Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
Letters
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
I got a letter from Grandma today. She’s making butterflies on commission. The cafeteria is free, she says, but she can buy great ethnic food with the money she earns. She likes Jamaican meat pies. She says the ones she gets now are much better than those we used to buy in Toronto. She thinks they are more traditional. I said it stands to reason.
I told her about you. She doesn’t really understand the Internet. I explained it is like a combination of writing letters and making telephone calls. Then she said she worried I was spending too much money on it.
I told her money can’t buy me love. But then I reminded her I just pay a flat fee every month. She was cool with you being so much younger. When she was coming up it was commonplace for women to marry much older men. Of course, then, they often had no choice in the matter. I didn’t tell her you were bi, but I did say we hoped to meet someday.
She said she saw Elvis last week. He was singing at some kind of impromptu outdoor performance. I don’t understand how they plan those without cell phones. Anyway, she said he sang Stairway to Heaven. Wish I’d been there. Not really, but I would have loved to see that concert.
It’s so nice they can write us now. Heaven isn’t what she expected, but she says her cousin Thelma shouldn’t call it a sweatshop. Grandma worked in one before the Depression. The real one. She made shirts. Up there, they don’t have to work at all, and of course they don’t sweat. It’s just that they need money if they want luxuries. I guess it’s His way of making sure souls maintain a good work ethic even after death. Or maybe he just needs the help. She said she’s made a lot of black swallowtails, so the next time you see one, it could be one of hers.
No, she could not get His autograph for you. All three of Them are working, like, 24/7. I know you were joking, but I asked anyway. The best she could do was Voltaire. She said he is easy to talk to, if you know French. I believe he thinks she’s hot.
To answer your other question, you definitely should write your sister. Even though it’s been years, I bet she misses you as much as you’ve missed her. Why wait?
The End
Foiled Again
Monday, April 6th, 2009
The red Honda cut in front of him. Charles hit the brake, afraid he’d be rear-ended. “Hope your car flies straight to the dump,” he shouted, face suddenly bright red. Immediately, dark gray leathery wings unfurled, the Accord lurched into the air, and flapped heavily away. “Holy shit!” Charles heard screeching brakes and his car slammed into the space previously occupied by the Accord. “Not again!” He put his face in his hands.
No one mentioned the wings, and the police officer eventually wrote “unknown” for the cause of the accident.
That night, watching The Daily Show, Charles suddenly remembered the curse. Maybe he could get his car fixed the same way! “May all damage to my car be inexplicably repaired overnight,” he declared aloud.
At 6 a.m. he looked out the window, but he couldn’t see his car. A telephone pole was in the way. “Damn!” He ran downstairs and out the front door. The cumulative effects of 11 years of urban driving were all too obvious. Maybe he had imagined the day before. Everything except being rear-ended in traffic. Again.
He took the subway, got to work at 7:59, and found an inbox full of forms. “I wish these forms were all taken care of,” he muttered.
“What?” Lisa asked from the next cubicle.
“I wish it was still the weekend,” he said.
“Hear ya.”
He wished for a lot of things throughout the day. Little things (his can of soda magically refilled), big things (a promotion), generous things (an end to war in the Middle East). Far as he could tell, none of the wishes were granted. About 2:30 in the afternoon Mr. Gordon came by and dropped 8 inches of forms on his desk.
“Evangeline is going on a cruise. You’ll be doing her work as well as yours for the next two weeks.”
“Yes sir,” was what he said out loud, but not what he muttered under his breath. When Mr. Gordon got back to his office he went in and shut the door. A moment later he ran out screaming, surrounded by a cloud of furious hornets.
That was when Charles understood that wishes were different from curses.
Charles thought long and hard about world peace. Then he pronounced a long and complicated curse on weapons.
Too bad he couldn’t change human nature.
World War III was fought with rocks and sharpened sticks.
The end