Araby

Araby was very beautiful. Her father had read exactly one short story by James Joyce and named his daughter after it. She was just as dark and brooding.
Araby could however, dance: Ballet, Jazz or just hopping and twisting erotically to that modern urban stuff they played on the radio in the 90’s.
Males flat out annoyed her. Females more so.
One night she was driving home at a late hour. A drunk driver crossed the center line and Araby woke up on the beach at the edge of the world. The Lion Heart looked down on her smiling that Lion Heart smile.
“Dance with me.” It was not a request.
They danced and danced and danced. Araby cried out at last, “If I dance any more I will die! You are so beautiful...”
The Lion Heart laughed and said, “You cannot die, only pass on.”
She didn’t understand this.
“Let’s go swimming now,” the Lion Heart said. They swam all the way out to the edge of the ocean where you can look down at the stars, he smiled sadly and cast her off before she could protest before she’d had the chance to taste his Lion Heart lips.
She fell for what seemed like forever.
Then she woke up even more suddenly than before, with tubes and things stuck in her body. She sat bolt upright. She thought, mistakenly that she had been dreaming, but never again could you call her dark and brooding.
Her smile could have warmed even the Lion Heart.

Binky

Binky was a Rottweiler, despite his name he lived to be 21 years old: that’s 147 in dog years. Go figure.
This is a story about Binky in his younger days. As Binky got older he did indeed get wiser, but as I said this isn’t what you’re about to read about. Binky was sitting on the lawn he owned and guarded. His master on occasion forgot to put him in the house at night. Binky was his own dog for those few hours. He would take the opportunity to sniff around and see what was to be seen. All the other dogs gave Binky a wide berth.
Binky was that kind of dog.
Now he sat licking his chops, anticipating the guy in the blue suit who carried the big bag.
Binky was a patient dog.
He sat and listened until he heard the footsteps he’d been waiting for. He sprang up and hid behind the hedge, chuckling to himself.
The man reached into his bag and pulled out some envelopes. At that exact moment Binky began barking as ferociously as he knew how--and Binky knew how.
Envelopes everywhere.
Binky ran around the back porch and laughed himself silly. He knew his master wouldn’t forget to put him indoors for a long, long time.

Aswanda

Aswanda was a reggae ant. She had left the nest at a young age and taken up residence in a reggae bar on the Caribbean Island of Jamaica. She lived her life scurgle-ing spilt beer and pecking at pretzel dust, while listening to hot reggae music.
Aswanda thought it was a good life.
It has been written that once an ant leaves it’s nest it becomes disoriented and dies. Fortunately, Aswanda had never read this. Actually Aswanda had never bothered to learn how to read.
She lived under a discarded newspaper at the bottom of a cardboard liqueur box under the bar. Aswanda was able to make it up to the bar and back again without being eaten by lizards who also inhabited the reggae bar on a count of her incredible speed and dexterity. She had been called “Flies Like Lightning” back in the old days when she still lived in the comfort of the nest. She had comfort but couldn’t deal with the regimented life ants are accustomed to; hence her residence in a reggae bar. There were no spiders to bother her because this particular reggae bar was owned and frequented by superstitious naked apes who despised spiders and thought that they brought bad luck.
Once a young little spider was hanging out under the bar and about scared Aswanda out of her wits.
“Take a rest missant,” the young spider said. “Yer gettin’ yerself all excited over nuttin’, ya know. Dis here spider don’ eat no ants.”
“Well thassa nice thing to hear early in da mornin’,” Aswanda said from a safe distance off. “If I were a spider I wouldn’ be a hangin’ around here ya know. These here big’uns kill yer kind jus’ fer the hellavit. Be mindin’ yer own, an they’ll come’n chase ya down. Kill ya dead. No remorse neither. So ya better git.”
“And what about you?” The young spider said. “Bet they sees yer little self and yer a goner too.”
“Yeah mon, but I’m small an speedy, an thems that have seen me don’ take no notice.”
Just then the naked ape that set up the bar opened the door and came in. Aswanda went one way and the young spider another and thankfully for Aswanda she never saw the spider again.
Aswanda would climb all the way up onto the liquor shelf after she’d skurgled enough beer to be feeling good and from there she could watch the band and look in the mirror while she was dancing. Aswanda would dance around the bar or wherever she was when a good song came on. In this manner she stayed fit and trim, living to be 109 in ant years. You’d never have guessed it by looking at her.
She died while the band was playing at 1am. She was dancing around when a clumsy naked ape put his beer mug down on her head. She never saw it coming and was killed instantly. You and I should be so lucky.

