Author

Robert Hyma

Just a writer doing writerly things.

| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #1

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

Some Wonderful Lines from The Wild Wild West

            Having watched a few episodes with my parents lately, there are some absolute gem-like lines in this 1960’s television show. Here’s a sampling:

            Evil Prison Warden: “Show them what happens when they cross you, Iron-Leg.”

            [Iron Leg crosses to a nearby wooden bench and proceeds to kick it into two perfectly cut halves].

            Evil Prison Warden: [A snicker] “Be careful, Mr. West, or the same fate will come to you.”

            And:

            Random grizzly bearded prospector chopping a cigar-store Indian with an axe in an abandoned western town: “There’s a pandemic of neck breaking going around. And it’s contagious! I’d watch out if I were you.”

***

Robert Caro’s Working

          I read this book over a weekend. Robert Caro is the biographer of books on Robert Moses and President Lyndon Johnson, men of power and ability to shape the worlds they lived in. Caro’s book, Working, however, is about the author’s experiences with interviewing the people connected with those great men and finding the story. I felt I was reading about a writer from another time, when answers didn’t come from a convenient Google search. Caro is the journeyman journalist, out on the road and tracking down answers to something much bigger than what is on the surface.

            He and his wife, Ina, devoted three years of their lives to living in the Hill Country in Texas to understand the place President Lyndon Johnson grew up. Hill Country in Texas, according to Caro, is little more glamorous than a town without electricity. Houses can be miles apart, there isn’t a sense of community other than convenient geography, and the desolate countryside is so utterly abandoned that without the moonlight or brilliance of a starry night, it’s a world drowned in darkness.

            I admire Caro’s drive, his grit to find what he was looking for.

            Most of my writing (short stories, certainly) is improvisation. I sit down at a computer, type the first title that comes to mind, set a timer, and start writing something. Usually what ends up on the page is the final story in one form or another. So, it struck me when I read Robert Caro’s writing advice from a former Princeton professor of his. Caro wrote short stories in very similar way to my own (last second, off the cuff, procrastinating until finally getting to it). The professor said to him, “…you’re never going to achieve what you want to, Mr. Caro, if you don’t stop thinking with your fingers.”

            What Mr. Caro’s professor meant was to put more care into his writing, that he wasn’t fooling anyone by writing in this well-received, speedy way.

            I’m sure to write more about this, but I have a complicated relationship with writing short stories. To me, they feel “easy” because I can write them without overthinking. This doesn’t mean that what I write is good, but that I can sit down and crank something out feels more like a party trick than something to take seriously.

            It doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy them (I love my short stories), but it doesn’t feel as satisfying to write them as, say, a novel or something I’ve developed a more meaningful relationship with.

            I think with Robert Caro, and with the words of his professor, I felt exposed in a very constructive way; that I wasn’t getting brownie points for how I wrote my own stories. It was worth reading.

            More to come on that topic in the future, I’m sure.

***

Pyra/Mythra in Smash Ultimate

            Pyra/Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was announced for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It’s a good addition. My favorite thing about Smash DLC announcements is that they are seldom what leakers suggest. In this way, I’m more satisfied that Nintendo fans can’t predict what will happen with a favorite franchise. When the audience knows what will happen next, you’re sunk. In that spirit, Smash Ultimate remains afloat.

            Besides, what the game’s director, Masahiro Sakurai, decides to do with new characters is FAR more interesting than who the character is revealed to be, in my opinion.

***

The Rest of Nintendo’s February 2021 Direct

“Meh.”

“Oh, hey! A new Mario Golf!”

“Really, no Breath of the Wild 2 news? Not even some concept art? Yikes.”

“Meh, and it’s over.”

***

On the Brightside, Guilty Gear Strive

            It has been fantastic watching the Beta for this game. Such a frantic, fast-paced, beautiful fighting game with great rollback netcode. It brings me joy to see a game bringing joy to others.

***

New Short Story Coming Next Week

            I’m finishing up a draft of an upcoming short story that will be posted this week. I’ll include a teaser to hold you all over. It’s a silly little story.

***

Wishing everyone as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

So, What are ‘Weekly Post-Eds’ Anyway?

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

            These weekly updates are musings on events and ideas during my week. They are less formal than a finished piece of writing and meant to be a glimpse into what I find interesting and noteworthy, ranging from real world events to things I’ve read/watched, etc.

            I plan on posting one every Saturday or Sunday (but no later).

            Oh, and the title is a play on words, of course.

            “Weekly Post-Ed” means to be posted weekly (obviously).

            “Post-Ed” instead of “Post-It”.

            And “Post-Ed” as a play on a newspaper’s “Op-Ed”. Instead of “Opinion Editorial”, it’s a “Post-Editorial”, something more personable that isn’t the main source of material on this website.

            So, now that you know, why not check out the real thing?

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| Short Stories |

The Form It Takes

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

            “Yes, hi, I would like to lodge a complaint,” she said.

            “Very well,” he said. “Let me just retrieve the right form. One moment please.”

            “No rush,” she said.

            The man rummaged through a filing cabinet beside the bed and withdrew the correct form and a fresh pen, noting the date and time of the meeting. “We’ll start at the top: who is lodging the complaint?”

            “Your wife,” she said.

            The man checked a box on the form. “I see. And whom is the complaint directed towards?”

            “My husband.”

            “Yes, so with me.” He checked another box. “And what does the complaint pertain to?”

            “Something you said to me over dinner last night,” she said.

            The husband made another mark on the form. “To be specific, was this before, during, or directly after dinner?”

            “After.”

            The husband checked a box. “Before we continue, does the complaint relate at all to food? For instance, who prepared said food, how large of serving each participant took, the manner in which the food was eaten?”

            “No, it had nothing to do with the food. The food was sublime, delicious.”

            The husband hinted a smile. “Your comment will not go unnoticed.”

            “Please, no tongue-and-cheek comments,” she warned. “I’m not in the mood to open another form about inappropriate behavior during an official complaint.”

            “Noted,” said the husband, marking the form as such. “I’ve given myself a formal warning. Now, what is the nature of your complaint?”

            “You don’t remember? We discussed it last night, briefly.”

            The husband sighed, withdrawing a manilla folder from the filing cabinet, turning over a document dated from the previous evening. “Recalling the minutes of dinner last night, I noted tension at 6:45 PM, just as our plates were emptied and we debated dessert.”

            “Do you remember what we wanted for dessert?”

            The husband flipped the page. “Superman ice cream.”

            “You couldn’t remember that just now? You had to read the minutes?”

            The husband clicked his pen and wrote on the complaint form currently open, reading aloud as he wrote, “Plaintiff seems concerned about memory recall function of husband despite minutes written in detail.”

            “What did I say about the tongue-and-cheek?”

            The husband crossed out what he had just written and amended it as: “Wife appears concerned.”

            “That’s better.”

            “Should I keep on with the minutes to find the complaint you are referring to?”

