I Awoke Alone
move your fingers up and down the outside- anything more complimentary than ‘quotable’
- slowly and gravely down the slide
- hockey players still wear garter belts
- “Hey sport, what you got there?”
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I awoke alone in the wedding chapel, staring up into the reproachful glare of the vulture’s skull. When I tried to sit up, I discovered the shackle spanning my neck. A quick inspection showed that it wasn’t metal, but bone. Fortunately, I recalled an article I once read about this Contrarian style of restraints, so I knew that the way to open it was to move your fingers up and down the outside in the correct manner. So that left just figuring out the correct manner.
Two hours later, I finally gained my freedom, just in time for Fleur to come through the door. She arched an eyebrow and said, “Isolde has been babbling about ‘Harry’ nonstop, all the sweet things he said to her last night, the poetry of his pillow talk. Good show, I suppose.”
I’d begun putting my fancy clothes back on as she spoke, and used the activity as a pretext not to look my wife in the eye. If her sister was going to tell her so much about our night of passion, it stung that she didn’t seem to have anything more complimentary than ‘quotable’ to say about me.
“Come,” Fleur said. “It’s time for you to play with the children.”
I followed her through twisting, dank passageways lined with tangles of plumbing, deeper into the bowels of the aircraft carrier, I in my morning suit, she in a powder blue gown with a six-foot train. Eventually we reached the nursery, where the royal infant twins were enjoying the playground. Each baby rode in a front carrier installed in a cartoon animal costume worn by an adult. The blue panda bearing my son progressed slowly and gravely down the slide while the candy-striped armadillo carrying my daughter rode the see-saw with a fluorescent green turtle. The turtle lacked an infant, but I could tell what sport it was a mascot for because in Contraria, hockey players still wear garter belts.
When the panda reached the bottom of the sliding board, I noticed that the boy baby clutched something in his tiny fist. I stepped over the ankle-high picket fence delineating the play yard to move up for a closer look.
“Hey sport, what you got there?”
bonus points for using them in order