“Sure! Tell me what to do!”

So began another month of tedium that would forcibly shoehorn creativity into daily skirmishes determining the phony history of our relationship. This note to myself is not so much to tamp the last spadeful of humus onto the corpse of the month as it is one last hundred words of lies. If ever was lived a day of life as pure and tangible as the steel of sapphire waters or wild agave caresses, it was drawn from amongst the thirty-one with which we graced the world.

March!

“You play a good game, boy, but your campaign is over.” Inspector Gynous remained behind his field table without offering his hand. “Your scandalous tales of bile, violence, and vulgarity nearly derailed my project. By right, I could have you flung from atop Stone Mountain.”

Pita prepared his protest.

“However,” Gynous interrupted, “you have your choice of appointment.”

Pita struck the center of the parchment with an oily thumb. “Paris’ll do.”
This is too easy. Pitas turned his back to Gynous to exit. He loved the Inspector.

“But I’m sinking!” howled J.

“Quiet! They hear you!”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“I reckoned the peat would mask our stench.”

“Impossible!”

Hot breath tickles the back of J’s neck. A mangy black hulk has taken position above him; a gory claw hovers over his throat.

[Boom!] Illumination freezes the scene for an instant. [Boom!]

“I hear a blunderbuss! We are delivered!”

“I’m going under! Tell the master—”

Gentry in hunting kit appear at the edge of the frame.

“We warned you to avoid the Moores!”

[Boom!]

“Yes…. Yes…. You shouldn’t have come here.”

“You knew this 12 hours ago! Before I embarked!”

“I thought when we met it would be different. Instead, it was so cold.”

You’re telling me! Can I go on apples and seltzer for five more weeks? I’m probably going to need more salted licorice.

The secretary calls, “John Saxon? Sig. Margheriti is ready.”

Don’t blow this Sax!

“I thought you’d never say hello,” she said. “You look like the silent type.”

“I do dig girls who look like girls, but you were much cuter before you ordered that cream cheese.” Outside again, the breeze carries a whiff of salt and pine.

“Spare me, brother. End this by November.” Fires burn across the distant ridge where the moon rises, almost blotted out by smoke.

“Have them send in a boy.”

“The pizzas are here!” squeals the exchange student, Ulrike, bouncing and dripping from her own ablutions. Ashley shuts off the water and descends the staircase, loosely twisting the belt of her leopard-print robe, as the pizza man is paid with a credit card and withdraws.

“Ham and pineapples!”

“Mine’s the cheeseless!”

“‘The Pacific’ is starting in twenty minutes; we’re going to miss the premiere!”

“Don’t worry, that guy fixed the cable this afternoon.”