Oscar Night — we are encamped just outside the Black Gate to Celebrity Village. The ten-storey doors rumble open just enough to release a floating disembodied mouth.
ENTHUSIASTIC KID: Hey! Let’s eat some of this dirt from Mars!
Tolerance ranges vary from deployment to deployment, based on extant arousal levels on the four major indices (fear, anxiety, desire, other).
The barker— a pallid, ectomorphic Jesus in a candy-striped vaudeville suit— stands atop a raised entry platform, swinging his cane and making tricks with his straw hat. He lets a little kid pull a chunk out of his beard; its patchiness suggests he’s been letting children do that for some time.
My most beloved word-babies.
From under the bed: “I just don’t think it’s fair, is all.”
“I’m not having this conversation again,” I said. I was on top of the bed, where I should be.
A serial entertainment.
One man’s quest to find a mystical land, and the injuries he incurs while he searches.
‘So we will have to be careful, like spies,’ said my brother. I nodded vigorously – for what young boy does not entertain dreams of being a skilled intelligencer, pursuing secretive duties for crown and country, reliant on wits and nerve alone while plunged deep within enemy terrain?
Chosen solely by math.
You missed the first few syllables, but yes, it’s definitely a sentence and yes, YES, it definitely could be about you. If only you spoke Portuguese, or even Brazilian Portuguese. One of the Portugueses. She sounds cute, so it only matters half as much. A voice for radio and a face to match, maybe, if you’re lucky. And we know — you’re lucky.