Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
It Was the Wurst of Times
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
Carstairs risked a look over his shoulder. The pack was now only a few yards behind him. He put his head down and sprinted. If he could just make it to the car he might get out of this alive. A pine cone went flying and he landed heavily on his side. Some ribs felt broken. “Oh God,” he moaned, covering his face with his free hand. Then they were upon him.
***
Sgt Freiday flipped the notebook shut. “Nothing more to see here,” he remarked, motioning to the two patrolmen to load the corpse into the back of the van. He turned to find himself nose to nose with Smalchick Chomosh, the private detective. He sighed. “What is it this time, Mr. Chomosh?”
Chomosh stared at him expressionlessly for a moment, then pointed with his cane at a small white fleck on the path. “What do you make of that?” he asked.
Freiday squinted. “It’s a piece of bread. Left over from a picnic.” He looked back at Chomosh in irritation.
Chomosh pursed his lips. “It is a fragment of a bun,” he said, “a Sunbeam hot dog bun, to be precise.”
***
Three days later, Freiday still had no theory. In desperation, he visited the Sunbeam factory. When he arrived the place seemed deserted. He prowled around, then climbed the fence. He was in old man Sunbeam’s office when he heard the baying. He went outside and cocked his head to listen. There it was again. Louder. He walked to the fence and climbed back over. The sound had seemed to come from somewhere out here. As he approached his cruiser he saw some small pale objects in the grass. They moved back and forth restlessly, growling. The light was dim, but they looked like … hot dogs! He reached in his pocket for his keys, but found only a hole in the bottom of the pocket. The baying came again, and the hot dogs surged forwards. He ran back towards the fence, but he never made it.
***
“I have solved the case,” Chomosh announced. “The murders were committed by a pack of wild dogs.” He unveiled one of his famous who-done-it paintings with a flourish. Sgt. Freidey was shown sprawled on his back. A vicious weiner worried his throat; another had its snout buried in his belly.
The mayor snorted. “Ridiculous! I never sausage nonsense!”
Till Death Do Us Part
Thursday, June 21st, 2007
I need to get back to Tabletop Mountain in time to stop the wedding.
The problem is, my airship is flying lower and lower, slower and slower. The cucumber is almost exhausted. There’s nothing left in the bin but a few yellow spheroids the size of golf balls, and lemon cukes just don’t pack the oomph of the phallic green ones. I burned the last of the bell peppers this morning, and the lone remaining radish is shriveled and dry. Before noon I’ll be stoking the furnace with nothing but onions, and do you know what they do to an engine!? I’ll have to get an entirely new carburetor. Besides, I barely have enough of those to get me to the border. I call my brother.
“I told you. I have to stop the wedding. Elise can’t marry the Varsuvian-B ambassador. That’s where I’ve been.”
“I’m telling you! I visited Varsuvius on the B line. I was suspicious. I admit that was mostly because I wanted Elise for myself. You know how I feel about her. But this is much bigger than me — the B Varsuvians aren’t like the ones we’ve met on the A line.”
“Here, they’re almost like normal people. They live in clusters, raise their offspring communally (the ones that survive the nursery), even trade body parts with us (where that’s permitted}. My point is they get along. On the B line they harvest humans for ‘living’ art displays. If you can call it living to have your face and cerebellum grafted to a mobile made from recycled appliances, a feature of half time entertainment at Venter matches! I don’t think of that just off the top of my head when people start talking about ‘the good life’. I was lucky to get out with my spleen intact!”
“There’s nothing here. It’s a temperate deciduous forest. This is early summer, and there is no fruit to be had. I can’t run this thing on bark, leaves, and twigs!”
I’m thinking about parts of Elise decorating private ballrooms on the B plane.
“Yeah, seriously, you know how hard this is for me to say, especially to you. I love her. Satisfied? Now, would you come get me? I owe you one bro.”
“Okay! I owe you two. Just follow my signal. Please?”