Madam X stopped laughing. Down at the Dirty Laundry, amid the SWAT-ness of it all, they’d run out LOL. I thought, That’s funny, it doesn’t look like a Wednesday night, but my mid-life crisis had just started to gain momentum, causing a serious rethink of my career in miniature golf. Of course, this was not my first time at the existential rodeo, but ever since the collision, I don’t trust my wristwatch. Not worth a damn. The sign in the butcher shop window read ‘BIG WIG SALE’, so I collected my thoughts, and re-positioned my lei. My parents had warned me about this. Don’t swim in Mystery Lake, they said. But what did they know? They couldn’t tell whether I was lovesick or jet lagged, even on those days when I wouldn’t let go of my hairless cat, Anonymous. Jesus said we have nothing to worry about, we have an after-lifetime guarantee. Who am I to disagree with God’s only child? But when I joined the tiny house movement, everyone sneered, That’s so California, as if I had bought a lavender Cadillac or chipped a piece of terrazzo from Raymond Chandler’s glittering star on Hollywood Blvd. So, I told them that I’d rented a four-bedroom apartment at the Venus De Milo Arms. “But, Milo, what about all that swank?” they sneered. I just smiled my power-hungry smile and looked lovingly in the direction of my freshly painted lawn. Like Richard Nixon, I was completely confident there was no evidence of evidence-tampering. Besides, everyone knows it all started with just one fish, one loaf.
Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lives in Boston. His book of poetry and micro fiction, Pink X-Ray, is available from Big Table Publishing.
