. . .

San JO-zay

There are many stories written about this city. This is one of them. Not exclusively about this city, though. A city, at the heart of things, is more or less a plot of land where people live. Any story about a city would consist mainly of "It rained. The ground got wet. After a time, the sun came out." Citys talk about the weather a lot. City small talk.

Aside from being a story about the city, which liked to call itself The City, though, really, everyone around knew that the real The City was an hour's drive to the north, and people mocked the city for its pretensions, this is also a story about a man. One man in particular. A man known as... Ged. Though his real name was Harold Thompson.

Harold lived in an abandoned apartment complex in the northeastern side of town, and this contradiction took up most of his time. On those occasional occasionals when he did consent to leave, most of his attention was taken up by controlling his large, angry, imaginary talking pitbull named Clifford, after the comic strip. Many's the day the two of them walked gaily down the street together, Clifford in the lead lunging at the throats of passers-by, Harold being dragged along behind, being grateful that Clifford wasn't real so Harold didn't have to clean up his messes. They used to laugh gaily about this at odd times. Most times were odd times, in those days. Men were men, or sometimes women, and occasionally children. Stocks were high, spirits were bold, and men (there's that word again!) fought valiant struggles against the twin oncrushing forces of Fear and Tartar Sauce. Many were the battles that were won, particularly against the Tartar Sauce, against which we continue to struggle in vain to this very day. Sadly, I digress.

On this morning, this morning being the morning of which I speak, and not the morning that you are reading this, though I suppose it is possible that they are the very same morning. I could get around this, however. I could specify the morning of which I speak as being a morning that has already passed. Perhaps march the second of nineteen ninety two would suffice. Are you free then? Don't give me that hairwashing excuse. No one washes their hair three days in a row, I don't care how long it is. It's an excuse. A pallid, wretched excuse, and I refuse to have any part of it. The third, then. I'm watching you. The moment you step out of line, BAM!

On the morning of march the third, 1992, which according to my handy calendar here was, coincidentally enough, a tuesday, a small but terrible wind arose. It ruffled the hair of hundreds, if not thousands, of wandering businessmen, all shouting the cry that had been heard in the city for generations, "money money money money money money money money money". It caused a small boy's ice cream to fall from the cone. It briefly annoyed an elderly streetwalker by blowing grit into her eyes as she propositioned the only person around who seemed likely to take her up on the offer. Sadly, he turned out to be an undercover policeman. Luckily, he was an undercover policeman on a secret drug bust, and the two of them married the next day. They would have lived a long, happy life, if she hadn't been carrying the deadly diptheria virus, which claimed countless lives before it was hunted down and shot in the sewers of the city, though its body was never found, leaving the possibility of a sequel open. Yes, it was a fell wind indeed.

Note the stunning realism of this story! 3/3/1992 was, indeed, a Tuesday!

I digress once more. No, digress isn't quite the word. Digression implies a central point of some kind which is being avoided. I'm just rambling. Or possibly nattering. Depending.

At last, the wind settled down on a small island in the Gobi desert. There it raised tomatoes and sheep, and two small boys of whom it is forbidden me to speak. I can't even tell you that their names were... no! I dare not! The very bowels of hell itself shall move threateningly in my direction should I ever breathe the barest whisper of the word hypotenuse, and the fate that awaits me should I speak of the boys, or rather, The Boys, is yet even still more dire! No, master! I wasn't! I hadn't! You must have been thinking of someone else! Please! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo...........

A Tuesday. I promise.