The Trip

       All of the dolphin people had exited the lobby and were already in the pool by the time we got to the front desk. There was only a young couple ahead of us, but the adjoining dining room, which was separated by a wall of glass and an open door, looked to be almost full. The sound of people crunching on something permeated the air. To a soul– man, woman and child, everyone was completely naked; their noses were crimped with clothes pins and all of their toenails were painted purple. The entrance door from the lobby was open. Fran-Fran and Kim didn't seem to notice, but I sure did. That being the case, I decided not to say anything, at least not right away, and focused instead on what everyone in the dining room was having for lunch. It was a buffet affair, but from my vantage point I couldn't see everything that was being offered. I did a glance at a number a plates at the tables, and from what I could tell the favorites of the day were heated cockle shells, freshly dried cow chips, rotting rutabagas, uncooked carrots, and ballast gravel, with a choice of either iced salt water or a variety of flavored fizzy slurpees.
       "...Can't wait till dinner!" I said to myself.
       Gradually it occurred to me that the wait was becoming more protracted than I had expected, and I wondered what the hold up was. I could hear people talking, but it seemed extremely muted. Kim was standing behind Fran-Fran, and I was behind her, so I couldn't see a thing. I may as well have been standing behind an Abrahams M-1. Not wishing to appear conspicuous or impolite, I took a short step to the right and then to the left. But each time I did, Kim turned around to smile hungrily at me, impeding my view with her basketball breasts. Even if I had been able to circumnavigate her Spaldings, it wouldn't have helped, because the couple ahead of us was standing side by side and leaning over precipitously and straightening back up alternatively. It looked like something out of an old Ernie Kovacks rerun.
       All of a sudden the couple at the desk stepped to one side and began to disrobe unabashedly.
       When they did we stepped forward to be greeted by a four inch ashen-faced corpse, who was himself totally nude and holding a tiny megaphone in his hand. It was difficult to tell, but he couldn't have been under eighty. His being hispid didn't help; neither did the miniature barong that was wedged in his head– in point of fact, he looked like something out of the quaternary.
       "...I bid you welcome to the Nose Pick, the class of the Mid-Atlantic!" he said, yelling into the megaphone.

Copyright © 2006, 2007 Richard D. Kennedy

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