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Archibald McCready, Ricki T., Jhonen, Matt, Lisa Frederick, Thomas J. Frederick and Elaine were all sitting at the mouth of the bridge, throwing coins from a big bag of loonies into the river. Archibald, who was called Chirp, was trying to skip the dollar coins, but couldn’t quite do it. They had lots of money, though, and he kept trying.
Jhonen was saying, “I don’t think there’s any point in even returning those movies. Derrick’s already dead, and his kids don’t even like science fiction movies.”
Everybody agreed.
Chirp kept trying to skip those loonies.
“You’re no good at skipping loonies.” Lisa said scornfully, and she flipped one skillfully into the river, and it skipped several times before knocking out a fish.
“Fuck that!” Chirp cried. “I’m fantastic!” And he tried to skip one, but instead he fell over on his face, killing a cute baby bird who was trying to learn to fly.
“Awe, you bastard!” Thomas said, disgusted. “That poor bird! He never even had a chance!”
“One more chickadee in bird purgatory.” Jhonen sighed.
Lisa stood up. She held out a hand and counted off fingers. “First, you killed my dog. Then you beat up my little brother. Now, you crush an innocent little bird?”
“It was an accident!” Chirp was getting emotional. He pointed his finger at Lisa. “You were antagonizing me! You’re always antagonizing me! You stole my parents’ lawn ornaments. You put ketchup in my hair in grade six. You told my mother that I do drugs.”
The hatred was growing between them. Everybody watched intently, wondering how far they’d go.
“I’ve always hated you.” Lisa rasped, staring and frowning like a weirdo. “And your mother doesn’t care if you do drugs. She’s a tired old hag!”
Chirp trembled with rage. Then, like a streak of lightening, he punched Lisa right in the face. She went down, blood trickling from her wounded nose and whining. “You bitch!” Chirp screamed. He went to kick her, but his friends held him back.
“Cool it, dude!” Someone yelled.
“Awe, he killed a bird and he punched a girl!” Someone else yelled.
Ten years later, in the autumn after a massive nuclear hurricane wiped out ten percent of the Earth’s population, Chirp and Lisa were happily married with no children and very little debt. They had a violent relationship, incorporating punching and bruising into their lovemaking. Each of them was constantly injured somehow. Lisa’s friends, when they saw her black eyes, when they saw her limping, they thought, “her damn husband is doing that to her!” And they’d go to the house when she wasn’t there, planning to pound the hell out of her abusive husband. But then they’d see that he was in as bad or worse shape than she was, and things would get awkward.
“Um,” they would fidget in the doorway, their courage lost. “Mr. McCready. Ah, do you beat your wife?”
Chirp would sigh. “Yes. But she likes it.” He had to explain this all the time. He supposed that he should be grateful that there were so many people concerned with the welfare of his beloved wife, but all this explaining was an embarrassing nuisance.
“I see.” The visitor would become even more fidgety.
“Would you like some coffee?” Chirp would ask. “Or cognac?”
“Ooh, cognac.” The visitor would brighten up. “Sure. Thanks.”
One day Chirp came home from the office, ready for some marital horseplay. “Get ready for the beating of a lifetime, bitch!” He screamed as he kicked open the door.
Standing beside the kitchen table was a lieutenant colonel in full uniform, reading a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. “The key to a good chocolate chip cookie,” the lieutenant colonel said, “is simply to add a lot of butter.”
Lisa, Chirp’s wife, was floating above the kitchen table in a blue stasis field. Her blonde hair floated slowly and dreamily around her.
“What the hell is going on here?” Chirp asked, his feelings of lust having flown out the window.
The lieutenant colonel dropped the recipe and tapped the table with a pointing stick. “I’ve come a long way. Farther than you can imagine. I’ve come for your soul, and for the body of your wife!”
Chirp leaned back against the wall, worried for his beloved. “This is weird.” He muttered.
“You don’t know the half of it!” The lieutenant colonel remarked. “You don’t know the quarter of it! Come. Sit. Enjoy some coffee that I’ve prepared. I added lots of butter, and wholesome grains.”
Chirp sat and drank the coffee while the lieutenant colonel began to speak.
“You see...” the man began, but Chirp’s mind drifted. He thought of Halloween when he was a child, and how happy that time always made him. Beating up smaller children. Stealing their candy. Vandalizing property. Kicking. Punching. Screaming.
Then Chirp came to and realized that the lieutenant colonel was gone... and so was his wife! He looked at his empty coffee cup. “I’ve been drugged!”
Then he noticed that the stasis field had left an electro-magnetic trail that was clearly detectable by the human eye. He put on his sneaky detective shoes and followed it.
It led outside to the vegetable garden, where the lieutenant colonel was picking weeds. Lisa hovered in electromagnetic stasis above the tomatoes.
“There you are!” The lieutenant colonel stood and dusted off his hands with a smile. “As I was saying before you passed out in the kitchen, I’m a priest from Kansas. I’ve come for your soul, to lead it to salvation, through the glory of God. I’m also a doctor. The stasis field is a regenerative field, to make your wife’s body stronger, and more resistant to bacteria, and viruses.”
Chirp snapped his fingers. “Of course! It all makes sense now!”
But did it?
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