skit #90: the two

So you can put them into two categories. Err, I mean, there's more, but. Well, you know how rules always have gaps in their smiles.

You got the obsolete traditional types, who go around looking all regularly hideous. Really, most of those got killed way back when. You know, knights and exorcists and whoever. People can barely tolerate spiders, and even they have exterminators. No one talks about jabberwockies anymore. So don't worry about all the ugly monsters.

But, yeah. Then you got the newer-type clever monsters, who go around looking like people. Real regular-type people. Real sly. I figure there's a whole rude zoo of those monsters right under the skin of people you see every darn day. Engineers and aunts and veterinarians and clarinetists -- yeah, anyone, maybe, doesn't matter who. Sometimes the windows to their soul look all smudged up.

This ain't all bad. There's an elegance to this dichotomy. If your monster looks like a person, then you don't really have to worry about being gobbled up, because people don't have massive jaws and fangs. But if your monster looks like a monster -- well, no one's going to jail you for destroying some regularly hideous-type monster.

Huh? Yeah, a few. I've tangled with my share of monsters before. Lost these six fingers to the whorl worms of Patagonia. Went all higgledy-piggledy in my ladyparts. Yeah, I've got a few wriggled up inside me. Parasites -- the whorl worms of Patagonia. These things don't really turn me into a monster, per se. They just eat my flesh and reconstitute my likeness with wormflesh. So some whorlwormy chap will be doing wrong in my name. Or, who knows, maybe I'm doing good in his name.

Hell, even had someone spot me for a monster. They chased me down all of 32nd Street with a shotgun. No way you can really disprove it, neither. Just have to steer clear of them. But that's what I mean, I guess. The sly monsters look just like people. But, heh, maybe you're taking advice from a monster.

Well, yeah. Then there's three, technically.

Those third ones are the worst monsters. Don't look like anything. More abstract. A misplaced shadow. Awkward and protracted eye contact. A painfully trite malaise. Thoughts of aberrant geometries. Existential hangnails. The kind of monster you can never fight, can never dispel. That inauspicious happenstance that can never be confronted or defined. When something feels wrong.

But. Those have been around for a while. Best to stick to the two.

skit #89: the moon

The night swallows desperately as the midnight express lodges in its throat like an unpalatable placebo. The coach bus slows and stops. White noise wafts from the coastline waves and the constellations make promises of stale fates. With the bus stopped, the night would be still, but acrid smoke from the engine provokes its passengers to disembark.

But not Erma. She remains on the bus. Erma is supposed to be somewhere. She does not know where, or even that there was a particular somewhere to be, but she could have been there nonetheless. She could have undergone the latent thing was supposed to happen to her. She stays on the bus even though it will not move. The smoke makes Erma's eyes water, but that's about it.

The passengers shiver in the coastal drizzle, occupying themselves by speculating idly or raging futilely. The driver, though competent and affable, bears no hope of repairing the bus. Everyone senses this -- the passengers, the driver, the bus, the smoke, the constellations, and Erma.

The smoke dissipates as the drizzle becomes heavier rain. Everyone returns to the bus. A repair truck finally arrives, but the mechanic will have to special order the damaged component. An opportunistic motel begins ferrying passengers to its pay-per-hour rooms until its capacity fills. Erma remains on the bus. The driver announces his company will cover any bills 'within reason'. The repair truck leaves until tomorrow afternoon.

Erma can't sleep, so she stares out the plexiglas window. The garish neon cursive spelling 'No Vacancy' mutes the subtle stars, giving the vain moon a full stage. The moon shines white, then red, then white. Clouds fog the scene, snoring upsets the serenity. No one cares about a lunar eclipse, not even Erma.

The bus resumes its course tomorrow evening. The mechanic is paid. The driver is competent. The motel has vacancies. The passengers are late. The moon is white. The thing is unknowable. Erma is supposed to be somewhere.

skit #88: ANIMAL FUN-DERSTANDING

ANIMAL FUN-DERSTANDING

with Dr. Barbara Dorber

Granddad wakes me up when I'm still tired! He calls me a lazy monkey, but monkeys don't look lazy! Which animal sleeps the most during the day?
- Peggy P., Toledo, OH

Tell your grumpy grampy humans aren't monkeys but primates. As humans get old and cranky, they tend to need fewer hours of sleep. Most humans sleep between 7 and 9 hours a day, sleeping less than any other primate. Elderly humans, like your granddad, may sleep as few as 6 hours a day. Most of our primate cousins, including chimps and baboons, sleep approximately 10 hours a day. The laziest monkey, the owl monkey, sleeps 17 hours a day, devoid of any remarkable personal responsibilities.

