Weird Shorts | Page 3

says with a sad smile of his own.
"Goodbye, Norm. Sleep well, dear friend."
Norm evaporates and Ann slumps into the car and wonders how to return home.
I've been talking to a dead guy. I think...I think I'm afraid...
Have I been visited by a dead man? Was this something, totally weird?
No. Just a conversation with Norm...
INDIAN STREET MARKET
The Indian Street Market is incredible. I've never seen such colors. The color combinations are as enchanting as these foreigners.
Hmmpph! As for these foreigners, they scare me. Some I suspect of demonic hosting. Others, I know are demonic hosts. There is no mistaking the look of another being, hiding and sometimes not hiding, behind the eyes of another.
Physically, these are a beautiful people. Maybe all of them don't even belong in this country or at this place, but I am anthropologically ignorant so truly, they all look alike.
I stroll from table to table, avoiding any gazes and definitely avoiding their comments.
"Stop and look. Don't walk. Come back!" "I have something for you. Come here, pretty lady. Please!"
I avoid the beauty of their deep brown faces, their black hair and the oppressive strengths behind their black, green and brown eyes. Well, I avoid until I can't any longer. I am surprised how many speak English. Looking at the sandy ground, I wonder, "Broken or not, how in the world do they know my language?!?" Then, I laugh to myself at the thought that they might be able to read my mind.
"We can, White Lady. We - - can!!!"
My unknown answer is in unison.
I avoid their faces, until I reach a table containing many pairs of stockings. They are well laid out, in neat lines. "Wow!" The price was incredible. Their price was eight duzhas for each pair and I knew that at the rate of twenty duzhas, to one of my American dollars, I can't continue on without them.
Assembling the pairs of stockings into my tote bag, I smile inwardly at my acute sense of a bargain, when I am assaulted with a tumultuous bump, which casts me into another table, which mows over a vender, who ends up buried in knives, to the waist up.
Without thinking, I give a hard look at my invader and realize that there is another human at my belt line. The robed man had nearly fallen and was grasping onto anything he could to avoid an otherwise inevitable fall to the sod. Quickly, I clutch my new purchase, my tote and my chest. I teeter for a brief moment and recoup in an effort to continue my buying journey.
"Sorry," says the intoxicated assailant.
Continuing on, I give a forceful, "It's okay," while not looking at the man.
In my concerted efforts not to look, I am instantly entranced with a carousel figure. "It's incredible," I am thinking.
The main body was that of an Indian woman. Her face is covered with a thin, white paint that has aged into a slight disappearance. Her long, black hair sweeps onto the body of the figure, which is wearing a beautiful, white robe. Her right hand is sitting on top of her heart and her left arm stretches above her head, clutching to what must have been a pole at one time. It makes me think of the Statue of Liberty, though this is hardly a place for Americana. I think of myself, as I remove my hand from my heart and quickly forget about the assault. Her legs are short and somewhat comical, and yet, I am in awe of this figure.
My enchantment abruptly ends as those stockings turn into snakes and slither out of my bag, in a slow motion series of movements. I have no idea their motive, as I've never experienced such a thing.
Mentally, I ask a gifted friend what to do about the serpents and without my knowledge; she introduces a gifted Indian friend. The friend and I embrace. She mutters a few indistinct words, releases me, produces a loving look and demands that I treat the stockings as though I commanded them. I do. And they settle.
I wonder what tomorrow holds.
Chapter 3.
Weird Fiction
Welcome to the part of the book, that defied other categories.
I am not strange, I am just not normal.
Salvador Dali
MY NEW TATTOO
It says, "Empath."
The letters are bold, blue and permanently inked onto the soft side of my wrist, which reads right side up when I hold it up to my face.
I've never gotten a tattoo and I'm not going to star now. Yeah, I've though about getting one, but the thought of my hanging, elderly skin, inked by the intoxication of youth, never roused me to surrender to that inclement.
So I get a mental tattoo.
No one else can see it.
No one else needs to.
RED CURTAIN
A red curtain falls to the floor and the last four feet of it