Dear diary,
Eventually, after more than a decade of successful dating, the immensely attractive 67-year-old librarian who occupies the rubber suit whose exterior is indistinguishable from our school’s fat principal approaches me while I’m mopping his or her desk and suggests that we perform an amicable breakup.
“I couldn’t agree more,” I say, standing atop the desk and pushing the papers around with my mop; “although this fling that we’ve been having is more satisfying to me than anything I’ve experienced hereto, I believe that there are even better things in store for my life; and I like the idea of quitting while we’re ahead — I’d prefer to remember you fondly, always. May I have a lock of your hair to keep in my golden fob?” I flip open my fob and hold out my hand expectantly.
The public school principal replies: “Well, you’re asking a poor man for his last two cents; you know I don’t have much hair left; nevertheless, here you go—” he snips the last tufts of his hair from either side of his head and combines them into an average-sized lock, which he places into my outheld hand.
“Thanks! this means a lot to me,” I place the tufts in the fob; “now, can I also trouble you for a miniature monochrome photograph? I’d like to have your image always looking out from the lid of my fob — for it has this little slot here on the cover where one can store a picture of one’s lover’s face, so as to remind one of just whose hair is preserved within.”
“Sure, here you go,” the principal grabs the instant polaroid camera off the bookshelf and holds it an arm’s-length away, snaps a photo, which develops before our eyes, and hands it to me.
“Wow,” I laugh, “you have that thing loaded with black-and-white film? That’s pretty rare,” I then slide the image into the slot and admire it for a moment. “It’s a good thing this is an extra-large fob, otherwise I would have needed to ask you for a smaller pic. But this one works fine. You have a nice look, too — like you just ate spaghetti.”
“Yes, I was one of the few connoisseurs who took advantage of the Polaroid Company’s ‘special deal for educators’, where they offered their discontinued film stocks at a discount price for anyone who is employed in the public school system, before they went out of business.”
I climb down off the desk and remove my coveralls. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you,” we shake hands, and I leave the office.
As usual, my feet make a pleasant rhythmic clicking sound as I pace down the hallway and leave the school building. My cape also flaps.
I now mount my winged zebra Pegasus and fly back to Eden.
§
“Thanks for the ride, Peg,” I say, dismounting in a misty area between two swamps. “Here’s some leopard jerky for a job well done,” I pat my zebra on her snout. “You’re good at long-distance flying. That trip was so smooth — if I had closed my eyes, I’d never believe that we just navigated an asteroid field.”
We both look up, Pegasus and I, and watch as the asteroids in the extremely dense belt that we just slalomed thru become fiery meteors during their fall, while the entire field enters the lower atmosphere and eventually lands upon the Cities of the Plain.
“Take the forenoon off,” I pat Peg’s haunch. “I might need you during the midafternoon, tho; so don’t go far.”
Pegasus thanks me telepathically for the jerky treat and then flies away, leaving a rainbow in her wake.
“She’s a decent piece of transport,” I say to myself. “Too bad she’s not a unicorn.”
“Too bad you’re not Moses,” sez an echoey mental voice.
“Sorry,” I yell to the atmosphere; “I didn’t think you’d be able to hear that.”
“Love knows no bounds,” the voice faintly replies.
So I begin to walk in the direction of Eden’s Town Square, to see how the War of the Angels is coming along.
“That’s strange,” I remark while shielding my eyes from the glare of the golden street so that I can see better; “there’s no longer any hurricane of dust representing the violent conflict at the center of the city. I wonder if all the good and evil angels stopped their fighting and have now become friends again.”
“What’s that you say?” sez a scarecrow at the side of the road.
“Hey! where’d all your crows go?” I ask, being distracted from the original inquiry by the frank lack of crows in the air — for there are normally two or three circling every man hanging on a cross.
“Have you not heard?” sez the scarecrow. “Heaven has been redefined as the impossibility of crows.”
“Ah,” I say. Then, after a moment of contemplation, I add: “But then why don’t you come down off your crucifix and join the bacchanalia? I assume that all the partisans have stopped warring, so it should be safe now.”
“Habit,” replies the scarecrow; “that’s why I stay here. “I’m actually more uncomfortable roaming at liberty, meeting and mating with fellow scarecrows — I find it more reposeful to stay hanging right here, nailed to my cross: this is the life that I’ve grown used to. Embracing free love, at this point, would be too much of a culture-shock for me.”
“Ah, I understand, all too well,” I say. “Lo, I just came back from the U.S., post-2020.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” sez the scarecrow, and his marble eyes weep antifreeze.
“Don’t waste any pity on me,” I say; “seriously, I had it OK — I was the ghost of a cowherd who owned a shed full of cattle, and we received a Jumbo Cloudmobile from Athena (she helped me custom-renovate my old pontoon barge); plus I was able to land a decent-paying job as the janitor of a public school, where I pulled off a steamy affair with the tall, sultry, bespectacled librarian who lives inside the tubby-principal costume. So I had it pretty good, all things considered.”
The scarecrow has apparently fallen asleep with his eyes open.
“Sir!” I shout, and the scarecrow shakes awake. “You sidetracked me with your crow-talk; but my initial question still stands: Where IS everyone? — Are all the angels shooting an erotic movie somewhere? Is there a new production studio that I don’t know about?”
“Yes, I think that’s right,” sez the scarecrow; “but I’m not too well-informed. You should really ask God.”
“Alright, I’ll go talk to the Big Man; here’s a button for your shirt,” I flip a button and it travels in an arc before the face of the scarecrow, who beholds the object with interest (for there’s a light-brown button missing from his flannel shirt, where the straw is exposed and starting to fall out — I noticed this earlier) but the thing falls and lands on the ground at the base of his cross, where the scarecrow eyes it longingly — the cruel joke is that he could climb down and put it on easily, anytime; but he prefers not to change his position or any of his religio-political opinions.
Now, beginning to walk in the direction of God, I wave back at the scarecrow and yell: “Enjoy your limited hangout!”
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