hand has nearly been bitten off by that giant rooster!” Enid told him.
The Professor stepped outside, drawing the door shut behind him so that Enid might see as little as possible of the interior of the chamber.
“Where is he?” He asked.
“In the entry hall.”
“Ready the laboratory, girl, while I make a cursory examination.”
Enid acknowledged the order, but as the Professor hurried away, she looked at the old man’s door with curious eyes.

Fiddle’s Not For Children

“What’s she princess of?” Naomi asked her tablemate as both stared at the beautiful young woman sitting across the room at the admiral’s table.
“Princess of Chin, I think.” Helgary whispered back.
“Chin? What’s that?” Naomi asked.
The man sitting on the opposite side of the table from them, who had earlier kindly passed the gravy boat to Helgary, leaned forward and answered Naomi’s question. “It’s a region out west.” He said. “Near Boilana. Used to be part of the Yamican Empire.” Fearing he may have said too much, the man returned his gaze to his plate where there were mashed potatoes that needed finishing. His name was Chemdos. He was a bit of a know-it-all, but at least he recognized this flaw within himself and tried to keep in under control.
“Thank you.” Naomi said.
Chemdos nodded without looking up.
“She’s getting up.” Helgary hissed.
Across the room Eimena, Princess of Chin, rose carefully from her chair and smiled generously at the dozen men brought to their feet by her action.
“How ‘generous’ could it be?” Sneered Mrs. Graucus, seven seats away. “Her smiled isn’t diminished one iota by using it.”
“Shh!” Her husband insisted.
“Well, her teeth don’t fall out, do they?” Mrs. Graucus dumped the remainder of the wine in her glass down her throat and looked across the table at Baron Bancroft, now lowering his tired and threadbare booty back into his seat.
“That’s real fur.” Naomi whispered to Helgary as they watched the princess cross the room to the exit wrapped in her stole.
“Of course it is.” Helgary agreed.
Captain Sudmush took a calming breath as he watched the door close on the princess. His orders were explicit: no action was to be taken while the princess was in the room. He now took one last bite of the excellent carrot soufflé and wiped his mouth on his napkin. He excused himself from the ladies from Ohio whom he had been seated with and approached the table at which Chemdos sat. Leaning casually over Chemdos’ shoulder, as if to tell him something, he scratched his neck with the sharpened, poisoned end of a paper clip.

Terry Pulls Them All Out On the Other Side

“It’s too bad the Second Quintet didn’t record more of their own compositions live.” Lyndon Franker commented to his friend Orbis LeGregg as the two spent a quiet evening in the common room connecting their bachelor apartments.
“The Second Great Quintet.” LeGregg corrected. “Remember that part. It’s important.”
“Oh, but you know who it is that I am referring to.” Franker protested.
“Yes, but…” LeGregg began to explain, but paused at the creak of the stairs outside. “Are you expecting anybody?” He asked Franker, who, shaking his head, stared at the door. When the knock came the two men were already on their feet.
“Yes?” LeGregg called from inside the room, his hand on a stout length of steel pipe, padded with duct tape on the end he held.
“It’s me, Mrs. Aaron, Mr. LeGregg.” It was their landlady. “I’ve got a gentleman with me who would like to speak with you.”
“Can you vouch for him, Mrs. Aaron?” LeGregg asked warily. Franker hefted an antique sword he had taken down from over the mantel.
“Yes, Mr. LeGregg, I’ve known him for over three years.”
LeGregg and Franker exchanged a look prior to LeGregg throwing the door open. There stood the stern Mrs. Aaron, looking like a stereotypical squaw, but dressed in the clothes of a lower middle class homemaker. Beside he was a prematurely stooped man of about forty years of age wearing a thick, dark moustache and a black suit.
“This is Gerald Poontucker.” Mrs. Aaron introduced the man to her tenants. “This is Orbis LeGregg and Lyndon Franker. Well, I’ll leave you to discuss your business.” She descended the stairs as Poontucker entered the room and LeGregg shut the door behind him, hiding the pipe behind his back.
“Good evening, gentlemen.” Said Poontucker. “My, that’s a handsome weapon.” He indicated the sword Franker still held.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Franker answered nervously. He put it back on its hook on the wall as LeGregg replaced his pipe in its secret recess.
“What did you want to speak with us about, Mr. Poontucker?” LeGregg asked.
“I’ll come straight to the point.” Poontucker said. “Does the name Laird Foxfur mean anything to either of you?” As Franker gaped in astonishment, Poontucker added, “Because the man needs help in entering this country.”

Cordial Reply From Toni

Electrons from the quilt were analyzed for signs of tampering. As the analysis went on, under the watchful eyes of the conjoined twin puppets on the mechanical arm of Dr. Steamha, Dr. Rooter and Mark Hawksow discussed the ramifications of a positive result.
“Or a negative one, in this case.” Dr. Rooter made his little joke and laughed accordingly.
“Yes, yes, Dr. Rooter,” Hawksow impatiently replied. “I’ve attended a few chemistry lectures in my time. But the situation is far too grave for humor. If the flying whales have indeed found a way to breach the static barrier…”
“I read the memoranda. I understand.” Dr. Rooter put his hands before his face, as if warding off unspeakable horrors. “Let’s not talk about that now.” He said, smiling suddenly. “Let’s talk about you. Getting married, so I hear!”
“Yes.” Hawksow’s expression changed. The lines on his forehead cleared and, for the first time since being introduced to Dr. Rooter, he smiled in his presence. “Yes, that’s right.”
“You’re making a big mistake.” Dr. Rooter’s words and somber tone drained all the happiness from the air. “Take it from someone who knows. Women just don’t understand the scientific life.”
“Well, I don’t think…” Hawksow began to speak through clenched teeth, but was interrupted by one of the twin puppets.
“The analysis is complete.” He said in a voice much like Andy Rooney’s. His brother puppet sounded like Mickey Rooney when he talked, but, as no one had yet heard him do so, this fact was not widely known.
“And?” Dr. Rooter stepped forward anxiously, pulling at his beard and slapping his clipboard against his thigh.
“Inconclusive.” The puppet replied.
“Damn.” Dr. Rooter looked down at the beautiful artisanship of the tile work on the floor. “We can’t go to the council with no proof.”
“May I put in my two cents’ worth?” Dr. Steamha queried.
“Please do so, Dr. Steamha.” Dr. Rooter looked up hopefully.
“Thank you.” Steamha bowed in gratitude.

The Heart Attack Becomes More Nearly Imminent

The four man crew in the orbiting observation capsule consisted of Chris Dybbuk, the nominal commander (in actual practice most decisions were made democratically); Steve Stodger; Mafik Mahaffrey, the Indian; and Judd Potts. When not observing the planet below them the four men spent most of their time playing cards. Contrary to the predictions of early space flight theorists that said it would be impossible to cheat at cards in space, those who actually made the trip found it impossible not to cheat.
The four men inhabiting the Ellison Ellison had turned cheating into a fine art (“It is a craft.” Insisted Mahaffrey.) over the course of their five month tour. Now, keeping an eye on a brush fire in Professor Pampas’ backyard far below and waiting for the arrival of the relief crew, Dybbuk, Stodger, Mahaffrey, and Potts were playing a version of contract bridge unrecognizable as such except to certain highly experienced professionals of the last century.
“That’s seven thousand points for us.” Commander Dybbuk announced as he added this figure to the score.
“How do you figure seven thousand?” Asked Potts. “Shouldn’t that be five?”
“Commander’s bonus.” Dybbuk explained peremptorily.
“Why, you…” Potts growled, reaching for the zero gravity toothpaste launcher.
A loud alarm, accompanied by flashing amber lights, sounded, interrupting the game. The men all turned to the data screens.
“Action stations!” Dybbuk ordered, surreptitiously adding a quick 10,000 points to his partnership’s score before releasing himself from the harness that kept him at the card table. The men’s cards, freed from their grips, floated about as they swam to their assigned posts.
“What is it, Steve?” Dybbuk asked.
“Nothing on the transcope, Chris. I don’t see what…”
“Message coming through from base command.” Potts interrupted, switching on the cabin speakers.
“Bad news, men.” It was the voice of Lord Mistletum, head of the space service. “Your relief crew has been detained indefinitely. It seems the Ministry of Intelligence has reason to suspect them of fraud.”

Her God’s Words Leap From the Back of her Cereal Box

The selection of the day’s t-shirt was not taken lightly by Don Sterling. After performing his morning ablutions, he returned to his room and dumped out four drawers of t-shirts onto his bed and searched through them, looking for exactly the right one for his current mood. His neighbor, Phil Trustie, had the same problem picking out what music to listen to. Like Sterling, he had many options to choose from. Too many, some said, but, again like Sterling, he ignored this criticism.
Don Sterling ultimately selected a t-shirt bearing the image of comic strip super sleuth Dapper Dimple, but didn’t like the selection. He knew it was time to buy some more t-shirts.
“But you have shirts you’ve never worn!” Objected his live-in woman, Stalvia.
“And I’m probably never going to wear them either!” Sterling admitted in a rush of emotion, frustrated as he was at the dearth of novelty in his wardrobe.
“Then why don’t you let me get rid of the ones you’ll never wear, or will never wear again?” Stalvia, her knuckles red from the endless washing and her eyes red from the late nights of television watching, begged.
“I can’t bear to part with my acquisitions.” Sterling sounded offended.
“But…”
“We’ll have no more discussion on the subject.” The man decided. “I’m going out now. You just keep to your assigned duties.”
Stalvia collapsed on the rug after Sterling left the house.
Outside Sterling walked down to the sidewalk at the edge of his yard and met Phil Trustie also apparently heading out.
“Phil!” Sterling greeted the man. “Going out?”
“Yes, I’ve got to get some more music.” Trustie replied.
“Jeez, I know you’ve got a lot already.”
“Yeah, but I’m sick of it all. I’ve got to have something I haven’t heard a hundred times before.”
“That’s how I feel about my t-shirts. I’ve worn them each a dozen times. My woman doesn’t like it, but I’m going to get some more.”
“My woman listens to the same album over and over, Cyndi Lauper’s Greatest Hits.”

An Active Ministry is Imposed on the Brothers

Hugh Mindverve maintained a monopoly on the manufacture and sale of beef jerky throughout the alluvial plain.
“What is the beef jerky actually made of?” Asked a journalist during the press conference at Mindverve’s company’s thirtieth anniversary celebrations.
“Why…beef.” Mindverve answered. Everyone laughed. Rumors had circulated for years that he ground his enemies and his friends’ political opponents into the basic meat pulp from which the jerky was made. Despite the answer, however, eyes were turned towards every corner and piece of equipment on the subsequent tour.
“The Native American on the label was stroke of genius.” One man said to another as they walked with the crowd on the catwalk.
“Especially since the Native American is so closely linked with beef jerky in the minds of the people.” Agreed his walking partner.
“Exactly.”
“How goes your foray in to the processed cheese business?” Asked the journalist, a pace behind Hugh Mindverve and the religious officials beside him.
“Not as well as we had hoped. That’s no secret. I’ve been very forthright about my disappointment with last quarter’s numbers. But I’m positive that once our customers see the new packaging we’ve designed, with the Sphinx on the box, things will turn around.” Mindverve replied. The religious leaders whom Mindverve was proud to call friends cast angry looks at the journalist.
“Have some beef jerky.” An employee in a white smock offered Tip Nance and his girlfriend at the tour’s end.
“Mmm, this is fresh!” Nance enthused as he bit a piece off.
“Actually, it’s not.” The employee corrected. “As with any preserved food product, the older it is, the better it is. This is Mr. Mindverve’s Private Stock, first laid down when he started the company thirty years ago this month.”
“But it’s so tender.” Nance corrected himself, feeling a fool.
“All part of the aging process.” The employee smiled, waving them aside and offering a sample to the next guest.
“Might the lack of packaging have something to do with it?” Asked Nance’s girlfriend as they walked away.
“Don’t be a fool, Darwa.” Nance poured disdain on her suggestion.

James Discovers the Mythic Well of Spirits

Dapper Dimple threw his dirty boots into a corner of the wooden sleuthing cubicle he had had the local constabulary’s construction until knock together for him.
“When will I get a solid clue?” He asked aloud, dropping onto his stool and running his hands through the wiry gray hair that was one of his many trademarks.
“You didn’t find anything in that muddy field?” Snelling, Dimple’s manservant, asked as he stood at the camp stove in his apron and stirred the stew he was preparing.
“Nothing by a lot of unfulfilled promises.” Dimple answered.
“What do you mean, sir?” Snelling asked. He tasted the stew from his wooden spoon.
“That field was to have been planted with the miracle crop, sorghum, by the federal government.” Dimple explained. “That crop was to have given these wretched mountain people something to base their stunted economy on, give them a basis on which to build a civilization, do you follow?”
“I do, sir.” Snelling began ladling the stew into bowls.
“But the seeds the government sent were denatured, inert, wouldn’t grow. A bureaucratic oversight, perhaps. Or someone’s idea of a joke. Anyway, there that field, that the locals plowed with their crudely fashioned implements, sits, idle and muddy.” Dimple cast a glance at his three hundred dollar boots.
“And yet that was where the girl and her cat were last seen.” Snelling mused as he served his employer the stew and a generous slice of the “corn bread” he had learned to bake from one of the local constable’s wives.
Dapper Dimple picked up his spoon, but stared blankly to the side.
“Snelling!” He cried, putting the spoon down on the folding table with a snap. “That’s it! You’ve given me the insight that I think I need to crack this case!” He rose from his stool and headed for the corner in which his boots lay.
“Are you going out, sir?” Snelling asked, alarmed.
“Got to. Got to check that field again.”
“But your dinner!”
“Save it for me.” Dimple ordered. “If I’m right, that field should be knee-deep in kudzu right now.” The super sleuth threw open the door and found a crowd of hill people bearing torches and iron tools facing him.

Guilt for Dessert

Brant Borden began growing a beard while being held in detention by the Morabbles, that secretive clan of renegades making their home in the hills south of the Gomez Complex.
“He grows the beard because he is adopting our ways.” Said one Morabble elder as he sat in council with his fellows.
“He grows the beard to change his appearance.” Countered another elder.
“He grows the beard because we have not the fancy shaving equipment of his people.” A third made his own opinion clear.
Meanwhile Borden sat on his pallet in his hut reading the few books this Morabble village had: One John Gardner; two Anthony Trollopes; and a discordant jumble of pulp thrillers, most of them implausible westerns. The beard had finally reached a length where Borden could pull it with his hand. He did so as he read.
To the north, diplomats had arrived at the Gomez Complex, intent on working with the charity arm of the complex to secure Borden’s release.
“If we continue to dawdle,” One of the diplomatic team complained to a colleague, “We run the risk of having Borden ‘turn native,’ as the expression goes.”
“Borden’s a member of the aristocracy, a born snob. There’s no chance of that.” The other man demurred.
“Borden is too valuable an agent not to be reacquired.” The chief of the team said, entering both the room and discussion. “We must secure his release whether he likes it or not.”
As they sat talking in the comfortable quarters provided to them by the Gomez Complex executive board, they were closely observed by members of the complex’s internal security division.
“Each one has gained an average of two pounds since arriving.” One of the security personnel reported to his supervisor.
“How did you determine that?” The supervisor asked.
“Using the Mandelsson technique.”
“Ah, yes.” The supervisor nodded, leaning back in his chair. “And of what value do you think this information is to me?”
“Sir, we were always trained that all information is valuable.” Replied the man.

The Clear-Cutting Sweep of the Second Hand

Another fish bearing the sign of the police state leapt over the lip of the retaining pool, attempting, one suspects, to join his comrades in the great swamp beyond. Barry caught this one, however, in his massive hands. It wriggled to escape, but Barry held on to it as he stepped gingerly back to Mr. and Mrs. Cliptoe, standing on a rug spread out on the bank.
“It bears the sign, Mr. Cliptoe.” The hulking servant announced as he laid the fish in the silver ewer.
“Indeed.” Mr. Cliptoe, wearing the royal finery he had himself designed, raised an eyebrow and said.
“Make it talk, Chuck.” Mrs. Cliptoe, Queen of Probides by her husband’s authority, was yet a simple girl from the duplexes behind Dull-Mart in her heart.
“Yes, my dear.” Mr. Cliptoe snapped his fingers at Dupree, the technician, who stepped forward with the device he had prepared. It fit like a lid over the ewer in which the fish lay. Hoses connected it to a microphone and earpiece assembly that Dupree now fitted over his head.
“Ready, Mr. Cliptoe.” The bearded man, a former hippie, said.
“Ask it how it came to bear the sign of the Toast Party’s totalitarian rule.” Mr. Cliptoe ordered, putting a hand to his homemade crown to steady it.
Dupree spoke into the microphone. He listened carefully, nodding as the words came back to him translated into human speech by the device from the language of the fishes. He put a hand over the microphone.
“He says he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.” He told Cliptoe.
“He’s a liar!” Mrs. Cliptoe put her hands on her hips and snapped.
“Please, my dear.” Mr. Cliptoe said with a smile. “Let me handle this. Ask the fish,” He turned to Dupree. “If anyone has recently marked his hide.”
Dupree duly conveyed his employer’s words.
“He says he works at the bowlery, whatever that is.” Dupree reported.
“What’s that?” Cliptoe asked.
“I don’t know. It must be some fish word for which we don’t have an adequate equivalent.”
Barry stepped forward. “Let us threaten to eat him.” He suggested, brandishing a large knife.

The Relative Properties of Brass and Bronze are Listed

“I’m going to need that analysis by noon tomorrow.” Major Strasser put his head into Brant Borden’s office and reminded him.
“Analysis?” Borden (now shorn of the beard that the public had come to associate him with) looked up from the latest issue of Honey Bun Aficionado and asked with confusion evident in his voice, his eyes, the tilt of his head.
“You haven’t forgotten, have you? The in-depth analysis of Kiss’ Asylum album.” Major Strasser took a step into the office. Borden could not see that he held a tiny rabbit, possibly an infant, in one hand.
“In-depth?” Borden’s telltale features displayed more confusion.
“Borden, you assured me you’d have this done by the twenty-first. I forgot to ask for it then, but I’m going to need it tomorrow by noon.” Strasser’s rabbit sniffed the air. Borden had developed a taste for peshtaal during his months of captivity. Its odor filled his office.
“You’ll have it. You’ll have it.” Borden reassured Strasser, waving him away. “All I’ve got left to do is come up with…some kind of…elegant, pithy summation of the album’s qualities.”
“‘Sheer crap.’ There’s your pithy summation.” Strasser snapped. “Now, please, get a move on!” With a last glare of impatience at Borden, the major took his leave.
Borden stared at the open doorway for a couple of seconds. He returned to his reading with a sigh. What was happening to his memory, he thought as he examined a diagram of a new honey bun fryer. He hadn’t thought once about the analysis since it had been assigned to him over two weeks earlier. It could be that he just didn’t want to do it. After all, how much insight could he bring to bear on Paul Stanley’s interjection of “Fuck you!” in the middle of “Radar for Love”? The nagging reality, however, was that it had completely slipped his mind. He hadn’t even procrastinated about it.
Now that he considered the whole thing, he knew he didn’t want to do it, knew he wasn’t going to do it. How could he get out of it? He could take an already existent piece of analysis by someone else and re-write it, but there was little likelihood that anyone had ever given Asylum any kind of deep critical thought. He finally decided to just make up a load of nonsense.

