Friday, October the 8th, 2004

back to: title, date or indexes

hear this 

Clandestine Defibrillation Unit

I work for a clandestine defibrillation unit. They call me Lars. My real name is Odo, but they call me Lars because we are clandestine. I have what some consider a grandiose hat. My parents had a hat shop, called Hats of Grandiosity, and they gave me this hat when I left home. I did not wish to be part of the hat trade, much to my parents' consternation. On my eleventh birthday, a tad precociously, I announced that I saw my future in the world of clandestine defibrillation.

“Odo,” said my parents, simultaneously, “You have our blessing.” They always spoke at the same time, using identical words and vocal inflections. It was uncanny. I grew up thinking all married couples were like that, and it came as something of a shock when I got married myself, to the delightful Zelda, and discovered that not only did we not speak alike, we did not think alike, at all. Zelda's preoccupations were putty, dreadnoughts and the Boxer Rising, subjects of very little interest to me. I did make some attempt to show an interest in putty, but my wife grew impatient with my hamfisted flapping, like a seal on an ice floe. After six months, she decamped to Tantarabim with a post office worker who wore brilliantine in his hair and shared her passion for putty.

I was distraught, of course, and considered pursuing her to plight my troth, but in the clandestine defibrillation business the devil takes the hindmost. We had just received a document imploring us to wreak our tiptop skills in an abandoned birdcage factory on the banks of the old dried-up river in Pointy Town. My supervisor, who not only looked like but had the very same name as Tuesday Weld, said to me, “Lars, I know your wife has run off with a brilliantined putty enthusiast, but this job is decisively important. If we crack it, we will be hailed throughout the world of clandestine defibrillation units. The grandiosity of our reputation will match that of your hat.”

I could not argue with that. Indeed, I could never argue with Tuesday Weld. So off we went in our jeep, terrifying small domestic animals as we sped screeching along the narrow and dangerous roads to Pointy Town. The citizenry had put out flags to welcome us, even though they knew we were clandestine. Tuesday Weld was furious, more furious than I had ever seen her. Not even when her pencil sharpener was mislaid by a Tasmanian duck doctor was she so furious.

“Remove those flags!” she cried, jumping from the jeep. The rest of us skulked into the birdcage factory and defibrillated it, clandestinely. Then Tuesday Weld took us to the Pointy Town bistro and bought us cake. I chose a chocolate swiss roll.