The Inflatable Saviour (part four)
grooveamatic
Posts: 1,374
“ I’m not sure what that means,” he said aloud, and promptly decided it didn’t matter; it had the type of ring to it which he was sure other males might approve of. Alfred disconnected the antannas from the television and hurried back downstairs, skipping every-other-step as he went.
She was still there. He went to her. Propping her back with one hand, he raised the antannas above her with the other.
Alfred frowned. He hadn’t thought this through. The bunny-ears must have weighed three or four pounds, including their mounting swivel base. The woman’s head accordianed under the weight. Maybe if I blow some more air into her, he thought. It was true that she wasn’t fully inflated. But Alfred had had enough experience with ordinary balloons as a child to know that more air would probably not help. She wouldn’t hold them.
“ It’s probably just as well,” he said, staring a bit too long into her vacant, blue eyes. “ I hadn’t figured out how to fasten it up there yet, anyway.” The antannas went behind the couch with the parka.
Back down the hall he went, this time stopping at the linen closet again, hoping for the same fortuitous accident that had led him to the woman in the first place.
“ What’s wrong?” he said after flinging the door open. His eyes couldn’t focus; they had gotten teary. Taking a moment to wipe his eyes, he found them wet at the corners, with some moisture stuck in the lashes. Once he removed all that, he saw it: his Christmas wreath. He hadn’t even put it on his door this year, after watching a report on a newsmagazine show about certain fundamental religious groups being offended by them.
“ Perfect!” he not so much said as bellowed, the word echoing off the inside of the closet and all the way down to the woman on the chaise.
The wreath was on the woman’s head within moments, and Alfred stood marvelling. It was perhaps the most perfect thing he had ever done, he thought. Except that now the normal, workaday clothes he had dressed her in were out of place. And so off they came.
The wreath had given him a slew of new ideas. “Holidays,” he said aloud, “ Holidays are all over-stated.” Remembering the caveman costume he had bought for the Agency Halloween party three years ago (which he had never gotten to wear, coming down with an inexplicable case of jaundice at the last moment, which later proved to be curable by taking three chugs off a Pepto-Bismol bottle) he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it earlier.
It wasn’t a lavish costume. It was minimalist, the man at the store had said. There was a six-inch fake beard, made to look as scruffy as possible, with some hairs pointing one way and some hairs pointing the others, and all the hairs of varying lengths and thicknesses. There was a wig of shoulder-length hair of the same scruffy nature. A loincloth was included, or, as Alvin had described it to Danny, “ A cave-man cloth. Probably supposed to be Buffalo leather. That’s what the costume guy said.” An oversized white bone of some kind was also included with the costume.
Leaving the bone (what’s she going to do with that? he thought) Alfred Monshocky carried the wig, beard, and loincloth downstairs.
Taking the wreath off so he could slip the wig onto her, he realized that her own hair was going to be longer than the caveman wig. If he could see her own hair hanging out below the scruffy cave-man hair, Alfred was sure it would ruin the effect.
Off her hair came. Alfred used his own clippers to do it, after cutting the majority of it off with gardening shears. As the electric clippers buzzed to life, he was extremely cautious. If I cut her, she’ll deflate was his only thought. He risked it, though, because he wanted her hair to be as completely gone as he could make it. He got very close to puncturing her a few times; he yelped when that happened. But in the end, the woman was intact, and her hair was all behind the couch.
On went the wig. And the beard, which had an elastic strap that Alfred slid around the back of her head. And then the loincloth. And lastly, the wreath back on top, like a cherry, Alfred thought, and grinned at his own wit.
He took a step back and beamed at what he’d accomplished. “ She’s a picture of beauty,” Alfred said to the room. Then, stooping down to look into her face, “ You’re a picture of beauty. The picture of beauty.”
He sat down beside her with a sigh of weary contentment; it had been a long night, and not the easiest night of his life, at that. “ You sure are a strenuous woman. And you know what, dear? Worth all of it, too.”
He suddenly sat up straight in the chaise. Realization crossed his face. He turned to her again, more earnest than ever, and put an arm around her. “ You’re too much for just me to have, dear. Shouldn’t the rest of the world appreciate you, too? Hmm?” Alfred sat still as a hummingbird, searching her plastic head for any sign of reply. “ Well, at any rate, you’re better than Danny’s college prank, by a long shot.”