Idiosyncratic Fish Learn to Walk Using Fancy New Gadgets

Dallas Pimiento always removed the entire peel from a banana before eating it. He stood eating his denuded fruit outside the Trumpo Cinema on the day of the premiere of Clusterfueled, a film about a giant robot invading a large city, waiting for his friend Lon Colloquia. He was staring at the entrance to the cinema’s parking lot, looking for Colloquia’s distinctive vehicle; a dome on wheels is the easiest way to describe it. Something caught his eye to the left. He turned ad saw the dome car pulling alongside the curb on which he stood. Colloquia waved at him from the wheel as he turned into the rows of parked cars.
“I came in the back way.” Colloquia explained as he joined Pimiento on the curb.
“I didn’t know there was a back way.” Pimiento offered his friend a banana, an offer that was declined, as they headed to the so-called “box office.”
“Yeah, through that little neighborhood back there.”
“I’m not very familiar with this town.” Pimiento took out his money and bought a ticket to the aforementioned Clusterfueled. Well-off as he was, he did not offer to pay for Colloquia’s
They took their seats, leaving one in between them in their manly way, and spoke idly of the upcoming movie. Colloquia withdrew a gorilla-shaped pill dispenser from his pocket and offered it to Pimiento.
“Lapsidextris?” Pimiento asked in a whisper. Colloquia nodded. Pimiento snapped the gorilla’s head back twice to deposit two of the small lemon yellow pills into his hand. Before he put them in his mouth, however, Pimiento grunted and said, “Better eat my bananas first.” He unpeeled the banana as usual, and threw the peel under the seat in front of him as far as he could.
Colloquia had taken the dispenser back from Pimiento and gotten two pills for himself from it. He and Pimiento smiled at each other as they swallowed the powerful psychedelic.
Soon the movie began. The giant robot, controlled by a crew of globular aliens onboard a space-going vessel orbiting the earth, seemed unstoppable until a handful of college students discovered that their sexual heat confused its sensors. About the time Brad, the psychology major, took off on his skateboard to rescue the large-breasted Cassidy from the robot, the Lapsidextris began to kick in. While Colloquia giggled, Pimiento analyzed the non-existent subtexts.

Charon Reduces His Overhead

The next year saw a doubling in the number of converts.
“They wear the box with pride.” Chief Foster Larry noted to the Exalted Founder, T. Wilkes Brillstein. They stood under the portico of the recently completed Hall of Exaltation. A line of newly accepted acolytes passed before them, crossing from the dining hall to the learning center, each one wearing a painted cardboard box over his head. A squarish hole was cut in the front of each box that the acolyte might see.
“Yes, my friend.” Brillstein responded, leaning heavily on his cane. He did not really need the cane, but felt that it added to his image. According to the official literature put out by his religious organization he was close to two hundred years old. In actuality he had just turned forty. “But it has not yet become a habit with them. This morning I saw a couple of them outside the dormitory without their boxes on.”
“What did you do?” Larry asked.
The Exalted Founder hefted his cane. “This is instructional, as well as cosmetic.” He said, smiling.
Larry chuckled. Like the other members of the Exceptional Society, he and the Exalted Founder wore boxes on their heads. Their boxes, however, were made of leather stretched over a latticework of goose feathers. Larry’s laughter, coming from within the box, was muted accordingly.
As the two men, who had known each other since high school, continued to talk, planning a recruitment drive at the nearby Dull-Mart, a senior acolyte named Russell came running up to them, his green robe (denoting his position in the clerical section) flapping behind him.
“Exalted Founder, Chief Foster,” He said breathlessly. “A television crew is here! They’re waiting in the visitor’s area and have requested to speak to both of you!”
“Calm yourself, Russell.” Brillstein ordered in a fatherly voice. “Return to these people and tell them they will have their interview. While I prepare myself, tell Tourmaster James to take them on the standard tour.” As the acolyte rushed back, Brillstein turned to Larry. “Well, this is it.” He said. “Time for that free publicity we’ve been waiting for.”
“I hope these boxes look good on camera.” Larry confessed his secret worry.

John Plugs While Mary Shrugs

“The way to determine your favorite color,” The handbook began. “Is to imagine yourself floating in an infinite, empty space, consisting of nothing but, aside from your own self, your favorite color. If this image generates an overwhelmingly positive feeling, then you have chosen correctly.”
Dallas Pimiento tried the image using his avowed favorite color of orange. He saw himself floating in the infinite orange and immediately felt a warmth and contentment such as he had not felt in many weeks. He long to be actually in such a space. Truly orange is my favorite color, he thought as he closed the handbook and looked at the color.
“Where’d you get that?” Lon Colloquia asked, coming into the room. He pointed at the handbook with his breadstick.
“Found it in the parking lot of Dull-Mart this morning.” Pimiento answered. He gripped the book with satisfaction. It had a good feel to it. “I like it.”
“I’d be careful if I was you.” Colloquia sat down at the small desk before the window that looked out over the garden below. “That’s the handbook of the Exceptional Society.”
“Yes, I know.” Pimiento replied. “It says so right here.” He pointed to those very words below the cheaply reproduced image of the godhead of the organization, Ernie Kovacs’ face annexed to a muscular-looking double bass, surrounded by intelligent-looking fish.
“They’re a cult.” Colloquia said as he turned his attention to the letter he was composing. He was begging his Uncle Orbis LeGregg to let him come for a visit. “And once I’m there,” He had explained to Pimiento earlier, “I’ll make myself indispensable and he’ll will his secret fortune to me.”
“You’re sure he has a secret fortune?” Pimiento had asked.
“He has to. They way he lives, he’s either a master criminal or a secret millionaire.”
“Or both.” Pimiento thought again as he dismissed Colloquia’s concern for his intellectual freedom with a shake of his head.
“By the way,” Colloquia said without pausing in his efforts. “Thanks for letting me stay the extra two weeks.”
“Thanks for the drugs.” Pimiento returned.

Bunks are Assigned Alphabetically

“Some people don’t like mayonnaise.” Lyndon Franker commented to Orbis LeGregg, his friend and companion on this rescue mission they had undertaken.
“Hard to fathom, isn’t it?” LeGregg responded. He was at the controls of the wheeled animal in which the two men were traveling to the southern border.
“I like it.” Continued Franker. “I really can’t eat a sand-wich without it.”
“Another thing:” continued Franker. “What is this stuff about mayonnaise being for white people? Or WASPs? Black people eat mayonnaise. And the Jews—I just don’t get how mayonnaise is somehow the ultimate symbol of non-Jewishness.”
Franker pondered as they rode on for another hundred yards. “You know,” he said. “It’s a funny thing: I don’t recall ever having met a black person.”
LeGregg considered. “Nor do I.” He glanced at Franker. “Yet we know they exist.”
“Because of all the Jazz albums.” Franker concluded.
“Right.” LeGregg agreed.
“You know another funny thing?” Franker leaned forward in his seat. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a Jewish person either.”
“Now I know I’ve met a Jew.” LeGregg was quick to respond. “I can’t think of any specific names, but I know I’ve met one.”
“Well, if you can’t think of anybody, then how are you so sure?”
“Got to have.” LeGregg insisted. “All the people I’ve met, all the different places I’ve been.”
“It’s not like with a black, is it?” Franker mused. “I mean, with a black, you know.”
“Yeah.” LeGregg began slowing down as they reached the first checkpoint on their way to the border. There would be two more of these before they actually crossed over. They waited while the soldiers on duty checked over their vehicle. One soldier at LeGregg’s window examined their papers. He remarked on the wheeled animal. “Don’t see many of these anymore.” He commented with an admiring smile. LeGregg agreed pleasantly. Soon they were on their way.
A quarter of a mile later Franker turned to LeGregg and said, “Let me ask you this: have you ever met a Christian?”

Tiffany Tries Soy Sauce on her Baked Potato

The actress who played Tom Cruise’s mother in the quickly suppressed made-for-TV movie, Secretive Paranoiac, never had another significant role. Whether this was due to retaliatory pressure put out by the Cruise organization, none can say for sure. Eventually resigning herself to her fate, the woman, Belle Eva Courson, married a local politician whom she encouraged to run for Congress. In an upset victory that rekindled her belief in the deity of her childhood, her husband was elected and she took her place in the capital.
Now she was in attendance at a party slightly duller than those she had attended back in Hollywood. Her husband was huddled in a serious conversation with two men from one of the intelligence agencies discussing the possibility of remote brain control by ultra low frequency waves while she sat on one of the many couches in this artificial environment, nursing a sprained ankle and talking to a sweaty fat man about the power of Jesus to influence voters.
“A word subtly introduced into a sermon,” Enthused the man, who wasn’t exactly a preacher, more a religious advisor with a theological degree, “Such as ‘referendum,’ ‘melanin,’ or ‘bestiality’ can work wonders in getting out the vote.”
Belle Eva saw what he meant. She said so. She even agreed with the man and his stated aims, but she was bored. She excused herself using her acting skills, claiming she needed to go to the bathroom. Upon standing up, however, she saw Tom Cruise entering the room. This was her chance to show him what she had become. Whether he remembered her or not, it was important that he be made aware of who she was. She limped closer to the throng of people around the celebrated star.
“Let me ask my wife.” Congressman Courson told the men he was speaking with. At that moment, as he turned to look for his wife, a wave of excitement passed through the room.
“Tom Cruise is here.” One of the congressman’s interlocutors announced.
“Really?” Courson asked, changing the object that he sought to see.
“I told you.” The other man said. “It was easy to summon him here with our techniques.”
“I’m impressed.” The congressman began to say as he caught sight of his wife putting her face right into the movie star’s.

The Horse Comes Back Riderless

Judging by the way the fellow carried the dead bird slung over his shoulder I took him to be an experienced woodsman. Imagine my surprise then, (Imagine it!) when he opened his mouth and, in a resonant, broadcast neutral voice, spoke with authority about the proper installation of drapes.
I turned to my companion and said, “He’s the one. He’s the killer.”
“Shh!” She whispered. “There is no killer. Just watch.”
I put my feet up on the coffee table conveniently placed by the management for my comfort. The next person shown on the screen was even more idiosyncratic than the last. He was dressed conservatively, yet carried a puppet on his hand with a grotesquely carved head. He and the puppet engaged in playful banter for a few seconds before together delivering a message of brotherhood that I’m sure all of us took to heart.
“He’s the killer.” I said.
“There is no killer.” My companion insisted.
“There’s always a killer.” I corrected her. “And it’s our job to find him.”
The appearance of the next person, however, made me begin to doubt my conception of this entertainment before me. It was a woman in a fish costume with a dead penguin held casually under one arm.
“She’s no woodsman.” I whispered.
“Shh!”
“Woodswoman.” I corrected myself.
The woman in the fish costume told us of her desire to kill, not only her enemies, but innocent people, strangers to herself. She said this with anger in her voice, but not the uncontrollable kind. It was the same kind of routine anger than anyone might feel, such as I had felt when I found out that popcorn was not available for sale at this entertainment.
“Hmm.” I mused aloud. She couldn’t possibly be the killer. Was my companion right? Would there be no killing? For of course you couldn’t have a killing without a killer. A joke occurred to me. I worked it out in my head before telling it, wanting to get it just right. It involved the “killing” that the management would make off ticket sales. But before I could tell it, I remembered that this entertainment had been free.

The Pumpkin’s Enduring Appeal

During the bass solos the sounds of the outside world penetrated my solitude causing me to become confused. Was I writing a story about a team of plucky, miniature bears escaping the clutches of the Pica Emperor through the garden of giant bean pods or about the frantic, laugh-tracked search for this season’s sexiest thirteen-year-old? I usually doodled on the side of the page, waiting for Joe Henderson to come honking back into hearing, but today I gazed out the window to my left.
The new discotitube, modeled after one of my side-of-the-page doodles from earlier in the year, stood outside in the parking lot, its Styrofoam packing pieces and cardboard shipping container all about it on the asphalt.
“Whose fault?” The perverse module of my brain asked.
I shook my head and returned my attention to my notebook, but my momentum was gone. Sydney, the nominal leader of the miniature bears, found himself pinching the bridge of his nose as he slowed to a halt in the middle of the path between two rows of beans. The rest of the bears gathered around him.
“Sydney, what’s wrong? Why are we stopping?” They asked.”
“I don’t know.” He said, looking up at them, these good friends with whom he had risked so much and achieved such dubious victories. “Don’t you guys ever get the feeling that it’s all so futile?”
“Sydney, we haven’t got time for that.” Piped up old Charlie, who was actually a gopher, and only an honorary bear. “The palace guards of the Pica Emperor Bigsalad VII are hot on our trail, or have you forgotten that?”
“I haven’t forgotten what’s going on, Charles.” Sydney replied in a soft voice. “It’s just that I wonder what we’re doing here. How did we get into this situation? Who is this Bigsalad VII anyway?”
“Sydney,” Said little Jeremy, the youngest of the bears, “Those are questions for others to ponder, people with critical minds, perhaps. Not us bears. Our task is to keep on keeping on, right?” He turned to his comrades as he shouted this last word.
“Right!” They all answered in chorus.
“There they are!” Came the voice of a guard only a few yards away.
The bears, including Sydney, ran. They would have been captured, however, had it not been for the fortuitous arrival at that moment of the discotitube.

Cellophane Owls and Chewing Gum Lions

It didn’t take too long for Miss Darwa to reattach the stuffed goat’s leg.
“Once the initial traversing stitch is completed,” The moderately attractive spinster explained, “The rest is easy.”
“Excellent.” Hale Newboat pronounced in a flat voice. He stood up from his inspection of Miss Darwa’s handiwork and called to his assistants, who were lounging about the studio. “We’re ready to continue. Prepare the hat.”
As the three young men rose wearily from their seats, however, Gifford Checkerman entered the studio by the streetside door, delaying yet again the project.
“So!” Checkerman barked.
“Gifford!” Newboat involuntarily blurted his estranged friend’s name.
“Using my goat in your crappy ‘Sights of the Sixties’ thing?” Checkerman accused, marching forward into the midst of the clutter under the skylight.
“How do you figure this is your goat?” Newboat demanded. As Checkerman began to enumerate the steps in his logical assumption of the goat’s ownership, Newboat snapped his fingers at his assistants.
“We’re not stopping work.” He informed them. “Carry on with your instructions.”
“Not with my goat you’re not!” Checkerman interrupted his review. He took a step closer to the goat and stretched out his hand to seize it.
Miss Darwa jumped in front of him.
“Oh, no you don’t!” She snapped. “I just sewed his leg back on and I’m not going to have you two tear the whole thing apart!”
“Get out of my way, woman!” Checkerman man hissed.
“Tommy, Earl, Milton,” Newboat commanded. “Throw Mr. Checkerman out.”
Earl was the first to throw up his hands. “We’re paid to help produce art, not engage in violence.” He objected. The other two tacitly agreed, hanging back.
“A fine crew you are.” Newboat sneered. He turned to Checkerman and raised his hands threateningly. “So help me, Gifford, if you don’t leave, I’ll…”
“No you won’t.” Miss Darwa brought her angry common sense to bear on Newboat as well. “This is a place of creativity. Can’t you two think of some creative, productive solution?”
“Where did you get this woman, Hale? A museum?” Checkerman asked with a laugh, leading Newboat to wonder where exactly he had gotten her.

Nancy Proceeds to Document the Discrepancy

The only known recording of the Pica Emperor Bigsalad VII’s voice was made during a rare meeting between the monarch and a group of ambassadors representing the Exceptional Society’s territorial holdings. In the sixteen minute recording the emperor is heard to remark several times on the health benefits of plums.
“Of course, if one is able to swallow the seeds, as I do, the benefits are multiplied three times.” Bigsalad VII says at one point.
The man who made the recording, Ambassador Ellison Ellison, was, like most members of the diplomatic corps, not required to wear the distinctive head box that characterized members of the Exceptional Society. After the cult’s annexation of the Punkliquor Islands following its sudden infusion of billions of dollars bequeathed to it by a celebrated movie star, it found itself responsible for many people who were not members. This necessarily led to a liberalizing of certain parts of Society dogma.
“The box, however,” remarked then-current Director-in-Chief David C., “Remains indispensable.”
Ambassador Ellison recalled the Director-in-Chief’s stirring words as he retired to the quarters set aside for the Society’s diplomatic team. He was tempted to join the Society formally—he knew that he was damn lucky to have made it this high up in the corps without being a member. A lifetime of pride in his well-groomed hair, however, was not something he could lightly toss aside. Then too, there were his deeply-held convictions about the truth of Christianity and the benefits it had bestowed upon civilization. He sighed as he removed the now-famous cassette tape from the hidden recorder and slipped it into his luggage.
“What did you fellows think of ‘His Majesty’s’ obsession with plums?” He asked his colleagues as they all say down to relax over a pile of paperwork.
Today, in the New Age of Enlightenment, researchers into the history of the Pica Throne and its dealings with the Exceptional Society have found the nearly forgotten tape to be a treasure trove of valuable information.
“Listen to the way Bigsalad pronounces ‘plums.’ He’s using the di-valvic ‘p.’ It is clear from this that he was educated at a monastery.” One opined.
“Nonsense.” Another objected. “He’s slightly drunk.”
A third had a deeper insight. “I think I hear the squeak of a La-Z-Boy in the background!”

