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splinterswerve
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
splinterswerve.hotmail.com
by Christopher Lawrence and Alec Balfour
I was at Jawbone corner and it was my job to deliver milk to the cemetery. The residents had their choice of white or chocolate. It was wintertime so my brain must have been on the cream corn and mash potato setting because I couldn’t remember what everyone was supposed to get.
I went to the truck to grab my list and to my wonder I wasn’t able to read it. It was completely illegible like the flavor of cooked carrots. All of the words on the page were melting together. I blinked and rubbed my eyes repeatedly but nothing seemed to work. I realized I was going to have to work from mammary. I ripped off my shirt and started to feel my sweet potato chest. I grabbed my basket of milky leaves and headed back to the valley of death.
A squeeze here, two quartz of chocolate to Shotgun Bobby Lee Smith.
A squeeze there, five quartz of white to Mrs. Debears and the unborn sextuplets.
Rub, a quart this way.
Pinch, a quart that way.I was surprised at how well my body was able to remember the motions of delivery. As I walked back to the truck to grab another case of milk I tripped upon an overgrown cucumber. It was a beautiful piece of fleshy meat. Because I was the only living human bean, in the entire place I decided I was going to make this my cucumber. I clipped it right at end and watched the leaves peel back as I picked it up and cradled it in my arms.
I decided that the only proper way to adopt a big peace of green veggie was to name it. I called it Herman. Herman was a wonderful vegetable but told me terrible stories of cauliflower and broccoli…
You see, when Herman was growing up in the cemetery garden, Cauliflower white, as white as white could be, like the people of Salt Lake City, was not a fan of the broccoli, green as envy. Broccoli was shunned to the shady corner of the garden, where they thrived vowing one day to take revenge upon cauliflower. That day did come you see, Broccoli cut off Cauliflowers water by strangling its roots.
“So you see,” said Herman. “This is why, Cauliflower tastes so dry!”
I understood what Herman was saying. The plot of his tale was as thick and twisted as the vines of the Vitis Labrusca. This is why, to this day, I will never enjoy Cauliflower again.