A Two-Dimensional Peach
Konglotnie
pointed to the illustration with a finger both triumphant and gloved in yellow
comic book striations.
“That,
gentlemen,” he declared with the sonorous intonation of the emperor’s most
trusted general, “Is a peach.”
“There is
no emperor, however,” Sarah explained to the class. One day this room would illicit no
particularly strong memories in those of the children who returned to it. That was where the Mickey Mouse hat
hung. That was where the kid with the
crew cut stood and snapped his fingers trying to summon up some word or concept
momentarily lost.
“Were his
fingers gloved in yellow comic book striations?” Daddy asked, not for
information, but to mock the words, to bring humiliation and shame. The Indians used shame, apparently, rather
than corporal punishment, to bring their children into line. Daddy used both.
“So what?” Clyde demanded. He
too maintained an image like that of some warlord from the other side of
Mars. He turned from the window with a
dramatic gesture; if only the batteries in his cape weren’t dead. “We know that the princeling enjoys… damn,
what’s the word for fruit that has a ‘stone’ in it?”
Konglotnie
frowned, waggled his eyebrows. He glanced
at the audience. Surely someone out
there knew. The word would be recovered
soon enough and all of this would be moot.
The battle campaign would be for nothing. A thousand ships with more firepower than
I’ve…
.
