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{a priest of zoroastrianism} alma twerski Grass had been banished by the town's last mayor, a man with a voice which whirled up into registers of unreachable height. This proclamation against grass was shouted in an ear-splitting voice at a local radio station. The mayor arrived to the station by hysterically slamming open its only rickety door, he shoved the station's dj--a man with the face of a regretful bulldog--and seized the microphone. "All grass is banished, ladies and gentlemen of my town," he screamed and his voice began to spin on the word "town"--wondrous effect which made the producer--a man with the face of a noble horse--envious and impressed. After shouting, the mayor ran out of the station, affectionately closing the door behind him. Many listened to the radio that day, and none listened as intently and with such an idiotically blissful face as the young man living at the end of town, right near the glowing formerly green sign that said "End of Town." His home was arranged of plastic containers, unwanted bricks, and tarnished silver spoons the town's residents feared. But it looked so perfectly assembled that all were in weak-kneed awe and tight-fisted envy, both of which remained hidden under incessant nodding. The town residents nodded and nodded at the house until they bowed before it, still hateful of it. The builder of the house was meek and silent, and when words did drop from his lips, they were curses--but so gently said that all who heard him blushed, embarrassed for _their_ own indisgressions. The young man, who was never named by his blind and deaf parents, sat bent and hunchbacked before his wheezing digital radio--this was stolen gently and silently from a distant neighbor's table. The sweetly cursing thief absorbed each word screamed out by the mayor and nodded ruefully at every sarcastic comment made by the radio station's horse-like producer. "All --- grass is --- banished," cursed the young man in a flute-like voice. And then he ran outside in sneakers constructed by his own hands (with silvery thread logos of meaningless words) and stomped on yellow, sickly grass surrounding his house. So lonely was his dwelling that grass did not grow much, and when it did, only reluctantly. "I..I..m-m-must cut off all grass, e-e-e-very blade, even the youngest and vulnerable baby blades," the young man stuttered, though he had never stuttered before. His clothes flew off, but the sneakers remained and his feet sweated gladly in the slightly unusual footwear. Nude, the young man began biting off every blade of grass, without any squeamishness for the families of insects residing on each blade. It took him thirty four and a half minutes to rip off every blade until the ground was bare. Then, he walked back into the house where the radio was still talking to itself. "And that mayor, what an idiot, the mayor we have. For him to joke like that with us!" laughed an idiot's voice (it was the main and only dj at the radio station). "Yeah, we can always bash his head but he does nice, pretty things too," a generic woman's voice responded, and coffee fumes in her throat traveled through the air waves and burst over the nude, grass chewing young man. His puppy nipples were bleeding tender green blood, nose was plugged with yellowed grass blades, and none of it did he notice. "Lied!! They lied! They lied lied lied to me!" he howled and slammed down on both nude knees before the radio in agony. The arrogant machine continued to breathe, unrepentant, its fumes of lies. Another woman's garbled speech of cold lying came through and the young man kicked the radio off its lacy mat and jumped up, stomping the machine apart in zest and moaning in joy. The lies were silenced! The nameless nude man twisted around in his home, swinging left and right, slashing air and hearing its whistle. All air around him was devoid of sticky, syrupy lies: bare air, unclothed, inoffensive. It was a balsamic evening and the moon seemed a barrel of rotting cheese in the gray black sky. No fumes of womenly lies dared enter the home, and crickets went mad in the grass, and boredom crept in silken slippers. "No one l-l-l-lies," the young man sighed and fell to his knees before an unscrubbed pot, where chicken fat lay. "Zoroaster!" he screamed and beat his clothed chest (a filthy rag concealed the modesty of his wounded nipples). "O, Zoraster, none shall lie again and no lie shall pervade this town or feeble earth!" continued the shout and with what eloquence! No, the slightly less nude man never encountered Zarathustra, who was a winking sage with hunger for raspy voiced women. "Zorester!" the understandbly idiotic man shouted, butchering the great prophet's name, and tore the rage away from his chest because he could not lie to the prophet. Here were his injured nipples and all of his angrily chaste body. He thrust it at the pan where Zarathustra indeed was hidden, winking and clapping with dry, shrivelled hands. Until dawn, the nude hermit slithered before the divine pan and vowed to eradicate lies. Not a single lie would step inside the town! The Eastern prophet giggled in the pan and blessed the shouting idiot with a chicken greased index finger. In three months, the young fool died of hunger and lies swarmed in his house. |