Alfred Monshocky picked his woman up, cradling her under one arm, and took her outside. The sun was coming up; birds smattered the air with tentative song. Crossing his lawn, Alfred took brief notice of dew soaking his slippers. Reaching the recliner he had deposited there earlier in the evening, he turned to face his modest house.
“ Now, where will everyone see you?”
He couldn’t put her over any of the windows. Although hanging her in front of the big bay window to his living room would surely look stunning from the road, there wasn’t anything to attach her to. There seemed to be nothing to attach her to at all on the exterior of the house. Maybe around back, but that won’t do, will it? he thought.
A handful of birds alit on his roof for a moment, and Alfred’s gaze was drawn upwards. “ The chimney.”
Grabbing the twine and step-ladder from the garage, Alfred Monshocky ascended to his roof in the blooming light of dawn.
Wrapping the twine around her waist and the chimney seemed to hold quite well at first; as Alfred was about to climb back down the ladder, a gust of wind flared up, and luckily, he noticed that his woman could very easily be pulled downward out of the twine, presumably to then blow away forever, floating through clouds and villages of the sky, lost to Alfred entirely. Better fasten her upper body, he thought, and set about tying her arms to the chimney. He pulled them up from her sides, perpendicular to her body, as though she had been trying to fly and had been frozen in mid-flap. He tied the twine around each of her wrists and then wrapped that around the chimney a few times.
“ That should hold you,” he said to her, with a wink, and Alfred Monshocky climbed down from his roof.
He returned to the center of the lawn and turned the recliner around to face the house. He sat to admire his night’s labor.
The world was almost fully alive now. The birds-some seen, some still hiding-were no longer holding back. They bathed the world fully in song. The sun was now complete; no sliver of it was blocked by horizon, and Alfred could feel the first tremors of warmth touching his face. Cars had begun to drive past his house.
Somewhere, it seemed, he could even hear an alarm clock going off.
“ Better late than never,” Barry called out to Alfred from inside his office. “ Why don’t you come in before you get to work, Alfred?”
Alfred had only been in Barry’s office a handful of times since he started working for the Agency. Most of those previous times had been for a hurried exchange of information; Barry’s slitted eyelids told Alfred that this visit would be a bit different from the earlier ones.
“ Have a seat, Al.”
Alfred stood, quite unsure what to do. He had never been asked to sit in Barry’s office before, so he had no precedent to work from. There were two chairs (a big one and a little one) and a long leather couch sitting against a far wall. What was Barry expecting him to do?
“ Fuck it.”
“ Excuse me, Al?”
It seemed Barry genuinely hadn’t heard him. “ Thank you, Barry.” Alfred sat down on the big chair, it’s springs groaning noticeable in the otherwise silent office.
“ You’re late, Al.”
“ I know. Sorry, Barry.”
“ You weren’t gardening again, were you?”
“ No. I had some personal business.”
“ Personal business? Al?”
“ Just some things.”
“ I hope that everything is alright, Al.”
“ Better than ever, Barry.”
“ Good, because I need you tip-top today.”
“ I’m tired.”
“ Yeah, I believe that, Al. You know, I was looking through your file just now-“ Barry motioned to the open manilla envelope on his desk, “-and you haven’t been late ever. Not once. How’s that strike you?”
“ Just fine.”
“ It strikes me just fine, too, Al.”
“ Strikes me damn fine, Barry.”
“ Al, since you have worked for me, you’ve been a rock, you know that? A real rock. Glue, really. It’s people like you that glue the world together, Al. Keep things going, keep ‘em from fallin apart. Places like this, Al, you make whole. I’m being honest with you now. I really respect you.”
“ Strikes me damn fine, Barry.”
“ Al, catch up with me, please?”
“ Sure.”
“ Al, I need you to be a rock for me right now, starting today, OK?”
“ Oh…OK. Why?”
“ I had to let Danny go this morning..”
Alfred’s face registered momentary shock, which was immediately replaced by the same blank expression he had worn when he had entered Barry’s office. “But…um…”
“ I didn’t see as I had any other choice. Danny denied it to the very end. Said he had been on a smoke break at the time. He turned your story all around, Al. I couldn’t believe my ears. To lie about the numbers, and then to lie to my face about lying about it!”
“ I ate lunch with Danny.”
