Thursday, November 01, 2007

Moo

Although he had considered it many times in his scant twenty-four years, Karl refrained from using the word to describe the slovenly women gathered at Holliday’s Ye Olde Authentic Saloon. It never crossed his mind that a man could be depicted in such a light, but when Harvey appeared, sitting in the shade of the lace curtains, grinding his soybean curd and tofu salad with all of the precision of a dentist who lived by the motto ‘chew your food thoroughly,’ Karl reconsidered. The vacant, docile and hauntingly intelligent look residing in those oversized eyes drew him closer to the edge. Their position, almost so far away from each other that they appeared to be at his temples, invoked the illusion that the man’s large nostrils had also grown disproportionately far away from each other and he could swear that Harvey’s incessant humming was nothing less than a subconscious lowing. Karl could not help but stare as the monster gingerly inserted more of the salad into his gaping maw and patiently gnashed his teeth in a left to right motion instead of vertically as most of the diners in this fine establishment were want to do. “Yes,” Karl finally surrendered, placing his napkin over the soup bowl before him, “that man there is most certainly bovine.”

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