Bad Case of Mondegreen 

Chut, man, he’s got thee upturned syllogism logic. He’s also got a bad case of the Higgs-Boson blues. He’s got the anthropocene cold shoulder, and a slight case of thee reliquary saint’s joints and bone shards flu. His name is Smith. 

All the while she’s about a mover, but Smith has got the worst case of mondegreen and all he hears is: eedda vadda voodda. Her name is Mary.

I tell you it makes no sense at all—and it’s so bad that this scene conflates with a litany of sea-green epistolaries. Nobody sends letters like this anymore—did they ever?—such a shame!

Mary reads “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.” She cuts-up the poem—then adds to it—so it reads: let queef queef be finale of streams / be downtown be the emperor of nice dreams.

Smith dips his cuticles in a bowl of dal makhani, and brainstorms tankas about Goa’s sacred cows. He coins neologisms galore (parenthetically including [cowfabulations!]). Then he gets a dose of thee Kipling throttle-wish and wants to whip a manservant for ole’ colonial times sake: the good old ruddy duddies, he laments. (This is a bad man, kiddies—steer clear!)

Light up the world with nicotine nabobs, Mary quips (and queefs) from her Moosetracks perch. Smith is past caring. He starts a freewrite—using his knife and the tamarind sauce—on the napkin tucked into his shirt collar.

He reads aloud: Harrumph, huzzah, and all that… extortion for freelancers and firefly friendly sky pies. Don’t shout ‘negatory’ before noon … oh, stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

Even though we haven’t heard it before, let’s not and say we did.

What I’m Reading:

Orcas (Orcinus orca) have been spotted ramming sharp-tail sunfish (Masturus lanceolatus) so hard that they explode. The gory display involved a female orca holding a dead sunfish in place for a male to speed into. In the aftermath, a juvenile orca ate some of the fleshy pieces of the fish, while the adult pair snacked on the carcass. “We think this may help younger orcas feed more easily,” says marine ecologist and study co-author Kathryn Ayres. “Or it could also just be for fun. Orcas are known for playing with their food.”

— Jacob Smith / “Orcas smash sunfish to smithereens” / Nature Briefing