The Toynbee Convector

At that moment, two cats, both black, one large, one small, bounded in from the kitchen, caromed off the furniture and ricocheted out of the room, with not a sound.

His hand twitched. His right foot half turned toward the door.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” she said, quickly. “No cat carriers in here. Leave it outside. I’m keeping Maude and Maudlin.”

“But—” he said.

“Nope,” she said.

There was a long silence. At last, his shoulders slumped.

“Hell,” he said, quietly. “I don’t want any of the damned books. You can keep them all.”

“You’ll change your mind in a few days and come after them.”

“I don’t want them,” he said. “I only want you.”

“That’s the terrible part of all this,” she said, not moving. “I know it, and it’s impossible.”

“Sure. I’ll be right back. I’ll bring the boxes up.” He opened the door and again stared at the new lock as if he couldn’t believe. He took the old key from his pocket and put it on a side table near the door. “Won’t need that anymore.”

“No more, no,” she said, so he could hardly hear her.

“I’ll knock when I come back.” He started out and turned, “You know all of this was just talking around the real subject we haven’t even discussed yet?”

“What’s that?” She looked up.

He hesitated, moved a step, and said, “Who gets the kids?”

Before she could answer, he went out and shut the door.

Come, and Brin

g Constance!

His wife opened the mail at Saturday breakfast. It was the usual landslide.

“We’re on every hit list in town, and beyond,” he said. “I can stand the bills. But the come-ons, the premieres you don’t want to attend, the benefits that benefit no one, the—”

“Who’s Constance?” asked his wife.

“Who’s who?” he said.

“Constance,” said his wife.

And the summer morning passed quickly into November shade.

She handed over a letter from an old familiar dip up at Lake Arrowhead who was inviting him to a series of lectures on Primal Whisper, Extra Sensory Transubstantiation, EST and Zen. The man’s name, scribbled below, seemed to be, “J’ujfl Kikrk.” As if someone in the dark had typed the wrong letters and never gone back to correct.

The P.S. read: “If you come, bring Constance.”

“Well?” said his wife, putting too much butter on her toast.

“I don’t know any Constance,” he said.

“No?”

“THERE IS NO Constance,” he said.