Pilots Make Use of Valuable Coupon

There was enough money in the old man’s pockets for one last ride on the Ferris wheel. After Elaine and Harvey had rolled his body under the out-of-service gyro wagon, they walked hand in hand towards the flashing, ten-story structure. In the distance, the sun had just dropped below the line of trees that marked the edge of the world, for all they knew.
As the young couple took their seats on the wheel, above them, sitting alone on the opposite end, was Red Vlaminck, the adventurer. He scanned the horizon impatiently. “Hurry the night.” He thought to himself. In the paper sack beside him was the small, but powerful pyrotechnic device that would forever alter his fortunes in this rinky-dink town.
“A well-balanced wheel.” Commented old Buster, who had worked for one carnival or another for forty years. He couldn’t tell you the exact number of outfits he had been with, but he remembered every Ferris wheel.
“Looks like it.” Corky, the sunburned young man at the controls, agreed indifferently. As the restraining bar on the last seat was locked in place, he set the wheel in motion. Looking away sourly, he put a cigarette in his mouth.
“Those things will be the death of you.” Buster warned Corky. “You won’t make forty more circuits if you keep smoking those.”
“I have no intention of working for the carnival for forty years, Buster.” Corky informed the old man. He softened his gaze and looked up at the first stars. “I just got to think things out.” He said.
“‘Circuits’ can mean circuits around the sun, not just the carnival’s route.” Buster reminded the other man.
Corky looked into Buster’s eyes and nodded, but did not take the cigarette out of his mouth.
Elaine and Harvey smiled at each other as their seat descended once more. It was fun to be together. What a shame it would have to end before the sun came up again. As they squeezed each other’s hand and felt themselves begin to rise once more, there was an explosion overhead. They looked up and saw a monstrous pair of boots in the sky, made up of thousands of sparkling lights.
“Are they closing early?” Harvey wondered.

The Scandalous Corn of the Tenth Family

Who knows how much farther Tip Nance would have wandered in his crazed state had not his girlfriend found him when she did? Certainly not his parents, although they could fantasize as much as they liked about their son being arrested as a vagrant in the next valley.
“He could have been locked up in some nuthouse!” Tip’s mother’s eyes grew wide as she made this realization.
“Yes, yes.” Agreed Tip’s father, already tiring of the game.
“Do you think it was that beef jerky?” Darwa, Nance’s girlfriend, asked as she drove him back towards town.
“Beef jerky. Beef jerky.” Nance mumbled. His face was green. He was sweaty, but cold. He seemed not to know where he was nor what was happening.
“That old beef jerky you ate at the factory?” Darwa continued. “Do you think you had a reaction to it?”
“Reaction. Reaction.” Nance’s eyes were half-closed as he repeated the words.
“Well, where is he now?” Nance’s mother demanded after receiving the call from Darwa.
“I’ve got him lying down here at my place.” Was the answer.
“Your place? Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?”
“I can take care of him just as well here.”
Nance’s mother reiterated the conversation to her husband after getting off the phone. The man’s eyebrows lowered and his lips stuck out.
“You don’t suppose she’s got him…in her bedroom?” He asked hesitantly.
“She’d better not!” Nance’s mother growled, suddenly realizing what her husband meant, and dashing for her car keys.
By the time she and Nance’s father arrived at the cheaply made duplex, however, another interested party was already there.
“Of course Tip’s ingestion of the Select Label beef jerky had nothing to do with his… feverish behavior,” Said a spokesman for the Mindverve Company. “But in any event, if he’ll just sign this paper, he’ll receive this substantial check.”
As Nance’s mother put a pen into her son’s hand and moved it across the document, she felt the sting of shame at strangers having seen him in his girlfriend’s bed.

Nancy Avails Herself of Terry’s Offer

Although often mistaken for Sean Connery, Ned Feese was not, in fact, all that good-looking. His personal physician, Dr. Flippingrab, speculated upon the conundrum.
“I think it’s because your face is not symmetrical.” He said, staring hard at Feese in one of the many examination rooms in his thriving practice.
“But Sean Connery’s face is symmetrical.” Feese pointed out.
“Yes.” Flippingrab agreed. “But I think this side of your face,” He tapped Feese’s right cheek with a tongue depressor. “Looks like Sean Connery from Diamonds are Forever.”
“Not a particularly good movie. Feese jumped in.
“No. Too silly.” Flippingrab concurred. “And this side,” He tapped the left cheek. “Looks like Sean Connery in… oh, I don’t know… Name of the Rose? But without the beard.”
Feese looked at his tiny reflection in the doctor’s stethoscope. “Well, let me ask you this: do you think I should grow a beard? Perhaps even out the difference?”
“No.” Flippingrab considered, eyeing Feese’s cheeks and neck critically. “I don’t think you have the necessary beard-growing capacity to grow a beard thick enough to make the necessary distinction-blurring thing.” He passed a hand over his own face, miming the act of stroking a luxurious cascade of facial hair.
Feese sighed. His gaze fell to the shiny buckle on the doctor’s belt, but then he realized what he was looking at (and could be seen looking at) and glanced away quickly.
“Don’t be so disheartened.” Flippingrab encouraged Feese manfully. “Not everybody can look like a movie star.”
“But I was so sure that if I could get this little discrepancy cleared up, that I could get into the movies, and possibly get out of my shitty job.” Feese declaimed.
“Well, there’s more to being a movie star than good looks, you know.” Flippingrab reminded his patient. “There’s all that hard learned acting ability, for one thing.”

None Fancier Than the Spoonlicker May Attend

“Treat yourself to a day or two at the mall.” Advised Dr. Rooter. “That’s what you domesticated people like, isn’t it? And when you’re done shopping for sweaters and eating at the food court, maybe you’ll feel like coming back and getting some work done.”
This advice, directed at Hawksow, was not appreciated. Hawksow glared at Dr. Rooter sourly. His recent marriage, as Dr. Rooter had predicted, was a source of frustration. Hawksow’s wife, a sweet, simple girl from the valley, was increasingly puzzled at Hawksow’s devotion to the lab. Already he had missed several important experiments because the wife insisted on his staying home with her.
“And you’ve gained a few pounds, if I’m not mistaken.” Dr. Rooter pointed at Hawksow’s once-trim abdomen with a hot comb.
Hawksow jumped down from his stool. “Enough!” He cried. “We’re still newlyweds. I just haven’t broken her to my routine yet. That’s all!” He began fiddling with the knobs on an antique microscope.
Dr. Rooter stepped next to Hawksow. He placed a comforting hand on Hawksow’s arm. “Easy there, Hawksow.” He said. “I know how it is. As I told you, I know about these things. I’ve been through it. You just had to learn to hard way, as we all do.”
Hawksow sighed. “How did you get through it?” He asked.
“Well, I didn’t get divorced.” Rooter joked.
Hawksow didn’t seem to think this funny.
Dr. Rooter took on a more serious tone. “No, listen to me. I found a way to achieve the balance between a happy marriage and a fulfilling career in science.” He stared hard at Hawksow. “Do you want to know how I did it?”
Hawksow looked back at Dr. Rooter. “Sure.” He answered. His voice was slightly hoarse.
“Come with me.” Dr. Rooter instructed. As he led Hawksow out into the hall and down the stairs to the basement, he told him, “What I’m about to show you I have never shown to anyone else.” They entered the basement and crossed to a large temporal suspension chamber. “In here is my secret.” Rooter revealed. He fitted a key in the door and opened it. Inside was a facsimile of a living room.
“Hi, Honey. Home again already?” Mrs. Rooter greeted him.

Cold Feet Are Specified in the Recipe

Having mailed the letter to his former instructor, Dallas Pimiento sat down with a book of literary terms to look up the definition of a sonnet. He nodded his head as the definition tallied with his dim memories of the subject. He closed the book with a sigh and scanned the shelves.
“Stuart!” He called to his assistant.
“What?” Came the answering call from further back in the house.
“Come here!” Pimiento wanted to make sure the man heard exactly what he wanted.
Stuart Munkie entered the study with an apron over his chinos and dress shirt. “What do you need?” He asked Pimiento.
“Find the dictionary of musical terms, will you? I want to look something up.” Pimiento directed Munkie.
“OK.” Munkie took a look around the book-filled room.
“It’s not in here. I already looked.”
“OK.” Munkie left the room. Munkie, who had worked for Dallas Pimiento for two months now, was a recording artist. He had proved thus far to be an excellent assistant and an amiable companion. It amused Pimiento when strangers took them to be lovers. Perhaps it gave him a secret erotic thrill as well? The fact that Munkie was not a fellow painter made him all the more right for the job. Pimiento’s faded memories of his own days of apprenticeship were yet strong enough to make the idea of repeating that situation repellent.
As Pimiento waited he doodled on a piece of cheap copier paper. For some reason, these doodles were most satisfying to him. He longed to put them out as artworks for public consumption, but knew he could not. He was committed to figuration. The idea of presenting as ART some confused slop that had cost him no effort at all went against his code. That fact that others did exactly that and lived in mansions as a consequence while he was starting middle-age in a tiny house buried underground galled him.
“How many books do you reckon you’ve got?” Stuart Munkie asked, entering the room with the desired book in his hand.
“About six thousand.” Pimiento answered.
“What are you going to look up?”
“The difference between a sonata and a concerto.” Pimiento began thumbing through the book.
“Oh, I could have told you that.” Said Munkie. “I think.”

Gourmet Steak is Shipped Through the Mail

With no more consideration for Cynthia’s sensibilities than he would grant a repulsive worm, Rhodes picked her nose in front of her as she told him about the miniature bears’ near-miraculous escape from the grounds of the imperial palace. She averted her eyes as Rhodes wiped his finger on the wine list.
“The emperor’s security is getting a bad reputation.” Rhodes noted. “First Laird Foxfur and Lyndon Franker, now these bears you speak of.”
“Are you through?” Cynthia asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Picking your nose.” Cynthia’s hand was shielding her eyes.
“Oh, sorry.” Rhodes smiled. “You can look now.”
“Thank you.” Cynthia looked around the restaurant. She spied Andy Summers sitting at a table several yards away. “Excuse me.” She said. She walked over to the Police guitarist and introduced herself as a friend of Dallas Pimiento.
“Ah yes.” Summers’ face brightened at the name.
“I just wanted to tell you that I thought I Advance Masked and Bewitched were amazing and to ask you when you’re going to do another album with Fripp?”
“As a matter of fact, we have a third collaboration coming out very soon. It’s called Water Over Subway.”
“Well, that’s good news.” Cynthia thanked him for his time and returned to his seat.
“Who was that?” Rhodes asked her.
“Nobody.” Cynthia told him. She liked to keep the various parts of her life rigidly compartmentalized. “Now,” She said as she took up the wine list. “What shall we have?”
“I don’t drink.” Rhodes informed her.
“Then what did you insist we come here for?” Cynthia demanded, slapping the wine list down on the table. The Forklift Promenade, where they were, was known primarily for its wines, as well as its unique combination of exclusivity and camaraderie.
“Because I have a coupon.” Rhodes revealed. He reached into his coat and withdrew the handwritten document on parchment that entitled him to two free dinners.
“Where’d you get that?” Cynthia asked.
“Sting.”

Yonah Grub Makes Excuses for Dot

More than a few observers felt that the performances at the Extemporary Box this past Tuesday were the strongest ever presented at the venue. Following the lead of his partner, Waffle Industreat, Coaches Cold launched into a stirring monologue about the betrayal of the South during the past two decades, using a spatula and an antique airplane propeller as props.
“Who are you?” Prompted one of the audience-elected motivators sitting before the stage.
“I do not answer the queries of the Living Room Alliance, for I am Pronto… King of the Horses!” Cold stepped forward proudly.
His partner, Waffle Industreat, visibly taken aback by this display of virtuosity, metamorphosized into a two-headed centipede, trampling the rights of the workers as he moved stage right, throwing tiny squares of green cloth about him as he did so. This started a furious debate among a group of turtleneck-clad students at the rear of the Box, some of whom saw the cloth squares as representing dollar bills and some of whom saw them as representing leaves of cabbage. The few who felt they were used handkerchiefs received the brunt of the former groups’ ire. For the rest of the evening this loud debate vied with the performances on the meta-stage for the attentions of those in attendance.
“I thought it was all pre-arranged.” Said Todd Arachnum, a philosophy activist from Wonk, after the conclusion. His comments, although only intended as a preliminary commentary on the necessary synchronicity of formats, were overheard by a couple of departing textile designers, who had pinned green cloth squares taken from the floor to their vestments. Their angry denouncements drowned out any attempt at follow-up on my part. I retreated to the small kitchen backstage reserved for members of the Drama Society (elitist, I know, but I find value in such traditions) to let the reality of what I had seen penetrate my deeper memory.
As I sat formulating my ideas for this piece of “criticism,” one of the custodial staff, regrettably unnamed herein, entered.
“Is it over?” He asked me.
I nodded, drinking in the beauty of his old mop.

I Listen to “Sledgehammer” in the Car

The prospect of sitting through another showing of Rolf’s experimental film Milk and Quickly Passing Digital Numerals did not appeal to Kostar, yet, out of loyalty to his friend and due to the fact that he would be watching it with Rolf’s parents on their first viewing (making it slightly new again for him), he agreed to do so.
“It starts at seven.” Rolf reminded Kostar before hustling out of his foyer and down the hall.
“Yeah, I know.” Muttered Kostar to the retreating figure in black. He decided that this time he would bring along a little snack. He microwaved a couple of burritos (“A good, silent food,” he reasoned.) and, after allowing them to cool first, put them into the front pockets of his dead father’s pea coat.
“Are you that cold?” Asked Rolf’s mother as she saw her son’s friend approaching the entrance to the tiny cinema.
Kostar smiled and rubbed the material. “I like it.” Was all he said.
“Well, let’s get inside before we all freeze to death!” Rolf’s father barked jokily.
“This should be fun.” Kostar thought.
Rolf showed his auteur’s pass to the bored-looking guy at the ticket booth, allowing him and his guests to be seated without paying.
“Imagine that.” Rolf’s father looked impressed.
The film opened with Rolf standing before an orange backdrop, doing a parody of Woody Allen’s famous introduction in Annie Hall. Rolf’s mother put her hand on her son’s arm proudly.
“I doubt her attitude with remain that way throughout this thing.” Kostar said to himself. Although he respected the work Rolf had put into the film and the intellectual pretensions behind it, he still thought it was mainly bullshit. His suspicions about Rolf’s parents were confirmed when the live chicken-plucking scene began.
“Are those real chickens?” Rolf’s father whispered.
Kostar took one of his burritos out and took a furtive bite.
“What is this supposed to mean?” Rolf’s mother asked.
It took Kostar a moment to realize that she was asking him. He swallowed and hissed, “I think it’s a declaration of Rolf’s unconscious homosexuality.”

A No-No is Described as a Yes-Yes

Lyndon Franker was at the wheel. In the large area behind the front seats Orbis LeGregg was tending to the wounded Laird Foxfur.
“If I don’t live…” Foxfur began.
“‘If?’” LeGregg interrupted. “Listen, old boy, I’ve seen people far worse off than you pull through. You just have another drink.” LeGregg brought the whiskey bottle to Foxfur’s lips.
The wounded man, however, feebly pushed it aside.
“No. I want to say this. I appreciate everything you’ve done, but the chance exists that I’ll die before we make it over the border. Promise me, that if that happens, you’ll do something for me.”
“Anything, old boy.” LeGregg agreed. “What is it?”
“Hidden in a book that I loaned to a friend is a sheet of paper containing information damning to the Pica Emperor and especially to his evil Postal Service. Promise me you will obtain this paper and use against the emperor!”
“Surely.” LeGregg promised, his mind awhirl at the possibilities. “Who has this book and what is the title of it?”
“The man’s name is Dallas Pimiento.”
“Dallas Pimiento?” LeGregg repeated, awestruck. “The painter?”
“Yes. I used to be a patron of his… in happier times.”
“And the book?”
“It is called The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham. Do you know it?”
LeGregg pursed his lips sourly. “I know of it.” He said. “But how do you know the paper is still there?”
“I don’t.” Foxfur winced as Franker ran over a dead armadillo. “But, knowing Dallas as I do, I doubt he’s opened the book once since I let him borrow it.”
LeGregg mused, glancing up at Franker.
“I’ll take that whiskey now.” Foxfur said.
After administering the liquor, LeGregg made Foxfur as comfortable as he could, then joined Franker in the front.
“You heard?” He whispered.
“I did.” Franker acknowledged. There was no time for further discussion. The border was in sight.

Robin Supervises in a Fog

Brant Borden liked nothing better than pastry. He stood in line at Hechabo’s konditorei, trying to decide which of the enticing offerings on display he would select once he reached the cashier. Behind him, should he turn around on some whim, he would see that the back wall of Hechabo’s was now missing and that an audience of some one hundred and fifty sat quietly watching all the doings within the little shop. Borden, however, possibly tired from overwork and prematurely aged by his past ordeals, was focused solely on the pastry in his mind and the slow progression of old ladies ahead of him.
Wearing my best approximation of a suit that Sean Connery might have worn in one of the first three Bond films, I sat in the middle of the audience carefully taking notes with a pen containing a tiny light in the nose for just such situations. I had just scribbled something about Borden’s graying temples reminding me of how Reed Richards was supposed to look when a man dressed in the red uniform of an usher stepped up onto the stage and excused himself, but “There is an urgent message for a Mister Lance Ash who is in attendance tonight. If Mister Lance Ash will please go to the lobby, there is a message waiting for him. Thank you.”
As big of an effect at this announcement had one me, you may well imagine the effect it had on Brant Borden. He turned around, having just received his pastry and saw, not only the yawning expanse of the body-filled auditorium, but me, moving past the knees of the others on my row.
His shock was quickly replaced with an inexplicable rage as the details of my face registered on his memory.
“You!” He shouted. In a second he had reached the edge of the stage and jumped down.
The woman at the counter of Hechabo’s shouted out that he hadn’t paid and quickly followed him. I saw Borden racing after me and hurried to the lobby.
“You have a message for Lance Ash?” I asked at the desk.
“I don’t think so, sir.” Said the young man on duty.
“You’ve got a lot to answer for!” Shouted Borden as he emerged.