So which animal sleeps the most? The nostalgic koala is known to sleep up to twenty hours per day, often dreaming about how elegantly she danced when she was younger, leaving her only four hours to pout in front of her full-body mirror, her middle-age flab extruding from the limb-holes of her joeyhood leotard. Why koalas practice in that which will inevitably depress them remains a controversial question among leading animal behaviorologists.

Why is my dog is so slow! It takes forever to play fetch with him. I want a faster pet. What should I get?
- Shelton F., Tulsa, OK

Do you like polkadots? Consider getting a cheetah! The cheetah is the fastest recorded land mile, sustaining speeds up to 68 miles per hour when sprinting. This is fast enough to run alongside a car on the freeway, and certainly fast enough to catch any prey that looks yummy.

Faster still, field biologists routinely sight hoofprints created by large game traveling at an estimated 82 miles per hour. Scat analyses identify these runners as wildebeest; further, kinesiologists affirm wildebeests' musculature may potentially produce as much thrust with each leg as a junior varsity football team! Wow!

Yet this shy specimen has never been observed moving any faster than what is expected of it, a mere 50 miles per hour, a handicap merrily exploited by trailing hyenas and lions. Under midnight, away from any audience, thundering wildebeests are tracked by seismologists hoping to understand this bashfulness. Regarding the wildebeest's nature, we ask ourselves what hyenas mock us, what cheetahs best us, what of our thunder rarely rumbles, and under what midnight we are free.

Most wildebeest opt for the conventional life: grazing on the savannah, succumbing in negligible numbers to predators, rearing calves, breaking no land speed records, and other matters well-documented.

My mommy is the best mommy for people, but what is the best mommy for animals? I want to draw her being best mommies with the animal for her Mother's Day card.
- Jess M., Las Vegas, NV

There are many kinds of mommies in this world. And just because she's your mommy doesn't mean she's not an animal. Human mommies take care of their babies longer than any other animal! There are all sorts of ways to be a good mommy.

An elephant seal mommy transfers up to six hundred pounds of fatty milk to her pup, draining her of vitality. She serves only as anonymous loins within a harem, then as vessel for nourishment for the parasite she calls her child, eventually returning to the frigid sea without her fat reserves, her lover, or her child to warm her. She finds her place on a chain of existentially-contrived links.

And the kangaroo mommy stows her joey in her pouch, taking her baby wherever she goes. Imagine the weight of it. Utterly responsible in every regard to a living being that is half hers. Now she must carry out her life a time and a half over. And always embarrassing her with caterwauling and odors. Humiliating her at the gala, delaying her attendance dance recitals, thwarts her important interview, dribbling on the forms at the unemployment office, getting her evicted from the flophouses. The weight of it. At least the weight brings them both down.

Above all reigns the rabbit mommy, who abandons her children upon birth. She sets the precedent, freeing her children from the obligation of motherhood, ensuring no rabbits have my regrets by their age.

skit #87: Sweet Osogovo

Shorn summer flocks saturate the Osogovan mountainside like a superfluous sweater. Their unshaven chaperons dawdle in that leisurely way that makes idylls so imperturbably idyllic. Sweet Osogovo poses her hills in rows and rows of verdant mammaries, irresistible to sheep and shepherds alike. She promises an easy day, enticing all creation to indulge.

Stojan haloos Vlatko from afar, his ebullience echoing over and over over the din of bleating. Vlatko, visibly pleased, slips his slender oak kuval from his shirtfolds and begins fluting a low droning note. Stojan approaches, quite unconcerned with whatever his headcount should be, his nibbling flock strewn a league behind him along the buffet. The shepherds all admit the sheep and shepherding are convenient excuses, accessories, only means to this music. Giddy, Stojan eagerly extracts his own kuval from his knapsack.

