Flora & Ulysses

George,” said Flora’s mother, “we have a problem. Your daughter has become emotionally attached to a diseased squirrel.”

“How’s that?” said Flora’s father.

“There’s a squirrel,” said her mother, speaking more slowly now, as if she were pointing at each word as she said it.

“There’s a squirrel,” repeated her father.

“The squirrel is not well.”

“There’s an unwell squirrel.”

“There’s a sack in the garage. And a shovel.”

“Okay,” said Flora’s father. “There’s a sack and a shovel. In the garage.”

At this point, there was a very long silence.

“I need you to put the squirrel out of its misery,” said Flora’s mother.

“How’s that?” said her father.

“For the love of Pete, George!” shouted her mother. “Put the squirrel in the sack, and then hit him over the head with the shovel.”

Flora’s father gasped.

Flora gasped, too. She was surprised at herself. The ladies in her mother’s romance novels put their hands on their bosoms and gasped. But Flora was not a gasper. She was a cynic.

Flora’s father said, “I don’t understand.”

Flora’s mother cleared her throat. She uttered the blood-soaked words again. She said them louder. She said them more slowly. “You put the squirrel in the sack, George. You hit the squirrel over the head with the shovel.” She paused. “And then,” she said, “you use the shovel to bury the squirrel.”

“Put the squirrel in a sack? Hit the squirrel over the head with a shovel?” said Flora’s father in a squeaky, despairing voice. “Oh, Phyllis. Oh, Phyllis, no.”

“Yes,” said Flora’s mother. “It’s the humane thing to do.”

Flora understood that she had made a mistake in thinking that William Spiver was anybody important.

Everything was coming into sharp and terrifying focus; the story was starting to make sense: Ulysses was a superhero (probably), and Phyllis Buckman was his arch-nemesis (definitely).

Holy unanticipated occurrences!