Molena

Molena


I could smell her coming before I even saw her; a noxious mix of scents that I later discovered to be Plumeria hand lotion, Menthol cigarettes and head-grease. She waddled through the pressed airplane hallway with the uninhibited determination of an overweight rhino, and each time she examined a seat number, small eyes blinking rapidly behind coke-bottle glasses, she paused heavily, glancing at her ticket and blowing air out her nose before pushing on. Uh oh, I thought quickly. No you don’t. That’s right, keep moving.... But it was too late.

I knew probably even before she did that she was going to sit next to me. After years of flying consistently you get a sense of these things, a kind of sixth-sense about how the weirdo coming down the aisle has a ticket with your name on it. I suppose I should be used to it by now because I fly all the time. My parents divorced when I was four, and now live in completely different states – Mom in Atlanta, and Dad in Chicago. Being an only child whose parents have joint-custody, once I was old enough to know my name and phone number I started getting shipped cross-country so many times the stewardesses knew me by name. Actually, for some strange reason half of them think my name is Erwin (it’s Erin), but I figure hey, close enough. So over the years, as you can imagine, I learned a thing or two about flying. For example, I soon learned that just because you can go out certain doors it doesn’t mean you should. When I was ten, I saw a stray dog on the runway and immediately busted out one of the emergency exits before I knew what I was doing, setting off a screech of alarms and a mob of ill-tempered security guards. I also learned that never, under any circumstances, do you sit down on airport toilets. Think about it: if a plane takes off every ten seconds in O’Hare, just imagine how many women have go to the bathroom.

I still like flying and everything, but after a while the novelty of single-serving pretzels, mini-Coke cans, and tiny gold wing pins wears off, and you realize you’re just stuck in a pressurized tube with a bunch of strangers 30,000 feet above the ground.

And, as everyone knows, you don’t get to pick who you get stuck next to.

This explains that when I saw Molena coming towards me, trundling determinedly down the aisle in my direction, I wasn’t really surprised. After all, it was just my luck. Why is it every time I fly I get stuck next to somebody who looks like they’re just dying to join the circus? Last time it was the Double-Jointed Boy, the six-year-old wonder who could not only pop his thumbs out of place and twist his arm around backwards (“Wanna see it again? Wanna see it again?), but also appeared to be trying to break the Guinness Book of World Records challenge for “least amount of baths taken since leaving the womb.” Believe me, it was no challenge. The time before that, on a puddle-jumper back to Atlanta, I had the pleasure of being seated next to a paranoid-delusional claustrophobic – on his first flight since “the accident” which, after several vigorously dramatic renditions of the event, involving both tears and flamboyant arm movements, I determined to be an incident involving his car and a flattened squirrel. Believe me, forty-five minutes next to this guy and you’ll wish you walked.

I was starting to feel an overwhelming sense of Deja vu right about this time; the woman had finally halted and was currently fixing her small rhino eyes on the seat number above me. She had a large, black trash bag slung nonchalantly over one solid arm and clutched a worn leather valise in the other. Both the woman and her bags seemed to bulge uncomfortably. I tried not to stare, but couldn’t help noticing that the leather bag seemed to be kicking. She looked at the number above my seat, blinked, looked at her ticket, blinked again, and then the small gray eyes swivelled up and locked on to my own – she had me now. Suddenly her face lit up, lips stretching out to the sides to show two rows of tiny white teeth as she dropped the bag with a clunk. Before I could react she swooped in across the seats with surprising speed and jutted a meaty hand out to me. I recoiled instinctively. It was rather like meeting a friendly but enormous dog for the first time; you can’t help but be a little on the wary side.

“Well, hell-o and good morning to you! Although it is now—” she checked her watch quickly, bringing the other hand up without breaking eye contact, “two minutes past noon so I suppose it is good afternoon then, right? Ha ha – afternoon!”

She exploded in a few heaving guffaws and I smiled a bit uneasily as I shook her wide hand. “Ha ha, right.” It starts.

“First things first…” she said as she straightened. She quickly grasped the enormous trash bag, lifting it easily though it looked heavy, and began stuffing it into the overhead compartment, revealing two moist half-moon splotches under her arms. The bag stretched and bunched oddly, heavy in a peculiar way, and thumped loudly as it was stowed, echoing down the aisle. After a moment of consideration I decided that it contained a mixture of bowling balls and packing peanuts.