“ Well, we’ll be hiring someone to replace him as soon as possible. I called the newspaper this morning and placed the ad myself. In the meantime, I’m going to need you to do the work of two, Al. I need you to be a rock. Glue. I need you to be statistics-giving glue.”
She was still there. He went to her. Propping her back with one hand, he raised the antannas above her with the other.
Alfred frowned. He hadn’t thought this through. The bunny-ears must have weighed three or four pounds, including their mounting swivel base. The woman’s head accordianed under the weight. Maybe if I blow some more air into her, he thought. It was true that she wasn’t fully inflated. But Alfred had had enough experience with ordinary balloons as a child to know that more air would probably not help. She wouldn’t hold them.
“ It’s probably just as well,” he said, staring a bit too long into her vacant, blue eyes. “ I hadn’t figured out how to fasten it up there yet, anyway.” The antannas went behind the couch with the parka.
Back down the hall he went, this time stopping at the linen closet again, hoping for the same fortuitous accident that had led him to the woman in the first place.
“ What’s wrong?” he said after flinging the door open. His eyes couldn’t focus; they had gotten teary. Taking a moment to wipe his eyes, he found them wet at the corners, with some moisture stuck in the lashes. Once he removed all that, he saw it: his Christmas wreath. He hadn’t even put it on his door this year, after watching a report on a newsmagazine show about certain fundamental religious groups being offended by them.
“ Perfect!” he not so much said as bellowed, the word echoing off the inside of the closet and all the way down to the woman on the chaise.
The wreath was on the woman’s head within moments, and Alfred stood marvelling. It was perhaps the most perfect thing he had ever done, he thought. Except that now the normal, workaday clothes he had dressed her in were out of place. And so off they came.
The wreath had given him a slew of new ideas. “Holidays,” he said aloud, “ Holidays are all over-stated.” Remembering the caveman costume he had bought for the Agency Halloween party three years ago (which he had never gotten to wear, coming down with an inexplicable case of jaundice at the last moment, which later proved to be curable by taking three chugs off a Pepto-Bismol bottle) he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it earlier.
It wasn’t a lavish costume. It was minimalist, the man at the store had said. There was a six-inch fake beard, made to look as scruffy as possible, with some hairs pointing one way and some hairs pointing the others, and all the hairs of varying lengths and thicknesses. There was a wig of shoulder-length hair of the same scruffy nature. A loincloth was included, or, as Alvin had described it to Danny, “ A cave-man cloth. Probably supposed to be Buffalo leather. That’s what the costume guy said.” An oversized white bone of some kind was also included with the costume.
Leaving the bone (what’s she going to do with that? he thought) Alfred Monshocky carried the wig, beard, and loincloth downstairs.
Taking the wreath off so he could slip the wig onto her, he realized that her own hair was going to be longer than the caveman wig. If he could see her own hair hanging out below the scruffy cave-man hair, Alfred was sure it would ruin the effect.
Off her hair came. Alfred used his own clippers to do it, after cutting the majority of it off with gardening shears. As the electric clippers buzzed to life, he was extremely cautious. If I cut her, she’ll deflate was his only thought. He risked it, though, because he wanted her hair to be as completely gone as he could make it. He got very close to puncturing her a few times; he yelped when that happened. But in the end, the woman was intact, and her hair was all behind the couch.
On went the wig. And the beard, which had an elastic strap that Alfred slid around the back of her head. And then the loincloth. And lastly, the wreath back on top, like a cherry, Alfred thought, and grinned at his own wit.
He took a step back and beamed at what he’d accomplished. “ She’s a picture of beauty,” Alfred said to the room. Then, stooping down to look into her face, “ You’re a picture of beauty. The picture of beauty.”
He sat down beside her with a sigh of weary contentment; it had been a long night, and not the easiest night of his life, at that. “ You sure are a strenuous woman. And you know what, dear? Worth all of it, too.”
He suddenly sat up straight in the chaise. Realization crossed his face. He turned to her again, more earnest than ever, and put an arm around her. “ You’re too much for just me to have, dear. Shouldn’t the rest of the world appreciate you, too? Hmm?” Alfred sat still as a hummingbird, searching her plastic head for any sign of reply. “ Well, at any rate, you’re better than Danny’s college prank, by a long shot.”
Alfred Monshocky picked his woman up, cradling her under one arm, and took her outside. The sun was coming up; birds smattered the air with tentative song. Crossing his lawn, Alfred took brief notice of dew soaking his slippers. Reaching the recliner he had deposited there earlier in the evening, he turned to face his modest house.
