At first all I notice is that the dust seems heavy and twinkling in the morning sunbeams, more of it than usual and glittery like flakes of mica. I find a moth and think little of it. It is a small, dead, brown moth, its wings folded tightly over its back, the kind of bug you find in the light fixture when you change a light bulb. I throw the body into the garbage, and later in the day, when I find two more on the dining room table, their tiny legs in the air, I wonder what they’ve been eating.
When I started my senior year of high school, my parents told me that I could have any graduation present I wanted if I got all A’s that last year. I said that I wanted to go on a backpacking trip across Ireland.
Well, I got all A’s; I made sure of that, and I got accepted at a good university. On graduation day, my parents presented me with the plane tickets to Ireland, and off I went.
I met Everett at Garcia’s Irish Pub. I’m sure he weighed at least 550 pounds, but he only admitted to 430. I think he was being modest. At any rate, he was perfect. I love fat men. I love the succulent, soft feel of their bodies. They’re very gentle lovers because they are so afraid they’re going to squish you.
When I first saw Everett, he was telling gross jokes to Don, the bartender. He told Don the Boil Sucker Joke. I told them both the Spittoon Joke. Everette told the Sandpaper Sally Joke, and I told the joke about the armless guy with the green dick. We hit it off right away.
I am a man who used to love bread. I loved it no matter how it came to me: wheat bread, corn bread, rye bread, seven-grain bread, garlic bread, French bread, Italian bread, pita bread and even that bleached flour white bread that most people like me turn up their noses at. They say that man cannot live by bread alone, but I came awfully darn close.
My mother always claimed that she had been a virgin when I was born. I didn’t believe her. No one did. I grew up wondering who my father was. I never doubted I had a father.
On the night of my fifteenth birthday, I had a strange dream. A giant wasp man came to me. He gazed at me with his yellow eyes as he lowered his body onto mine.
The waiting room’s walls were the color of congealed pea soup and speckled with little spots of brown grease, as if the body oils of hundreds of human beings had condensed in the tiny, stifling chamber. The floor was soiled grey linoleum, the ceiling crusty white tile marred by slowly spreading brown stains, each marked with its own nipple of dripping water.
(Based on an old Irish folktale)
It was just a few days after that huge blow-out with his wife, which had resulted in horrible things being said on both sides and necessitating a visit to the marriage counselor to patch it all up, but Teague was easily led astray yet again by a pal from work.
“Look, PawPaw, I lost a tooth!” exclaimed my grandson, Jakey, as soon as he came in the door. He pulled back his lips in a grimace to display the gap.
“So you did,” I replied. “A maxillary incisor, if I remember correctly. Did the Tooth Fairy visit you?”
“She gave me a quarter! Here it is!” He pulled it out of a pocket and showed it to me proudly.
(A Khakas folktale translated from Russian and adapted by Brenna E. Lorenz)
Once upon a time, in the far-off land of Khakassia, there lived a powerful and wealthy chieftain called Khara Khan. He and his wife and son lived in the biggest, most beautiful yurt in all of Khakassia. He owned vast herds of horses and cattle.
“Look, PawPaw, I lost a tooth!” exclaimed my grandson, Jakey, as soon as he came in the door. He pulled back his lips in a grimace to display the gap.
“So you did,” I replied. “A maxillary incisor, if I remember correctly. Did the Tooth Fairy visit you?”
“She gave me a quarter! Here it is!” He pulled it out of a pocket and showed it to me proudly.