            “Please.”

            The husband resumed reading, “6:46 PM: Wife asks if husband will be attending work party with her next weekend. She also notes the dress she has picked out.” The husband looked up. “Is that the complaint?”

            “Partly,” she said.

            “What’s the matter, exactly?”

            “Read on,” she said. “Unless you can just tell me.”

            The husband picked up the minutes and continued: “To which the husband replied, ‘I won’t be able to go, Honey, I promised Dave I would help him move out of his apartment.’”

            The wife stared expectantly. “Well?”

            “A perfectly acceptable excuse,” said the husband. “If you don’t believe me, I have your signature next to the minutes log. That means, per bylaws, you cannot go back on plans made yesterday evening, and I am entitled to a weekend excursion with Dave under the provision that I help him move out of his current apartment.”

            “Why is he moving?”

            “Irrelevant,” said the husband. “The minutes have been signed.”

            The wife sighed. “Look, I understand that I signed. I want to reopen the case.”

            “That’s a completely different form,” said the husband. “Why didn’t you say—”

            “Because I shouldn’t have to.”

            The husband dropped his pen on the floor and fumbled around in the fibers of the carpet until his fingers pinched around the cold, metal pen clip. He sat up, collecting himself. “Our household bylaws are not up for discussion. If you wish to reopen last night’s minutes form, a new set of minutes must be added and amended for tonight’s proceedings.”

            “Along with the formal complaint you are filling out now?”

            “Yes.”

            “And this new set of minutes will compound on top of the complaint form you’re already filling out, in which case a series of amendments and disclaimers will have to be inserted, proofed, counter-proofed, re-signed, and be reviewed again and again?”

            “Perhaps I should fetch our marital bylaws in order to cross reference proper procedure in the case of—”

            “No, you’re going to stay put,” said the wife, pressing on his shoulders, keeping him seated upon the bed. “You’re going to talk to your wife, Brian.”

            The husband, who kept referring to himself as such, said, “It is custom to refer to each other by husband and wife for the sake of honoring written bylaws.”

            “What?”

            The husband cleared his throat, repeating, “It is custom to refer to each other by—”

            She craned over him. “I can’t understand you, Brian. What are you trying to tell—”

            “Stop calling me Brian, bitch!”

            The wife raised an eyebrow. The husband swiveled quickly to the filing cabinet by the bedside, retrieving another form. “I apologize, profusely. Here, I’ll begin my Official Husbandly Apology Form. Please, continue with your complaint.”

            “That’s the problem, Brian,” she began, but her husband lifted a finger, objecting to the use of his name. “Sorry, husband. There’s more to this than not going to the work party.” She hesitated, then finally said it. “Last night, when we were through with dinner, you asked what I wanted for dessert and—”

            “Please read the minutes if you are referencing something I said specifically.”

            “No, husband, I won’t. Because what I said was, ‘I don’t want ice cream. I want you.’”

            The husband paused filling out his Official Apology Form. He cleared his throat. “What you are referring to sounds familiar; I will have to check the minutes for specific language.”

            “Don’t bother. I remember what you said. You said, ‘Ok. I’ll get the Official Sex Form.’”

            The husband tilted his head, almost confused. “And what is the matter with that?”

            “Your wife says she wants you and your reply is to offer her a form to sign?”

            “The form is merely a formality.”

            “Hardly,” she said.

            “I disagree,” said the husband. “The Official Sex Form is a brief survey of what level of sexual completion you require on said occasion: amount of foreplay, intensity of orgasm, duration of the act.”

            “I know what’s on the damn form,” she said. “My question is why do we need it?”

            The husband put aside the Apology Form and pulled out a fresh piece of paper. “You’re bringing up a very important point. It’s clear, from this discussion, that there is a loophole in the marital bylaws. What we are missing, in our proceedings, is a failsafe when breakdowns occur.”

            “Brian,” she sighed, this rhetoric all too familiar.

            “No, no, this is important,” the husband continued, writing longform on a blank piece of paper. “If there is ever a need for a failsafe, it is now. This new form, as you can see here, will remind us to reinforce the bylaws, the ones we both agreed and signed for at the start of the fiscal….”

            The tip of his pen ripped through to the other side of the new form, stabbing into his pantleg. A blotch of ink stained into his khakis.

            “Brian,” she whispered. “Please stop—”

            “No, Janet, I won’t!” He paused, the air unwilling to exit or enter his sternum. She touched his shoulder and he breathed again. “I mean, wife, there are certain rules in place so that…”

            “Say it,” she said, sitting down beside him. He didn’t move away.

            The husband stopped writing. He shook his head no.

            The wife looked to him. “Please.”

            He recoiled from her touch, turning away. “Because we don’t want you cheating on us again.”

            They sat in silence for some time, a stillness that hadn’t existed between them since she had first told him of an affair the year before.

            “I’d like you to formally complain against me,” she said at last.

            The husband looked up. “Why?”

            “Should I reread the minutes?” she said, reaching across to the filing cabinet next to the bed, withdrawing a blank piece of paper from the open drawer. She took his pen and asked, “Name of the plaintiff?”

            He hesitated, the hurt coming back. She put a hand on his knee, and he didn’t swat it away, as he usually did. “Your husband,” he mumbled at last.

            “Who?”

            He smiled slightly. “Brian.”

            “And who is your complaint meant for?”

            “My wife,” he said. She stared. “Janet.”

            She checked an imaginary box on the blank piece of paper. “Very well. And what is your complaint?”

            He didn’t want to say. She kissed his cheek and smiled.

            “I want to know why,” he strained to say.

            She rested her head against his shoulder. “Can you be more specific?”

            He cleared his throat and said, “I want to know why you did it.”

            She lifted her head and said, “Is it ok if I write my official response?”

            The husband conceded.

            He watched his wife, Janet, as she turned away to write. He wanted to peak around her as though back in grade school, trying to lift a few answers from the person in front of him. He didn’t speak, and he spent his time looking over the metal filing cabinet that he had bought the day after she had told him about the affair. It was a cold and hardened thing, an obelisk in the stead of a bedside table. Inside were countless forms, each cataloguing the Dos and Don’ts of their lives from that moment onward. He hated it, the procedural and metallic failsafe.

            “Done,” she said at last, turning to him with her written response. “Do you want to read it with me here, or would you like me to leave the room?”

            “Stay,” he said, surprising himself. He took the page, expecting a few paragraphs of explanation, but instead found a single line.

            Because it took the mistake of my life to realize how wonderful you are. Bylaws and all.

            When he was through, he looked to his wife, and stormed the filing cabinet, gutting the insides of manilla folders and excess forms. He threw them to the carpet, ripping to pieces an entire year of catalogued love and unlove.

            “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice quivering.

            He stopped ripping up documents and grabbed his wife, kissed her, and said, “Before I destroy every one of these files, I need to reopen last night’s minutes and ask you a question. And, believe me, the rest of our lives depends on your answer.”

