ADVENTURE

There is a child sleeping under the lone tree set apart from the approaching woods.  It is no child Quibble knows.  He balances his head on his backpack.  Perhaps a runaway from a town or two over.  Left to join the circus.  Left to serve in the foreign legion.  Left to become a cabin boy in imagination’s navy.  He is dressed well enough.  He appears well fed, sufficiently groomed.  Perhaps the boy just wanted adventure, to see what is around the corner.  There is no corner.  All is one straight line.  Quibble hurries to hide before the child wakes up.

BOUNDARIES

When he came to pick up my daughter for their first date, I was adamant that he come in and show himself.  No barking the horn at curbside.  No quick flick of a tentacle from the base of the porch.  I wanted a few moments alone with him.  Of course, I am no expert on the clicks, color schemes, and arm flourishes that my daughter in part understands.  But I needed him to grasp, if only as a dim register of emotion, that getting free of his tank was one thing, dating my daughter was another.  No stray suction marks.

CAPITALIZING POVERTY

We employ the unemployed by having them move the stones in the stream – first, from near end to far end, then far end to near end.  It is a job, not welfare.  What is worrisome is that, over time, it seems there are ever fewer stones in the stream.  We postulate that, some nights, citizens go to the water and fetch stones, hiding them in their backrooms and garages.  Rumor is, when stones in the stream are nearly gone and there is almost no work for the unemployed, hoarders will offer to sell their purloined stones dearly to the town.

UNAPPLIED LITERACY

He leaves the bookstore with his two purchased books in the burlap sack he brought with him, making sure no one sees him going in or out.  As some neighbors have begun to see through this subterfuge, in his truck he places the sack in a Thole’s Hardware canvas bag.  The smarter neighbors see through this; but it is not them he has to hide his spurious literacy from.  He can still read behind closed doors, sneak into town to buy books, even harbor a library card slipped secretly in his wallet.  But people talk, plot against his unequal aspirations.

WHAT VOLCANOES WANT

The volcano has not spoken in years.  Two possible conclusions come of this:  we no longer need to feed it virgins, or devouring our virgins has kept it docile.  These are debated wherever citizens gather to dull their senses.  One scion proposes we experiment by lengthening the time between rituals.  From seasonal, change to equinox.  No eruption, adjust to annual.  Then once a decade.  The issue could be solved for future generations.  Our men lament there could be less a rush of women seeking ineligibility.  Then again, perhaps any suffering will appease a volcano, even that of once privileged men.