A Mango.

“Man, I’m tired of eating grass,” Bo-ala-bo said out of the blue.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Su-daka-su replied. “We’re pigmy antelope deer. All we eat is grass.”
“How about a mango, or broccoli or even just leafy vegetables?” Bo-ala-bo said dipping his head for emphasis. Su-daka-su took a mouth full of grass and chewed it carefully. Bo-ala-bo waited patiently.
“Well, maybe leafy vegetables,” Su-daka-su said. “But what’s the difference? You’ve been hanging out with them wacky chimpanzees again, haven’t you? How many times have I told you: ‘chimps is chimps and we ain’t.’
“Too damn many times.” Bo-ala-bo said with a sigh that was quite over weight. It was that day that Bo-ala-bo said “Screw it, mangoes it is. Mangoes for everyone. I’m having a mango.” He got to the tree that gave mangoes and found one lying there. He enjoyed eating it very, very much. It was almost sexual. The sugar rush almost killed him and he was sick for three days after, all the while enduring the ridicule of the rest of the pigmy antelope deer. He took it better than you might think. He knew that they’d never had a mango. The chimps were with him.
Bo-ala-bo ate grass ever after, but he had a knowing of why and savored every last blade.

Daniel Matherton

Daniel Matherton the fourth was riding along on his Harley, when he came across a run down looking trailer outside of Durango in that square state called Colorado. He wasn’t an eccentric rich guy as his name some times implied to people. His family just didn’t have much imagination. His father had been a coal miner and so had his father’s father. Daniel Matherton Jr. was a share cropper and his father had been a house servant to some colonial gentleman or another back when Virginia was a whole lot bigger than it is now.
First born sons all got the name Daniel Matherton. He was toying with the idea of naming his son Eddie, if he had one.
He pulled right up into the front lawn and shut down. Looking around he noticed the lawn needed mowing and the front steps were falling apart. One of the ‘T’ posts for the clothes' line had fallen over and there was of course a car up on blocks in the weed-strewn gravel driveway. The back drop of the mountains and mesa’s was nice though.
“Who the hell are you?” A woman called through the screen door wishing very much that she hadn’t pawned the shotgun. He was a big man, dressed the part too: leather, chaps etc.
Daniel just sat there on his bike fishing through his pockets. $63.57. “Got a lawn mower?”
“Fer what?” Who the hell was this guy, anyway?
“Mowing the lawn.” Must be a wet summer: the grass is thick and green.
“It’s broke.”
“Didn’t ask if was broke; asked if ya had one. Since ya do, where is it?”
“Out back.” She said without thinking, thrusting a dirty thumb over her shoulder.
Daniel IV mowed and mowed, then he weeded. Then he mowed some more. She watched him through the screen door. When he finally shut the mower off she asked him if he’d like a glass of iced tea. He was covered with sweat.
“Yep, I would.”
“Ya can take a shower, but there ain’t no hot water, onna counta the heater’s broke.” The shower was out side like they used to do way back when.
“What’re you gonna do for hot water come winter?”
“Same as last year: git it fixed for it gets too cold.”
He took a long icy shower as the sun was setting. It was summer so the night air stayed warm. The next morning Daniel went into the hardware store and got some info on where he could get scrap lumber. He came riding up with bunch of it strapped to his bike.
There was sheriff’s car in the driveway.
“You got any I. D?”
Daniel Matherton was a lot of things but wanted wasn’t one of them. “This is the thanks I get?” He said eyeing the woman through the screen door. She looked away. She was pretty but cold water adverse so you had to be looking to notice.
Daniel fixed the steps and after tinkering around fixed the water heater too. Just needed draining, cleaning, and he had to mess with the pilot light. She made fried chicken for dinner and asked him if he wanted some. He told her to take a hot shower. She washed his clothes and hung them out to dry after Daniel IV fixed the clothesline.
The next morning he got on his bike and rode away. She never saw him again.