“ Now, where will everyone see you?”
He couldn’t put her over any of the windows. Although hanging her in front of the big bay window to his living room would surely look stunning from the road, there wasn’t anything to attach her to. There seemed to be nothing to attach her to at all on the exterior of the house. Maybe around back, but that won’t do, will it? he thought.
A handful of birds alit on his roof for a moment, and Alfred’s gaze was drawn upwards. “ The chimney.”
Grabbing the twine and step-ladder from the garage, Alfred Monshocky ascended to his roof in the blooming light of dawn.
Wrapping the twine around her waist and the chimney seemed to hold quite well at first; as Alfred was about to climb back down the ladder, a gust of wind flared up, and luckily, he noticed that his woman could very easily be pulled downward out of the twine, presumably to then blow away forever, floating through clouds and villages of the sky, lost to Alfred entirely. Better fasten her upper body, he thought, and set about tying her arms to the chimney. He pulled them up from her sides, perpendicular to her body, as though she had been trying to fly and had been frozen in mid-flap. He tied the twine around each of her wrists and then wrapped that around the chimney a few times.
“ That should hold you,” he said to her, with a wink, and Alfred Monshocky climbed down from his roof.
He returned to the center of the lawn and turned the recliner around to face the house. He sat to admire his night’s labor.
The world was almost fully alive now. The birds-some seen, some still hiding-were no longer holding back. They bathed the world fully in song. The sun was now complete; no sliver of it was blocked by horizon, and Alfred could feel the first tremors of warmth touching his face. Cars had begun to drive past his house.
Somewhere, it seemed, he could even hear an alarm clock going off.
“ Better late than never,” Barry called out to Alfred from inside his office. “ Why don’t you come in before you get to work, Alfred?”
Alfred had only been in Barry’s office a handful of times since he started working for the Agency. Most of those previous times had been for a hurried exchange of information; Barry’s slitted eyelids told Alfred that this visit would be a bit different from the earlier ones.
“ Have a seat, Al.”
Alfred stood, quite unsure what to do. He had never been asked to sit in Barry’s office before, so he had no precedent to work from. There were two chairs (a big one and a little one) and a long leather couch sitting against a far wall. What was Barry expecting him to do?
“ Fuck it.”
“ Excuse me, Al?”
It seemed Barry genuinely hadn’t heard him. “ Thank you, Barry.” Alfred sat down on the big chair, it’s springs groaning noticeable in the otherwise silent office.
“ You’re late, Al.”
“ I know. Sorry, Barry.”
“ You weren’t gardening again, were you?”
“ No. I had some personal business.”
“ Personal business? Al?”
“ Just some things.”
“ I hope that everything is alright, Al.”
“ Better than ever, Barry.”
“ Good, because I need you tip-top today.”
“ I’m tired.”
“ Yeah, I believe that, Al. You know, I was looking through your file just now-“ Barry motioned to the open manilla envelope on his desk, “-and you haven’t been late ever. Not once. How’s that strike you?”
“ Just fine.”
“ It strikes me just fine, too, Al.”
“ Strikes me damn fine, Barry.”
“ Al, since you have worked for me, you’ve been a rock, you know that? A real rock. Glue, really. It’s people like you that glue the world together, Al. Keep things going, keep ‘em from fallin apart. Places like this, Al, you make whole. I’m being honest with you now. I really respect you.”
“ Strikes me damn fine, Barry.”
“ Al, catch up with me, please?”
“ Sure.”
“ Al, I need you to be a rock for me right now, starting today, OK?”
“ Oh…OK. Why?”
“ I had to let Danny go this morning..”
Alfred’s face registered momentary shock, which was immediately replaced by the same blank expression he had worn when he had entered Barry’s office. “But…um…”
“ I didn’t see as I had any other choice. Danny denied it to the very end. Said he had been on a smoke break at the time. He turned your story all around, Al. I couldn’t believe my ears. To lie about the numbers, and then to lie to my face about lying about it!”
“ I ate lunch with Danny.”
“ Well, we’ll be hiring someone to replace him as soon as possible. I called the newspaper this morning and placed the ad myself. In the meantime, I’m going to need you to do the work of two, Al. I need you to be a rock. Glue. I need you to be statistics-giving glue.”
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