            She smiled. “Ok, anything.”

            “What would you like for dessert tonight?”

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| Short Stories |

All the Bad Things Out of the Way

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

            It began with a string of bad ideas: don’t feed the crying baby, kick the dog who is always sleeping in the narrow corridor, break the alarm clock that never turns off. After laughing at how ridiculous they were, Stripford thought of many more bad ideas. Why not put one pantleg in his suit and walk out the front door to work? When backing up his car, why grab the steering wheel at all?

            These were the kinds of ideas he thought of when nothing was working in his life. The argument always ran thus in his mind: if nothing was working right, why do anything the right way at all?

            This was the day when Stripford decided to act on this impulse.

            When the alarm clock rang, he threw it against the bedroom door, smashing it to pieces. His wife bolted upright in bed at the commotion, and the baby began crying in the next room. She asked him to tend to the little one. He didn’t reply and put on his suit for work and let the baby wail away while he nibbled on leftover cupcakes in the kitchen.

            The Pomeranian, Benny, slept in the lone corridor of the cramped apartment, ready to stir at the exact moment that Stripford stepped over. With a shrug, Stripford landed a buckler of a kick into the dog’s ribcage. The mutt half-yipped, half-barked and raced around the apartment to escape further punishment, which was quite amusing.

            He dented a neighbor’s car parked under the carport of the apartment complex, having refused to steer when backing out. On the highway, Stripford didn’t look to change lanes and ran a minivan off the road. The subsequent beeps and threatening gestures that reflected in his rearview might have been menacing the day before, but Stripford shrugged. He mentally checked the box of the list of Bad Things in his mind: reckless driving.

            At his dental practice, Stripford merely glanced at decaying molars and glazed over at dentures in need of polish and refinement. He told children they might as well eat as much candy as they wanted so he could stay in business when they next visited for cavities. Mothers scorned his terrible attitude, threatening to complain. His dental assistants festered in the breakroom after lunch, each sharing one of Stripford’s suggestive innuendo about their fitted scrub uniforms, and each agreed to complain or file suits to HR.

            Stripford was to pick up his eldest from school at 2:30, but he never showed. Passing by the school, he saw his little boy sitting on a bench outside, overlooking the parking lot for any sign of a silver sedan rounding the entrance. This was a particularly unforgivable Bad Idea that required more effort to perform for Stripford, and so he next stopped at a fast food restaurant to order a tripe deluxe Piston Burger, one so drenched in fryer grease that the inevitable uptick in cholesterol would surely befuddle the family doctor come his next checkup. His intestine churned noisily as he drove to the beach to stare at the weekly gathering of recreational women’s volleyball. He unapologetically parked as close as possible and ogled them; the games didn’t last long.

            At the end of the day, Stripford parked his car in the adjoining parking lot to his own apartment complex. It was nighttime and the visitor spots in front of his home were occupied with his wife’s parents and friends, each certainly called to comfort and console why Stripford would ignore their crying infant, or kick the family dog,  and even refuse to pick up their 10-year-old boy from school. He had ignored all phone calls, even the 3 voicemails left by HR from the dentist office. He checked off the box in his mind that read: Successfully completed list of Bad Things.

            But he had so many more Bad Ideas, ones that were even more creative and realistic. Why not abandon the family? Why not take his savings to Vegas and bet big? Why not travel the interstate to that tiny diner off the highway and meet up with – what was the name of that waitress? – Molly…something?Stripford considered all the Bad Things that could still be done and found the list endless. He was gripped by dread knowing that an eternity could be spent checking the boxes on every heinous act.

            He would never be done, never be rid of all the wrongness in his life.

            Unless, he decided, to check the final box on the list of Bad Things this very night. The Bad Thing to end it all.

            It would require heading inside the apartment, attempting to calm and explain his streak of reckless behaviors, apologizing profusely for his brief day of madness and stress. After they all had gone – still angry and bitter, to be sure – Stripford would excuse himself the bathroom for a long shower, turning on the water. Instead, he would dig underneath the sink for a hidden pack vintage razor blades he had received from his father a long time ago. His father explained that one blade was missing and never found. Stripford knew where it was, at the end of his father’s list of Bad Things.

            He took one step forward and something stopped Stripford. He stood still, still enough to cease thinking for a moment.

            The cool summer evening dropped below 60 degrees and he began to shiver. He wanted warmth, like cuddling up to his wife, even after an exhaustive day of tending to a newborn, she was still the best comfort of all on nights like these.

            He listened to the sound of distant traffic on the highway some two miles away and how lonely he felt in its wake. It was calmer outside and Stripford found he didn’t prefer the calm. He much preferred the irritable cries of his newborn son and the bips and beeps of his 10-year-old’s video games that he played late into the night when Stripford needed sleep.

            The parking lot was vast, and he could go anywhere, but why did he want to? There was always the cramped corridor of the apartment where the dog always waited for the opportune moment to awaken each morning to surprise Stripford. He nearly stepped on the mutt a hundred times over, but the dog was the happiest creature in the world to see him each day.

            The night was hazy, but not enough to hide the twinkling stars above from shining down. They might have been brighter in the countryside, perhaps on a vacation somewhere next summer when the kids could see the world for what it was. He had heard of a place from one of his dental assistants, the ones he had made suggestive comments about.

            He exhaled, and the breath of his day plumed out into the crisp night air like car exhaust.

            Stripford began thinking again.

            No, he thought, the razors were packed in the medicine drawer, not underneath the sink.

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| Short Stories |

Day Three of Nightly Push Ups

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

            “The point is he doesn’t use me that often,” said David Pinster’s Triceps, the oft underused muscle group after the third straight day of nightly pushups. “Then he expects me to do more pushups each night? I’m up to my ears in lactic acid.”

            “You don’t have any ears,” said David Pinster’s Human Resources Director, who had taken the Spinal Cord Elevator down from the main office – the Brain – for this meeting. It was urgent, so Triceps said in its memo in all caps ‘GET DOWN HERE NOW!’

            Triceps sighed. “It’s a metaphor. You can understand that—you don’t even have a face and I’m looking straight at you.”

            The Human Resources Director shrugged (metaphorically). He (well, it considered itself a he) was a subconscious Human Resources agent responsible for happy workplace conditions for all veins, appendages, organs, and other such departments that needed to vent their issues. Usually, an electric message sped up the Neural Highway, pinging HR (that’s what everyone in the Body called him) about something they wished to discuss. For the past week, every menial limb and appendage – including an impromptu meeting with Toenails – had something to complain about. It wasn’t easy keeping every working part happy in David Pinster.

            These days especially.

            Still, HR smiled (metaphorically) and did his job to the best of his ability, helping each part of David stay happy.

            “Whatever is going on, I don’t want any part of it. Convince the Brain to cut out this pushups business. I speak on behalf of my Muscle Group and a few close friends of mine: Abdomen, Biceps, and even Pectorals. We’re sore and calling it quits unless he stops this new nightly workout regimen.”