Don-Riki And Rosalia

Don-Riki, as you might have guessed, was Spanish. In his later years he made his residence just south of the American border on the Gulf Coast. It was an enormous hacienda with an even bigger ranch to match. He lived there as a bachelor although there were always several women around who would have it another way.
Rosalia had one of the prettiest tails that had ever been put on a mongoose, if not the prettiest. Even Don-Riki had to pause and sigh when she walked by, and he had known her for years.
The first time he had seen her was singing in a nightclub in that place called Miami. He was there cutting a deal on some eggs from a very rare breed of duck. He was trading Cobra eggs for them. He had killed the Cobras himself and though the guy with the duck eggs thought the Cobra eggs of great value, Don-Riki figured there were plenty more Cobra eggs where those came from. But I digress.
Rosalia sang pretty well although Don-Riki had heard better, but that tail caught your eye first thing.
Next morning he was up early singing a little tune she had been singing the night before.
“You only wanted me for my tail,” she said pouting.
“You are mistaken,” He said. He was carefully packing the duck eggs. “Are you coming with me or not?”
She smiled and knew in that instant she would never tame him because she would never be his first love. “I can’t come now...”
He gave her the address, the phone and the times he would most likely be there.
“Come visit.”
It had been many years since she had first showed up on his doorstep with that radiant tail of hers. For months it would seem as though they were a couple, then he would be off for months, sometimes years at a time.
Now Don-Riki had that air about him again. He would be departing. Only this time something was different, or it was familiar but it hadn’t been like this for a long time. Something was up: this was going to be a really grand adventure.
“I have never said these words to you before, Don-Riki,” Rosalia smiled sadly over the rim of her coffee cup. “I love you.”
Don-Riki was in the middle of eating scrambled Rattlesnake eggs. He stopped chewing with his mouth full and looked her in the eye, chewed a couple more times paused and then swallowed hard.
“If I return I will marry you.”

Migrating Mudsucking Mollusk

Milton was a mudsucking mollusk.
And you thought you had it bad.
Milton, having been born into it, as it were, didn’t know anything better so he was happy. In fact since he was a mudsucker he actually reveled in filtering out the nutrients he needed to survive as he trummeled along. For some reason Milton and quite a few of his fellows felt a calling to migrate northward. This coupled with the fact that the mud where Milton was living wasn’t as nutrient rich as they were accustomed to, due to a drought and their own over grazing, made for a migration -- en masse.
This, by the way, made Milton a migrating mudsucking mollusk.
Off they went, headed for the “East River” just east of Manhattan.
Sorry about all the m’s.
On his way there Milton encountered a sandy area. No mud. Sand as you know is not full of muck. Unless you’re in Florida or Hawaii, or perhaps southern California or east Texas—OK, this particular patch of sand was not full of muck. Muck containing the nutrients found in mud, and therefore Milton was traveling through a veritable desert. Fortunately it was only a hundred yards wide, but unfortunately Milton was only two and a half inches long and only an inch wide so it seemed awfully long too poor Milton.
Milton was slow even for a mudsucking mollusk. This was good because Milton came across a starfish, but that particular starfish had gorged himself on Milton’s fellows. Milton climbed right over him without protest, and took up residence in a sewer pipe near the corner of Stuyvessant and E. 21st Street about 5 blocks from Madison square. He had with his wife Meme (who he met in the East River, but that’s a whole ’nother story) 547,312 descendants many of whom watched the fights up the street from grandpa Milty’s place.