I want to give you my father’s ring. It is gold, with a flat black stone. When I give it to you, it sprouts a large, silver pod-shaped lump where the stone should be. Upon closer inspection, the pod is a wooden clog made of pure silver. Engraved along one side is a message from some friends who had brought it back from Holland as a souvenir. It isn’t my father’s ring.
You have a cold. I provide you with a nose-sized plumber's snake attached to the nose-hole of a scuba mask. It works like a charm.
All the women in my life have died. I am put in charge of their skulls. I clean them out with a melon baller, scooping out brains, eyeballs, everything I can find. Most of what comes out looked very much like perfectly ripe avocado. I boil their skulls in a pot until they are clean and white. Then I line them up on the windowsill above my kitchen sink, so I can look at them every day.
Your brother is buying an engagement ring. You make fun of him, because it is stretchy and made of silver stars. But then you stop and GASP because on the shelf beside it you find the perfect ring for yourself. It is made of turquoise beads, and it covers your entire ring finger. It is absolutely enormous. You buy it on the spot, and swear you are going to wear it for forty years.
The children are locked into a cube truck. The driver gives the truck a push and it tumbles down the hill. It lands upside down, partially submerged in the river. One mother runs to the truck, lifts it out of the river and sets the injured children free. She gathers her own child tightly into her arms. The truck is covered in snow. I scoop some off the roof, and put it in my mouth.