Like a stolid usuror, Vlatko drones that low uncompromising drone, bedrock on which Stojan gambols freely. Slowly, the players forfeit control of the ezgija's melody, which flourishes as an evocative thicket of brambles and blossoms: fusillades of Slovakian arpeggios, baying of octaval wolves, contemplative wooden textures, and all the contours of Osogovo -- Stojan's and Vlatko's and all the shepherds' insatiable mistress.

When Stojan tires, he drones and Vlatko drives the melody. Perhaps different notes, but it is the same song, for the same idyll, for the same Osogovo. Dozens of shepherds join and leave the ezgija. They dare nothing, coddling every note, repeating this ritual. Worship tolerates no creativity. So they play until lips loosen, until fingers blister, until summer grows cranky. Sweet Osogovo hibernates and her men retreat to Baraklija until next summer awakens her.

Six months linger each year. The village becomes awkward and quiet and manly. None play music.

While their masters mope, agitated black and white wool commingles and demingles in cramped square pens, very reminiscent of the static produced by the defunct television Gjorgji procured this winter. During lucid moments, his television offers occasional glimpses of the world beyond Osogovo: Macedonian not Yugoslovia; how acting now may save 15 denari; St Petersburg not Leningrad; how all ruminants have four stomachs; and other matters inane and grave. These are all diversions from their beloved Osogovo.

The wool grows bushy. The television programming stays bland. The seasons change too slowly.

When summer returns, so does Osogovo. And so do her idylls and their sheep and their shepherds. And so do their kuvals and their ezgijas. And so do their dronings, their melodies, their blossoms, their brambles. And Stojan is there, and Vlatko and Risto are there, and all the shepherds are there. Even Gjorgji, who everyone now calls Television-Man. The ezgijas begin. Stojan goes, then Vlatko goes, and it's just like every year. Osogovo always receives her melodies so nonchalantly that one cannot tell if she receives them at all.

During the trek to the pastures, Gjorgji had confided his mind spent its winter far from Osogovo, far from Baraklija and far from Macedonia, to whereever his crystal ball directed him. It's his turn to play atop the shepherds' drone, his angular and perplexing melodies gouge the round easiness of the pasture, polluting it with whiny traffic horns, fluttering receipts, the syncopated chatter of data computations, terse telephone niceties, the crescendoing inflation of floundering economies. Under these sounds foreign to Osogovo and rare to Baraklija, the shepherds' drones start to falter then give away completely, leaving Gjorgji playing his thin melody a solo. The misfit Gjorgji dismisses himself. The shepherds continue, trying to resume their frivolities.

Summer goes, Baraklija populates with awkward men, summer comes.

The shepherds and sheep return. So does Television-Man. He brings electric guitars, theramins, pyrotechnic rigging, subwoofers, garish costumes, personnel to webcast the ordeal, fettering record contracts. The few sheep his flock retained seem common when hoof-to-hoof with the other shepherds' flocks. But within Gjorgji's herd of ibex, cassowaries, capybara, ride-on gas mowers, and whatever else, the shepherd's sheep remain unique.

skit #86: Zergoff the Mindmaster

Washed in spotlighting, flamboyantly attired in his trademark sapphire-sequined tuxedo, somehow Zergoff the Mindmaster appears naked when on stage during tonight's performance.

Zergoff declares monotonically:

