Archive for April, 2010
My Girlfriend the Mentalist
Friday, April 16th, 2010
Note from the author: Although my girlfriend does read my mind sometimes, this story is not about either one of us. Occasional mind-reading is fun and exciting; it’s only constant mind-reading that’s a problem.
“That’s sweet that you like me better,” Leanne said, reading my thoughts as a jogger passed us, “but you’re right: she has a nicer ass.”
It was great that Leanne always told me what was on her mind, but I found it harder to like hearing what was on my mind. Which, unfortunately, she knew. It was also impossible to surprise her.
“But I don’t need surprises,” she said. We were walking in the postage stamp-sized park two blocks from our apartment on a Sunday morning. “Believe me, I get enough surprises just hearing what people think. The old guy at the Korner Mart yesterday: he wanted to smear–”
“Look: ducks!” I said. It was true, there were actually two ducks today in the bathtub-sized pond in the middle of the tiny park. Of course, I was just changing the subject.
“Sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t bring things like that up.”
As usual, she ignored what I said and responded to what I thought. It wasn’t even a matter of privacy: it was a matter of being able to conduct a relationship instead of having my instincts conduct it for me. For just a while, I wanted her out of my head. And she’d probably just overheard that thought, proving the importance of my point. God, I seriously needed to break up with her.
Leanne looked at me disgustedly. “Fine,” she said. “You … just … fine!”
She strode off in the direction we’d come. She was probably starting to cry already, and knowing that I knew that probably was making her cry even harder.
“Hey, get back here!” I shouted after her.
She turned, but shook her head furiously. Her tears glimmered on her cheeks. “I know what you think,” she said.
“Thinking isn’t the same as deciding,” I said, walking toward her. “If you’re going to hear everything I think, fine, but some of that stuff is crap.”
“It’s not crap!” she said. “You thought–”
I pictured crap, a big, gloppy pile of it. She snorted with laughter that she was trying not to have and made an I’m-really-amused-but-I’m-trying-to-be-angry face.
“Come on, Houdini,” I went up and took her hand. “You didn’t even look at the ducks.”
The ducks had flown away when we went back to the pond, but I remembered what they had looked like for us both, and that was almost as good.
Fly away, now
Thursday, April 15th, 2010
The ladybug leaned against the window frame and crossed its lower right leg over its lower left. It took a drag from a nearly microscopic cigar and blew an even smaller smoke ring.
“Yep, this is all mine. I made the whole shebang,” it added, by way of explanation, seeing John’s look of confusion.
John had written about talking pigs, etc., but never a talking insect. Was one kind of talking animal more or less improbable than another? Somehow it seemed that talking mammals were more plausible than bugs.
“Hello! Anybody in there?” The ladybug pointed at John with the cigar.
“What? All what? The whole shebang of what?” John clicked save, though he’d written so little that losing the file wouldn’t matter much.
“Everything. The universe. Didn’t even take a week.” If an insect ever looked smug, this one did..
John shook his head vigorously to clear his mind. “Ha ha. It almost sounded like you said you created the universe. But you know, we already know who did that. There’s a book about it, maybe you’ve heard of it.” Having come to the conclusion that he was hallucinating, John had decided to play along.
Mistake.
“You think I’m stupid? Of course I know about the book, I wrote it. Surely you don’t think your primitive ancestors were equipped to handle the information that they had been invented by a bug. You don’t seem to be doing too well with it yourself.” The ladybug stubbed the cigar out on the window sill and tossed the butt out the window. John winced. He hated litterbugs.
“You know, that’s bad for you. Bad for the environment too. North Carolina and Virginia should never have gotten started cultivating tobacco in the first place. And, what’s up with evolution? Is it real? Are birds really dinosaurs? And, if you’re a benevolent God, why do bad things happen to good people? Is it really so we can have free will? Because, you know, I don’t think that’s a legitimate justification.”
The ladybug seemed to sigh. “I don’t think you’ve been paying attention. That benevolent god crap was something humans made up because they can’t handle the truth. Who said I was benevolent? Why should I be? Arthropods are “r” strategists. Have enough kids and some are bound to survive. Benevolence is neither necessary nor desirable. And it’s not like you’re real. All I have to do is snap my –”
SLAMBO!!
John scraped the bug guts off on the edge of the sill and tossed the book down on his desk. It was time for a drink.
end