Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction (4 page)

“This!” Raylen waved a hand at the opulent space around them. The restaurant had not yet opened, but the surroundings were ready and poised, awaiting the flood of diners soon to come: Dozens of tables lay under crisp white tablecloths, surrounded by an honor guard of elegant mahogany chairs. Above, a chandelier with a hundred lights and a thousand glittering crystals cast its sparking light across the wide space, while in the background, the chords of Bach’s third Brandenburg Concerto (First Movement) drifted through the air.

But at the moment, none of it mattered to Raylen Kosta. For all he cared, he might as well as have been sitting on a lawn chair in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven.

“I was the most well-known critic of my generation, Patrick. The
New York Times
restaurant review had nothing on me. When I walked in, four-star chefs would tremble in fear!” He pointed at the ceiling as he spoke, his words thundering in Patrick’s ears.
“A word of praise from me could make a chef’s entire career; a few words of scorn, and restaurant chains would tumble! And now this?” He slammed his fist down on the table, and Patrick jumped. “I’ll be the laughingstock of an entire industry! The entire world!”

“Surely, you’re too hard on yourself, sir,” Patrick said, trying to comfort him. “This restaurant is the most novel concept in a generation, perhaps in the entire history of restaurants. Foodies will flock from the world over merely to get on the waiting list!”

“And when they arrive, they will taste nothing but failure!” Raylen pointed at the delicately prepared flank of meat, seared on the outside and cut open to reveal a succulent pink interior. The millionaire gourmet appeared to be on the verge of a breakdown: His graying hair was frazzled, and dark circles lined his eyes. “We have welded science and the culinary arts in a way that has never been done before, and what will they say?” A tear ran down Raylen’s face. “They will say—”

“They will say,” Patrick interrupted, “that they dined on the most exotic cuisine in history! From woolly mammoth to pterodactyl wings to brachiosaurus steaks! The tissue we have grown using DNA once thought lost forever—”

“Perhaps it was better lost,” Raylen snarled. “Your team succeeded, Patrick, but the shortcuts…oh, the shortcuts.” He wiped moisture from his cheek. “When you told me the gaps in the gene sequences could be filled with modern DNA…”

“It made sense at the time,” Patrick said. “The genome in question was already sequenced. Many of the species we were working with were related to modern avians. And it worked!”

“But the consequences! Oh, we who tamper with nature are foolish beings indeed!” Raylen hung his head, sobbing onto one of the most expensive meals ever created. “What mockeries hath science wrought…”

“Please, sir,” said Patrick. “Be reasonable. Perhaps the chef can—”

“Oh, Patrick, you fool, the problem is in the very essence of the meat, not the trappings of preparation.” Raylen did not look up. “Millions of dollars, years of development, and for what?!” Tears flowed down his face, threatening to drown the remnants of the asparagus, and doubtless infusing the carefully prepared meat with an undesirable saltiness.

“Don’t you see?” Raylen cut a piece, took a careful bite, and chewed it, then threw his fork across the table in disgust. “It tastes like chicken!” he wailed, pounding his fists against the table in despair. “Every single thing you’ve created tastes like chicken!”

Merrie Haskell

D
AY ONE:

Have been exiled to the early Pleistocene by Temporal Crimes Tribunal. Vastly displeased, though certainly this hardship will only serve to make me a greater woman. By the end of lonely prehistoric life, will be most knowledgeable authority on lifestyle of early man. Unfortunately, publishing opportunities here are slim.

Am determined to become strong, lithe, deadly, noble cave-woman type. Will fashion stone tools, hunt and gather food, and live pristine, pure life of
Homo erectus
–type person. Ah. The air is
so
fresh.

DAY TWO:

Bushmen of the South African desert were—are?—
will be
able to subsist on a mere twenty-hour work week. Per principle of uniformitarianism, I shall be able to do the same. Fabulous! Life in the Pleistocene will leave plenty of time for deep thoughts and getting over Philmore the Physicist…plenty of time to come to terms with all bad habits of codependency, “women who love too much,” “women who do too much,” “women who mess around with time-stream continuum in order to repair non-reparable relationships,” etc.

Only problem: Once issues worked through, will not have anyone to share daily triumphs and travails with. Will die alone, eaten by hyenas.

DAY THREE:

Tomorrow I run out of matches. Must re-invent fire. Good thing am expert, top-notch anthropologist with over six months of training.

DAY FOUR:

No fire yet. Tom Hanks in
Cast Away
had fire by now.

DAY FIVE:

No fire yet. Boys in
Lord of the Flies
had fire by now.

DAY SIX:

No fire yet. Gilligan had fire by now.

DAY SEVEN:

I have fire!

Though I no longer have eyebrows. Or eyelashes. Gilligan had both brows and lashes. Damn you, Gilligan.

DAY EIGHT:

Food stores running low, so enacted plan to hunt and gather. Using a digging stick, à la Kalahari bushwomen, uncovered…grubs.

Could not bring self to consume grubs.

Digging stick technology not so great, actually.

DAY NINE:

No good food source again. Putting in far more than twenty hours this week. Uncertain where time goes. Tomorrow will record time study to see where to pare unnecessary activities from daily schedule.

DAY TEN:

Time Study

Sometime after dawn:
Awaken. Day is cloudy, fire is low. Hyenas yipping outside cave. Damn hyenas.

Sometime after that:
Stumble out of bed to privy hole. Search for softest, most absorbent leaves. Bathroom facilities in the Pleistocene displeasing to me.

