An help meet for X

It feels different to fall out of a canoe and drown as a human than it does to get netted underwater and pulled up to die in the open air as a fish. In the human’s case, you’re accustomed to breathing a dainty atmosphere, but then you’re suddenly forced to inhale thick liquid — this makes you feel sluggish, and accordingly you fall asleep. Whereas, in the fish’s case, you normally sip oxygen slowly out of the water thru your gills, yet now you’ve been yanked into heaven where the sky overwhelms you: oxygen here is abundant and too easy to assimilate — it makes you feel like you’re on cocaine plus steroids: you begin wriggling around in celebration, and you continue this song-&-dance till you give up the ghost.

I learned about the different types of dying when I was learning to become a shaman. The training course requires one to endure expiry as various types of creatures. So the best part of finally achieving shaman-hood is that you’ve mastered every form of existence, consequently you may live forever as any type of animal you desire to be. 

I chose to move to Massachusetts and serve humanity as a corporate lawyer. I spent a few years teaching at Harvard Law School, but then I got the itch to help out folks even more, so I retired from that position and became a volunteer policeman. Now I ride around with cops, and we solve problems.

What happens, basically, is that people call our hotline and we respond by saving the day. So, in the present case, the first call that comes in over our citizens-band radio is a woman in distress. (I get a lot of such calls: it’s natural.) She cries: “Come quick!”

So my chauffeur drives me to this damsel’s apartment. “What’s up?” I say, when she answers the door. 

“Something’s wrong; nothing’s working,” she explains: “my husband left me; our pets all died; the Internet is sluggish; and the world is at war again!”

I pat this woman’s shoulder and ask her name. “Bernice,” she cries.

“OK, Bernice, I’m going to need you to relax,” I explain. “I know just what to do, in this situation.”

So I head over to the toaster and lift it up. I notice that it has an area on its side where you can plug in an old telephone line. “Do you have a rotary telephone in your bedroom?” I ask Bernice. 

“Yes, I do!” she runs and fetches it and hands it to me. 

“Is this red?” I ask, holding the phone. 

Bernice stares at me for some time; then cries: “You’re looking right at it — why are you asking about its hue?” 

“I’m colorblind, dear Bernice,” I say; “I cannot distinguish between red and green.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bernice replies. “Yes, the telephone’s red.” 

“Good,” I say. Then I take the phone’s cord and connect it to the slot on the side of the toaster. “Alright, that’s done,” I announce. “Now I must gain access to your exterior hose bibb.” 

“Ulterior rosebud?” Bernice is flustered. “But I don’t HAVE an extra husband.” 

“No! your outside water-spigot,” I say, impatiently; “I’ll also need a standard green garden-hose.” 

Bernice explains that she waters the plants in her garden every day with the hose out in the back of the building, and she reassures me that it’s definitely green and not red. 

So I take this hose and privately thank God that it’s long enough to reach Bernice’s front window. When I get there, I look thru the glass into the house and make the hand-motion that means “Open up!” — Bernice then lifts the windowpane. I feed the hose into the house. 

When I get back inside, I position the garden-hose so that it’s aiming at the sofa. Then I send a text message to my chauffeur, whom I told to wait out back, by the hose bibb, and he turns on the spigot, so the hose begins to spray water at the sofa and the carpet. It also splashes the nearby television.

“You’re all safe,” I announce to Bernice. “Everything should be fine, from here on out.”

Bernice looks at the scene. The phone is now connected to the toaster, while the hose is running. “Thank you,” she cries.

§

My chauffeur and I leave Bernice’s disaster. I turn off the citizens-band radio and we cruise for a while. 

“Devlin,” I address my chauffeur, “I think I’m ready to trade you in for an actual human cop-partner. I hope you don’t mind. I just feel that I need a living being to help me with my crime-fighting hobby. You’ve been doing a great job thus far, so don’t take this as an insult; but all you can really do is follow simple orders to turn hoses on and off, and I need an animal in a uniform who can hold a gun and chase criminals down alleyways.”

So my chauffer Devlin gave a nod, stopped the car, and we both got out. The landscape was one of those fields that mobsters in mafia movies always park at whenever they want to commit a murder or dispose of a corpse. 

Devlin then caused me to enter a deep sleep, and he removed the superfluous wishbone from my ribcage. He took this bone and stirred it around in the dry sand at the side of the road, and he spat on it so that the sand became thick mud. He proceeded to sculpt this mud-bone into a beautiful woman. “Your wish is my command,” the chauffeur Devlin tapped my head to wake me up.

“Whoa, that’s dirt of my dirt!” I said, eyeing the voodoo model with lust in my heart. “Thanks a million, Dev!” 

Then Devlin shut himself off forever.

§

I named my new partner Officer Lilith, and I told her that she was created after me — in fact, she was stolen out of my ribcage’s uterus: but I myself was NOT born out of her body — therefore I AM the cop-partner who’s in charge here.

“I understand that you have seniority at the police force, on account of your connections,” Officer Lilith rolled her eyes while curtsying.

So Officer Lilith and I both simultaneously grabbed the knob of the citizens-band radio to turn it back on, and, when our fingers met, we fell deeply in love — at least, I myself fell deeply in love with her. Then we drove to our first crime scene together.

Our police cruiser pulled up outside of a construction site. There was a skyscraper being erected by huge yellow monster-trucks.

“Hey guys,” I yelled to address the construction crew; “we’re here to kowtow.”

So we all took our meal breaks at the same time. We drank beers, and we ate our ham sandwiches from our steel lunch-boxes. 

Then we lit a bonfire while sitting on a precarious beam of the unfinished skyscraper’s frame, and we took turns telling scary ghost stories about all the times that we’ve instilled entire nations with our economic ideals, during acts of physical aggression, while the moon rose in the distance.

Then Officer Lilith nudged me and said “I think we should go chase that criminal who is escaping over yonder.”

I turned my head and saw a suspicious character dash into the alleyway. 

“Sorry, guys,” I shook hands with all my new friends who work in the construction business; “duty calls: Gotta run!”

We all exchanged contact info; then Officer Lilith and I dashed off on foot, chasing the alleged malefactor whom she had espied into the depths of the city.

We did a scene where we dashed thru a dirty tunnel, and there was steam billowing around us. The puddles on the asphalt inside the tunnel were artfully illuminated.

Then we did a scene where we dashed on foot thru…

Sorry, I thought I could dream up a lot of environments to dash thru, but I presently can’t think of anyplace other than Venice; and I don’t want this mission to become too lighthearted — I don’t want to admit that we dashed over multiple canoes and almost fell into the water, while pursuing the supposed culprit very hotly.

Anyway, finally we caught the wrongdoer. I reached forth my arm and grabbed his upper garment. Then I pulled him close and sneered: “What’s the deal, punk?”

The guy explained that he had certainly committed countless bad deeds when he was employed by Western Propagandists; but, now that he is working for Eastern Propagandists, we should take into consideration the notion that nothing changes at a rate proportional enough to satisfy ALL people who are forced to live in space & time. 

“Dang, this guy has a point,” I remarked to Officer Lilith.

“So does the Evil One,” said Officer Lilith. “Lock him up.”

Thus we dragged our catch back to the county prison. Lilith and I tossed this net that contained our guilty party directly into the panopticon; and we spent the rest of our lives observing him or her.