Small Town Grievances 5: The horrible singing twins break my heart once more
We have only ourselves to blame:
Another parade was disrupted by a sighting of the big wolf. The parade came around a corner and there she was, eating trash in full view of everyone. No one likes the wolf. She is a coward and a dullard, a long-legged fool whom we always catch chewing dangerous and important electrical cabling. “Leave and don’t come back,” we said, waving our arms at the wolf.
The zoo continues to go underfunded by the town. The zookeepers have taken desperate measures to keep animals fed, shaking down visiting children and mugging weak single fathers. One tried to grab my wallet and I bit his hand as hard as I could. Never have I heard a sound so startling as the loud swear of the wounded zookeeper.
Mayor claims that he is among the few people on Earth who can snatch a bullet out of the air. Many boos from gathered citizens. Yelling and hisses, getting louder and louder until Mayor resumed his seat, blushing. We are all wary of what Mayor might attempt to do with his dreams, if we allow them to grow.
Whole town attended the big birthday party for the Carlisle boys over at Carlisle Ten Pin Bowling. Balloons, everything. The Carlisle boys are twins who look more or less exactly alike, and, needless to say, one of them is stupid while the other is very, very intelligent. Extremely unpleasant to spend any time with either of them, and bowling is a terrible game. But, as Father Lloyd says, we must earn the numbers to God’s door-code if we want to get into the internet cafe of heaven.
Rory C., the twins' father, saw how poorly I was doing at the bowling alley. The balls were too heavy for me, and I had as much control over them as I would over a passing comet. He told me I had the wrong outlook. “It appears to me that you approach life like it’s a little gold locket you wear around your neck,” Rory C. said. “Something you can’t try too hard to open, because you’re scared you’ll break it. I, on the other hand, see life more as big trash can full of fire. Something to be leapt over and hooted at in a fashion befitting a clown of history; something to be badly burned throwing gasoline on to, and to be used to dispose of small items you no longer need or letters you don’t intend to send. And afterwards, once the fire is out, it’s something to be dumped into a waterway so that all the fish and little river lifeforms remember you. And if the police want to do something about it, what can they do? What can they possible do to stop me?”
There was a great deal of kissing at the birthday party once the lanes closed and lights dimmed and the dancing part of the night began, can't deny it. The Carlisle boys sang for us in their high, exquisite voices. I felt sick. When would it be me up there, kissing my neighbours and associates, careless in the dark? I stayed seated, claiming that I had squashed my feet badly by dropping bowling balls on them. But in truth my foot health had never been better. It was my heart that had been squashed, by the bowling ball of my cowardice.
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