            “Why do pushups bother you so much?” asked HR. “I thought a pair of Triceps would be happy for a chance to do pushups regularly.”

            Triceps scoffed. “See, now that’s a stereotype. You think that since I belong to a Muscle Group that exercise is second nature, but it’s not. Ok? You have to be brought up on it, and David never did pushups in his life. Gym class was a joke, remember? When it was time for pushups, he’d hump the floor.”

            “That’s not what he was doing,” HR countered.

            “Ok, maybe not what David was trying to do, but that’s what it looked like. It was embarrassing! I tried to keep him active, twitching whenever I could to remind him, ‘Hey, use me, stupid!’ but did he care? No. He just played video games all day. I bet Thumbs and Fingers are the strongest muscles in the body.”

            They were. “I can’t speak to that,” HR said.

            “I don’t get it, is all,” said Triceps. “Why start doing them? Did he see a movie or catch an infomercial about workout equipment?”

            It was the end of a long week, thought HR. Maybe it was worth sharing a little to get a little. HR put down his metaphorical notepad and pen on the desk, peeling away his glasses with a tired exhale. “Any idea who Bethany Comatanos is?”

            “Cute girl from down the hall,” said Triceps. “Apartment 3, I think.”

            “She just broke up with her boyfriend.”

            Triceps flexed with glee. “I got it, I got it! It’s all starting to make sense. David sees this girl, sees she’s attractive – I should know, I’ve checked out her Triceps, they’re legit – and thinks he has to get in better shape to have a shot with her. Am I right?”

            HR knew what was coming. “Yes, that’s about it,” he conceded.

            Laughter, uproarious laughter. Triceps twitched and flexed, unable to contain himself. “That’s hilarious! David? Our David really thinks he has a shot with a girl like Bethany Comatanos?” More laughter.

            HR cleared his throat, showing a bit more bemusement than necessary. “You don’t think he has a shot?”

            “Have you seen this girl? She’s like a gymnast or something—”

            “Marathoner.”

            “Right, whatever, and here comes our David, walking along—all five-foot-ten and skinny as a twig. Did he think a few pushups was going to bulk him up? As a joke, I could flex more. Tell you what, I’ll do one better: I’ll tell Abdomen to ‘suck it in’ next time David sees her!”

            More laughter and HR rubbed his eyes metaphorically. He had similar confrontations this week. Not one appendage thought David had a chance with Bethany. For this precise reason, heading back up to his office in the Brain was always grayer these days. HR looked to the floor, the same tiled red-and-white blood cell design that hadn’t changed in the past 26 years. “So, you think there’s nothing to be done to help?”

            “Help?” mocked Triceps. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do about it, I’m going to facilitate lactic acid buildup as I’ve always done—on schedule. David likes this girl, but nobody sticks to a nightly pushup routine past day four. Guys like David think doing them for a few days is like that Oxi-Clean guy swooping in and miraculously cleaning up a lifelong mess at outstanding prices. What was that guy’s name? Billy, Millie-something?”

            “I only know if David knows,” explained HR. “Limitations of the job.”

            “That’s right, you got access to his Brain!” said Triceps, sitting up in his chair. “Don’t you? Well, tell me this: how does David have any will to live? I mean it. Seriously, how does he stand waking up every day knowing he’s going to finish outside third place every time? This guy isn’t even going to medal. Doesn’t that bother him?”

            HR grew silent. This was all he needed to hear, another rebelling Muscle Group. They weren’t the smartest parts of the Body, but they held a lot of sway—sometimes literally (David didn’t have great balance).

            “Hey, don’t you think this is a little funny?” asked Triceps noticing HR’s long stare. “I meant it to be funny.”

            HR looked up at Triceps, straightening in his chair. “I don’t like to gossip about what goes on upstairs, but maybe it’s a good sign you aren’t thrilled about pushups. There’s a rumor none of us will be needed for David much longer.”

            Triceps twitched slightly. “Wait, what does that mean?”

            HR stood up to leave, gathering his notepad and pen (metaphorically). “It means that there may not be a David Pinster in a few weeks.”

            “You don’t mean…”

            “Look at my face.”

            “You don’t have one,” said Triceps. “None of us do.”

            “Not the point. It’s just an expression.”

            Triceps was quiet for some time. There were days when he felt weaker than usual, some sort of fatigue he figured, but he thought it was because David was so out of shape. He never considered upper-level management was thinking of clearing house. He had felt the ripples of something big and never considered what it might be.

            “Hey, I was only kidding before,” said Triceps, grabbing hold of HR. “All that stuff about not wanting to do pushups, yeah, just blowing off steam. I can pump out more pushups if David wants. I mean,” Triceps studied the HR’s bowed expression, trying to read his faceless face, “it would help, right?”

            “Couldn’t hurt,” muttered HR. “Just between you and me, I’d expect a memo coming down the Central Nervous Delivery System soon with instructions.”

            “For what?”

            HR gave the look, and Triceps knew what it meant. Then, HR was gone.

            Triceps couldn’t settle down. On his way back to his office, he was bitter. After a lifetime of service – of teaching David how to use his arms as a baby, coordinating his swings of a baseball bat as a toddler, holding steady in a dark bedroom while he learned to explore himself as a pubescent teen (which, Triceps needn’t point out, there was no overtime pay for), and never once protesting David’s career decision to spend his waking days in front of computer screens to type code – this was the thanks the Body would get?

             Despondent, he went downstairs, back to the Arms Appendage, waiting at his desk for instructions.

            A beep at the mailbox of the Central Nervous Delivery System—a memo came through. Triceps hesitated to read it.

            “Everything all right?” asked a new strand of Bone Marrow passing by his office.

            “Yeah,” said Triceps, standing up, smiling at the new hire. She was young, full of potential. “Can I ask you something: why did you want to work here?”

            “I heard good things,” said the new strand of Bone Marrow. “Seemed like a good fit.”

            The memo box beeped again and Bone Marrow retrieved the incoming memo. She read it to her supervisor.

            “Says we’re scheduled for more pushups tonight. For a fourth night in a row? I heard the team over at Abdomen complaining about sit-ups, too. Does David workout a lot? Doesn’t seem like the type of guy to do that.”

            Triceps smiled. “Sure he is. C’mon, let’s get everyone started.”

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| Short Stories |

Hunters & Gatherers

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

           You’re not supposed to throw rocks at triceratops’ heads, but I did anyway. Can you blame me? They basically have shields on their foreheads, they can take it. It’s not like I have an extra-hard head that I can defend myself with. Instead, I have to be pushed around by Gork everyday on the way home from Hunting and Gathering school.

            Oh, I’ve talked to my teacher about it. Ms. Splert knows about Gork, but she doesn’t do anything. Why? She loves him. He’s the biggest and strongest in class (probably because he’s been held back a few grades, but that’s another story), so why wouldn’t our teacher love him more than the rest of us?

