COMFORT
Natalie finds Quibble comfortable. He does not think long before making decisions. Too much
information clouds the process, provides options with ever decreasing emotional heft. It is easier
for them to see eye-to-eye if they both restrict themselves to what they imagine is true. Too
many smarts, and daily living has always to be re-examined, new facts have to be let in to toss
out old assumptions. Who would commit to so much work? It does not take much for them to
validate each other. That is the key to marriage: two senseless draft horses pulling in one
undefined direction.
BELONGING
Every so often we feed someone’s child to the tiger. This keeps us safe and delays any random
wrath that might come from an unappeased tiger. The tiger has grown quite large and barely has
enough room to pace in his cage. Council has taken up the thought of building a new cage, but
the project contends with pothole remission, the last line of town sewer installation. So another
year we keep him cramped. Occasionally, someone questions, with the tiger caged, why do we
continue to feed him children? That alerts us that the questioner is not from around here.
Ken Poyner’s nine collections of brief fictions and poetry, can be located at Amazon and most online booksellers. He spent 33 years in information systems management, is married to a world record holding female power lifter, and has a family of several cats and betta fish. Individual works have appeared in “Café Irreal”, “Analog”, “Danse Macabre”, “The Cincinnati Review”, and several hundred other places.
