Stray Reprints

Friday, May 21, 2021

EVERYONE'S AN EXPERT

A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk. Then an adjoining tree, not yet cut down to a stump, began to emit a noise from a bough that protruded from its trunk, a hissing sound that was soon discernible as speech. The tree, via its limb’s hiss-speech, remarked loudly that the animal and vegetable kingdoms did in fact both possess a sense of smell, of a fashion, but that animals had honed it to a sharp sensory tool whereas plants more imprecisely detect volatile organic compounds, which allowed for favorable or unfavorable orientation vis-à-vis zoological allies and pests, toxins (whether zoological, botanical, or protistan) and so forth, but that notwithstanding the finer points of olfaction, this or any other summation of the thoughts of the skunk and the stump regarding odors and their relative pleasantness was irresponsible speculation. It went on for a while in that vein. Finally, the skunk sitting on the stump jumped down, bumping his rump on a hump in the mud, and then debunked as junk science what the adjunct to the trunk had uttered. “Not to mention,” the skunk said, “that trees can’t talk.” The hissing fell away to reveal the sound of the wind coming through the leaves. “Right you are,” the wind said to the skunk. “Right you are.”

THREE POINTS

The three points met for lunch and discussed, as always, why they made a triangle, why it was satisfying in some respects, frustrating in others, how they felt represented them but also limited them, would people ever see them as anything else, and then, as always, one of them brought up the possibility that they could sit in a straight line to erase the shape but that devolved, as always, into a disagreement about who would be in the middle and an observation that the two points on the ends would not be able to see each other, tone matter-of-fact with an undertone of plaintive, and another one of them brought up the possibility that they could invite a fourth point to lunch, and they voted, knowing they only needed a majority to pass the measure, defeating it unanimously.

Thursday, May 20, 2021

HE SET DOWN HIS BAGS, KNOWING HE’D NEVER LEAVE

He traveled to a town where people were born jaded, with hardened ideas and bone-weary thoughts, and acquired simplicity they aged. Young children were crammed full of certainty and made it painfully clear at every turn. When they opened their mouths, their opinions tumbled out of them like pebbles. Seniors asked nothing but questions and listened for answers with lambent eyes. Every leaf on every tree, every wavelet in every creek, was a song they longed to sing. At first he thought it was a crazy place, but he got used to it.

HAPPY HE MARRIED HER

“You and I both know,” she said, “that a large nation should be governed as if it is a series of chocolate-covered candies taken from a dish, one by one. They should never be scooped, these candies, never greedily grabbed. They should not be eaten all at once, but rather one by one, to savor the taste, to preserve the period in which the dish can be viewed as still mostly full. Wise leaders cause no harm intentionally. Any harm is a single shard of candied shell, thrown free of the chocolate.” The president turned and smiled at his wife. She had done it again!

IT'S CHINATOWN, NED

“Didn’t he call on her? Before that last time, I mean?” The man with red hair didn’t answer at first. He stepped off the path onto the grass and then back onto the path. It was like he was resetting himself. “Okay if you don’t want to say,” the bald man said. “We know.” They knew that he called on her because they found a paper on the front lawn, a receipt from a dry cleaner across town, near where he lived. When they picked him up and told him about the paper he said that he didn’t use that dry cleaner anymore but they had already been to the place and showed his picture and the lady there had nodded once quickly and said “Ned, yes,” and got back to shaking pants straight. And they had even taken apart the story he had told about taking his car to the drive-in movie and getting back around ten because a drunk had leaned on it around ten past and had told them that the hood was cold and they knew the drunk to be honest. The man with red hair must have known that he was caught because off he went again from the path, and then back. “Make the call,” said the bald man, and the man with red hair slowly took out his phone and even more slowly began to dial Ned, a number at a time, the space between them widening as he went.

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

HEALTH CODES

One of the Senator’s young staffers made the rounds of the restaurants the next morning. Most of the staffers were young, but this one was not excessively so, twenty-two, maybe a year more, with a degree from a top-end Eastern college and a manner to go with it, an expensive suit worn casually enough that it seemed he had been able to afford it with ease, long hands that unfolded and folded like wings as they explained complex concepts, an earnest expression that did not quite conceal his contempt (and was not intended to), and that was how he came to the explain the new regulations to the town’s restaurateurs, mostly using words, sometimes gestures, touching fingertips together for gentle emphasis. In this manner was cannibalism eliminated.

MAKE SURE

Make sure you check out yesterday’s show. Make sure you check out tomorrow’s. Make sure today’s show is not the same as either. Make sure you know everything you need to know before you step into the room. Make sure you listen in a small or at least smallish place with low light, few distractions, a locked door, a comfortable chair. Make sure there’s a glass of water nearby. Make sure your shoes are the right size, or off. Make sure no one knows you’re in there. Make sure you have put your lands in order. Make sure you’re sure.