            Erg knows what I’m talking about. He’s smaller than I am, and a little dopier, but I wouldn’t tell him that—he’s my best friend. Last week, when Erg and I were walking back to our community cave, Gork came out of nowhere and threw a branch at my head. I ducked, and I would have told Erg to duck if the branch hadn’t hit him already. If it wasn’t for the thick braids in Erg’s hair, that branch would have stuck him through, and I would have lost my best friend forever.

            I told my dad about it, but he just grunted something I couldn’t understand. Dad is from the old country and he doesn’t talk so good. Mom looked after him once he emigrated here, and she loved him for the way he is. Luckily for me, she translates for him.

            “Your father says you just have to stand up to that bully,” she told me.

            “How do you know he said that?” I asked. “All he does is grunt all the time!”

            “Because I know, dear. Now, listen to your father.”

            “Oog! Rugga, ra!” says my dad, folding his arms.

            “He says off to bed,” my mother says.

            “Yeah, I heard him,” I say, kicking at some loose stones on the way to my straw mat.

            “Oog!” says Dad.

            “And wipe your teeth clean!”

            “I know!” I mutter something under my breath because my dad has bat-hearing in our cave. For a guy that doesn’t speak our language, he’s got a lot to say, that’s for sure.

            The next day, I meet up with Erg before setting off for Hunting and Gathering school.

            “Hey Stone-heads!” Gork shouts across the tall grass.

            “Should we run?” asks Erg.

            “No, he’ll just take it out on us in class anyway,” I say. “Let’s just get it over with.”

            Gork runs over to us. “You guys want to see something cool?”

            Erg and I exchange looks. “Us?”

            “Yes, you. C’mon, stone-heads. This way.”

            Uneasily, we follow Gork into the trees nearby. We push past some thrush and leaves and then we hear it.

            “Sounds like someone moaning,” says Erg.

            “Quiet or you’ll chase it away!” shushes Gork.

            On tiptoes, we inch towards a clearing where the moaning is as loud as ever. I get on my stomach and peak through the tall grass. My heart clenches. “We have to go. We have to go RIGHT NOW!”

            “What’s the matter?” asks Erg. He peaks through the leaves. “Yup, let’s go!”

            Gork grabs our hair and keeps us in place. “Would you wusses stop crying! It’s just a baby one. And it looks hurt, so it’s harmless.”

            My legs are shaking, but I pull down the great green leaf in front of me for another look. Sure enough, in the middle of the clearing is a baby T-Rex no bigger than Erg. It’s on its side, clawing at its right ankle that’s bleeding and probably broken.

            “Do you think something bit it?” asks Erg.

            “Don’t know,” says Gork. “All I know is this is my chance.”

            Erg and I look at Gork. “You don’t mean,” I say in a hush.

            Gork looks around and grabs a branch, breaking it off a nearby tree. He plucks small leaves and twigs along the length, forming a makeshift spear. “You guys keep a lookout. If that thing’s momma is around, shout or something.”

            “Why, so it can chase us instead?” asks Erg.

            Gork smiles and proceeds stealthily out into the clearing.

            Erg mutters something under his breath, the kind of stuff that Ms. Splert would make us stay after school and carve into our stone tablets to never say again. “What are we going to do? We can’t let him kill it!”

            I’m shocked at Erg. “Why not?”

            “Why?” Erg spits. “Because it’s a baby that’s hurt, that’s why!”

            “But it’s a T-Rex,” I say. “If we were the ones that were hurt, it would eat us.”

            “That’s different,” says Erg.

            “How?”

            “Because we know better than it does,” says Erg. “And it’s our job to take care of things that don’t know any better.”

            I look down, something heavy and sad coming over me. “You saw me throwing stones at that triceratops, didn’t you?”

            Erg doesn’t say either way, but the way he turns from me says he saw.

            “Ok,” I say at last, “what’s the plan?”

            We peak through the leaves. Gork is walking as silently as the wind, but the baby T-Rex is sniffing the air, knowing someone is near. Another step and Gork will be able to stab the T-Rex through.

            Thinking, I pick up a branch on the ground. “How hard do you think Gork’s head is?”

            Erg smiles. “Oh, only of the hardest quality.”

            Gork lifts his sharpened branch, ready to strike. The baby T-Rex looks up in time and cries out.

            Then.

            Thump.

            Gork falls to the ground in a heap.

            Erg and I emerge from behind the thrush. “Nice throw,” I say to Erg.

            “Gork taught me well,” says Erg, all tongue-and-cheek.

            The baby T-Rex looks at us as we grab onto Gork’s arms and legs and begin dragging him along the tall grass. It tilts its head curiously, watching us as we go.

            “Sorry,” we say.

            Then, with Gork at a safe distance, we quickly pick a pile of berries and place it near the baby T-Rex.

            “T-Rexes don’t eat berries,” I say.

            “Who cares,” says Erg. “It’s nice.”

            We bow politely to the baby T-Rex, thinking this is a good way to say goodbye, and drag Gork away with us.

            The next day, Ms. Splert gives us detention for abandoning the class. She even accused us of knocking out Gork, but my mother very much doubted it. My dad didn’t have any complaints when they met with my teacher to discuss it. I still served detention with Erg, though. We carved into our tablets until nightfall when we had to make our way back to the cave.

            “I still feel bad about the triceratops,” I say to Erg on the way home.

            “I get it, even if I don’t like it,” says Erg. “Sometimes, you just gotta throw stones at stuff.”

            “Stop right there, stone-heads,” says Gork.

            He emerges from behind a tree, this time with three of his friends, each bulky and armed with branches, the pummeling kind.

            “Just because you got detention doesn’t mean this is over,” says Gork. “How about we go and find that baby T-Rex again, but this time, I think we should feed you two stone-heads to it instead.”

            Gork laughs and so do his friends.

            “This time we’re definitely dead,” I say to Erg.

            Gork and his friends surround us, getting ready to beat us with branches. I’m not sure which part of me to protect first, my head, my shins, my ribs. I can feel the first swing before it evens hits, the one that crunches some vital body part that will never work properly again. Erg and I back into one another, prepared to die.

            “Wait,” says Gork suddenly. He strains his ears to the surrounding trees.

            I hear it, too. Something is racing towards us from the forest.

            “Run!” says Gork, prompting his three thug friends into a frenzy.

            From out of the trees emerges the baby T-Rex, flashing its teeth murderously. It stops, watching Gork and his friends run away. Then, it turns to us.

            Erg and I stand frozen.

           The baby T-Rex approaches, sniffing us over. It looks me in the eye, prods its nose into my chest, bows its head to the ground and opens its mouth. A few freshly picked berries fall out into a slimy pile. Then, the baby T-Rex looks up and flashes its sharp teeth.

            “I think he’s smiling,” I whisper.

            “What should we do?” asks Erg.

            “Smile back, I think.”