"He should have been an obedient son.
"He should have stayed out of his mother's closet.
"He should never have searched for the shoebox of heirlooms.
"He should never have taken his grandfather's pocketwatch.
"He should have honored the dead.
"He should have returned it when mom wept.
"He should have laid awake, undone with guilt.
"He should never have stayed up all night with it.
"He should never have admired its golden shine.
"He should never have lost himself in his reflection.
"He should have believed in magic instead.
"He should have gone into rabbits and top hats and sawing lovely assistants.
"He should have stayed out of people's heads.
"He should have feared so much power.
"He should have hidden the pocketwatch for a much later age.
"He should have waited until he was old enough to appreciate it.
"He should never have watched so many cartoons.
"He should never schemed so mischievously.
"He should never have practiced on Rufus.
"He should have thought more about what it's like to be a dog.
"He should have issued his instructions in woofs and howls.
"He should have taught Rufus something benign, like a trick or two.
"He should never have put human thoughts into a dog brain.
"He should never have imposed such existential crises upon loyal Rufus.
"He should have learned how to undo it.
"He should have confessed when mom wondered why Rufus was acting so very odd.
"He should have learned from mistakes made.
"He should never have practiced on Wally.
"He should never have practiced on Samantha.
"He should never have practiced on the guy who so adamantly insisted on being called dad.
"He should never have practiced on the teacher.
"He should never have practiced on the principal.
"He should never have practiced on mom.
"He should have really learned how to undo it.
"He should have retained a few authority figures.
"He should have learned some rules before bending them, before breaking them.
"He should never have left New Orleans.
"He should have been erased by Katrina.
"He should have felt lucky.
"He should have begun again, a simple life.
"He should have learned to accomplish things the normal way.
"He should have paid for brunch-time waffles.
"He should have rented his one-bedroom studio.
"He should have met someone nice.
"He should have met Lucy.
"He should have asked where she grew up.
"He should have asked how she got that barely-noticeable scar on her wrist.
"He should have politely yet confidentely asked her for her phone number.
"He should have asked her out for gelato, her choice of flavor.
"He should never have crammed up next to her in the subway.
"He should never have swayed that pocketwatch in front of her eyes.
"He should never have left her so confused the next morning.
"He should have met Melinda.
"He should have met Else.
"He should have met Hu.
"He should have met more people.
"He should have met anybody.
"He should never have met nobody.
"He should have felt brave without his pocket watch.
"He should have been strong enough on his own.
"He should have confessed how deceptive he is.
"He should have confessed how miserable he is.
"He should have been honest all along.
"He should have hypnotized himself.
"He should have committed himself to this admission.
"He should have felt relief.
"He should have felt clean.
"He should never have learned how to do it.
"He should never have learned how to undo it.

Zergoff finishes abruptly. The mesmerized audience, his strangers, applaud in a suspiciously rigid unison. The spotlight switches off and the show concludes. Eventually, all the patrons and performers leave the venue to return to their various done and undone lives.

skit #85: all inconspicuously

It's around afternoon, maybe even after that. Nightfall seems an impossibility. The sun holds an ominous promise like the rancid orange on my dashboard. The air conditioning exhales sticky breath drawn from the tarmac-buttered road. Traffic is stopped, or I can't tell. We commuters lurch together in inches through barren scenery devoid of the landmarks necessary to appreciate progress. Relentless tans and yellows, relentless plains: neutrality wages its effortless war of attrition. I succumb utterly. I contemplate land tortoise, the treasury bond, the graham cracker, and other matters slow and stale.

The freeway insists forward we go. Dotted lines divide the lanes, outside of which we swerve as the heat warps our senses. The traffic flows so slowly that mortal accidents are rare. Death's Buick taps my bumper and by hand I limply waive the guilt of his second offense having learned the futility of honking years ago. Commuters of this freeway strive for civility, even in this traffic and heat.

My legs fall asleep from non-use. I can't tell if my foot covers the gas or brake. The billboards are large and colorful, mercilessly legible. They are my only stimulation, otherwise I'd slip underneath the dogged weight of this dog day. I can read these words, but my fatigue yields only sun-curdled thoughts. The car dealers on the billboards don't sweat, don't look human. They grin flat grins, ignorant of the suffering they've dispensed upon the traffic. Barbara Buckleys and Red Coulters and Joey Petronis gloat from above as we slog along under their serene faces.

I watch the cars, unending processions, cars, cars, cars. We drive forward. Forward, going. Behind, coming. The rear view mirror frames the Buick, still tailgating me. Draped over the steering wheel, I see Death subdued by the same malaise afflicting all us commuters. He looks peacefully still when he slouches, as though he is a spring unsprung. I too wish to be unsprung so. For a moment, we share our misery. But Death taps my bumper a third time, startling him from his laze. He raises his hand in flustered apology. My patience spent, I whip my head around, and glare darkly at Death's ineptitude.

Ahead, tail lights wink. My windshield allows a brief sense of freedom, shattering completely.

An inadequate dose of anesthesia renders me mute and numb as I watch my surgeon earn her paycheck. Her paper mask nullifies her identity, but I know who is in her body, still recklessly tailgating me.

I heal over some years and resume life as normal. Both my accident and brush with Death, mostly forgotten.

