the GALAXIST

Many men walk the road of bones, my dears, they walk the road of bones.  They have wild arms and many heads, they are large and they are terrible strong.  I am sure that they believe that they have earned the fare to walk there, and extend the road bone-miles further.  They are not about to divert then, my dears, they will not of willing breath step to the dirt and walk as we do.  I cannot guess the strength of the men or the intentions they harbor.  The one thing I can tell you, dears, is these men walk alone, without companion, and that is how we will defeat them.

With a breath reeking of tuna he told me I was going about it all wrong, each fishy syllable, each ocean spray of saliva passionately bent to right my ways.  Across the desk he appeared a beached whale to me, his hands fat flippers, crumbs down his great stomach, eyes so far apart that they must never get together for the holidays.  Each second in his presence was a lost weekend, each moment standing downwind a reminder of the irreplaceable freedom of youth.  That heart had to give out some time, I thought.  It was a morbid idea, but not far-fetched, perhaps selfish, but no work of fiction.  He would be dead soon for sure, I thought, why the hell not right now?

On a delayed flight to San Jose, suddenly, the flight attendants became pigs, rooting for truffles beneath the seats of frightened passengers. The pilot turned on the Fasten Seat Belts light, then turned it off again, then on. Outside, it was clear that other planes were undergoing a similar sort of chaos - iron machinery swerving from the runway, tipping into the marsh at the end of the airstrip.

In the sky, the planes seemed fine, and I wondered if some prophecy had come true to prove something to us all, in the positive or the negative.