...is all I managed to
read off the
fluffy beach towel as it was
flung towards my
head. I dragged the terry
cloth shroud from my
noggin and
peered from between its folds at the
person standing before me in the darkening evening light.
I stared at her in amazement. It's not every day that a 22 year-old woman dressed in a Girl Scout uniform and holding a plastic bag of live goldfish shows up on my doorstep and hurls a non sequitur like that in my face.
Thinking quickly, I dug a Sharpie marker out of my back pocket, uncapped it with my teeth and began to write furiously on the blank side of the towel. Her beautiful face took on an expression of bemusement, and a tiny smile quirked one corner of her mouth.
I finished my scrawling, recapped the pen, and tossed the towel back at her smartly. As the pale blue fabric enveloped her head with a soft whump, I realized that I should have let the ink dry before returning it to her. My worst fears were realized when she removed the towel.
Astonishingly, several words had been inked onto her flawless skin...backwards of course, but readable with stunning clarity. They read:
.won esaelp ouy knahT .spaceenk detacirbul ym kciL . ybab eulg eht sekorts yeknoM
I
bowed
politely to her, took the bag of
swimmy
fish from her hand without a
struggle and closed the
door.
As I began to sing a little fish-calming lullaby, I reflected on the unusual confluence of words which had ended up on my surprised visitor's face. The bit about the kneecaps was an unusual element I didn't remember writing, but on the whole I felt good about the results of my hasty efforts.
Juggling the fish with some dexterity, I headed for bed, my evening's calm blown all to flinders.