Make Something Up

It had the mishmashed look of a Hollywood studio back lot from a hundred years before: a jumble of sets and characters, all of them looking for the thread of a grand narrative to unite them.

His secret dream was to face down such a horror that it would leave him inoculated. He’d never suffer fear of anything, ever again.

The other worst thing Randall had seen was at a barbershop, where they used to keep a stack of true crime magazines under the Playboys. Page after page of sex crime photos. Atrocities.

Aardvark and Rabbit were embarrassed for their friend’s embarrassment, but they understood completely.

Quickly was he among the haunts and low places, rubbing elbows with such denizens who did not exist in the comfort of daylight and human industry. Mishaps and history had condemned them, these crippled minds and mangled bodies,

frozen to the spot by both love and revulsion, he cried,

The instructions are printed on the lid in English, Spanish, French, and comic book pictures.

The air was rich with the aroma of barbecues. Here, it was always summer.

Every notch scratched in the kitchen door frame marked the growing up of someone now long dead.

Like the parable of the loaves and fishes or that lamp in the Temple of David, the big bag of kibble was always half full.