Noon:
Look for chert, flint, or other stone with excellent cleavage properties appropriate for knapping stone tools. Must make stone-tipped spear and kill large, high-utility meat animal ASAP.

A bit after noon:
No chert, no flint, no obsidian. Why did Tribunal deposit me in stone-tool desert? I will die alone, starving and unloved in churtless wasteland, eaten by hyenas.

Shortly after that:
Oooh, look, chert!

Shortly before dark:
Reprehensible for the Temporal Crimes Tribunal to exile me to the Stone Age without safety goggles! Spent last three hours washing piece of chert from eye. Negligence!

Dark:
Too dark to do anything but sit on the pile of leaves I call my bed and listen to hyenas.

Small victory:
Fashioned crude hand ax out of available chert. Will sleep with splendid weapon under my pillow and dare the hyenas to come near!

DAY ELEVEN:

Uniformitarianism is a bust. If San bushmen can spend less than twenty hours a week hunting and gathering to survive, then I’m a cotton-top tamarin. Have slaved from sunup to sundown, knapping stone and hafting tips. Just spent several hours getting tar out of my hair after hafting incident. Clearly, ethnologists studying the bushmen were
not very observant.
Bushmen must be sneaking extra work in somehow.

As for Binford and his utility indices, I
hate
him. Why did he have to be right? Why? The only meat I’ve been able to acquire was a mangled haunch of antelope that I stole from hyenas using torches and yelling. Am not strong hunter-cavewoman. Am shambling scavenger-cavewoman.

DAY TWELVE:

Strange hominid is spying on me from opposite ridge. Very dirty and unattractive, though quite tall.
Homo erectus
or
Homo ergaster
?
Not certain he means me well, but I do have one or two evolutionary advantages over the poor thing, so I should be fine.

DAY THIRTEEN:

Ergaster
bastard stole my antelope jerky! Will kill proto-man ancestor if he steals again, and damn the time-stream!

DAY FOURTEEN:

Fancy this—
H. ergaster
is nothing of the sort! He is a physicist named Roger, also exiled by the Tribunal! After I tried to break his head with my hand ax, we both started shouting in English and realized that we were from the same time, more or less. Small world!

DAY FIFTEEN:

Oops. Told Roger I was surprised that a physicist survived so long on his own in the Pleistocene with no anthropological training. Discovered he made fire on his first attempt. May have liked him better when he was just
Homo ergaster.
Bastard.

DAY SIXTEEN:

Hyenas broke into food stash today. Roger very angry. We hunted them back to their den, planning to enact ritual canicide.

However, small, fluffy baby hyena survivors too adorable! Am now a hyena foster-mother instead of mass murderer. Am glowing with motherhood and satisfaction. Early domestication of canine species will be boon to human race! My likeness will be etched onto small stones for all to wonder and marvel at on archaeological digs in the distant future.

Roger not as pleased. There is small potty-training problem with Spot.

DAY TWENTY:

Fluffy baby scavengers have caused domestic spat by chewing
leather footgear. Roger claims to be unsurprised that someone in a “soft science” would keep hyenas.

Considering separate caves.

DAY TWENTY-TWO:

Am pondering self-destructive behaviors, noting similarities between Philmore and Roger: Both are type-A, domineering physicists with messiah complexes and lack of appreciation for personal hygiene.

However, Roger is currently only fish in the sea.

I will
not
obsess about relationship flaws. I will accept Roger for who and what he is, and not try to “fix” him. Cannot change men. Should not try. That is, after all, how one gets exiled to the Pleistocene.

Florence Bruce

A
t Piggly Wiggly I often study what other shoppers buy. Looking in their grocery carts, I sometimes discover a useful household product or a bargain I’ve overlooked.

Last week, waiting in line, I noticed that an old geezer in front of me had nine cans of lima beans. Nothing else in his cart. I counted them and checked each label to be sure all nine contained the same product. Yep, all nine cans were Best Choice lima beans. Best Choice with a black-and-red label is the Piggly Wiggly brand.

I pondered what the old boy might be planning to do with nine cans of lima beans. Maybe he’s going to plant some of them, I thought, and eat the rest. It was around planting time. But even my city-fried brain soon realized that cooked beans probably wouldn’t grow. Maybe it’s what he’s taking to the Men’s Club supper at the local church, I told myself—a big bowl of lima beans. The church kitchen probably sports a microwave. What kitchen doesn’t? Finally, standing in line with nothing better to do, and still undecided on the pressing question, I chose to just up and ask him.

“Can’t help but wonder, I said, “what you’re going to do with nine cans of lima beans.”

“Eat ‘em,” he said.

“Ah!” It had been too simple.

You can get lima beans cheaper at Wal-Mart,” he said, “but actually these taste better, plus more beans per can.”

“Really?”

“Every can is jam-packed!” he said, smiling a satisfied smile.

“Nice to know,” I said. Meanwhile, I was taking him in. I’m always on the lookout, you know, for an old geezer who might own a cabin on the lake. Plumbed, of course. It has to be well plumbed. No bears-in-the-woods routine for me. We’d have to get that straight on the front end since Mother Nature and I don’t commune.

On the negative side, this old man was one of those gawd-awful cap-wearers who seem to be proliferating nowadays. Where do they get the idea, anyhow, that grown men look so cute in caps? And that it’s okay to wear a hat in the house? My mother made men take their hats off in her house, as did her mother before her. So, the cap bit wasn’t much of a recommendation. Still, I must say my curiosity was piqued.