RELATIVE COMFORT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Must a rich man sleep under a heavy blanket or is a trio of flimsier blankets sufficient to do the trick? This has been the most unusual problem that came to court in the person of Ezra Hartmont, a local inventor who is also the scion of the wealthiest family in the state. Hartmont was accused by his grandparents of assault, not against them but against their house manager, and in court the young man insisted that his anger was precipitated by being given not his favorite thick blanket but rather three thin ones, layered, which he, keeping the temperature at fifty degrees in the room, as always, found intolerable, not so much for failing to create warmth but for creating, along with that warmth, what he called in testimony “complication in the form of blankets tangled and folded, pockets of space, horrible creases.” The grandparents insisted that the house manager was doing all possible given that the thick blanket had not existed for a decade at the very least, and that Hartmont was regressing wildly. The judge found that there was nothing inherently derogatory in offer three blankets instead of one, and sentenced Hartmont to a month in jail. “There,” the judge said, “you will get one blanket, at absolute most.”