Jason Marc Harris | 41
bananas? And please don’t eat the skin, it will hurt your tummy.” Mrs. Bell stroked Sam’s hazelnut brown curls.
“The dopamine content is proving most reassuring, Mother,” Sammy said. “And these are very fine antioxidants in this banana peel. I am enjoying the ethylbenzothiazoline yield most heartily. And see to it that the hapless Mr. Peakes is released from his cramped subjugation. Blameless is he, for no crime now exists. On the contrary, my condition has been ameliorated to a distinct zenith.”
Mrs. Bell’s hand dropped and shook as she heard these strange words from her changeling-of-a-child. She did not yet understand how he would help lead us along paths that must be traveled.
Minister Davis went to his car. Came back with holy water and Bible verses.
Sammy ignored him at first. Mrs. Bell urged Sammy to listen to Minister Davis.
Minister Davis attempted a gentle exorcism.
“You are here by the work of the Lord, Sammy. Returning the dead is by His grace alone.”
Sammy reached out his hand and stroked the sideburns of our Holy Man. “Not anymore.”
Minister Davis recoiled, but already silvery fluff glinted amid dark red whiskers and brows.
“I think,” Sammy said, “that you will find your antiquated notions of both a punitive communal morality and superficial cosmogony quite unsatisfactory after further consideration.”
Whether Minister Davis stared spellbound because of Sammy’s rhetoric or the startlingly crisp new synapses in his cerebrum, we all soon knew to whom we should listen for our guidance.
All was as of yet too new for Mrs. Bell. If it weren’t for the Handle’s