“Good morning,” I said.
He said, “What?”
“Good morning.”
“Where?”
“Here,” I said, almost shouting.
“Yes I can hear. Why are you yelling?”
Ignoring him, I placed a cup of coffee on the table and
guided him toward it. He lowered himself carefully and pointed toward the cup. “Saucer,”
he said.
I walked to a cabinet, retrieved a saucer, and placed it
under the cup.
He said, “Thanks.” He took the cup, poured coffee into the saucer,
laid the cup aside and began slurping the coffee from the saucer.
I waited.
He emptied the saucer, refilled it and slurped again. “I
want to borrow your car,” he said.
“You what?”
“I have some errands to run.”
“You want to drive my car in your current shape?”
He said, “Why not?”
Taking a deep breath, I thought. “Perhaps I’d better drive
you,” I said.
“You don’t trust a senior citizen to drive?”
“There comes a time,” I said, “when we decide that it’s best
that you not be trusted to drive a car.”
“Or care for infants?”
“Probably.”
“Or cook around an open flame?”
“Most decidedly.”
“File tax returns?”
“Maybe not.”
“Be left alone?”
“It’s for the best.”
“That’s why your species confounds the galactic elders so
profoundly.”
“Why is that? Don’t Falloonians age?”
“Not within your evolutionary paradigm, but that’s not the point.
It’s your elderly we are talking about.”
“And?”
“If I were a member of your Supreme Court, I could make
decisions of such profound implications that their force would be felt far into
the cosmos.”
“Oh really?”
“Ask those killed and maimed during your country’s little adventure in Iraq.”
He had me there. I said, “So what brings on this particular
little tirade?”
“The devil,” he said.
“The devil?”
“The devil.”
“What about the devil? Is he making you do it?” I laughed.
He didn’t. He said, “One of your supreme court justices said
this week that he believes that the devil is a man and he is walking among us.”
“And?”
“Can you imagine the consternation this caused among the members
of the Galactic Monitoring Team?”
“They don’t believe the devil is walking in our midst?”
“Oh please,” he said, raising the saucer to his mouth. His
hand shook and a few drops spilled on the table.
“You’ll believe in the devil soon enough,” I said. “if the
missus finds a watermark on her table.”
He laid the saucer aside. “Mrs. Big Dope already thinks you
are a sort of devil,” he said. “But that is a point for another day.”
“So your monitoring team is concerned about our highest
court?”
“Has been for some time.”
“And?”
“They have inserted a Comtascruwitcha
into your midst.”
“A what?”
 |
| I believe that your Book of Ludicrous cautions us to be wary of those "... who would call The Devil a man, a corporation a person, and marriage whatever I deem it to be." - C.W. |
“Oh, it’s a Falloonian term roughly translated as ‘messenger
of evil’ and the purpose is to see if your species would recognize ‘The Dark
One’ if he did appear.”
“Mind telling me who it is?”
“No can do,” he said. “But I can give you a hint.”
“And that is?”
“He is a senator and he hails from the great state of Texas.”
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