A Short-Lived Concentration of Effort

“Something screwy is going on.” Diane suggested to her traveling companion, Rosary Mankenouse.
“Indeed?” Rosary followed the other woman’s gaze to the two crew members standing by the rail talking with a young officer.
“Look at their eyes.” Diane directed.
Rosary noted that the three men’s eyes did seem rather furtive. “What do you think it is?” She asked.
“I don’t know, but I bet it has something to do with this.” Diane thrust the shipboard newspaper she had been reading into Rosary’s hands. The headline, printed in type large enough to merit the sinking of the ship itself, read, “MILTON FRIEDMAN THOROUGHLY DISCREDITED.”
“Well?” Rosary asked, after glancing over the front page article.
“Are you a fan of Nancy Cow?” Diane replied,
Rosary gasped. “She’s the sum total of my inspiration for becoming a writer. Without her, I’d still be throwing pottery. Of course, my style is derived from several authors I discovered subsequently, but Nancy Cow remains…”
Diane cut her off. “You’ve read Days on the Trail of the Automated Nemesis?” She asked.
“Of course.”
“Well,” Diane rose from her deck chair. “Feel like doing some sleuthing?”
“Contemporary analysis of that book indicates it was not meant as a detective story, not even a parody of one.” Rosary whispered as she bunched up behind Diane, who was peering around the corner.
“It’s not how it’s analyzed,” Diane’s voice had a sharp edge to it. “It’s how it makes you feel.”
“You don’t have to tell me about how Nancy Cow’s work makes me feel.” Rosary hissed with perturbation as she followed Diane around the corner. Diane either didn’t hear her or chose not to respond. “Where are we going?” Rosary asked.
“Back to the cabin.” Diane answered.
“Then why are we sneaking?”
“Listen,” Diane turned around suddenly. “Do you know how to handle a gun?”

The Pangolin is Flattened

Nobody in his right mind would seriously claim that an album of Pop drivel like George Michael’s Listen Without Prejudice is better than a masterpiece such as Led Zeppelin’s Presence. Nobody, as far as I know, is making any such claim. However, as I sat composing the message that I theorized I should have received, I laughed at myself for being, from a certain point of view, as silly as the hypothetical ‘nobody’ mentioned above. With Brant Borden trussed securely and stuffed under the bench on which I sat and the offended konditoreifrau paid off; I figured I had about fifteen minutes of privacy before the play ended and the lobby was filled with confused people. It was more than enough time.
Signing the note “Dallas Pimiento,” I got up from the bench. Borden tried to trip me up, but was unsuccessful. I shoved him further under the bench with my foot in response. I handed the note to the man behind the lobby desk.
“This is the note you should have given me.” I told him, handing it over.
“Ah, very good, sir.” He said. He looked about the desk, as if searching for a place to put it.
“No, no, give it to me.” I instructed.
He stared at me a second. “Oh, I see.” He handed it back.
“Now you’ve given me my message.” I explained.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” I gave him five dollars, not so much for his cooperation in this little scene, but for the extra work he would have when Brant Borden was discovered.
I exited the theater, following the directions in my message from Dallas Pimiento. Around the corner I spied the ersatz usher, standing on the curb, smoking a cigarette, his phony red usher’s jacket unbuttoned.
“You!” I barked before I could stop myself. I was sure I had him in my power. I started forwards, but before I reached the man an old-fashioned walking machine stepped out of the shadows down the street, scooped him up with the Quickmove passenger loader that some of those old vehicles had, and moved away out of sight.
“Dammit!” I cursed, shaking my head and laughing. “You just can’t catch a break, can you, Lance?”

Immediacy of Diction Bodes Well

Rigger, the leader of thhe group of anthropomorphic cats, picked his teeth thoughtfully. He and the rest of the gang, known collectively as The Panicka Cats, stood in the middle of an intersection of four unusually narrow streets. After a minute or so, one of the other cats, Thimbleton, voiced what must have been on everyone’s mind.
“Are we just going to stand here all night or what?” He asked.
Another minute of silence went by, broken only the occasional noise from Rigger’s extended claw moving about in the interstices of his triangular teeth.
“We’re waiting.” Said Groove, another cat, finally.
“For what?” Thimbleton (voiced by an actor impersonating Paul Lynde, but with more grit) demanded immediately.
“We’re waiting,” Rigger said in his wise-guy drawl without moving any part of his body, nor changing the direction of his gaze, which was aimed, apparently, at the theoretical sixth dimension of dreams and days of triumphs past. “For sunrise.” He finished after a particularly meaningful pause.
“Oh.” Thimbleton responded, just before the sun rose and filled the scene with light as quickly as an incandescent bulb does a room. “Oh!” He repeated with more emphasis.
“The time has come to move.” Rigger announced. He stopped picking his teeth and headed down the street across from him, the rest of the cats behind. One by one they disappeared to the left, leaving the little, crudely formed intersection empty. The scene remained this way for several minutes, static and silent. Then, with a clatter like that of innumerable, cheaply made pots and pans falling to a linoleum-covered floor, the front door of the purple house in the upper left opened.
Dallas Pimiento emerged, looking disheveled, but, in his detailed, photographic rendering, a shocking contrast to the heavily outlined figures of the Panicka Cats. He looked in the direction the cats had gone.
“They’re out of sight.” He said, turning to look back inside. As he stepped onto the solid field of green that was the front yard, he was followed by Stuart Munkie.
“Good.” Said Munkie. “I was getting a cramp in there.” He shut the door behind him with a crash of silverware, rolling pins, and bottles.

Others in the Crowd Jeer

Having spent nearly two hours walking down the staircase that spiraled into the depths of the well along its sides, Rosary Mankenouse and Diane were reluctant to begin the long climb back up.
“There has to be an easier way.” Rosary gasped as they rested on one of the landings that periodically interrupted the stairs.
“I don’t know.” Diane took out two energy bars from her knapsack. She handed one to Rosary. “We’ve only got one left each. We’d better save them for the trip back.
“Which we will begin when?” Rosary asked.
Diane glanced at her watch. “If we don’t find something worthwhile in another half an hour, we’ll start back. Agreed?”
“OK.” Rosary put the empty wrapper in her pocket and stood up on legs rendered only slightly less shaky by the special pills Diane had given her before they began this little adventure. She had been hoping to get some material to work into her next book, but so far, her attempts at Gonzo journalism were meeting with little success. Of course, her new friend Diane was an interesting character, but hardly worth a whole book. She supposed it was back to imagination.
“Do you hear that? Diane asked. The two women stopped and listened. There was a sound, one that neither could identify. They looked over the railing. At first there was nothing more than the same emptiness below.
“I see something!” Rosary pointed. Diane saw it too.
“What is it?” She asked. Neither had seen anything like it before. It rose rapidly, from a small point of light, to a gigantic creature riding a disc that stopped parallel to them. It was like a walrus, but without tusks. Instead, it wore a long, Babylonian beard and a crown made of fourteen Volkswagen Beetles, each upended on its tail and linked by circles of skulls. Its eyes were large and intelligent. They were directed at the two women.
“Who dares to descend this well?” The creature asked through a mouth as beautiful as Greta Garbo’s.
“We women!” Diane shouted defiantly.
“Shh!” Rosary hushed her friend, but too late.

Past Successes Forgotten in the Headlong Spiral of Despair

After thinking about the situation in a vague sort of way as I lay in the bathtub, I came to the conclusion that much of what I had been taught in school in absolute rubbish. I mean, take for example the prohibition against using the clauses (I think they’re clauses) “sort of” and “kind of” or “sorts of” and “kinds of.” Now, you see those used quite often in English literature. Why was I taught not to use them? As a matter of fact, the same teacher who made that prohibition said that “posh” was not a word when I know perfectly well that it is. It is readily to be found in any standard American dictionary, although it does smack of Englishness. Ah, that brings to mind another teacher who told us to avoid “ness-words.” I might have continued in this way until the water got cold, but the phone rang.
My phone has a special temporal adapter on it, so that, should the caller sit through four rings, he is zapped with the device, sending him into a kind of time limbo, allowing me to get to the phone before he can hang up. I answered the phone, however, in a towel. I’m not going to be rude and make the caller wait forever.
“First of all,” The caller said. “I can’t believe you still have a land line. Why haven’t you got a cellphone?”
I started to answer, but he interrupted.
“Don’t answer that yet.” He said. “Second, why are you taking a bath instead of a shower? Don’t you know we’re in the middle of a drought?”
“How do you know I was taking a bath?” I demanded loftily.
“One of the advantages of today’s cellphones. When combined with your temporal adapter (which is illegal, by the way. That’s another matter), I can see what you’ve been doing on the tiny screen on my phone.”
“And you wonder why I don’t have one.”
“You’re headed in the wrong direction, my boy.” The caller, whose voice sounded like an unholy combination of Henry Fonda’s and Jimmy Stewart’s, warned me.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“This is your government.”
“That’s ‘Your Majesty’s government,’ and don’t you forget it.”

Charles Finds Something to Laugh About

History, abounding with defunct periodicals, can be depressing for publishers of magazines with an extremely limited range of appeal. Mr. Caulking, publisher of Zine Time for the Prostitute, did not bother himself with worrying about the burden of history. He was too busy trying to discover the people to whom his little publication would appeal to.
“If you like bitching about the cult of celebrity,” Read one hand-lettered ad Mr. Caulking had placed in an inconspicuous place, “Then you should read Zine Time for the Prostitute.” The fact that the magazine contained almost no bitching about the cult of celebrity bothered Mr. Caulking even less than the consistent judgment of history.
“You are also the author of everything that goes into Zine Time for the Prostitute, correct?” Asked an interviewer of Mr. Caulking on behalf of yet another publication of limited appeal.
“That is correct.” Replied Mr. Caulking. He was thrilled to be interviewed, not only because it meant that he was a celebrity (you just consult Andy Warhol for confirmation of that), but also because it might just boost sales of his magazine.
“Does the title Zine Time for the Prostitute mean that the magazine is intended primarily for prostitutes?” Asked the interviewer, a younger version of Mr. Caulking, though Mr. Caulking had never been as “cool” as this young man, nor as forthright.
“Of course not.” Mr. Caulking laughed. “The title is just as absurdity intended to convey the idea that this is a magazine of absurdity for absurdists.”
“Don’t you think it might be confusing?”
“To whom?”
“To people outside the tiny segment of the population willing to look past the obvious.”
“Oh, I’m not interested in those people anyway!” Mr. Caulking frowned.
The younger man nodded thoughtfully as he stared at Mr. Caulking’s black and white saddle Oxfords.
“What’s the title of your magazine again?” Mr. Caulking asked.
“Knackered Wee-Wee.” Was the reply.

Colored Fish Parade Before the Young General

Contemptuous as he was of the common man, Dr. Fungroid yet enjoyed watching some of the mediocrities broadcast to the television in his private quarters in the castle. Tonight, as he was greeted at the door by his robotic wife, he informed he that The Assassin’s Ghost would be starting in twenty minutes.
“Will you be watching it with me?” He asked, hefting the highball she had provided him.
“If you would like me to.” The wife, a curiously modified Ruthuen unit named Shiela, answered.
“Sure.” Dr. Fungroid enthused. He gulped his drink. “We can eat in front of the TV.”
“As you wish.” Shiela acquiesced. “I’ll set up the trays.”
“No, I’ll do that.” Fungroid offered to show how handy he was. “You just get the food.”
“Very well, Lover.”
Fungroid turned on the TV and listened to the last ten minutes of Sky Wagon while he hauled the foldable trays out of the closet and erected them before the two easy chairs.
“You learned a valuable lesson here today, Jimmy.” Colonel St. Nick on the TV screen spoke with fatherly profundity to the Sky Wagon team’s youngest member.
“Yeah.” Jimmy agreed. “Don’t eat ice cream in front of a hungry Hellicanarsan.” As the laugh track roared in appreciation, Shiela entered the room bearing her husband’s dinner on a platter in one hand and a big tube of the industrial solvent that she consumed once a day in the other.
“Smells good.” Dr. Fungroid declared. “What is it?”
“Roast duck in a tarragon sauce with apple…” She began.
“OK, enough.” The great scientist interrupted her. “I don’t want to miss that Cadbury Easter egg commercial if it comes on.”
Shiela stuck the end of the tube in her mouth and started to suck. Soon the stirring theme song to The Assassin’s Ghost filled the room. Todd Murphy, the actor playing the title character, walked laconically onscreen.

Too Many People Saw the Airplane Crash to Lie About It Now

The shanty at the foot of the small hill was built of layers of hides stretched over a framework of bamboo poles lashed together with dental floss.
“Officially,” The local tax assessor remonstrated with the shanty’s occupant, Larry Lakobi. “This qualifies as a wigwam, due to the nature of the construction methods used,” He sighed. “But I’m going to let it pass for a shanty in my assessment report because of your… general appearance.” He glanced up and down Lakobi’s dirty figure.
“I sure aint no Indian.” The old bum joked.
The tax assessor sighed again. “Yeah.” He said. He tore the top sheet off the pad on his clipboard and handed it to Lakobi. “This is yours. Don’t lose it. It’s not only your tax bill for the year, but will serve as proof of residence.”
“How much do I owe then?” The old man asked, not looking once at the paper.
The tax assessor stared at Lakobi’s wrinkled, bristling face for a moment.
“Two dollars.” He said at last.
“Oh!” Lakobi acknowledged the sum loudly.
“You have thirty days to… scrounge it up.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Lakobi assured the other man. “I’ll find it somewhere.”
“Yeah.” The tax assessor nodded. “Well, good day.”
“Thank you. See you in thirty days!” Lakobi called out to the man in farewell. He watched until the assessor had gotten into his car and driven away. He then entered his legally declared shanty and hung the tax bill on a small twig that protruded from the wall. He went to the back wall of his dwelling and pulled back one of the hides. Behind it was a hole. Lakobi crawled through this hole until he came to an opening within the hill, much larger than his makeshift home.
“He’s gone.” Lakobi called.
Overhead, electric lights came on.
“Good.” Said a weather beaten woman about the same age as the old man. “How much did he want?”
“Two bucks.” Lakobi said with a laugh. He and the woman looked over the heavy moneybags piled around the chamber.

The Head is Shaved to Denote Obedience

“Once you learn to do it,” Carol explained to Terrance, “You’ll never forget.”
“Sorry.” Terrance decline, shaking his head. “I’m not interested.”
Carol lowered the hose to her side, staring at Terrance with a disappointed expression.
“I love how you can hear people talking in the background on old Jazz albums.” Gary told Terrance after the latter had moved within his purlieus, if that is that proper word. Terrance had backed away from Carol until he could slip into the crowd. Now he considered Gary’s statement.
“I don’t believe I’ve noticed.” He said.
“Ah, but then you don’t listen to Jazz.” Gary shook two fingers at him. “You’re more of a Glen Campbell type guy, aren’t you?” This last question was posed seriously. Gary’s eyebrows knitted together, at least.
“Glen Campbell?” Terrance repeated. “That old guy?”
“Shh!” Urged Gary. “Don’t let Mickey hear you. They’ve got exactly the same birthday.”
“Have you tried these, Gary?” Ms. Cashmere intruded, holding up some kind of puff pastry thing with a green filling, and asked.
“Large, thick penis.” Terrance said, as if finishing a thought.
“What?” Ms. Cashmere asked.
Gary took the pastry from her and ate it. “Mmm, it is good.” He agreed.
“I guess that’s your supper, huh?” Terrance asked.
Gary swallowed. “My God, you’re in a bad mood.”
“I think I’ve finally realized at this very moment, that I really, actually hate parties.” Terrance held both his index fingers up, as if speaking of penises again, emphasizing his words.
“Well, why don’t you leave?” Ms. Cashmere asked. A sizeable number of faces had turned towards this little scene, as they often will at parties in crowded rooms.
“I think I will.” Terrance answered. He tapped Ms. Cashmere on the nose and turned away.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Carol cackled. She put the hose against the hem of Terrance’s shirt and sucked him into limbo.

Little Book of False Orange

An unpleasant odor lingered in the book-filled room at the top of the stairs. Ned Feese sat down in the single chair facing the door and turned his head back and forth, sniffing delicately.
“Is it a fart?” He wondered aloud.
He imagined the Assassin’s Ghost intoning solemnly, “No. It is the smell of cold, quick death.”
Feese had left the door open so he could see down the stairs. If any of his friends entered the house, he would be able to see them before they reached the room. Making himself cozy, Feese reached out his hand for volume six of The Complete Tunabelle and the Cracker, a comic strip from the Great Reflowering of American Comics Strips, a largely posthumously invented time period.
“The critics realized only after the era was over how good it had been and gave it that name.” Feese explained to the Assassin’s Ghost, whom he imagined to be sitting on a stool next to him.
“Ned!” Called Stuart Munkie from the doorway below. “Are you here?”
“I am.” Feese answered pompously. “Come on up.”
“I brought a friend.” Munkie warned Feese.
For a moment Ned Feese had a flashback to the very same words as used in the movie Blade Runner. He prepared to have his eyes gouged out by an android, but it turned out that the friend was Dallas Pimiento.
“Smells funny in here.” Pimiento commented.
Munkie was embarrassed. He had assumed that Feese had farted and was willing to pretend he smelled nothing.
“And it’s not a fart.” Pimiento continued, even as Feese rattled on about how much he loved Pimiento’s portrait of Bigsalad VII.
“Ned has quite a collection of books here.” Munkie began, trying to distract Pimiento from his pursuit of the odor.
“It seems to be coming from your chair.” Pimiento said. He bent down to the seat where Feese’s rump had been moments before. He sniffed. “Yes.” He confirmed. “I wonder if…” He pulled up the cushion revealing a small hollow beneath. It contained the head of actor Todd Murphy.
“I was just talking to him!” Feese cried.

Dexter Gordon is Overrated

After abandoning the mortally wounded wheeled animal in a clearing in the forest, Orbis LeGregg, Lyndon Franker, and Laird Foxfur made their way on foot to a descender kiosk that Foxfur knew of. The journey took two days. Foxfur’s condition was much improved. Successfully crossing the border had alone helped him immeasurably. Liberal doses of good whiskey and the birds that LeGregg shot and roasted in great numbers did their work as well.
“The kiosk is in that barn.” Foxfur pointed at the structure, so typical of the barns in this heavily unionized area. He and his companions squatted behind a stunted chinaberry tree.
“I hate these trees with their mushy berries.” Franker whispered. He and Foxfur had spent the previous two days reminiscing about their days in the palace.
“Do you remember the eighteenth chamberlain of the poultry fell asleep in his frozen yogurt at the Feast of Stubborn Faith?” Foxfur had asked with a laugh.
“I surely do.” Franker had answered truthfully.
“It’s time to go.” LeGregg interrupted the two men’s remembering of the previous evening’s remembering. He led them across the field and into the barn, which turned out to contain a herd of goats.
“Here it is.” Foxfur indicated a nondescript fertilizer chute in a dim corner.
“Who are they?” Asked one of the goats in the language of his fathers.
“Why are they climbing into the shit tank?” Another asked.
“Who can answer these questions?” Asked a third goat, a well-known joker.
Far from being full of goat feces, the kiosk was a clean, though small, entryway to Hidden Coil, an enormous, mostly subterranean community of interconnected housing units and extensive shopping facilities. As they descended to the negative first level, LeGregg asked Foxfur, “Do you know the way to Pimiento’s house from here?”
“Oh, yes. It’s all clearly mapped out on a wall at every intersection.” As he led them forward, he told them something hesitantly, something he felt might shock them. “You know, your residence is part of Hidden Coil.”
“I’ve suspected as much for some time.” LeGregg answered. Stifling his own shock, Foxfur led on, coming at last to the house of Dallas Pimiento. Pimiento wasn’t home, so the three men sat down on the front porch to wait.

