Live from the firmament

Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to present, live from the firmament... She is late for dinner, as usual. But she is beautiful. She knows it, which makes her a force to be reckoned with, I reckon. It takes time to fabricate the face she takes from place to place. Finally she showed up holding a small hood-ornament she claimed was a forgery. “I would have been here sooner but my karma ran over my dogma,” she said. “Sorry to hear that,” I replied pulling up my pants just in time. “How old was he?” “Forty-five,” she said and shed a tear from her glass eye. “But that’s just a minute or so in dogma years. “Well, it’s a dogma’s life. Sit down at least,” I cried, “And have some pi.” I knew it was an equation she could calculate. “Don’t mind if I do, buster,” she said. “And could you please pass the Buddha.” “I like your hat,” she said, trying desperately to enlist me in some grandiose scheme to steal the show. “It reminds me of my brother’s monkey.” Aha, I wrongly surmised, she’s in my clutches now. After we ate she asked if I had a copy of the Invisible Manifesto. I told her I couldn’t put my finger on it just now but instead sang her a rendition of “We Vishnu A Merry Christmas.” “You are a clever lad, now do a trick for me,” she said. So I pulled out a length of rope and choked her half to death. There you go, baby, now you know how the other half lives, my friend. “Oh, I feel just like a Socratic invalid. Do I again,” she begged. “Look, I cooked,” I said. “It’s your turn to wash the Platos.” I told her I had two tickets to the firmament if she wanted to go. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t decide, besides it’s raining cats and doggerel outside. “Looks like we’ll have to reincarnate the future,” I opined. “Okay,” she said. “But if you break it, you om it.” She went to change and left me a note written in lipstick on the back end of a pig. “Dear Frank,” was all it said. “Frankly, I don’t give a Ramadan,” I said. “My, but you are prolific,” she falsely claimed. “And I have a pretty good sense of irony too, which reminds me, this shirt needs irony.” When she finally shut off the lights and climbed into bed beside me the faucet in the bathroom began playing Shubert. “Somebody’s got to conduct that thing,” she sighed, without a clue. I put a quarter in the bed and let the detective fingers of the moon gently caress us. Outside the wind began to yowl. “Does this sort of thing happen often?” she asked. “Now and Zen,” I assured her. “Then tell me a story. One with a moral,” she pleaded in a voice so sweet and low. So I told her that when a Japanese business man goes bankrupt he must take his family to the roof of the highest building and throw them off. First them and then himself. To save face. One businessman threw his family off and then jumped but without any pants on. No one could understand the significance of this since everything Japanese is so symbolic. Everyone was baffled. The media went crazy. The government closed down. It caused widespread panic throughout the land. The moral of the story is you can lose your shirt and still save your honor, but you can’t save face by losing your pants.” “What kind of treachery is this,” she cried, and pulled a gun on me. “That gun’s not loaded,” I said. “Why it hasn’t even been drinking.” “Can it, pal,” she said. “That was quite a performance. You deserve an award.” She handed a trophy to me. “I’d like to thank the academy,” I said, but by then she had already fled and took all the plums with her, even the cold ones which I desired most of all, saying she was taking them to her friend, William, who would appreciate them more than me. What could I do? I was plum out of excuses. Moving heaven and earth is hard work, I thought and went to bed. I’ll need my rest. Tomorrow I’ll start again. But this time, she’s doing the cooking. Written April 19th, 2002 © on Apr 19 2002 01:24 PM PST   0 • 10