            And that’s what we did. The baby T-Rex tilted its head, cooed something, and ran back into the forest, never to be seen by us again. We stand still because it’s the kind of thing you don’t say much about afterward, only that it happened, and we were both very happy about it.

            “Oog!” shouts my dad from the lip of our cave in the distance.

            “What did he say?” asks Erg.

            “Time to get home,” I say.

            “How do you know that’s what he said?”

            I shrug, thinking about the baby T-Rex and my dad. “Some things you just know, I guess.”

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| Short Stories |

The Taken Tree

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

           Once upon a time, there was a tree. The tree knew it was a tree, knew it was in a local park, and if a tree fell in a forest somewhere, the tree knew that, too (sorry, bit of tree humor there).

            One day, a mother and daughter walked through the park where the tree stood. “I hate this book!” said the daughter. “But you used to love it, what’s this all about it?” asked the mother. “You never understand me,” said the daughter, who flung the book like a Frisbee across the grass and ran to a nearby swing set, her mother chasing swiftly after. The book crashed into the tree’s bark and fell at its roots with a thud. The tree looked over the book and didn’t recognize the title. The tree liked reading, which wasn’t desirable amongst trees since most trees are well aware of where paper comes from, making reading a taboo practice amongst their kind.

            But, since no one was looking, the tree reached down with a long, oaken branch and turned the book upright to read the title. “The Giving Tree,” read the tree. With a shrug, the tree leafed through the book (some more tree humor for you; trees are big on puns, apparently), and found the book rather charming. The tree caught the attention of his closest friend, a thorn bush, and said, “Have you read this? I found it rather touching.”

            “Don’t much care for touching things,” said the thorn bush. “Most people complain when I do.”

            “Well, what do you think of the story?” asked the tree.

            “Kind of gruesome if you ask me,” said the thorn bush. “A kid keeps coming around, sawing off different limbs until the tree is a lonely stump? What kind of person would do such a thing?”

            “Humans,” said the tree, an undeniable fact. “But I thought the message was sweet.”

            “Still gruesome. I wouldn’t want my arms and legs plucked off of me”

            “Hey, you’re right,” said the tree. “Humans don’t know how good they got it. How would they like it if someone came around and plucked a finger clean off, or ripped out some hair just because they were bored as they passed by?”

            The thorn bush chuckled. “I’d read that story.”

           The tree suddenly had an idea, a revolutionary one. “What we should do is write our own version of the story. We’ll call it The Taking Tree, and it’s all about trees taking things away from humans.”

            “Hate to interrupt,” said a quiet voice from upon the tree’s bulkiest branch, “but there’s already a book called The Taking Tree.”

            The tree felt a little wiggle and knew it was a worm that was talking. “How would you know?”

            “I’m a book worm,” said the worm. “I’ve read such a book.”

            The tree and the thorn bush rolled their eyes (well, they would have if they had any) and said, “Of course you are.”

            “Someone wrote my idea?” asked the tree. “Did the tree kill people like the little boy in The Giving Tree?”

            “Nope,” said the worm. “It’s about some jerk kid that keeps doing cruddy things to the tree. It’s basically the same thing as The Giving Tree, except the kid is criminal.”

            The tree grew angry, which gave off an odor smelling like freshly mowed grass—the pheromone of plant torture. “Someone takes the title of my perfectly good story idea and they can’t even do it right? Where’s the murder? Where’s the dismemberment? I think the story should be about a tree in a sinister forest that takes the limbs and body parts of humans that stroll by, except the tree doesn’t know what to do with them, and ends up putting them in a pile somewhere. Now, that’s a better story!”

            The tree cackled for some time, which also smelled of freshly mowed grass, but a touch more bitter. Then, after the smell was whisked away in the passing wind, the tree felt rather stupid. “Sorry,” it said.

            “Get it all out of your system?” asked the thorn bush.

            “Yeah,” said the tree, realizing it was being irrational. “It’s just that the good stuff is wasted on humans, you know?”

            “We know,” said the worm and the thorn bush.

            “Should I write the story anyway?” asked the tree.

            The worm shrugged. “Might get into trouble. Better give it a different title.”

            “I don’t read, call it whatever you want,” said the thorn bush.

            “Maybe I will,” said the tree. “Maybe I will…”

            A month later, while in the planning stages of plotting the story, a trio of park workers came with chainsaws and buzzed down the tree. It was taken away to a nearby paper mill. It never had the chance to write the better version of The Taking Tree, nor a few other novels that it thought of. Once the tree was properly transformed into printer paper, it was shipped to the little girl’s house that had thrown The Giving Tree away in the park in the first place. On the carpet, in the living room, the girl took out crayons and drew the most uninspiring and archaic drawing of a little boy looking up at a tree, ripping off the famous Silverstein illustration completely.

            The tree sighed, feeling yucky from scribbles of green and yellow crayon all over its pearlescent-coated paper face, and said, “Yup, all the good stuff is wasted on humans.”

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| Short Stories |

Blinking Twice

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

           “Notice the contoured curves.” He’s a genius, this salesman. “Gun-metal stainless steel certified. As solid as the company that built it.”

            “Sold,” says my husband, not letting the man finish his pitch. My insides cringe. We were only going inside to browse. Rather, I told him we were only heading inside to browse. I should have known better. In my husband’s particular vernacular, the word browse is loosely translated as certain purchase.

           Case in point: Remember the $50 insolated tumbler that came out last June? You know the one; it could keep coffee hot for 10 hours, maybe more. Even the scientists didn’t know.

            Can you believe that? That’s what the label said in large quotations. “How long can coffee stay hot? EVEN OUR SCIENTISTS DON’T KNOW!”

            When my husband showed me that, I said that the company should either fire the scientists or think up better job titles like, “Intern Marketer”. Of course, it didn’t make much difference to him whether a bunch of crackpot scientists or unpaid interns printed a label on a state-of-the-art tumbler. He wanted it, so he bought it anyway.

            “Would you like to buy our 1, 2, or 3-year insurance plan on your new laptop, Ray?” asks the genius. “Keep in mind that 3 years is nearly 4 dollars off the monthly cost it would be otherwise.”

            The genius called my husband “Ray”. Oh, how quaint, I think. They’re already on a first-name basis, like two college friends catching up who hadn’t quite been close enough to exchange phone numbers. I roll my eyes because it’s my turn play devil’s advocate—you know, for the sake of our savings.

           “Didn’t you say this thing was as solid as the company that built it?” I ask, gesturing to the laptop heralded in my husband’s hands. He’s carrying his new purchase like a royal tiara meant for the next English Queen.

           “Yes,” says the genius.

           “Then why do we need insurance?”

            “Accidents will happen,” says the genius, which doesn’t sound like a very genius thing to say.

            “We’ll take 2 years,” my husband says. He caught sight of the eye-roll, the almighty warning that he’s doing something I don’t approve of. “We’ll play it safe.”

            Playing it safe, in my husband’s particular vernacular, is loosely translated as pay for it anyway.