It Is Hard to Be a Vegetarian in this Society

Dallas Pimiento, Stuart Munkie, and Ned Feese returned to Pimiento’s house and discovered Orbis LeGregg, Lyndon Franker, and Laird Foxfur sleeping in the rocking chairs on the porch.
“Wake up, Sleepyhead.” Pimiento shook Foxfur’s arm. “I’ve brought you a present.” He held up the plastic grocery bag in which he carried the head of Todd Murphy.
“Dallas.” Foxfur said groggily. “You’re back.”
“And so are you. Well,” Pimiento said, turning to his companions. “This is going to be quite a party. Glad you came along, Ned?” Pimiento joked. “Well, come on in everybody.”
“Mr. Pimiento,” LeGregg shook hands with Pimiento. “It is a great honor, sir. Your series of women in armchairs is a favorite of mine.”
“Where’d you get the head?” Franker asked.
“Dallas, I’ve come about that book I leant you years ago. Of Human Bondage.” Foxfur explained.
“Gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable.” Pimiento invited. “Stuart, bring in a couple of extra chairs.”
As the six men sat talking, passing the secret document around, and imbibing on various substances, far below them, in an equally comfortable room devoted to spying on this gathering, Brant Borden, Mr. Cosmonaut, and Captain Sudmush sat listening intently through headphones.
“I don’t really like Dexter Gordon.” Mr. Cosmonaut confessed. “This is the way he plays: ‘honk honk hoot hoot honk honk hoot hoot.”
“When do we raid the target?” Captain Sudmush asked Borden.
“When the other three members of our team arrive.” Borden adjusted a dial on the complicated machinery before him.
“Who are the other three?” Sudmush asked.
“Two of the leading scientists from Consolidated Labs, Doctor Fungroid and Doctor Rooter, and a third man. I don’t know who he is yet. Headquarters said it would be a surprise.”
The secret knock sounded on the door. Sudmush opened it on the aforementioned scientists and me.
“We brought pizza.” Announced Dr. Rooter.

Partisan Snails

“Calm down, Borden!” I barked. Brant Borden had tried to assault me as soon as I walked in, screaming some irresponsible nonsense about my being “the arch-fiend.”
Captain Sudmush held Borden’s arms. “Stop it, Borden.” He said soothingly. “Don’t you know who that is? That’s Lance Ash.”
“I know who he is!” Borden bellowed. I noticed Drs. Fungroid and Rooter smiling gleefully. This was most entertaining to them. “He destroyed my life!” Borden continued, jumping up and down, trying to free himself from the captain’s merciless grasp.
“If you don’t stop it, Borden, I’ll end your life right now!” I spoke directly in his face. My threat was not idle; in my hand I held,
“A fernfremder!” Dr. Fungroid gasped through a mouthful of pizza.
“But it’s only theoretical!” Dr. Rooter objected.
“Do you know what will happen if I use this on you?” I asked Borden.
Borden considered the device soberly. “I’ll die?” He guessed.
“More than merely die.” I explained. “I can render your whole existence a fiction.”
“You’ve already done that!” Borden wailed. There were tears welling in his eyes. He was still the spoiled rich kid inside.
“A fiction within a fiction, then.” I countered. “Or a fiction within a fiction within a fiction. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve been dead myself and come back to life.” I looked at everyone in the room in turn. “So watch it.”
Borden had gone limp finally. Captain Sudmush released him.
“Have some pizza.” I invited. “Mr. Cosmonaut,” I addressed the tall, pompadoured man. “What’s the situation with our friends upstairs?”
“They’re getting stoned.” He answered. “You can see by this reading on the narcograph…”
“Yes, fine.” I waved away his technical explanation. “Are we ready to pay them a visit?”
“Pay them a visit?” Asked Sudmush. “It’s a raid, surely?”
“We’ll see once we get there.” I said. “Alright, let’s go. Everybody into the elevator.”

They Know More than You Think They Do

Cautioning my companions not to speak or act until I gave the signal, we stepped up onto the porch and rang the doorbell.
“Who is it?” Asked a steady voice, which I knew to be Dallas Pimiento’s.
“It’s me.” I said.
“Me whom?”
I heard giggling inside.
“Lance Ash.” I replied.
The door opened and there stood Dallas Pimiento.
“You seem to be having a party.” I said.
“And you seem to have brought one.” Pimiento added.
The twelve of us barely fit into the tiny house, so, after about half an hour of comradely socializing, Pimiento and I went out on the porch and sat down.
“I knew they’d al get along once they realized we’re all on the same side.” I said with a grunt as I lowered my old bones into the rocker.
“Is that what you came for? To get everybody together?” Pimiento asked. I noticed a lot of gray in his hair.
“That, and to tie up all these loose ends.” I gestured behind me.
“You mean me too?”
“If you decide to stay here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d like you to come with me.” I sounded like an old cowboy, I know.
Pimiento shook his head, however. “Sorry, I’ve got my own sidekick now. And don’t threaten me with that gizmo in your pocket.” He pointed. “I know it won’t work on me, not with my name on the cover.”
“The cover of what?”
“You know what I mean.” Pimiento held up his hands and gestured at everything, the house, the begonias, the artificial sky above.
“OK,” I nodded. “We won’t mention it.” I got slowly to my feet. “I guess I’ll be going then. No hard feelings?”
“No, none.” Pimiento got up as well. “Oh, what about that paper? The one that’s such a bombshell to the Pica emperor?”
“Forget it.” I smiled. “There is no such person.”
“But…I painted his portrait!” Pimiento said as I walked away.

A Sampler of Masonic Symbolism and Satanic Imagery

During the Lodge-a-Complaint hour Stalvie handed his cosmetologist’s smock to his neighbor, Mrs. Postcheck, and stood up.
“The last couple of cans of beans I’ve had were too sweet.” He said confidently, though inside he was jumpy. His heart was doing the old thumpy-thumpy thing that it had first done when his first girlfriend had broken up with him. He waited until he had made definite eye contact with the moderator before sitting down again.
“Noted.” The moderator acknowledged Stalvie’s complaint as he did everyone else’s.
Mrs. Postcheck handed Stalvie’s smock back to him.
“So soft.” She commented in a whisper.
“Thank you.” Stalvie whispered back.
“Are you a cosmetologist?” The old woman asked.
“No, my old girlfriend was.” This was the third or fourth girlfriend Stalvie had had. Her memory panged him still. After their break-up, he had kept her smock, finding it a month later in a box full of nutritional supplements.
“What did she keep of yours?” Stalvie’s friend Brian had asked when Stalvie finally showed him the smock a year later.
“About three hundred albums, a set of pewter animal statues, and my high school letter jacket.” Stalvie reeled off the list readily enough, though he missed none of those things, except perhaps the Sugarcubes albums, which he never got to listen to.
All these things flooded his mind as Mrs. Postcheck told him about her granddaughter, who was in cosmetology school in France.
“They take it very seriously there.” She informed Stalvie. “They’re very strict.”
Stalvie caught the eye of the moderator.
“Yes, Mr. Stalvie?”
Stalvie stood up.
“I have something else.” He said.
“I’m sorry,” The moderator did not sound apologetic. “Only one complaint per session. You’ll have to wait until next week.”
Stalvie sat down on the smock, which he had left in his seat.

Terry Doesn’t Drink City Water

The smaller panels at the bottom of the page were reserved for Mrs. Shagrette’s comic strip, Don’t Pop Your Knuckles. The main character of this strip’s name was Harland Fraudulent.
“What’s he supposed to be?” Asked Liam Elam, son of the late cowboy actor whose last name he shared, and a junior editor at the Crust County Critterine.”
“A giant ground sloth.” Elam’s question was answered by Emitto, the so-called mechanical brain that had replaced the vast reference library that once lined the walls of the editorial offices of the old newspaper.
“When I want you to give me an answer,” Elam directed his bile at Emitto. “I’ll preface my query with the appropriate directive.” He sighed and turned to Penny Goosefritter, the other junior editor present in the room.
“He’s a giant ground sloth.” Penny assured Elam that the machine’s answer had been correct.
“Thank you. But what I want to know is, why do we continue to run this thing?” He slapped the back of his hand against the space on the mock-up of the day’s issue where Don’t Pop Your Knuckles would latter appear. “We could get Strip Ahoy or Cat of Sloth; hell, we could get lousy old Cathy for not too much more than we’re paying for this. What are we paying this old woman?”
“Nothing.” Penny told him. “She lets the paper run it for free. Always has, from what they tell me.”
“Well,” Laughed Elam. “It doesn’t matter if it’s free or not. It sucks. I don’t see why we continue to carry it.”
Penny shrugged. She obviously didn’t know either.
Emitto made a noise as closely approaching a cough as it could.
The plump woman (aren’t all women named Penny plump?) raised her eyebrows at Elam. “It sounds like Emitto knows.” She said in her husky voice.
But Elam wasn’t interested in the answer to the question. Something about the way Penny looked at him when she raised her eyebrows gave him a flash of insight. She liked him! True, she was plump, but her voice was sexy, and she had a pretty face. He forced himself to grunt affirmatively, urging her to ask the computer-like machine the question, which she did.
“The Critterine continues to print Don’t Pop Your Knuckles because old man Davenport, the publisher, has been having an affair with Mrs. Shagrette for nearly thirty years.”

The Post Office is Poorly Run

Without the so-called “spare tire” of flab around his waist, Roswood would be a sexually attractive man. He knew it, and tried hard to work the extra skin off, but, after nearly ten months of unremitting effort, he concluded it was hopeless.
“The whole goal is hopeless.” Roswood’s legal affairs advisor Sam Woolpate declared in exasperation. “No one who aspires to emulate the sartorial style of Lyndon Johnson, as you do, can ever hope to be sexually attractive.”
“It’s not Lyndon Johnson specifically that I aspire to emulate sartorially; it’s that exact era. Look,” Roswood added as he saw Woolpate pick up a small commemorative plaque out of boredom. “If JFK had lived, he would have dressed exactly the same way.”
“With the string ties and cowboy boots?” Woolpate asked, placing the plaque back on the wall with the others.
“You don’t understand.” Roswood moaned, running his fingers through the profusion of curly, blond hair that topped his magnificent, small-nosed head. “It’s not the Texas trimmings; it’s the basic look itself. Skinny ties, narrow lapels, the last gasp of elegance at the heights of power even as the people below begin to dress like slobs.”
“I see now why you’ve won so many awards for eloquence.” Woolpate gestured at the wall full of plaques, the shelves groaning with trophies. “Yet you still need the advice of a man knowledgeable in legal affairs.” This was his way of drawing Roswood back to the reason for his summoning Woolpate there that day.
“Yes.” Roswood sighed. “Very well. Let’s have a seat and I’ll go over it with you. Coffee?” He asked Woolpate, his finger poised over the intercom button.
“Yes, please.” Woolpate said.
Roswood pressed the button and spoke into the device. “Two coffees, please, Loretta.”
“Yes, Mr. Roswood.” Came the reply.
“Now, Woolpate, tell me what you know about the illegality of aiding unlicensed liposuction engineers to cross the border.” Roswood asked.
“Well…” Woolpate began, but stopped as Roswood held up a hand. A buxom young woman was entering with the coffee. She placed the cups on the desk and departed.
“Even though I’m her boss,” Roswood whispered. “She won’t give up any of that stuff to me. Not with this hideous gut!” He pinched and twisted his extra skin.

Toni Continues Her Policy of Wilfullness

Two ostriches rooted among the piles of recently fallen leaves for whatever it is that ostriches eat.
“Soon we will burn those leaves.” Jakob reflected as he looked out the window.
“You’ve stopped chewing your nails!” Michelle observed delightedly.
Jakob glanced at her with upraised eyebrows, then turned back to the window. “For now.” He said.
“I’m proud of you.” She tossed the magazine she was reading aside and got up from the sofa. “How did you do it?” She asked as she came toward him.
Jakob watched the ostriches sprint away, scared by a dog, no doubt. Ah, yes, there was the little fellow now. He felt Michelle’s hands slip under his arms, her arms encircle his torso, her tiny head come to rest against his shoulder.
“I set up a mental block against it.” He answered her question.
“I love you.” She said with pride in her voice.
“But of course it won’t last.” Jakob continued.
“Why not?”
“Well, it may, but that’s only if it becomes a habit. A mental block isn’t like an outright taboo, you know.” As gently as possible he disengaged himself from her grasp and turned around. “It’s getting dark.” He remarked.
“Yes, do you want to go out to eat?”
“Go out?” He repeated. What folly was this?
“Yes.” Michelle affirmed. “If you like, we can make it a celebration dinner.”
“Celebration…? Oh, you mean for me not biting my fingernails?” He chuckled.
“Yes, I think it’s worth celebrating.” She sounded eager.
“But, Michelle,” Jakob protested. “With seven hundred pounds of ostrich meat in the freezer?”
She looked down and to the side.
“I mean,” He continued. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Does it have to make sense?” She demanded with a display of some emotion that I can’t identify and am not doing justice to here.
“Oh, come now, I’m not always the logical one.” Jakob allowed some of the emotional underpinning on which his steely reserve depended to show through.
The whimper of a dog distracted them both.

Glazed Indifference

Once the puppy was asleep, Otto and Beulah were able to slip into the ship’s library and kiss each other by the light of a single flashlight.
“It would be more romantic by candlelight.” Otto whispered, more to show Beulah that he thought romantically than because he really felt that way.
“Yes,” Beulah agreed. “But candles are too dangerous onboard a ship.”
Just as she began to unbutton her shirt a noise came from the tiny galley adjacent to the cookbook section.
“What was that? Otto hissed. He turned the flashlight off and grabbed Beulah’s hand. Together they slowly tiptoed to the doorway. Otto turned the flashlight on as he peered around the side. Water was flowing from under the sink onto the floor.
“The pipe burst.” Otto told Beulah after examining the sink.
“I guess we should tell someone in charge.” Beulah suggested.
Otto looked at her intently. “Yeah.” He said. He kissed her firmly, like a man about to board a troop train. “Let’s go.”
Out in the corridor, heading vaguely towards the bridge, Beulah stopped.
“I’d feel better if I had Kaspar with me.” She referred to the puppy.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Otto asked.
“No, you go ahead. I’ll get him and meet you.” Beulah insisted. They parted without sentiment.
An hour later, with the ship one quarter filled with water and listing to port, Otto stood on the bridge with Captain Puekwall. Otto stared grimly at the moon, remaining silent the better to help the captain do his job.
“Reminds me of something I saw on TV once.” Puekwall muttered. Another officer, the legs of his trousers soaking wet, entered. He saluted.
“Well, Narvik?” The captain asked as he gripped his binoculars.
“No sign of the young woman.” The man replied. “I did find this though, sir.” He held out a leash of light blue nylon.
“You recognize this?” Puekwall asked Otto.
“Yes.” Otto answered. “It belonged to the dog.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said you loved this woman.”

The Selected Take Their Place Before the Sniggering Fat Man

Infrared photography, as yet unavailable to the children, would not have helped them anyway. The Centerpede sentries were wearing stealth armor.
“It repels all attempts at infrared detection.” Lorbus smacked his fist into his palm, cursing this closed avenue of action.
“How do you know that, by the way?” Dirglin asked with more than a little contempt.
Lorbus pretended he hadn’t heard the question, but continued to make every appearance of calculating furiously.
“Can’t we call somebody?” Joy, Blurphy’s little sister, asked. She was clutching her baby doll, Miss Sims, to her.
“Phones are useless.” Dirglin explained.
“Of course!” Lorbus shouted, throwing up an index finger. Blurphy slapped his shoulder furiously. They were trying to make as little noise as possible. “Of course!” Lorbus repeated, this time in a hiss. “By triangulating the negative impulses…”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Dirglin drawled over Lorbus’ words.
“True, we’d need some kind of… tracking device.” Lorbus mumbled to himself as he turned away.
“Dirglin,” Blurphy began. “We really need to leave here.”
“I know it, Blurphy.” Dirglin, who had once dreamed of playing professional squash, nodded. “But I really don’t know where we’d to. We don’t know where the Centerpedes aren’t. If that makes sense.”
“I want to go home!” Joy wailed.
“Shut her up!” Lorbus growled. He pointed his finger at the little girl.
“Stop it, Joy. Stop it.” Blurphy begged.
“I told you not to bring your little sister!” Added Lorbus.
Dirglin climbed up a mound of red dirt and peered through a gap in the boards. He thought about squash. Less pressure than tennis.
“What can you see?” Lorbus asked him.
“I think the church is on fire.” Dirglin sighed.
“Well, that’s something.”

Wayne Shorter Arrives Bearing Gifts

“The only way you could improve this album,” Frenchy took his lollipop out of his mouth to speak. “Was if Ron Carter was on bass.”
“But would it really be improved?” Woodrow wondered.
They sat reclined in lawn chairs listening to Adam’s Apple in the artificial back yard within the cavernous room. Overhead, night was being simulated by the gradual dimming and switching off of the lights in a pattern, so that at last only one would be left on at the far end of the room.
“And eventually that one will be dimmed and switched off as well?” Asked Major Moondark, observing the activities of the room’s inhabitants with a group of researchers in a secret chamber almost a mile away.
“Exactly.” Replied Don Drabble, his shirt pocket stuffed with papers, pens, and markers.
“But, should one of the inhabitants wish to read—what would he do?” Moondark queried, adjusting one of the fingers on his mechanical hand.
“Well, there are electric lamps available.” Drabble explained.
Moondark flexed his jaw. The ligaments in his temples jumped. “I must confess that I fail to see the point of these experiments.” He said, straightening his shirt cuff. “But, as long as money isn’t being unnecessarily wasted, I don’t see the harm.”
“Would you like to visit the room personally?” Asked Drabble. “I can arrange it quite easily.”
Moondark considered a moment. “Yes, I would enjoy that. What do I need to do?”
Ten minutes later, as Frenchy got up from his lawn chair intent on putting on a different album, Woodrow announced, “Ah, here comes my uncle!”
“Your uncle?” Frenchy asked, stopping the music.
“My uncle Ralph. I said he might be coming over, remember?” Woodrow rose from his lawn chair and shook hands with Major Moondark. “How are you, Ralph?”
“I’m great, Woodrow.” Moondark smiled by pulling back the corners of his mouth briefly. “Why’d you turn that off?” He addressed himself to Frenchy. “I liked it.”
“Do you like Iron Maiden?” Frenchy asked, holding up another album.
“I… don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.” Moondark replied uncertainly.
“Oh, it will be a pleasure.” Frenchy assured him.

