Doomed

^{DECEMBER 21, 1:01 P.M. HAST} The Inevitable Result of Operating Heavy Farm Machinery While Overdosed on Xanax

Gentle Tweeter,

In the salon of the Pangaea Crusader, I cry, “Festus!” and the twee towheaded visitor turns to regard me with his luminous blue eyes. He actually sees and hears me. More to my surprise, my father’s Skanky Skankerton mistress also casts her urine-hued eyes in my direction. She follows my gaze to Festus. Impossible as this seems, Babette sees us both, and her rubbery lips curl like store-brand hot dogs sliced lengthwise and fried in lard for a hardy upstate petit de jeune. Her eyes narrow to trembling slits and her shoulders arch like those of a wary barnyard cat. Her ample sweater-bound chest heaves with each breath. Even as I watch with the skeptical eye of a supernaturalist, Babette’s fingernails grow from the length of a kitten’s to that of a panther’s.

My upstate consort lifts one boyish arm straight, his miniature hand, held palm out, no larger than a fully blown pink crocus, and he addresses her. His voice sounding deeper than you’d expect, robust and resonant, he says, “Be gone, vile succubus.”

My parents, oblivious, huddle together to examine the Beagle book defiled with dingus blood they think gushed out of my angelic woo-woo.

And yes, I may be romantically smitten with this blond tyke in bib overalls, but I do know the word succubus. If this charge leveled by my diminutive hillbilly flame is accurate, it would explain Babette’s ability to see me. It might also explain the uncanny hold she seems to exert on my normally Camille-addicted father. My gratitude to HadesBrainiacLeonard, who reminds us that a succubus is a demon who takes the form of a human female in order to seduce and destroy men.

Holding Babette at bay, wee Festus bids me come to his side. “I venture to this earthly place,” he tells me, “on behalf of your grandfather.”

“My father’s father?” I ask in hope.

Festus regards me, his buttery forehead crossed with a single wrinkle to betray his Ctrl+Alt+Puzzlement. “I refer to Benjamin, who resides in perfect happiness for all eternity in the kingdom of Heaven.”

My Papadaddy Ben, he means. “So he is in Heaven?” I ask dubiously. We’re standing here looking at Papadaddy’s skin-banana slime spouted all down the front of my nice shirt, and he’s in paradise?

Festus nods. He studies my expression more closely. “Know you, maiden, any valid reason why Ben should not be in the presence of the Almighty?”

Ah, Festus, how I’d missed his stilted Pilgrim-speak. I ask, “How come you can see me?”

“We two can speak,” Festus says, “because I am no longer of the material world.”

Poor Festus.

I offer my condolences. “Were you killed by French-kissing?”

“Combine accident,” he says with a baleful smile.

Forgive my gloating, Gentle Tweeter, but I knew it. From the first time we met at my papadaddy’s homespun hayride funeral, I guessed that’s how Festus’s life would be resolved. A dozen years spent pulling weeds and plucking chickens and then, bam, he’s chopped to a pulp by farm machinery. Oh, how I envied his dramatic fate!

He goes on to explain, “Forever am I to serve as an angel.” Offering me his peewee hand, he says, “And my mission is to find you, my grail.” He says, “I am sent here, Miss Madison, because the Lord our God is in dire need of your help.”