            Then, that was that. Another $1400 spent on another tinker toy, another thingamajig. A state-of-the-art, modernistic piece of technology with the ingenuity to triple productivity. Would this treasured artifact be shared with his wife and 3-year-old daughter? No. The glistening slab of gun-metal stainless steel will sit on his lap while the rest of us gather on hands and knees to pray to the new false idol.

            And forget about the new kitchen floor we desperately needed. Never mind a down payment towards a bigger vehicle. Forget about using our extra savings to find a slightly-better-than average babysitter that gives a care about strict bedtimes and sugarless meals. We could use someone better than Angie, the only neighborhood teen with a pulse and a – somehow – vacant relationship status. Believe me, it’s a blessing to come home and NOT find Angie and some guy with mouths warped together in cosmological mystery, like two colliding black holes that elude the description of modern physics. Thank God for that, but not much else. You want to know why?

           Because Angie is the worst.

           Angie, the inept acne-prone mess that shovels sugary treats into our sweet little girl’s face. “How was your night Mr. and Mrs. Bidkins? Have a good time shopping? Oh, not to worry! I sent your daughter to bed a few hours ago. Hmm? What’s the noise? Oh, it’s just the springs imploding on your couch. Yes, I did send her to bed, but then she got up, full of energy, and just wants to jump up and down on your already outdated couch. What did she eat? Well, I may have slipped her an extra push-pop. She was being sooooo good! Could I have a tip please? It’s hard for a teenager/future slut-barn like myself without an extra $5 dollars. Don’t you think I deserve it? For just DOING MY JOB?”

            “Honey?” my husband says.

            Reality has returned. It isn’t pretty.

           As far as I can tell, I’ve been standing beside our outdated minivan for some time, clutching a shopping cart that I had, apparently, asked for from a passing shopping couple. I’m in the process of coming up with an excuse for why I asked for it in the first place, but I’m too angry to come up with one. Instead, I see Ray. He’s gawking at me.

            No, that’s not fair. He’s concerned.

           He’s looking at me like that same boy I knew in college, the one who was too shy to ever come over and say something, so my friend at the time – who has since become a matrimonial slut-bag – drags me across a frat house and introduces me. It’s 3 months before he kisses me, which was infuriating. Didn’t he get that I wouldn’t have stuck around if I hadn’t thought about us kissing? What took him so long? Why was he so stupid!

            That’s why I’m standing here, I decide. I’m wondering why I’m so stupid. Why did I ever marry this moron who buys the first shiny object that comes along? It takes me another four seconds to equate that I’m just some shiny object, too. I’m hot off the shelf, the latest thingamajig, and Ray will find someone else once he’s found…

            “Honey?” he asks near my ear.

           I freeze.

           Oh, how I hate him—he knows how to press my buttons. He whispered because this is private, this is intimate. We’re apart from the world now and it doesn’t matter who might be watching our family Soap Opera take place outside the passenger door of our quaint minivan. Well, I’m not falling for it. He flushed $1400 for no reason today.

           “Is this about the laptop?” he whispers, even softer than before.

           Something in me purrs, like I’m some pathetic alley cat that’s been fed by a benevolent human with access to cat food. And benevolent why? He has opposable thumbs and offers hard food that cracks beneath my fangs, which isn’t altogether healthy. Or, so I’ve gathered from the twang of pain after every bite. I’m just a cat and don’t know much about cat dental hygiene. But this cat is well off on her own and can decide for herself when food is benevolent. Oh, I’ll hiss. I’ll hiss so my “benevolent human savior” knows that I don’t appreciate such hard food on my sensitive fangs!

           I shake out of it. I’m so angry that I’m actively pursuing metaphors about cats.

           “Honey,” he says a bit more gruffly. He’s serious now.

           I look at him.

           Yes, Dearie, it’s about the laptop. The putrid piece of hardware that is sure to ruin plans for our next family vacation and force us to keep our incredibly unqualified babysitter on staff for the coming months. Yes, the freaking laptop! How can I put it best, Dear? Here’s a few suggestions:

  1. You’re an idiot who doesn’t care about the future of this family!
  2. Remember your friend Martin Shoresman? Right, from college. I thought he was a bigger idiot than you ever were, mind if I give him a call?
  3. You are so stupid. How stupid? “EVEN OUR SCIENTISTS DON’T KNOW”!

           I refrain from any of those suggestions. Something is tugging at my heart, and it is more piercing than any of them.

            “Min?” he asks again, sensing something is more wrong than usual.

            He’s right.

            So, I ask him: “Do you love me, Ray?”

            “What?” he scoffs, transitioning into an incredulous laugh. But this isn’t funny, and he knows it. “Of course, I do. What kind of question is that?”

            “Yes, I know that you love me,” I say, stumbling over the off-limits thing I implied. I didn’t mean that and hopefully Ray knows, too. “What I want to know is why?”

            “Why what?” he asks.

            I look up at him. “Why do you love me, Ray?”

            He’s concerned. “I married you, Min. We have a beautiful daughter. We have a home.”

            I keep silent. It’s not what I wanted to hear, and I can feel my eyes welling with the beginnings of tears. Only, I don’t know why. This is all silly, I think. This conversation is silly. Cats are silly. The laptop is silly…

            He bends down and puts the laptop bag on the muddy, salt-sprinkled parking lot. He hugs me, which helps. Then he reaches out and holds my hands in his and says this:

            “Do you remember the night we first kissed?”

            I blink—which he knows, in my particular vernacular, means yes.

            “I was going to kiss you first,” he says, “but then you attacked me. I might have been seconds away from kissing you, but you puckered up your face – much like you are now – and accused me of not wanting to. Ever. I never told you, but I remember thinking, ‘If I didn’t want to kiss you, I wouldn’t have stuck around all this time.’”

            I start crying now. Don’t judge.

            “Do you remember what happened after that?” he asks.

            “We kissed,” I say after a large sniffle.

            “We kissed a lot,” he corrects in his own way. “From then on, I think we’ve kissed more than any couple in the history of planet earth. You might ask, ‘How much have we kissed?’”

            That’s my cue. “EVEN OUR SCIENTISTS DON’T KNOW,” I say.

            He smiles and kisses me. We eventually stare down at the ground, at the laptop bag. “You don’t like the laptop?”

            I blink. “No.”

            “Ok,” he says and stands back. He scrapes the toe of his boot across the pavement, flinging bits of mud and salt against the bag, staining the opalescent exterior. “I don’t like it, either. We’ll return it.”

            “No,” I say, surprising myself. I don’t feel differently about the laptop, but I keep on talking, “But you love it.”

            “No,” he says. “I just wanted it. You are what I love. And our daughter. And our home. And I didn’t kiss you for three months because I made sure to know our future was what I really wanted.”

            I wipe my nose on my sleeve, hiding a smile. “You really want to return it?”

            “No,” he says, and means it. “But I really hate Angie. Maybe we could pay her off with it?”