All Alone in the Break Room

Doug drew a happy face on his sandwich with the mustard.
“Happy faces,” He told the audience. “Especially if I draw them, always look like me as a child to me.” He put the top of the onion roll on the sandwich. “I don’t know why that is. Maybe I see the innocence of it and think of the simple happiness of my idealized childhood, which of course is nonsense because I don’t think I’ve ever been unhappier in my life than as a child.”
Some in the audience wept openly. Some frowned at the non-inclusion of meat on the sandwich.
“Now, I like to have a little something with my sandwich. Now, of course, we all like fries, but usually settle for chips because of the hassle in either making them from scratch or heating up the frozen kind in the oven. Of course, they’re never as good, but I have a new product for you today…” Some in the audience made sounds of awe and anticipation at this announcement. “It’s Insta-Fries from Miraclue.” Doug placed the package on the counter. “The company that makes this product is not a sponsor of this program, nor am I compensated in any way for presenting this product on the program. When I find something I like I use it, no matter whether I’m paid.” There was a polite round of applause at this statement of principle.
Doug began to prepare the fries in accordance with the simple instructions on the package, but was interrupted by a knock on the window set in the door behind him, the one that led to the fake back yard. Doug looked and turned back to the audience.
“Why, it’s Mr. Pimiento!” He said with a smile. He opened the door, saying, “Come in, come in! Brr, it’s cold out, isn’t it? Look, everyone, it’s Dallas Pimiento!” Enthusiastic applause greeted the visitor. “What brings you here, Mr. Pimiento?”
“Well, Doug, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this program has been cancelled.” Dallas Pimiento was forthright.
“What?” Doug demanded. There was a collective gasp from the audienc.
“As a matter of fact,” Pimiento continued. “None of today’s episode has been broadcast. They’re showing an old Ealing comedy right now.”
As Doug stared dumbfounded at the audience, Pimiento picked up his sandwich and took a bite.

I Listen to them Scream

Many of those who saw the monster likened it to a gargantuan loaf of bread. The consistency of opinion, noted several commentators, was quite staggering.
“It is possible,” Theorized Ted Bleeder of the Hurling Institute. “That the introduction of mass-produced, pre-sliced bread into the city only six months before contributed to this frequent perception of the monster as a loaf of bread.”
“Thus marketing’s power to distort reality is made manifest.” Dr. Dunwhooper, who concurred with Bleeder in a widely photocopied newspaper article, wrote. “For we all know the monster actually looked more like an old fishing hat.”
“There was no monster.” E.J. Burninlog, who often wrote into the paper on subjects of marginal interest, spoke for the underprivileged group who had been out of town that day. “If there had been, it would have left footprints behind.”
“Fools!” Whiting Numbago, the monster’s creator, shouted in his secret base. He crumpled the day’s newspaper into a ball and tossed it to a beast chained to the hearth, who promptly ate it. “Do they not know power when they see it?”
“They are ignorant, Mr. Numbago.” Carey, Numbago’s assistant, expressed himself.
“Indeed they are.” Numbago’s eyes were half closed and his lips were curled. “Loaf bread! My God!”
“The one man said it looked like a fishing hat.” Carey added.
“Fishing hat! Fishing hat? Where do they get these people?” Numbago’s fist pounded on the heavy wooden table.
“Don’t know, Mr. Numbago.” Said Carey.
“Well, we’ll give them another chance to get it right.” Numbago rose from his throne. “Come, to the vitalizing tank!”
“But, Mr. Numbago,” Protested Carey as he hurried after his tall, caped, and booted employer. “The next monster isn’t ready yet. You said yourself that it needed at least two more weeks of soaking.”
“I know, Carey.” Numbago admitted, standing on the lip of the tank. “But I have grown impatient with the tiny minds of the population. That’s why…”
His speech was cut short when Carey pushed him into the tank. As green, foaming bubbles engulfed him, Numbago flipped off his assistant.

Fraternal Onion Bagger

Sheldon arranged the ceremonial boxes in the shape of a fish head as prescribed by the ancient code.
“Thus do I manifest my devotion.” Sheldon intoned for the benefit of the puppet-bearing children who sat on small circular rugs only a couple of paces away. Bob the Weasel, normally a dancing, wriggling clown, stood quite still, covered in glitter, his big eyes replaced with tiny ones for the occasion.
Behind Sheldon and Bob rose the forever inaccessible castle of Foggin. Behind it was the velvety sky that, limitless though it seemed, was in fact a curved dome keeping out the rain and falling objects. On the ramparts of the castle stood the tiny king, Bagshaft; and the High Priest, Clamosam; the two surrounded by soldiers in orange and blue.
Prompted by a black-garbed functionary with a plastic, indicative hand glued to the end of a dowel, the children raised their puppets aloft and cried in response, “Give us what we want! Keep the rain off our papers!”
Now was the magic moment. Sheldon spun around on one foot one time and threw his arms wide. “Tell us your name!” HE shouted.
Each of the children’s puppets did so in turn. As they did, sometimes adding a personal detail or expressing his or her delight at being there, the king and the high priest spoke together quietly that no one else might hear.
“This batch is the worst yet.” Bagshaft whispered.
“I told you,” Clamosam replied. “The days of the interesting children are over.”
“Still, there might be one here that will really do it, you know?”
“Yes, I was just going to say, maybe there will be one. There’s always one.” Clamosam sighed, looking down.
“That one, however, might be playing some goddam video game even as we speak.” Bagshaft clenched his fists.
“It’s just like cigarettes a hundred years ago.” Clamosam made the comparison. “Most people had no problem with children smoking.”
“Speaking of unrealistic comparisons,” Bagshaft changed tack. “Do you remember that after-school special about the Amish boy who snuck out of the house to watch TV with his friends from school?” The king did not wait for an answer. “I always wondered if he decided to adhere to his family’s traditional ways after he came of age.”

Happenstance is Here Again

The woman standing at the entrance to the factory asked me my name.
“Dallas Pimiento.” I told her.
She ran her finger down a list attached to the clipboard she held in the crook of her arm. I saw by the insignia sewn onto her sleeve that she was a member of the Weasel Patrol.
“I don’t seem to see you.” She shook her head and said in a gently corrective voice.
“Do you see the name ‘Lance Ash?’” I asked.
“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to…” Her voice was firmer, but I cut her off.
“Because ‘Dallas Pimiento’ might be in parentheses after ‘Lance Ash.’” I took a tone calculated to make clear that I was not to be brushed aside.
She glanced at my eyes, then checked again.
“Ah, yes. Here you are.” She sounded delighted. “Are you two the same person?”
“No.” I answered after a pause in which I ran my tongue over my bottom teeth.
“Come right in, sir.” She said, stepping aside. “Please select one of the badges to wear during your visit.” Her hand passed over a small table on which two dozen badges bearing the portraits of various people were arranged. I selected Albert Camus.
“Very good, sir.” The woman checked something on the clipboard.
I thanked her and moved into the factory, pinning on the badge to the lapel of my coat without looking. My eyes were on the throng of people standing before the giant banana sculpture that was the centerpiece of the large room.
“Dallas!” A gray-haired man hailed me. “Good to see you, man. Drink?” He shook my hand while he gestured towards the wheeled bar slowly making its was around the room.
“No thank you.” I didn’t want to start that up again. I noticed that the gray-haired man’s badge bore a picture of Joseph Conrad.
“You do remember me, don’t you?” He asked. “I bought the first painting you did in the fake cartoons series.”
“Oh, of course!” I laughed. It was Locuster Turnbolt. “I didn’t recognize you.”
Suddenly appearing on my right was my wife.
“Your badge is upside down!” She informed me.

Pinhook Gets Its Balls

The whale, spotted two more times before the sun set, seemed to be retracing the route taken by the Grabmutter the day before. By the light of the citronella candles the journalists gathered to ask Chancellor Wilty what would be done.
“Well, I don’t know about y’all,” Wilty betrayed his rural upbringing once again. “But I’m going home and have some supper.” He smiled at his own joke.
“I though you hicks always said dinner.” Came a rough voice from the back of the crowd. The polite laughter ceased as eyes turned in the direction of the speake.
“Who’s that?” Mary Wilty, the chancellor’s wife, whispered to Norm Gofford, one of the assistant press secretaries.
“It looks like… no, it couldn’t be.” The toppings slid off Gofford’s slice of pizza onto the pier.
The stranger moved through the reporters, the tassels on his leather shirt fluttering as they caught on camera straps and spiral-bound notebooks.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Wilty said nervously. “I’m sure some of you must remember Zober Chowliskin, our former Minister of Natural Resources.”
“I may only be a former Minister of Natural Resources,” Chowliskin began. “But…” His clever retort was interrupted by the pier being torn apart by the sudden ascent of the whale from beneath. Amid the screaming of people, the rending of lumber, and the triumphant laughter of the great ocean-going mammal, one could, if one were in a silent, one-man hoverdome nearby, as I was, catch the faint sound of anchorman Chuck Froughbery, safe back in the newsroom, demanding to know what was going on through one of the slowly sinking headsets that had been knocked from the head of an already dead reporter or cameraman.
“But why,” I asked myself, and continued to ask myself for some days afterwards. “Did the headset sink slowly and not drop immediately to the bottom?” The answer came, as it so often does of late, from a consultation with the learned Mary Wilty, whom I had saved from the mass of drowning people.
“Because it was made from a new polymer.” She explained to me as my wife brought a scale model of the whale into the room.
“I worked all night on it.” My wife said.
“Show us exactly where the nuclear device penetrated.” I asked our guest.

The Ineffectual and the Lame

Flakes of snow, preserved in the pessimist’s oven until such time as the radio was free of pablum, tested the patience of those who believed in the adages passed down to them by their forefathers. These snowflakes, you see, were each exactly alike.
“No two snowflakes are exactly alike.” Insisted Mrs. Gumblings as she peered into the oven door. “It is an object lesson in how no two people are exactly alike.”
“Well, how about fifty people?” Asked Cousin Slim. “’Cause you’ve got about fifty snowflakes in there, each exactly identical.”
“Can’t be.” Dick Melanogaster agreed with the old lady. “Must be some kind of trick.” He examined the knobs and fittings of the pessimist’s oven, as if seeking to learn its secret.
“If we could just take them out and see them up close, then we could know for sure.” Mrs. Gumblings suggested, her bony hand reaching for the door handle.
“I just heard ‘Sweet Emotion’ on the radio upstairs.” Troy Wutha announced, coming down the stairs into the kitchen. “So I’m afraid we can’t open that door.”
Mrs. Gumblings had snatched her hand away at the first sound of Wutha’s voice. Now she massaged it with her other hand as if it had been shocked.
“I just can’t believe it. That’s all.” She mumbled. “I won’t believe it.”
“No faith?” Wutha mocked.
“Troy,” Cousin Slim brought up a good point. “‘Sweet Emotion’ isn’t ‘pablum.’ It’s classic rock.”
“Yes, I agree with you; much as I hate the term ‘classic rock.’” Wutha said. “However, by the terms of the warranty, ‘pablum’ includes any over-played song fallen back on out of habit. Think of ‘Alright Now’ by Free.”
“This thing is under warranty?” Melanogaster rubbed his chin as he mused.
“I won’t have you sabotaging this project” Wutha stepped between Melanogaster and the oven. “My God, you’re just like this guy I knew back in high school!”
“So much for no two people being just alike.” Cousin Slim observed drily.
“But they aren’t!” Mrs. Gumblings snapped in her nasal, Yankee voice.
“How do you know?” Demanded Wutha. “You never met the other one. I tell you, they’re exactly alike, right down to that silly tattoo on the neck!”

The More Nearly Fictitious of the Two

Stuffed into the tiny box like quality ingredients into a sausage were the cowboy-and-elephant patterned socks that the Duke needed to complete his outfit.
“Well, who put them in there?” The Duke asked with mock exasperation.
“I do not know, sir.” Sammaud, the Duke’s manservant, replied with no trace of concern as to the manner by which the socks had gotten themselves so bizarrely lost as he held out the open box.
“Well, thank goodness, they’re found, at any rate.” The Duke reached into the box and withdrew the needed articles. He sat down on a chair and began pulling them over his feet. “Where did you find the box?” He asked. “And what made you think of looking into it?”
“It was where I found the box that caused me to look into it, sir,” Sammaud replied after a pause. “It’s location being so odd.” The manservant was looking into the box with an expression of puzzlement.
“And where was it?” Asked the Duke as he stood up, feet fully socked.
“Sir?” Said Sammaud. “There is a piece of paper, a note, in the bottom of the box.”
“Really?” The Duke reached into the box again and pulled out the paper. “Oh!” He said as he unfolded it and began to read. “It’s addressed to me.” He read in silence. “Where did you find that box?” He asked again after finishing the note, this time in a voice unlike his usual light-hearted tone.
“In Miss Markedfellow’s cosmetics bag.” The manservant revealed.
“In…?” The Duke’s mouth was agape. “Well, we’ll go into that later. Right now we need to hunt for Pansifred.”
“Your terrier, sir?”
“The very same. In this note she claims to have kidnapped him. The socks were just a distraction.”
“I suspected something like this, sir.” Sammaud was somber.
“Why so?”
“Because Miss Markedfellow has disappeared. She left all of her luggage. It was her disappearance that caused me to search it.” Sammaud explained.
“I see.” The Duke tapped his chin with the note. He debated with himself whether to continue with his plans to attend the local library’s used book sale in disguise.

Stage Fritter Arabesque

It took a discipline cultivated over a period of ten years in the sweatshop of Arkani Harpoon’s Academy of Philosophy for Boonwhip to sit there in silence listening to the television in the waiting room braying its litany of mediocrities accompanied by the laughter of those around him. Only one person beside himself was no partaking of the laugh-track-enhanced brutality on the screen. It was a woman leafing steadily through a Bible. Boonwhip kept his own eyes on the little book of pictures he had brought with him. He had made this book for just these types of situations. Among the pictures were a George Price cartoon, The Elevation of the Cross by Rubens, and a photograph of Morgan Freeman re-roofing a house.
He wished he had a portable music player that he might block out the sound of the TV. Arkani Harpoon had assured him that if Boonwhip stayed another ten years of the academy he could learn to turn off his hearing, but, having received word that he must report for a physical, Boonwhip left. And now here he sat, waiting to see the doctor.
“Allen Boonwhip?” Called the woman in the Garfield the cat-patterned scrubs.
“Finally!” Boonwhip involuntarily barked. He clapped a hand over his mouth. What would Harpoon say if he had heard him?
After another long wait in the examination room, this one mercifully devoid of television’s entertainment bounty, the doctor came in. He looked over Boonwhip for about five minutes, then pronounced,
“Mr. Boonwhip, you’re dying.”
“I know it.” Boonwhip nodded.
“I hate to be so blunt about it, but… what do you mean you know it?” The doctor chewed a tongue depressor thoughtfully.
“I’ve known for some time. Thyroid decrepitude.” Boonwhip sounded bored.
“Yes, well. Since you ‘know’ so much,” The medical man posited. “What are you doing about it?”
“Going about my daily routine as normal, trying to master German literature before I go.”
“Aren’t you watching Jed Domicile, Detective-Doctor?” The doctor demanded. “You should have seen it last night!”

Protein Squinting Knight

Something very like a blackened caraway seen came of the apple that Recknell was eating and onto his tongue.
“Yuck, what’s that?” He said, removing the tiny object with his finger. He started to wipe if off on the tablecloth, but his dining partner, Fribbish, stopped him.
“Let me see that.” He insisted.
Recknell deposited the little black thing on a napkin pushed forward by Fribbish.
“Fascinating.” Fribbish commented.
“What is it?” Recknall asked, a trifle irritated at this man whom he had met only twenty minutes before.
“I believed it’s a highly advanced transmitter/receiver, akin to the so-called ‘alien implants’ spoken of in films and books of late.” Fribbish’s voice became almost a mutter as he held the mystery-laden napkin directly before his eyes.
Recknell swallowed and returned his attention to his plate, where there was still an apple and a banana left to be eaten. He exhaled out his nostrils and glanced at the clock. The lunch hour would soon be over. Where was Chris?
Just then a hand clapped Recknell on the shoulder.
“Did I scare you?” Chris the prankster, his hair held up in an eruption-like state by some powerful new gel, asked as he pulled out a chair.
“Where have you been?” Recknall asked, keeping the emotional content of the question rigidly in check.
“Eating lunch.” Answered the black-clad fellow. “You don’t think I’d eat here, do you?”
“Well, I guess we can go then.” Recknall picked up his fruit and edged his chair back. Fribbish looked up at him and Chris. “Nice to have met you.” Recknall forced himself to say.
“Are you leaving?” Fribbish asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh. Well, here is your device.” Fribbish held out the napkin. The black object lay in the middle like an evicted tick.
“No thanks.” Recknall shook his head. “You can keep it.”
Fribbish’s eyes grew large. He looked down and back up. “But this was intended for you.” He said. “Think of the cosmic consequences if I were to keep it.”

Towel Reverie

Harvesting the doorknobs proved more difficult than Jan and Jeremy had believed.
“Don’t they make these in factories?” Jan complained as she struggled with the machete, for which her city-bred hands were ill suited.
“My Uncle Herbert says the ones from the factories don’t have the same aesthetic qualities as the ones that are grown.” Jeremy managed to hack in exactly the right way at the husk surrounding the doorknob so that it fell neatly apart, revealing the wet, fresh doorknob inside. “Look at that!” He exclaimed, fishing the doorknob out from the messy mass of fibers. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” He held it up for Jan to see.
“I can’t get mine to come free of the husk with damaging them in some way.” Jan looked sourly at the doorknob. “How much longer are we going to have to do this?” She cried, dropping her machete wearily against her leg.
“Until your debt to the hotel is repaid!” Barked a voice that could only belong to a mean person. Jan and Jeremy jumped. Nashus Calibray, not standing between them, rooting among their harvested doorknobs, was the overseer.
“You’ve hardly done anything!” He snarled. “One of the native children would have a bushel by now! At this rate you’ll be here through next season!”
Jan began to cry.
“We’ll get better at it.” Jeremy promised. He said this as much to encourage Jan as to reassure Calibray.
The latter only laughed. His laughter was cruel and forced. He laughed in Jeremy’s face and then he laughed in Jan’s. As he turned his face to the skies to share his laughter with the sky gods of his mythology, Jan swung her machete through his neck, severing his head.
“You managed that well enough.” Jeremy was sardonic.
Jan burped out one little laugh of her own through her continuing tears. “I wonder if his head contains a doorknob!” She croaked.
“Well, they don’t make heads in factories.” Jeremy joked, looking about for a sign that anyone had seen the murder.
“Yes they do.” Jan sobbed harder than ever.

