Yet Another Cautionary Tale (this means YOU!).

 

The one time that I took her inside a comfort station, she decided to make her opposition known in a way that failed to impress. Her sister had made it clear to me that under no circumstances should I allow her to hide one of the papers that we'd been duty-bound to protect. The points made during my recent absence from the Farmcast were held over our heads and we had no choice but to restrict her movements to loping within a quarter-mile radius of a salt mind that had yet to open in a field on the periphery. I held her hand as we entered the office. She wore a bluish top-heavy cardigan and I wore my customary plumber's outfit, sooty die-coms adrift as regulated in sightline-adjusted permiglia.

Once I began to lower the pressure in her left ear, she felt free to inch ever closer to the Eastern cave wall, which is right by the Nerty extrusion. Trays of puffs were proffered. We read from a book chained to a desk. I lifted my mask so that everyone could see the scar I've had since I was a baby. A train whistle sounded in the distance, but several of the runyons present made it obvious, without actually saying so, that it was only a recording to help us feel that our time had finally come. I looked at her hands as I'd been instructed and saw that they were indeed infected. Any time a reading is taken on a pleasure center, those of us on the pad will nod knowingly and pretend to go about our business and refuse to play the game. This will give our appointed stalwarts a few minutes to hide in a forested pavilion about a mile and a half up the road. To say we were scared would be to give us undue credit in a time of tedious betrayals.

When Paul Rutin held a perfunctory banner at chest height and began to intone the Braggart's Mantra, we knew we had at most four and three quarters seconds to abscond with the only dietetic almond brush on the property and make scarce like a newborn infant in a Parker Hillsbie movie. This meant that I had to apply a layer of copper gel to her anterior ulna so that we could both fit inside even though the lid was constructed of perforated nickel-oxide flume. At that moment, I got a call from one of the people I'd been considering castigating since Day One. He told me that I needed to be seen entering an Irish-Buddhist Temple in a dream scenario cooked up by some of the guys downstairs. Yes, I did put my foot down. On a very uncomfortable place, I might add. He asked if I'd gained any weight. I told him that his Dad had ruined my graduation ceremony by purposely sitting in a restricted area. We agreed to disagree. I still see him around town from time to time. And I guess it might not shock you to know that he's starting to color his hair. I think I'm about to be sick.

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