            “Angie is the worst,” I say.

            He looks down at the laptop, like he’s about to leave it there in the parking lot.

            I clear my throat. “Well, then,” and bend down, brushing off the mud and salt from the bag. I present it to my husband with a dramatic bow. “Your tiara, Sire.”

            “My what?” he asks.

            “Nothing,” I say.

           It made sense to me. You know, because of how he held it before in the store. I forget that he’s not in my head. Only, he is, which is probably why we kept the laptop.

           We get in the car and drive home, dreading what sugary food Angie fed our daughter while we were away. I look over at Ray and I know he’s thinking the same thing.

           So, I reach across the shifter and hold his hand. I blink and he keeps driving.

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| Short Stories |

Two Exchange Students in a Poor, Provincial Town

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

               “He uses antlers in all his decorating?” asked Glen.

                “He just sang it in front of everyone,” said Dan.

                The two exchange students were sequestered to a pub in a small town in France, and they hardly knew a soul, except for Belle, who was kindest to them. Unfortunately, she disappeared a few days ago, and no one has seen her since. Well, except for her father who recently returned to the town and began raving about a beast keeping her captive in a castle.

                “Do you think it’s true?” asked Glen.

                “Gaston doesn’t believe it,” said Dan.

                “Yeah, but that guy is a dick.”

                Dan agreed, which made it so much worse that Belle was missing. But why? He didn’t know her. The entire town seemed to, which was unsettling. Whenever Belle walked down the street or through the market, every single person stopped to watch. To Dan, it was clear why: Belle was a hottie, a doll, a desert gem crammed into the crusty exterior of a poor, provincial town. But this didn’t explain why everyone found her odd, and when asked, no one in town could place their finger on exactly why she was different than the rest of them.

               “What do you think?” asked Glen.

                “I assume they mean she’s retarded,” said Dan.

                Glen nearly choked on his pint, placing it down. The new word was all the rage at university; finally, a cohesive standard by which to label the slow or dimwitted. “I was thinking the same thing but didn’t want to say it,” said Glen. “But she isn’t in an asylum, that must count for something.”

                “I thought about that, too,” said Dan. “What if they don’t put her there because she’s too hot?”

                “Too hot?”

                “Yes, too hot.”

                “Do you think there’s such a thing?”

                “Most definitely,” said Dan. “Remember when we stopped off near Paris and there was a girl munching on candles in the street?”

                “Who can forget that?”

                “Exactly. They didn’t lock her up and it’s because she had enormous knockers.”

                Glen wasn’t so sure. “Because of the knockers?”

                Dan shrugged. “One can only assume.”

                They each downed the remaining foam of their pints, smacking the wooden bases on the countertop. The bartender placed two refills nearby.

                “Would you ever date a retarded girl?” asked Glen.

                Dan spit out some foam, wiping his lip. “Are you serious?”

                “I mean, if she were hot enough.”

                Dan shook his head. “This conversation is a little tacky, even for 1730.”

                “The year of our Lord?”

                “That’s the one.”

                “But Gaston wants to marry her,” pressed Glen. “Doesn’t he care that she might be retarded?”

                “The guy that wants to decorate everything with antlers?” asked Dan. “He might be retarded one.”

                “Come to think of it,” said Glen, looking around the bar. “We might be the only normal ones here.”

                “That’s what I was thinking,” said Dan. “Everyone is either into Belle or following a cult that Gaston and LeFou are starting. I suppose that’s the curse of being educated.”

                “Smarter than the average dimwit,” said Glen, smacking the rim of his pint with Dan’s, drinking deeply.

                “Excuse me,” said LeFou, having made his way across the bar. “Would you two be interesting in joining a mob?”

                “A mob?” the exchange students asked.

                “It’s a volunteer thing,” LeFou explained. “If there’s ever a need to get the town together, find torches and pitchforks and other pointy things, can we count on you two to follow us no matter where we go?”

                “Are you serious?” asked Dan. “No matter what the cause, just grab something sharp and follow you around, hooting and hollering?”

                “That’s the general idea,” said LeFou.

                Glen and Dan laughed, drinking their pints.

                “I take that as a no,” said the manliest man around, Gaston.

                Glen and Dan stopped drinking.

                “They must be outsiders,” confirmed LeFou.

                “Exchange students,” mumbled Dan, though hardly audible.

                “Clearly,” said Gaston. “Well, their ideas about the world are just as much a danger to our town as crazy old Maurice. Perhaps we should lock them up as well?”

                Dan laughed, a forceful one, to distill the tension. “I mean, I’ve never said no to being in a mob. I’ve just never been asked.”

                “Me either,” said Glen. “I guess I haven’t thought about it, is all.”

                “Good,” said Gaston, “Then, we’ll count on your grabbing something sharp and pointy when the time comes.”

                “Uh, one question, Mr. Gaston,” said Dan. “How do you know there will be a need for a mob?”

                “A hero never knows when a mob is needed,” said Gaston.

                “What about villains?” asked Glen.

               “I don’t speak french,” said Gaston. He pointed at Dan and Glen with a rigid finger, which, no one exactly knew the meaning of, but it was intimidating. “What do you think of the antlers? Great decorating, huh?”

                “Oh, the best,” Dan lied.

                “Goes with everything,” said Glen with a pasted smile.

                Gaston joined a central table with LeFou at his side. A basket of raw eggs was placed nearby.

                Dan and Glen finished their pints, paid the bartender, and inched along the perimeter of the pub. They exited into the street.

                “Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Glen.

                “Wait,” said Dan. “What about Belle?”

                “You can’t be serious.”

                “I don’t know,” said Dan. “I think she likes me. Maybe we should go rescue her?”

                “C’mon Dan,” complained Glen, “let’s not do this again. Another girl, another town. We should just get out while we still can.”

                “Let’s go get her,” said Dan. “She’s in the woods somewhere, we’ll be heroes, and we can say we did it for retarded people everywhere. Win-win.”

                Glen wasn’t so sure.

                “It beats being part of Gaston’s mob. C’mon, what could happen to us? We’re educated!”

                Glen went along with Dan through the forest. They didn’t make it far. A pack of wolves found them, ate them alive, and left a bloody trail of innards and organs along the path leading to the Beast’s castle. A few hours later, Gaston and LeFou passed the grisly scene with the mob.

                “See, my friend,” said Gaston. “That’s why you join a mob. If not for the pride of the cause, then to scare away packs of wolves.”

                “I didn’t think there were packs of wolves in France,” said LeFou.

                Gaston shrugged. “Who knows. The sooner I marry Belle, the sooner things get back to normal.”

                “I overheard those exchange students say she was retarded. Does that concern you?”

                “For heaven’s sake, LeFou, I don’t speak French!”

                LeFou rolled his eyes. He hated following Gaston, but it did beat getting eaten by wolves. So, he went along with it anyway, even if Gaston occasionally said retarded things.

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