Tired Teeth

The probe entered the still, black waters of the rectangular reservoir, making hardly a ripple on the surface, so slowly did it do so. As an invited guest of the survey team, I had been allowed to push the button that launched the probe and to steer it on its way.
“Excellent control, Dallas.” Remarked Hans Flowicke, the chief surveyor.
“Well, you know, I have an aptitude for these things.” I smirked.
“What things?” Myna Ableton, a grad student from Blockage College, asked. I could only assume she was envious and resented my presence among the team. She had been nasty to me ever since I arrived, film crew in tow.
“Things involving buttons and wheels.” I emphasized each word, turning a leering face towards her.
“Keep your eyes on the screen, Dallas.” Flowicke directed. He sounded worried.
“I need more self-reflection.” I noted as I obeyed Flowicke. It was true. I had come to the realization just as that moment that I needed to spend some time correlating the fictitious me with the real me to see what could be learned. I still feel that this should be done, even as I write this down some incalculable number of years later.
“You’ve lost the probe!” Myna shrieked.
“No I haven’t.” I drawled.
“It’s been eaten.” Flowicke theorized, though he sounded so sure.
“I guess you’ll have to go into the reservoir and get it out.” Myna pointed at the silent, creepy water.
“You’re crazy. Did you know that?” I asked seriously.
“That’s the usual procedure.” Flowicke confirmed.
“What are you afraid of?” Myna demanded. “You’re know for doing all kinds of dangerous stuff, having all kinds of adventures. That’s why you were invited to be a part of this survey team even though you have no qualifications and no reason for being her. Why don’t you do it?” Her little cornrow-type knobs of hair quivered with each jerk of her head.
“Because just at this moment I realize that that’s not really me.” I said quietly.
“It would be good for the film, Dallas.” My director suggested tentatively. I looked back at him and sighed.

The Stuff People Watch

Two hundred and twelve peanuts lay in various states of wholeness at the bottom of my trunk.
“Odd.” I thought. “I don’t really eat peanuts any more. Nor do I use a trunk.” I sighed. “But these sorts of things do happen in life. You find yourself the possessor of items that have no relation to you, nor any bearing on your…” I held my hand out vertically, snapping it up and down, as if directing someone down a narrow alleyway.
“Goal?” My wife suggested.
“How did you know I was thinking that?” I asked, shocked at yet one more proof of our compatability.
“You were talking aloud.” She informed me, returning her attention to sewing a button on our son’s trousers.
“If only they were trousers.” I wished. “All he wears are jeans.”
“Then call them jeans.” She said, sewing the button on with the secure method she had learned in Home Economics class.
“Only they don’t call it Home Economics anymore, do they? It’s called… what is it they call it now?”
“Why are you jumping from one thing to another?” My wife folded the jeans neatly and laid them on the arm of the sofa.
“Conversationally, you mean?” I noticed (proudly, if I am right in doing so in such a manner) that she had lost weight. “I guess it’s because at the same time, my mind is jumping ahead, taking the conversation off on tangents.”
“I think you’re getting senile.” Her mind was a closed door to me. Dare I interpose mentally upon her? Put her thoughts as remotely as UN food distribution sites in the goddam tropics?
“For you information,” I said. “This motion,” I did the hand thing again. “Was intended to accompany the words ‘my mission.’”
“Instead of what?” Why was she humoring one today? Normally the conversation wouldn’t have gotten as far as this before being shut down.
“Well, you said ‘goal.’ There’s a difference.”
“I think you need to talk to your doctor about your memory.”

The Bull Potato

Negative reactions to the new paintings on display in the soon-to-be-defunct coffee house, Winter Sky, did not depress me. Although they were specifically designed to accompany the coffee-drinking experience, while at the same time challenge one’s habituated thoughts on what is, frankly, an addiction, I seem (or seemed) to have forgotten exactly the point I was going to make, both to the coffee house patrons and to you, the idealized reader of this tortuous sentence.
“They’re not even my paintings.” I defended myself.
“What’s the difference between a coffee house and a coffee shop?” My daughter asked as we exited the establishment to the telepathic boos of students and professors alike.
“It’s a matter of conversation.” I explained, but did not elaborate. “A coffee house is a place where people drink coffee and talk; a coffee shop is just a place to buy coffee.” I elaborated, but did not explain. “It’s a matter of perception. And commerce.” I added cryptically.
“You called that place a coffee house.” My daughter continued.
“Did I? Well, it is, compared to the Starbucks next door.”
“But people talk in Starbucks, too.”
“Oh god, just drop it!” I was unnecessarily rude. A pace or two later, I tried to mitigate my rudeness. “A lot of the time, I don’t know what I’m saying. Like earlier, when I made the coffee house or shop statement, when I snapped at you just then, and right now, when I’m rambling on about… nothing.”
“Mom says you’re going senile.”
“Mom is right. But don’t tell her I told you that.”
One’s identity is, essentially, one’s memory. As one gets older and begins forgetting things, like what I was going to do immediately upon rising from this chair, although it has happened all one’s life, if one but realized it, it is more galling as an adult rapidly approaching middle age, not just because of the fear of encroaching senility (Alzheimer’s be damned), but because of the loss of oneself. I feel like there was a greater point I was going to make, but I seem to have… yes, you guessed it.

Stethoscopic Hedgehog Medallion

Little Karen put her resealable lunch countainer into the microwave oven and pushed the button indicating a cooking time of four minutes.
“I like my food hot.” She explained to the mechanical woman she was showing around the factory that day. The sound of the oven’s innards tumbling over and over like pebbles in a can was a reassuring one to Little Karen.
“I make a noise like that when I am diseased.” The mechanical woman said.
“Really?” Little Karen replied idly. While she waited for her food to be sufficiently reheated, she showed her companion how she got napkins and a plastic spork.
“That is a runcible spoon.” The mechanical woman, whose name, if anyone had taken the time to find out, was Doris, pointed a finger of black neoprene and declared.
“No,” Little Karen corrected. “See, it’s not a spoon; it has little teeth on it like a fork. That’s why we call it a ‘spork,’ because it’s half spoon and half fork. You get it?”
“It is a runcible spoon, invented in the 1820’s for eating grapefruit. Although the original utensil was made of a silver alloy, not plastic, the basic design remains the same.” Doris spoke with a charming monotone that made her pedantic bent easier to take.
“Well, I never knew all that.” Karen said uncertainly. She hid the functional end of her spork in her fist to keep it from being the subject of any further discussion.
“What now?” Doris asked.
“Well, while I’m waiting, I usually watch TV.” Little Karen gestured at the box mounted on the wall.
Doris moved on her chain-driven roller skates before the screen.
“‘Good Times.’” She announced. “This episode was first broadcast October 22, 1975. It is a good one. J.J. finally shows the world what a mean bully his father is.”
The microwave oven beeped its message of completion.
“Your food is ready. I hope you like it with dangerous carcinogens, because they are now intermingled with it.” Doris’ olfactory system recognized the odor.

Referential Young Imp

The thoroughly soaked cards bore the images of the twenty-seven principal executives of Fledgeweller Motors, as well as the thirteen chief designers.
“For a total of forty.” Aldo said at the behest of some internal prodding that he never fully understood.
“Then why are there only thirty-nine?” Asked Proogy, his freckled nose wrinkling in perpetual dismissal.
“Probably two are stuck together. It rained pretty hard, you know.” Aldo hunted for the anomaly.
“What are you two boys doing?” Edna Rae’s head and abnormally diminutive shoulders appeared above the edge of the roof.
“Jesus, you scared us!” Aldo shouted.
“She didn’t scare me.” Proogy denied it.
“You need to let those cards dry.” Advised Edna Rae.
“I need to get them separated first.” Aldo growled, still upset about being scared while thirty feet in the air.
“No you don’t.” Edna Rae grinned. “‘Cause I’ve got the missing one!” She held up a card briefly to Aldo’s astonished gaze before dropping out of sight.
Aldo bellowed in fury, crawling as quickly and as close to the edge as he dared. “Edna Rae!” He cried.
“Relax, will ya?” Proogy was disgusted. He had suspected that visiting Aldo would be a bore and he had been right. “How do you get down from here?”
“Let me get the rest of the cards first.” Aldo begged.
“No, I think I want to leave now.”
“You mean go home?”
“Yeah.” Proogy answered. “Don’t think this hasn’t been fun, ‘cause I wouldn’t want the truth interfering with your fantasy life. But I really have to go.”
“I was going to give you these cards.” Aldo lied.
“That’s OK.” Proogy moved like a crab to the roof edge. “How do I get down?” He asked again.
Downstairs Edna Rae laid the John Burkenstraus card between two hand towels and put a book on top of them.
“He was the one mainly responsible for the 1961 Glowfrog.” She told her parakeet.

Truth Aper Compound

The following conversation took place in the basement of an out-of-business McDonald’s. The persons involved were hiding from the giant hat terrorizing the area at the time.
“Who’s the drummer?” Larson asked. The three men were listening to a Sonny Simmons album, reluctantly, on the part of two of them. Only Chester had had the forethought to bring any music. The stuff he had brought, however, was Jazz, unpalatable for men whose hearts had been molded by Foreigner and .38 Special.
“Cindy Blackman.” Chester told him.
“Good name.” Larson grinned.
“She used to play with Stan Getz.” Chester added.
Both Larson and the third man, Darrel, looked blankly at their comrade.
“He was a saxophone player.” Chester educated them. “I saw her play with him on the Tonight Show once. She was phenomenal.”
“The Tonight Show with Jay Leno?” Darrel asked.
“No, with Johnny Carson.”
“Oh.” Darrel looked downcast.
“Jay Leno’s got a big car collection.” Larson said to Darrel.
“Yeah, motorcycles, too.”
“Do you mean a big collection of cars,” Chester asked. “Or a collection of big cars?”
“I mean a big collection.” Larson sounded borderline hostile.
“Oh. It’s just the way you said it, it sounded like…” Chester drifted away into silence and his own thoughts.
“I wonder if the gas is still turned on in this place.” Larson wondered, looking up at the pipes overhead.
“How do you know it’s gas and not electricity?” Asked Darrel.
“Well, I used to work…” His words were drowned out by the sound of concrete and wood being wrenched apart. The giant hat, using its thick tentacles like wrecking balls, was tearing open the building in its hunt for the three men who had dealt it such a humiliating setback hours earlier.
“I deserve a break today!” Roared the basso profundo voice.

Magic Amputee

Flying, thought Rose Maroon, was more fun than she had expected. At least one of the puppets dangling by cords from her harness would have tried to convince her that the proper grammatical construction of her thought was “more nearly fun” had she had the appropriate puppet on her hand at the time and had she made her thought known by speaking it aloud. That is certainly too many variable with which to start such a simple story of a woman falling out of the sky, so we will proceed directly to the part where, one by one, Rose Maroon’s puppet companions were severed from her by means of a box cutter wielded by none other that Dyrus, the Skymenace.
On the ground below Mr. and Mrs. Troughthroat held onto their cow, he in the front, she in the back, as they watched Rose Maroon plummet towards a painful collision with said ground.
“Darn that Dyrus.” Mr. Troughthroat mumbled with feeling.
“She thought she was flying—poor thing.” Mrs. Troughthroat shook her head sadly. The cow, Meyerbeer, lacking vocal cords, could only moo with a special pitch that meant something like, “That must be a common delusion to those who suddenly find themselves in mid-air.”
“Reckon she’ll hit the silo?” Mr. Troughthroat asked his wife.
“Hard to tell without a protractor and a slide rule handy.” The weathered old woman replied.
In the event Rose Maroon did not hid the silo. She landed on the other side of the hill that served for a horizon in this area. Dyrus the Skymenace removed his grimy flying backpack apparatus and cursed with familiarity the foiling of his planned destruction of the Troughthroat’s silo.
“It’s too phallic.” He explained to his brother Grodin, his mechanic and sidekick, after the latter had asked why Dyrus wanted the silo destroyed. “And to be bombed with a female!” Dyrus exclaimed manically. “Oh, that would be a fitting means of destruction!”
“I found this.” Grodin held up one of the Maroon woman’s puppets. It was a little boy. “What do you want to do with it?”
“We’ll keep it as a souvenir of this botched job.” Dyrus said, taking the puppet and putting it on. He laughed as it tried to bite him.

Sterility Galoot

Apart from the man in the apron standing by the cauldron, stirring the beans every other minute, no one was within the sight of Gros Michel, the goat hiding in the trailer. With Gros Michel was Cajun Red, who lived inside a small black and white TV set.
“Anybody else?” Cajun Red did not need to whisper: his volume was turned low.
“No, just the guy in the apron.” Gros Michel kept his bray down to a hoarse grunt. The trailer was only a dozen paces from the cauldron. The goat and the centipede-like creature pacing nervously behind the screen had no way of knowing it, but around the trailer and the man stirring the beans was a flat, empty landscape that extended to the horizon and, as far as you know, beyond.
“Tell me:” Cajun Red asked. “Do you think you could take him in a fight?”
“Hard to say.” Gros Michel said after a moment’s deliberation. “What if he threw those hot beans on me?”
“What does his apron say?”
“What do you mean ‘say?’”
“Does the apron have anything printed on it?” Cajun Red snapped the digits on one of the hands his people called their “snappers.”
“No words.” Gros Michel peered through the gap in the curtains again. “Just a picture of a naked woman in a chef’s hat.” The goat turned away from the window. He looked about the tiny trailer. Apparently some actor had recently used it. There was a pile of scripts on the table. Would they be good to eat?
“Are you hungry?” He asked Cajun Red.
“Starving.” Came the answer. “But, until I make contact with my people, I can’t received the electronic impulses that create food here in my televisual void.”
“This one looks good.” Gros Michel selected one of the scripts. “Locker in Trident.” He read the title aloud.
“Better read it first.” Cajun Red advised.
“Why?” Asked the goat as he extended an exploratory tongue.
“If it’s inconclusive, it might not set well with you.”

Locker in Trident

As envisioned by the director, Lord Failing, the film would open upon the bloodshot eyes of the nominal villain, Pinstripe Weasel. With a roll of drums announcing the beginning of the classic rock song that accompanies the slow pull-back of the camera, Pinstripe Weasel slowly lifts his weary, tousled head from the surface of the coffee table and looks about at the chaos of his living room, testimony to his Herculean labors of the past month.
“He’s tired.” Lord Failing explained. “Everybody’s tired. His efforts at living life to the fullest have left him drained.”
“So he does a lot of drugs.” Todd Murphy surmised succinctly.
“Well, I think it’s implied that drug use is tolerated, maybe even rampant.” Lord Failing rolled his hand, allowing it to fly into the air.
“Look, I’ll be blunt.” Murphy ran his palms down his thighs. “I want to play a really flipped-out druggie. There has to be mass consumption in this film or I just don’t see how I can do it.” He glanced at his manager, Scorby Dude.
“Todd’s willing to do the film for considerably less than a star of his caliber is worth, just to do the kind of part that he has envisioned.” Dude stepped in.
“I understand your… desire.” Lord Failing spoke with emotion. “But I don’t want this to turn into some kind of Fear and Loathing in…”
“I read the book on which this script is based.” Murphy interrupted, placing particular emphasis on the fact that he had actually taken the time to read something he didn’t absolutely have to. “And the drug use isn’t implied’; it’s there. In black and white.”
Lord Failing wondered why Murphy was so keen to play a druggie. He had not been privy to a conversation the actor had had with his manager the day before.
“If I get a reputation as a doper actor by playing these kinds of parts,” Murphy explained. “Then I’ll get all the drugs I want free. And all the women that want drugs too.” He smiled slyly.
“But Todd, as a movie star, you can already…” Dude began to object.
“Oh, not the hard stuff, you understand,” Murphy interjected. “Just psychedelics.”

Walt’s A Fashion

Barlog the Barn Owl, impervious to the efforts of most comedians, especially ethnic ones, lounged in the back of the mobile temple, listening to Grover Washington, jr. and constructing indifferent poems to the god of rain, whose temple it was not. Berverb, the rain god, had his temple on the other side of town hidden within a hollowed-out tree.
“Why here?” Asked Oasim, a collector of trash and a curious fellow, of the bow tie-wearing god. “Why not in some glorious spot evocative of water?”
“Because,” Answered Berverb, floating in a sitting posture a few inches above his bongo-shaped throne. “Since the installation of the Weather Homogenizer, no one cares about the rain anymore.”
It was true, I suppose, but that still didn’t fully explain Barlog the Barn Owl’s indifferent poems. Since the poems remained unpublished until after his death, however, we have no information about what Barlog’s intentions were. No one knew enough to ask him. The person who came closest was Oasim’s brother, the banker Omar Abshaffus.
“You’re not really a barn owl at all, are you?” He asked the poet one day at the mobile temple when he had come to throw a couple of coins into the yawning mouth of Fozmo, the god Inconclusiveness, whose temple this was.
“No.” Barlog admitted. “I’m a human, the same as you.”
“I hope, sir,” Abshaffus snorted. “Not the same as I!” The banker looked regretfully at the mouth of the idol and made his exit.
One of the poems that was published during Barlog’s lifetime was “Recycling the Theme.” This was the work that brought fame and fortune enough that he needed no longer to sit at the temple of Fozmo all day selling his handcrafted totems of inconclusiveness to devotees. He bought a house in the tree next to that occupied by Berverb.
“Aren’t you afraid that old hollow tree might fall down one night in a storm possibly destroying your fine new home?” Asked Leland Shrung, the successor to Barlog as the subject of this story.
Barlog’s answer, calculated to irritate Shrung as much as possible, did not surprise Shrung’s nephew Laurence when first he heard the anecdote.
“I rather suspect he was a bit of an asshole.” Laurence told his uncle.

