green barrel of funless foam monkeys.
This is it, thought the sock. My sock life is over. I’ll turn into muck at the bottom of this cold damn river and never see that seashell pussy again . He would have welcomed the funky confines of Boomer Petway’s dresser drawer. He would have embraced that odd-angled lump of a foot, shielded it from spilled beer and the stray welding spark. Dry-rotting in the cave with that know-it-all bean can would have been better by a damn sight than this.
Hope springs eternal and all that, yet isn’t it a fact that when we give up and quit hoping; genuinely, sincerely quit hoping, things usually change for the better? Zen masters say that when we become convinced that the human situation is hopeless, we approach serenity, the ideal state of mind. Dirty Sock wasn’t exactly Zen, there was just too much polyester in him for that, but he had pretty much resigned himself to a watery grave when the rapids temporarily ran out of gradient. His flaccid, battered form was discharged into a quiet pool, where he swirled for a moment, putting the fear of the polymer gods into a couple of trout, before hooking himself on a driftwood snag.
He tried to call out, but nothing escaped him save a bubble.
It took them more than an hour, bumbling along the creekbank, to locate him. Conch Shell swam out to him and revived him with her pink touch but failed to free him from the snag. She swam back to shore, picked up Painted Stick, and ferried him out to the snag. The stick pried the sock loose, and the two of them rode to safety on board the seashell.
Dirty Sock’s threads had been bruised and, in some cases, broken by porcupine teeth. Worse, he was sopping wet, far too soaked to walk, and in the predawn chill a brilliant and biting scum of frost was collecting on his fibers.
Rather desperately, they were wondering what to do when Spoon spied a flickering glow off a ways through the trees. Having no better alternative, they made for it, Painted Stick dragging Dirty Sock from his nubs. Within a hundred yards, they came upon a small public campground, where in addition to a teal-colored Volvo sedan and one of those fancy many-zippered tents from the R.E.I. backpackers’ boutique in Seattle, they found a cheerful campfire, snapping and smoking in the prime of its life.
Although the fire had been recently kindled, the campers were nowhere to be seen. From inside the tent, however, there issued a murmur of sleepy voices.
“We’ll have to risk it,” the objects agreed. While Spoon watched the tent, Painted Stick pulled the waterlogged stocking to a flat rock beside the fire and laid it out. It occurred to Can o’ Beans that if he/she were to roll upon Dirty Sock, it would press some of the water out of him and permit him to dry faster. Although the sock was less than charmed by the arrangement, it was too weak to protest. Back and forth rolled the bean can, back and forth, while rivulets webbed the rock and the frost on the synthetic fibers turned slowly to steam.
“But hon-eee,” whined an ostensibly male voice from inside the tent, “I don’t want instant coffee, even if it is cappuccino.”
“Imported. Quite as good as fresh.”
“I want, just this once, coffee boiled in the pot over an open fire.”
“He-man coffee, Dabney?”
“It needn’t have gender.”
“Hemingway coffee?”
“Indeed.”
The woman’s voice was high-pitched, nasal, pinched, as if strained through the eyelets in Jane Austen’s corset. “Hemingway would have caught his limit by now.”
“Before daybreak? Faddle! Hemingway had excellent values. He believed in the good breakfast. In the good stiff coffee.”
“Normally you would pour such coffee down the drain.”
“This isn’t ’normally,’ Heather. This is our adventure.”
“Very well. But if your sense of romantic adventure demands that you drink battery acid . . .”
The man sniffed. His sniff fluttered the wall of the tent. “ This is
This is it, thought the sock. My sock life is over. I’ll turn into muck at the bottom of this cold damn river and never see that seashell pussy again . He would have welcomed the funky confines of Boomer Petway’s dresser drawer. He would have embraced that odd-angled lump of a foot, shielded it from spilled beer and the stray welding spark. Dry-rotting in the cave with that know-it-all bean can would have been better by a damn sight than this.
Hope springs eternal and all that, yet isn’t it a fact that when we give up and quit hoping; genuinely, sincerely quit hoping, things usually change for the better? Zen masters say that when we become convinced that the human situation is hopeless, we approach serenity, the ideal state of mind. Dirty Sock wasn’t exactly Zen, there was just too much polyester in him for that, but he had pretty much resigned himself to a watery grave when the rapids temporarily ran out of gradient. His flaccid, battered form was discharged into a quiet pool, where he swirled for a moment, putting the fear of the polymer gods into a couple of trout, before hooking himself on a driftwood snag.
He tried to call out, but nothing escaped him save a bubble.
It took them more than an hour, bumbling along the creekbank, to locate him. Conch Shell swam out to him and revived him with her pink touch but failed to free him from the snag. She swam back to shore, picked up Painted Stick, and ferried him out to the snag. The stick pried the sock loose, and the two of them rode to safety on board the seashell.
Dirty Sock’s threads had been bruised and, in some cases, broken by porcupine teeth. Worse, he was sopping wet, far too soaked to walk, and in the predawn chill a brilliant and biting scum of frost was collecting on his fibers.
Rather desperately, they were wondering what to do when Spoon spied a flickering glow off a ways through the trees. Having no better alternative, they made for it, Painted Stick dragging Dirty Sock from his nubs. Within a hundred yards, they came upon a small public campground, where in addition to a teal-colored Volvo sedan and one of those fancy many-zippered tents from the R.E.I. backpackers’ boutique in Seattle, they found a cheerful campfire, snapping and smoking in the prime of its life.
Although the fire had been recently kindled, the campers were nowhere to be seen. From inside the tent, however, there issued a murmur of sleepy voices.
“We’ll have to risk it,” the objects agreed. While Spoon watched the tent, Painted Stick pulled the waterlogged stocking to a flat rock beside the fire and laid it out. It occurred to Can o’ Beans that if he/she were to roll upon Dirty Sock, it would press some of the water out of him and permit him to dry faster. Although the sock was less than charmed by the arrangement, it was too weak to protest. Back and forth rolled the bean can, back and forth, while rivulets webbed the rock and the frost on the synthetic fibers turned slowly to steam.
“But hon-eee,” whined an ostensibly male voice from inside the tent, “I don’t want instant coffee, even if it is cappuccino.”
“Imported. Quite as good as fresh.”
“I want, just this once, coffee boiled in the pot over an open fire.”
“He-man coffee, Dabney?”
“It needn’t have gender.”
“Hemingway coffee?”
“Indeed.”
The woman’s voice was high-pitched, nasal, pinched, as if strained through the eyelets in Jane Austen’s corset. “Hemingway would have caught his limit by now.”
“Before daybreak? Faddle! Hemingway had excellent values. He believed in the good breakfast. In the good stiff coffee.”
“Normally you would pour such coffee down the drain.”
“This isn’t ’normally,’ Heather. This is our adventure.”
“Very well. But if your sense of romantic adventure demands that you drink battery acid . . .”
The man sniffed. His sniff fluttered the wall of the tent. “ This is
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