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Cerebral Contents: Update for 05.13.08: Backsliding by Cynthia Ruth Lewis 05.05.08: Five Feet and Building by Joel Van Noord Grocery Aisle by Richard Lighthouse Cross the Road by Ashok Niyogi 04.29.08: The Modern Covenant by Daniel E. Wilcox Death by Onions by Michael Frissore 04.21.08: Future's Children by Kimberly Raiser Identity Theft by George Anderson A Great Deal of Money by Justin Hyde 04.14.08: Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem California by Caroline Imreibe Aftermath of Vehement Argument #1,068 by Cynthia Ruth Lewis Trip-Hammer Vitality by Lisa Nickerson 04.07.08: The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch Friends of the Poet by Sean C. Bowen Picture Perfect by Leah Baldwin 03.24.08: Staring Down a White-Tailed Doe by Aleathia Drehmer 03.17.08: The Hairbrush by Vernard Kennedy Dog Days of Winter by Niall Berkeley Poem From My Grave by Michael Lee Johnson Mashed Potatoes and Hamburgers by Matt Finney 03.10.08: Hard Work by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal Jetty Cake Pigs by J.D. Nelson |
Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem
Mr. Papaya was walking home from the club one rainy evening. He had a ventriloquism act with his one-armed plastic dummy, Dale. Dale had not been cooperating tonight. The repertoire usually consisted of jokes about amputation, sex, and supermarket produce sections, but tonight it had been different. Mr. Papaya had become obsessed with the issues of genetically-modified vegetables and pesticide spraying, and had written out a thoughtful monologue which seriously stated his position. His desire was to weave the statement into his comedy routine of severed arms, orgasms, and packaged cantaloupe cubes. However, Dale had thrown a wrench into his plans. Dale had not delivered the jokes correctly. Dale had made light of the serious points that Mr. Papaya wished to make. All in all, it had been a dreadful evening, and he had been booed and hissed vehemently by the inebriated crowd of seven or eight. As he walked along the wet deserted street, carrying Dale in his suitcase, he undid two buttons on his shirt and pushed a button on the small tape recorder that he had attached to his stomach with an adhesive. The tape on the stomach had been recorded 12 years earlier in Las Vegas, when he and Dale had the crowd in the palms of their 3 hands. The noise coming out of the tape recorder was 40 minutes of non-stop laughter and applause. So, with his own built-in laugh track, Mr. Papaya walked down the wet empty street, the laughs echoing off of the buildings. After hours of wandering, he passed out in an alley, but not before throwing the suitcase containing Dale down the street, screaming, "You are the cause of my doomed fate, I never want to see you again!" The suitcase clattered to a rest near a juice smoothie stand, as the muffled voice of Dale, from inside the suitcase, promised retribution. The next morning Mr. Papaya woke up in the alley. At the nearby juice smoothie stand he noticed a 'Help Wanted' sign and decided to apply for the job, as his ventriloquism career was over, thanks to Dale, and he had lost his last 3 dollars at the racetrack. "This job will require you to wear this large inflatable lemon suit and hand out free samples to passers-by," said the manager. Mr. Papaya eyed the sidewalk, noticing a human-sized apple, strawberry, mango, and kumquat, each passing out flyers and small pieces of oddly shaped fruit in front of the juice smoothie stand. "Since you will be a lemon, you'll need to display a bitter expression on your face, can you do that consistently for 8 hours?" asked the manager. Mr. Papaya recalled the chain of events that had led him to his present situation of applying for this job, and the sourness came easily to his countenance. The apple and strawberry bumped into each other, started yelling, and broke into a fistfight on the sidewalk. "Amateurs," thought the kumquat, who, until recently, had a job holding up a placard advertising the Village Palm Apartments on the Highway 78 overpass, until the unspeakable unpleasantness had occurred, terminating his employment. Little was known about the incident, but it had become somewhat of a legend in placard-holding circles. As Mr. Papaya put on the large inflatable lemon suit, he heard a familiar voice. He turned around to see an open suitcase, and the manager, an amateur ventriloquist who had found the discarded suitcase earlier, holding Dale up in the air. But the dummy did not have Dale's face, it had Mr. Papaya's. "I've got my eye on you, Papaya," said the dummy, his one arm waving menacingly. "And I didn't like being blamed for your problems, so keep that in mind! Now get back to work!" As a life-altering smile of recognition crept onto Mr. Papaya's face, the kumquat shrugged his shoulders and passed out more flyers.
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