Corporeal Forms

            In the beginning of it all I had unprotected sex with a woman who was not barren and we had a… kid, and we named him after the woman’s dead father and he grew up to be a shithead that nobody including myself particularly liked, so we have been having meetings six to seven-thirty, every Thursday night with the neighbours and teachers and friends (?) and parents of friends (?), to discuss the behaviour of my shithead kid and I’m just sitting here between a teacher and a parent, 6-7:30, Thurs., blanking on the name of my own shithead kid.

            “Well?” Mrs. Something says, just staring at me, waiting for a respo- oh right.

            “What was the question?” I ask.

            “Your son, Dennis  set-

            “Dennis,” phew, “The name of my son.”

            “Fire to Mr. Knight’s Car on the weekend,” Mrs. Something finished.

            “Oh shit.”

            “Yes,” A Parent of a Friend (?) stands from like the other side of the room, now this guys name I can’t seem to remember, but his walk seems familiar somehow, “And it gets worse than that! Last week I had  had a falling out with my stepson, Drimsley, so it took us all until today to reconcile our differences and for him to tell me that, Drimsley did, that Old Father Richmond, excommunicated from the holy heavenly hallowed house of hollow halos, had been secretly living in Mr. Knight’s car every night since we shut down the church and built a fish hatchery, so that would explain where Father Richmond disappeared to last week.”

            “And that would explain the smell of burning hair and flesh that soaked into the neighbourhood for days after,” Now this woman’s name started with a P or something.

            “I wasn’t allowed to say anything until just this very moment,” said the Police Chief whose name is on the tip of my tongue, “But that would explain the smouldering remains of human ooze we found in the charred hull of Mr. Knight’s car.”

            "My son Dennis did this?”

Across the room, unbeknownst to me, for the sake of time let’s call her Florence, a small twig of a woman, began an elongated tea sip at a tone so amusing it captured the attention of all thirty-eight members in the room for the entirety of exactly five seconds before a hulk of a man stepped forward, whose name I will get back to you about.

            “If Father Richmond is dead,” The hulking man sobbed, “Then so is my family.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Out with it!”

            “I’d welcome the truth for a change!”

            “Well, for the three days leading up to Father Richmond’s disappearance he had my family kidnapped and was withholding their whereabouts for a ransom of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He put me through several life or death trials that tested my will to live, only to go missing after I accomplished the final trial of cutting off my left hand.”

            “I was wondering where that went.”

            ”Father Richmond was the only person who knew the whereabouts of my family and your son, Dennis, killed him when he set Mr. Knight’s car on fire!”

            “Wasn’t your wife expecting?”

            “Twins.”

            “Could you remind me what your name is, I have this condition-“

            “And do you have any idea who the wife of this man was? Is? Sorry Peter.”

            “No, she would have wanted you to use the proper tense.”

            When I try and think of the hulking man’s wife I see a green triangle and I have absolutely no idea beyond that.

            The man in the wheelchair, who has taken on the burden of explaining to me that the wife of the hulking man was the last of the sacred bloodline known as the Glim Remratti and only the descendants of the line were entrusted with knowing the fate of every human on the planet and that all the members of the town were promised by the hulking man’s wife to heal all the sick and wounded and tell them all of their fortunes in exchange for sanctuary in their quiet sleepy little town, rolls over my foot on his way to the coffee table to grab some nibbles. “Sorry.”

            “The Protectors will be furious.”

            “They will no doubt take corporeal forms from out of the forest and slaughter us all in our sleep.”

            “But not before erasing our brains, making us replay the same moment again and again.”

            “It’s refreshing to finally get some clarity for a change.”