Vile, Spontaneous Affirmation

“Your time is nearly up.” The specter in shades appeared before the mayor and spoke in sepulchral, admonitory tones. The mayor, caught off-guard at his desk, recovered quickly enough for a man of his spiritual inclination, adjusted his tie, and made polite conversation with the specter.
“Time is up.” He repeated musingly. “Up. Time is up. That’s an idiom, isn’t it? Because, if you think about the words literally, how can time be ‘up?’ We’re using ‘up’ to mean… well, gone, in substance.”
“I believe the derivation of the usage is from the phrase ‘used up.’” The specter commented haltingly, as if slightly nonplussed.
“Probably.” The mayor tapped his teeth with his pen as he had read that the late President Kennedy was wont to do. “Where did you hear that?”
“Walt Whitman.” The specter pushed its shades further up the non-existent bridge of its non-existent nose.
“Oh, I didn’t know he wrote about the derivation of idioms.” The mayor looked interested.
“I have spoken to him in the limbo of timelessness.” The specter quickly replied. “Look, you’re just trying to distract me…”
“To waste time?” The mayor interrupted with a laugh.
“To…to… look, I’ve come and delivered my message. That’s what I came for.” The specter tried to shake off the irritability that had settled on him.
“And I thank you.” The mayor nodded solemnly.
“Another will come to fulfill its grim portents!” The specter in shades intoned ominously, holding up its spidery hands.
The mayor stood up and came around the other side of his desk.
“Why are you wearing those sunglasses.” He asked.
“They’re shades.” The specter replied. “As in: a shade.”
The mayor lowered his brows.
“A shade.” The specter repeated. “A shade is a synonym for ghost.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that!” The mayor said. “Or wait, maybe I did. I just didn’t put it together.”
The specter sighed. “Well, here it is, anyway.” He gestured at the window, through which came the bullet that took the mayor’s life.

A Tilework in Canister

Companions in despair, regret, and hard labor, Speke and I had not seen each other since the beginning of this book. Now, on the eve of its completion, I wandered into a theater where he was performing the title role in The Man Whom Destiny Screwed.
“I thought it was fantastic.” I praised him and his performance afterwards.
“Well, thank you.” He returned, standing in the heavy boots that were such an important part of is wardrobe. Throughout the play, his character, Romeo Ledbetter, waded ankle—(and sometimes knee— ) deep in shit.
“How many more nights in this running?” I asked. “I’d like to bring Elsa to see it.”
“Oh, tonight was the last night.” Speke told me sadly before turning to respond to the comments of his mother, who had approached him as well.
Now that he’s settled into this career, I thought, I can safely slip out to the denouement.
“What, no climax?” I overheard someone in the crowd about me asking, as if in response to my thoughts. I had no answer to this. Fortunately, Speke’s mother was there with an appropriate distraction.
“If you will only run around on the roof four times,” She said. “Your wishes will be granted.”
I stepped back into the conversation before leaving.
“I’d say his wish has already been granted.” I said smiling, making it sound like a joke in case she rounded on me, which she did.
“You don’t have the power to grant wishes.” She rebuked.
“Not normally, I agree. But here, in this place, things are different.” I held up my hands and looked around.
“What, the theater?” She asked, confused.
“All the world’s a stage.” Speke quoted.
“I don’t think that’s adequate.” I told him. “There has to be an audience as well as a stage.”
Outside I felt some of the old despair and regret (the hard labor was deferred for the moment). I hadn’t communicated well. I had fallen back on cryptic pronouncements and veiled images.

Where Did He Pad?

The preceding story disappoints me. It is substandard. However, I felt that I owed the character of Speke, who is based on a “real-life” person, a second appearance and an official farewell. This book evolved into a series of small, loosely interconnected stories in which character development, so beloved of critics, is nonexistent. But, in order to unify it, I have looked over the first twenty-five pages of the first volume and now I’m all screwed up. It’s hard to be both the writer and a participant in a book like this. Different parts of one’s psyche keep intruding into each other’s roles. I’m all screwed up and I can’t seem to get back into the proper frame of mind that will allow me to finish this last volume in the way it should be finished: a crazy bunch of little stories.
But, if anything, I am determined. So here goes:
Falsifying documents in the portico of what passes for a Hall of Fame among the Zappwowie people of the Remoto mountains, Mr. Many Bands, his eyes obscured from passersby by the wide, plunging brim of the hat he stole from Gaffy, sat on a chair so small that the Barbie dolls clutched in the arms of the little girls among the passersby would have found it roomy.
“Obviously I mean only one Barbie doll at a time,” I explained to my captors. “Not all of the Barbie dolls at once.”
“Enough.” The gruffest of my captors insisted, thrusting the barrel of his pistol at me. “Tell us more about the documents he is falsifying.”
“But then that’s one of the disadvantages of our language.” I continued, lying on my back all tied up with heavy rope in the back of my captors’ truck, as a light rain fell. “I won’t say ‘all languages,’ because unfortunately I only know one, but the disadvantage I mean is one of imprecision.”
“This is your last chance.” Growled one of the nicer captors, now becoming a little nastier. “What are those documents the Mr. Many Bands are falsifying?”
I sighed. “Well, if you must know, I believe they are some of my stories.”
“Your stories?” Said a third captor, glancing across the street where the portico of the Hall of Fame was. “I thought you told us you were a painter!”
“Can’t a man be both?” I asked.
“Not and have a career he can’t!” Mr. Many Bands shouted.

Gun Float Gospel Warble

The sleeping puppy knew no more French than the little girl in whose lap he lay, yet he had no trouble crossing the border into the micro-principality of Fuioui. As far as I could tell, he merely sat whimpering while the little girl shook her head dumbly as the border patrol questioned her.
“I don’t think that will work with us, do you?” I asked Mills, the puppet on my left hand, after recounting the scene above.
“I doubt it,” Mills returned. “Seeing as how that was a movie, Dallas.”
“Yet Fuioui is real.” I pointed out.
Mills carried a guitar, perhaps to compensate for the fact that I could not play the guitar myself while he was in place. He turned to the window. “We’ll see.” He said simply.
I opened my Tales of Woe journal and began flipping through it, chuckling at all the adventures I had had. As I neared the middle of the book, however, I grew confused. I didn’t remember any of the more recent entries. A giant sock that swallowed churches? A two-headed man debating the existence of capitalism with people leaving a funeral? Camels emerging from a spaceship on two legs?
“Have you been messing about with this?” I asked Mills, but he didn’t answer. He had fallen asleep, his head against the window. “Yesterday’s entry is the most bizarre of all.” I continued, indifferent, I suppose, to whether anyone heard me or whether I was even communicating in the strict definition of the word. I don’t know why, but it was often easier to understand my own thoughts if I spoke them aloud.
The border patrol questioned me in some language I assumed was French.
“I have no idea what you’re saying.” I smiled and said.
They rummaged through my possessions.
“This is Fuioui, isn’t it?” I asked. The main patrolman among the four or five in the cubicle with me repeated the word “Fuioui” and nodded, pointing, oddly enough, at the ceiling. I began to get a little nervous when they removed Mills from my hand and sniffed suspiciously at his interior. Everything turned out well, however. One of the patrolmen opened one of my collections of cartoons and began laughing aloud. He showed it to his comrades, who also laughed.

How to Wear Your Badge Proudly

Under investigation for more than eight years now, the Thorpes yet enjoyed the complete confidence of the Spiral-Backed Tuna and its cohort of mates.
“All except Linda.” Whispered the Spiral-Backed Tuna in as much of a whisper as it could manage. “She thinks you two are nothing by a pair of liars.” He winked with most of the eyes on the left side of his head.
Thorpe One was tempted to wink back, but Thorpe Two, reading of his inclination in the crude, extremely limited edition newspaper they printed for their own benefit, discouraged this with the simplest of gestures, a mere touch of his own forefinger to the wrist of his fellow Thorpe.
“So, when will there be a Thorpe Three?” The Spiral-Backed Tuna asked.
“He always asked that.” I explained in my footnote. “It was usually a sign that the bulk of the conversation was over and that matters should be ended with a private, recurring joke.
In a politely worded, but generally negative review of Commentaries on the Bronco, Gore Vidal asked, “How does Dallas Pimiento know that the Spiral-Backed Tuna always asked ‘when will there be a Thorpe Three?’ Was he there? Did he habitually observe the interactions of the Tuna and the Thorpes?”
I knew because one of the Spiral-Backed Tuna’s mates was a former pupil of mine who sent me a kind letter many years later expressing thanks to me for having been such an inspiration. Included in the letter was a passing reference to the conversational conventions of the Tuna when interacting with the Thorpes. It is as simple as that.
“When will there be a Thorpe Three?” Asked Thorpe Two immediately after the Thorpes had returned to their heavily scrutinized domicile.
“Let’s find out.” Thorpe One, shockingly perhaps, was amenable, pleasant, and obliging in the face of this brutal onslaught of demands and suspicion. He led the way into the Production Chamber where, slowly developing in a waxed cardboard box, was some kind of vaguely organic structure that might, with a little license and a powerful sedative, be called Thorpe-ish.
“I’d say,” Speculated Thorpe One, rattling the box, “Another nine to ten years.”
“Oh, Fleshkin,” Thorpe Two used the affectionate term the two Thorpes used with each other. “I’m sorry I was cross with you.”

Born During the Big Change

Asterisks next to Jed’s name on his bagboy’s union card indicated that he had no last name. As he worked spearmint oil into his hands after a day’s work at the Shopping Delight on Crabfunk Road, Jed discussed his situation with Digby Nance, a union sympathizer from the Cola League.
“I’m waiting until I can think of a really good name to add it to the one I’ve got.” He spoke awkwardly. His tongue was twice as thick as it needed to be, while his tiny, blocked nose did not help matters.
“What about Bagger?” Nance suggested. He and Jed were alone in the filthy break room at Shopping Delight.
“My mom suggested that as well,” Jed toweled off his hands on some newspapers. “But I don’t know. I think I’d rather have something a little more…”
“Wait a minute.” Nance interrupted. “Your mom?”
Jed looked at Nance. “Yeah?” He said curiously.
“You have a mother?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“I assumed you were an orphan or something. Why don’t you just use your mother’s last name?” Nance was not a good-looking man when he screwed his face up as he was doing now.
“What do you mean?” Jed looked equally confused. Before Nance could explain what should be obvious, but often isn’t, three men entered the break room. They were pushing a large crate on a dolly.
“Excuse us, gentlemen.” Demanded the one who seemed to be doing to least amount of the pushing. “We need to push this table back.”
Nance got up from his chair while Jed asked, “What’s this?”
“Ice machine.” The man who had spoken previously answered. “Donated to the employees of this store by Vance Willow.” He sounded as if he were making an official pronouncement. “You remember him, don’t you? Tall kid with blond hair.”
“Must have been before my time.” Jed said.
“What?” The man asked.
“Must have been before my time.” Jed repeated with an emphasis on clarity.
“I can’t understand a word he says.” The man looked at Nance.
“Nor can I.” Nance sighed.

Flashing October’s Pumpkin Belly

A page from the Hoot Owl Register found its way into Manfred’s copy of Body and Element. In his deranged state following the ingestion of some flavored smoke at a meeting with his spiritual advisor he saw no incongruity in moving from one of the proper pages to the interloper. In fact, at the point of crossover the juxtaposition of the words ‘beak’ and ‘finger’ had a profound effect on his psyche.
“Beakfinger!” He said aloud, as if having both discovered the secret of the ages and remembered something of vital importance.
Several of his fellow passengers on the Transworld Millipede looked at him askance (and is there anything one can do askance besides just look?), but Manfred gave no thought to whether or not they understood the foundation shattering nature of this new concept.
“Beakfinger!” He repeated, clutching the corrupted book before him as if it were a space age medicine that some naked primitives were wary of taking.
A little boy smiled at him. Manfred caught sight of him as he stepped into the aisle.
“Beakfinger!” He said passionately into the boy’s face, which immediately changed from delighted to frightened. “Remember it, child.” Manfred enthused. “It’s the central fact of all human interdimensionality!” He then hurried up the aisle towards the cockpit.
“What did he say to you, Jeswick?” The boy’s grandfather asked.
“He said ‘Remember it, child. It’s the central fact of all human indimensally.’” The boy told his grandfather as he stared at the madman striding away. “What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything.” Growled the old man. “It’s crazy talk.”
The boy, however, did not cast aside the memory of his encounter so readily. He kept the word ‘Beakfinger’ deep inside him for years until, when the time came that he was ready to form a band, he opened his heart and gave his band this wonderful, evocative name. What a curious shock then to find, as his band rose in strength, that the name was also the name of the key concept of the religious movement that Manfred had founded.
“We could be ‘New Beakfinger.’” Suggested the band’s bass player.

Ghost Affliction Fan Mail

Surprised as she must have been by the sudden appearance of an impact crater on the top of her TV, Gamma Rae wasn’t going to allow herself to show any reaction. She certainly wasn’t going to stop watching TV.
“I don’t think I want to sit in here.” Gordon said edgily.
“Why not?” Gamma Rae asked. She didn’t mind talking; a commercial for a used car dealership was on at the moment. The instant the show came back on, however, all conversation must cease.
“You’ve got meteorites falling in here!” Gordon stared at the hole in the ceiling through which the object had entered. “Oh, you noticed that?” Gamma Rae was intrigued. She hadn’t expected her new friend to notice anything outside the TV screen while images moved about on it. No one else she knew, besides herself, had the ability to watch TV and see the TV at the same time.
“Of course I…” Gordon began.
“It’s back on.” Gamma Rae, named after the method by which David Banner had been changed into the Hulk by her TV-loving father, announced quietly.
With one more glance at the ceiling Gordon joined his would-be girlfriend in watching House of Fascism. The show concerned the repeated attempts by main characters Rod Screw and Thelma Hotass to escape from the titular house, which wasn’t really a house at all, but an abandoned underground storage facility for seventies-era contraband. On the current episode the two had nearly made it into the elevator shaft that they supposed led to the upper levels when Rod, coming across a crate of powerful pornography, had been seized by uncontrollable desires and insisted on a quick bout of “love” with Thelma. During their act of bestial primacy, they had been caught by Dr. Shiftenplass, one of the three faction leaders vying for supremacy over the House of Fascism.
Gamma Rae heard a noise from Gordon. She shushed him as politely as her distracted attention allowed. When the next commercial came, however, she found him dead with a hole in his head. Before the grieving process could even begin, her daughter came in the room.
“Mom,” the girl whined. “There’s a problem with the TV in my room.”

The Master Stabilizes His Crops

“Would you please pass the ketchup?” Hudson, an exact replica of Paul Stanley, only with short hair and a beard, asked the sailor across the table.
Obliging, with a grunt, the sailor, a woman with a prosthetic arm, silently measured up this Hudson character, whom she knew by repute. He was said to have hunted with sweet-faced eternals in the transitional zone between this world of video games and bulk-rate correspondence and the plenitude of water-rich worlds beyond. She watched furtively as Hudson drew a frowny face on his ground beef sandwich. What could she say to him? Something friendly, but not tending to inspire romantic ideas. While her brain cooked up something, Hudson was joined by another man, this one looking identical to Gene Simmons, except for having short hair and a beard. The sailor could not help overhearing their conversation.
“What’s that you’re eating?” Asked the new comer.
“This is called a hamburger.” Hudson replied.
“You enjoy ubiquity, don’t you?”
“Let’s just say I don’t reject something just because it’s universally popular.” Hudson’s voice was nothing like Paul Stanley’s. A blind man hearing his voice would cry, “Lumberjack!” unhesitatingly.
“I quite agree.” The sailor woman interjected, gesturing with the knife she ate with.
Hudson and his interlocutor stared at her a moment before the latter asked,
“And you are?”
“Kate Canard.” She replied, extending her hand, not to the “Demon” look-alike, but first to Hudson. After shaking hands with him, she shook with the other man, repeating, “Kate Canard.”
“Good to meet you, Kate Canard. I’m Hooper. This is Hudson.”
“I know you.” Kate said to Hudson. “I mean, I’ve heard of you.”
“But not me?” Hooper was mockingly indignant.
“I’m sorry.” Kate spared a glance for Hooper, but turned back to Hudson. “I’ve heard about your hunts in the transitional zone.” She said.
“Have you now?” Hudson smiled and turned to Hooper.
“I was with you the whole time!” Hooper cried. “And look who gets the renown!”

The Story of the End

The End began, sensibly enough, with the deployment of the heavier units, elephants; electric refuse crews; hair vendors, and so forth, along the wire fence through which the quickgelatin was deemed most like to escape. Old Fudlat, whose property bordered the controversial site, invited many of his out-of-town relatives to watch the festivities from his front porch, or, in the case of some of the younger ones, the old tree house in the back yard.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” Glopson demanded to know that his cousins shared his feelings as he ascended the ladder to the tree house with a plastic bag of cookies hanging from his over-sized lower incisors.
“The other kids at his school call him ‘Saber Tooth.’” Enid complained to her sister. The two sat chatting in the kitchen as the men carried televisions, stereo equipment, and bags of second-hand clothing into the house. Enid’s sister watched Enid closely. There were definite signs about the earlobes and trans-phenoidal ligaments that she was losing the battle with Mother Nature. They heard Fudlat give a cheer from outside. One of the boys came rushing in.
“Granddaddy says they’re getting near the middle of The End!” He shrieked. Every one came pouring out onto the porch. Even Lester, who fancied himself a bit above his kin, followed along. In his head, however, he sneered.
“How can you be at the middle of The End?” He thought. “The End is the end. It’s not a definite section unto itself, with its own sections, beginning, middle, and end. The End doesn’t have and end.” He was so occupied with puzzling out this conundrum that he did not take in the significance of what was happening out on the site of The End’s unfolding.
To the collected gasps of the observers an immense orange ball (“Like a beach ball!” Commented Little Karen) rolled forward, splashing through the quickgelatin like so much oil-tainted water in a parking lot puddle. Ten thousand archers, each wearing upon his magnificent head a gleaming silver helmet, drew their bows as one.
“Aunt Lu,” Little Karen asked in a horrorstruck voice. “I just had a terrible thought.”
“What is it, darling?” Aunt Lu moved her cigarette to the other side of her mouth.
“Well, if that’s The End happening out there, when it does happen and is finished, does that mean that that will be the end of us, too?”
“Oh, Darling,” coughed Aunt Lu. Her coughing continued, but she never finished her

TOADSGOBOAD

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Painting's Appeal To Music For Clemency

Talking About Change of Subordinate, Fell Words

Dallas Pimiento, Book Four, "Bronco Fury"

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