"Whooo?" said the owl.
"I am Archangelus," said the being, "heavenly messenger. I seek one by the name of Kelly."
"Whooo?" said the owl.
"Never mind," said Archangelus. "I know where he abides. I was given good directions."
Mike Kelly, asleep in his bed, stirred at the owl's hooting. After several minutes, he opened his eyes, and wondered who the devil was standing at the foot of his bed. He sat upright.
"Who the devil are you standing at the foot of my bed?" he asked.
"Silence, mortal!" said Archangelus, for that is who it was. "Do not shout so, lest you waken the apparition that lies by your side."
"That's no apparition," Kelly said. "That's Nellie, my wife. She always sleeps in them pink foam hair rollers, and with that white creamy paste all over her face. That's why you didn't recognize her as human."
Archangelus looked upon her and shuddered. "What manner of strap is that that encircles her each ear and comes down around her several chins, holding them high and firm, like the breasts of Athena?"
"She says it's to get rid of double chin," Mike said, "but it ain't working. Least, not as far as I can tell. But, hey! Let's get back to the business at hand. What do you want? My wallet? Look, just take it and go. I don't want any trouble. Don't hurt us! Please! It's on my dresser over there. It's all I got in the whole apartment. I swear! Honest to God, I swear!"
"DO NOT SWEAR!" Archangelus's voice filled the room, yet Nellie did not stir. "That is precisely why I have come! You swear too much! You forever invoke The Maker's name, no matter how trivial the reason! It has become a travesty!"
"Huh? How's that again?" Mike asked.
"You curse with senseless abandon!" Archangelus said. "I have been sent to warn you that henceforth, whatsoever you utter, whatsoever you ask or speak, shall be taken in its most literal sense. So be it!"
Without further word, he was gone.
Mike shook his head to clear it. "I better start laying off the booze," he thought. "That's the wildest hallucination I ever had! Oh well, I'll worry about all that tomorrow." He turned on his side and fell back to sleep.
The next morning he awoke with a sense of foreboding. Looking to the other half of his bed, he saw that Nellie still slept, her mouth open, saliva trickling onto the pillow. "Nell?" he said. His voice trembled. Her bulk, even after six years of marriage intimidated him. "Do you by any chance think you might maybe want to get me some breakfast this morning, Sweetie? I had a helluva weird dream last night, and I'm not feeling so good."
Nellie awakened with a snort. "You crazy or somethin', Stupid?" she said. "Get it yourself!" She settled back under the blanket.
Mike sighed and went into the bathroom to shave. When he came out, she was out of bed and stretching, her mouth open in a cavernous yawn. He watched as she waddled past him to the bathroom. "You ugly old bitch!" he said inaudibly, just mouthing the words behind her back. "Drop dead!"
Nellie stopped, quivered, became rigid, and dropped, face-smack-forward, onto the floor.
Mike spent a good three hours or so, listening for heart beats, repeatedly calling her name, phoning the doctor, then the mortician, then waiting for them to haul her away. It was after eleven when he finally sat down to breakfast. Still, the day augured well. He and the mortician were going to meet later to work out funeral details. "I want to get it all over with quick," he had said, "none of this three-day stuff!"
He hadn't thought about it when she had keeled over like that, but now he remembered her insurance money, plus the little nest egg he had hidden from her over the years. "Soon as I can get all the loose ends tied up," he thought, "I'm flying down to Rio!" He had always wanted to see Rio, ever since that song, The Girl from Ipanima.
On the way to the funeral parlor, Mike decided to stop in for a quick one at Dobrinski's Bar. As luck would have it, he had been paid Friday, and as things were working out, it looked like he'd never have to return to that mill job of his again.
Stan Dobrinski was happy to see him. There were no other customers so early on a Monday. "What'll it be, Mike?" he said, wiping the bar with a greyish rag. "Hit me with a VO and water," Mike said.
Stan poured whiskey into one glass and a little water into another. He took a glass in either hand and threw the contents in Mike's face. Mike's look of surprise was no greater than Stan's. "Hey!" Mike said. "Why the hell did you do that for?" He grabbed the rag from the bar and sponged his face. "Holy frickin' Moses, Stan!"
A bearded man in sandals and a long vestment, appeared for an instant, flickered briefly, and was gone.
"Did you see what I just seen?" Stan asked. With trembling hand, he splashed VO into two tumblers and he and Mike downed them. He refilled the glasses, and they gulped them down again.
Mike denied having seen it. "I didn't see nothing." Sweat beaded his forehead.
"Me neither," said Stan, and poured them each another drink.
As Mike's stomach began to warm with the whiskey, he felt better. "Aw," he thought, "it ain't nothing. We imagined it. Too many drinks for me last night. That's the problem. Then there was that business with Nellie this morning..."
He told Stan about Nell. "Just dropped clean over," he said, snapping his fingers, "just like that!"
Stan put on a sad face. "Here today, gone tomorrow," he said. He passed the rag over the bar and refilled Mike's glass. "By the way, Mike," he said, "that dame
was in here again last Saturday asking for you, right after you left. Is there anything going on between you two? Or shouldn't I ask?"
"Better you don't ask," Mike said, and turned as he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. It was the dame.
"Hi, doll!" she said, cracking her chewing gum. "I've been trying to track you down all weekend! You sure made yourself scarce after last Thursday night, didn'tcha, Honey?"
Mike looked at her and wondered what he had ever seen in her Thursday night. She was actually even bigger than Nellie, and at least Nell never chewed gum. Well, she never cracked her gum, anyway.
The dame draped her arm around his shoulder, but Mike pushed her away. "Leave me alone!" he said. "It's over! Just dry up and blow away!"
The dame's hair stuck straight out, turned to powder and fell in a heap at her heels. Her face puckered, folded together like a Cabbage Patch Doll and fell into the same heap. Her neck, shoulders, arms, and torso followed. Her toes were the last to go, their powdery remains didn't have far to fall. Transfixed, Mike and Stan watched agape as a miniature twister blew in, swirling the powder ceiling-ward before whirling with it out the door.
With one leap, knocking Mike down in his frenzy, Stan cleared the bar and ran out into the street, screeming.
"Well I'll be damned!" Mike muttered. "I'll be goddamned!"
And he was.