"The Longest Road"
The longest road connects the two furthest apart places: true or false?
False. The longest road connects the two closest places: birth and death.
But every road needs a little… upkeep.
Henry Maid Winshor, son of Henrysfather Winshor, was a construction worker, and his wife was a thousand shining little dots on a large square of black velvet. Henry kept his wife hanging in the living room, except some evenings when they would roll together in the bedroom, although nights like that were more common many years ago.
Did I mention Henry worked on the roads of time?
That kind of thing always slips by me.
Ho, ha.
So, at work one day, Henry accidentally misaligned a steel girder and a forty six year old man suffered a fatal heart attack. Another time, he was responsible for a busload of children… well, let’s not say what happened to them.
Returning from work one afternoon, he found his wife rolled up with the milkman.
Yes, the milk of time. No, it’s not different from normal milk.
“I want a divorce,” Henry said through his mustache.
His wife replied in silence. Velvety silence.
“For the love of god, Maurine, you’re not eighteen anymore.” Henry stayed at his brother’s condo for several weeks, drinking himself into the couch. His brother was a turtledove.
A turtledove, in this story, is a monstrous fusion of a turtle and a dove…
And an octopus.
“Blarg!” said Henry’s brother, waving his slick tentacle arms. “Bleffrgh!”
“I don’t need to stay here, Francis, you can’t tell me what to do.”
“Blllllllrrrrgggggggrrrrrr”
“You know what?” Henry rose drunkenly from the couch and picked up Francis’ television set. Francis had bought the television set as a wedding gift for Henry, but had never given it to him.
Henry didn’t know that as he chucked it out the window.
Francis was stunned. His giant dove head retracted slightly into the turtle shell.
Henry stopped going to work.
The roads, concrete ribbons swaying in the winds of time, deteriorated.
Something awful, I’m sure, resulted
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