Pickles are half off, so I buy two jars. A clumsy skeletal hand reaches for the kalamatas, elbowing my rib during the grab. In that flustered apologetic way, Death's open palms beg a forgiveness, presumptuously accepting that which I do not grant. He rattles my shopping cart as he tries to scoot by, sending my vitamin-enriched Wonderbread to the polished floor. Nonchalant and unaware, he continues to nix collected items from his shopping list in other aisles.

I doubt he even recognizes me, though we've met before. Even Death hates to wait; I position myself two patrons behind him in the Express Line. I count the items in his basket: 14, counting dubious multiples as singles. He remains oblivious as I cleverly spy from behind a tabloid. I notice my two fellow patrons also spying. Dozens of patrons, most of the cashiers, and two managers also spy. Perhaps Death adopted his oblivion so not to face all those he's acquainted professionally.

I hastily load my groceries into my car and manage to follow Death's Buick as he exits the parking lot. I trail him by a full city-block of space; I congratulate my inconspicuousness. I notice the entire grocery store, the entire neighborhood, the entire city trails him; all inconspicuously.

Death drives home in the traffic we once created. Ahead of him, drivers nervously watch their rear view mirrors, congesting matters in their wake, resulting in this elegantly necessary traffic. The dog days chase their tails and summer persists.

skit #84: Wriggly Hookins

No, nuh uh. No fishes today. But look what else I got. In the old farmers pond out back I found him. Right there mixed in with the rest of the bait. Fattest one of em all. Knew he was lucky. See, look at all his luck oozing right out.

I wash the dishes. My son's rambling bothers me.

Mama, yer not listening. Wh--

Today is a weekday. Why did he not attend school?

W, w, well, I was fishing for all day long with Drew instead. School dont miss me. Social studies dont miss me. See, you could look it in the book! Presidents ago still got elect if I were there or werent. Nothing changed. Heck, you barely miss me.

He caught insufficient fish. His excursion was of no use.

But there werent barely no fishes, mama. That aint my fault. I did get this fattyfatty, by the grace of Wriggly Hookins. Fry him, mama. Im hungry.

He holds up a small box. His puny fish shall not satisfy me. He has a worm left. He must explain.

Used up all the other worms, because they don't mean nothing. I told you, Wriggly Hookin's lucky. You can't waste lucky worms. Dont you know nothing, mama? Haw, you probably never had a lucky worm in your whole life. I bet daddy had a million.

My son is foolish. Worms do not posses luck. Roy left us long ago. I mother poorly.

No, no, no. No. I used up all the littler worms and caught nothing but wet. Those littler worms are a penny a piece, nothing. Wriggly Hookins got us this fish. He caught the one all the other boys were after. Pete, Johnny, Tommy, all the rest, and even Drew tried. But they only had little worms too.

I had Wriggly Hookins. I cast him way deep in the pond. And sure enough my line tugs like I caught a mutt with pork chops. The boys all started hooting and clapping, yelling how I caught the fish, I caught the fish, I caught gnarly old Bubbubb! Some big old evil fish from back from before whenever, they gossip. Well, he aint all that big. But big for pond fodder. For dinner.

The boys kept cheering. But I didnt want some ugly fish. I wanted my lucky worm. And right when I get blue, when I reckon what trade Id just made, I see Wriggly Hookins squirming out of Bubbubb's gills. See, lucky as he is fat. And look at the bounty he brung.

The fish is absent. I wash more dishes.

Wait. Whered the fish go? It was right there, right in the box. Dont move. We have to find Bubbubb. He probably snuck back into the pond through the toilet tubes.

His nonsense must end. My son will attend school tomorrow.

No, mama! I have to catch it again! You dont have no sense. You cant let no wicked fish swim around your own backyard! Doubt youd martyr for hump diddlysquat. Wriggly Hookins wou--

I wallop the insolent boy. He sobs and flees to the fishing hole. He never attends school again.

Behold: Wriggly Hookins. He died for our dinner. Up on the hook. He unlocks the badness in Bubbubb like a key, sets it free. Well I can't remember all of it, but it's something like that.

My son and his make-believers look solemn by the pond shore at sunrise: Pete, Johnny, Tommy, all the rest, and even Drew. I sense they secretly hope never to catch their wicked fish.