skit #60: to conduct its affairs

If it were truly part of the body, the tongue would be its most powerful muscle. Never apart, so like the eternal union between lichen and bark or between lovers wedlocked, they are one. In the cockpit of her mouth curls a tender larva so innocently pink and vulnerable Mabel would never suspect its tyranny; This symbiosis profits every mouth, so the tongues all claim: its servant is paid in saccharine rewards to conduct its affairs.

Mabel often finds herself coaxed into strange circumstances by her tongue.

Sometimes, she stands in sleet outside the French bakery before sunrise. She gains a dress size over a month and her tongue remains suspiciously muscular. She eats her rationed gruel, an oppressively scrumptious brioche. When she savors her ration slowly, she finds refuge from the slavery of consumption. She chews, reveling in the temporary freedom from her tongue. Without her appetite, Mabel is thoughtless to the point of lucidity. Her tongue, nearly decapitated between carelessly gnashing teeth, spurts blood in protest of her failed coup d’état.

She finds potions to tame her master. Mabel's tongue whips in the cage of her teeth when she drinks poison, a venomous adder. Pacified by milk, it sleeps like a sated lioness.

Sometimes, her tongue longingly strokes the contours of her crowns and the girth of her molars. Her tongue embarks into the mouth of a lonely stranger. She suspects the two tongues might exchange hosts for the sheer sake of wanderlust, but she has no evidence of this; She imagines all tongues have the same general directives. The lip-shrouded larva between her legs awakes and commandeers the evening's operation, and Mabel complies oh-so-willingly to any clitoral suggestions, eventually resulting in a tear-gilded miscarriage.

Sometimes, her tongue twines her breath into words. As she is resigned to do, Mabel listens, impressed by her tongue's ability to produce opinions. The tongue never exhausts its stamina, only its audience. With confidence, its tone degrades from charming to flippant to insulting, at which point the tongue cowardly retreats to the haven of Mabel's jawbone. She is left to stammer in her tongue's defense with no present means for articulation. Mabel's friends (and their tongues) grow aloof.

She can tolerate her tongue's rule no longer. She fears it is unstable, dangerous. But without her tongue -- its sensuality, its voice -- she is not Mabel. Relinquishing the scissors, she postpones her independence. She and her tongue continue to marry.