Chop Chop

by Trent Walters

It’s the broken hum after a hovercraft crash. The chrome-plated policemachine, with black helicopter blades chopping out its back, prints out a traffic violation from its mouth. The craft steersman jabs a thumb toward Pandora, rocking on her feet at the street-corner in her green, knee-length pleated skirt–pretty as a picture–as though she were a guileless fold-out child in a forbidden men’s magazine. “Jail-bait,” says the wild-haired man, panting, “enticing the weak-willed with illegal proclivities, crossing at a green light just as I’m supposed to stop at the red! A green skirt means go–go for it now!” The cop processes this, inhales his ticket, and chops over to the girl.