“Let me tell you, they never make these things big enough – ne-ver.” She said, bolting out the last part and enunciating loud enough for everyone to hear. She would have made a great public speaker, something dramatic like a racetrack announcer.

She shuffled sideways across the aisle seat and sank down next to me, swishing air in and out through her nose. One fleshy arm draped across the armrest, and I could see a brief glint of something shiny on her wrist before it was swallowed by the oversized tunic she was wearing, gaudy bright green and orange. I noticed as she settled her Keds under the seat that she had her socks pulled up over the white stretch pants that were giving a whole new meaning to ‘stretch’.

“You know, this is my first time flying in over -- two months! Can you believe it? I mean, two months.”

What was so unbelievable was the fact that she could fit in one airplane seat, a feat accomplished only after much wiggling and grunting. I said, “Wow.”

She paused, gave me a look. “Now you are adorable.”

“Oh, thank you,” I said.

“No, I mean it, adorable, like a puppy.”

“Okay.”

“Oh! Excuse me – how could I have been so rude? I just get so excited when I am flying I forget my manners. Let me introduce myself. My name is Molena Reese, but everyone calls me Mel, like Larry, Curly, and Mel. Ha ha! That is a joke. And what is your name, honey?”

“Oh. Erin.”

“Erwin!” she squealed. I rolled my eyes but didn’t bother correcting her. “That is just a gor-geous name. If I had another girl I think I would name her Erwin, although four girls is good for now, plenty yes, plus the cats, but yes if I ever had another daughter I’d name her Erwin for sure–”

(Oh, God – she has four daughters! At least they aren’t all on the plane... are they?)

“—‘Course my great-grandmother’s name was Violet, which I always thought was pretty, but then I thought: a violet is not a name it is a flower. You see? I mean, a flower. Did you ever think of that?”

“No.”

“I mean would you want to be named after a flower? That is like being named… Chrysanthemum! Who would name their daughter Chrysanthemum?”

“My daughter’s name is Chrysanthemum.”

Her jaw dropped, adding another chin. “Really?”

“No.”

She stared at me for a blink or two and then exploded in laughter again. “Oh, you are joking! Ha ha! You never told me you were funny! Now, that is funny.”

I made a mental note to never try to make her laugh; people were starting to eye around for the source of the honking noise. Thankfully, a stewardess clicked into position and distracted her for a moment. The stewardess, a willowy woman plastered in makeup looked very much the part in her pressed uniform and sensible shoes, and carefully smoothed a hand down her skirt before reciting the bright, joyless monologue of safety that all long-time air travelers know by heart.

“Uh, oh!” Molena blurted out, chubby hands sprawled, “I just realized something. We are sitting right next to an emergency exit! Do you know what that means?”

An idea suddenly hit me; “It means you can change seats if you want... Does anyone want to change seats with me? Anyone? Please?”

The other passengers suddenly seemed very busy buckling their seatbelts.

“No! It means that this is the first time in all my months of flying that I have ever sat next to an emergency exit! What are the odds, huh? Whoooeee!”

For some reason she seemed exceptionally delighted with this new information and started doing a wriggly rendition of the Macarena, at least as much as she could while squashed into the chair. I scrunched lower in my seat but still got in the way of a flying elbow. I grabbed a magazine and hoped nobody was watching.

“Please remain in your seats with seatbelts fastened until the captain has reached cruising altitude,” the stewardess beamed, managing to smile and look bored at the same time. Her crisp voice was like crunching celery as it echoed through the cramped cabin way.

The thought of being belted in next to Molena until we reached cruising altitude made my toes curl. It was suddenly very hot in there.

“You know, they probably will not even serve snacks on this flight,” Molena whispered confidentially, hand across her wide, open mouth.

Now that we were in closer quarters I could really get a whiff of her. Something in the back of my head made an inappropriate comment about the similarity between her breath and my great-aunt Gerta’s homemade pickled herring, but I quickly blocked it out and tried to act interested.

“You don’t say…”

“In fact, I would be surprised if they even served drinks, the way they are cutting back on costs and everything. Oh, I know what is going on. I have the In-ter-net.” She pronounced it in three separate syllables, tapping a chubby finger to the side of her nose conspiratorially.

“Not that I mind, really. The cutbacks on airplane food I mean. I never eat it anyway --I always bring my own snack. As for their food, you could not get me to touch that stuff with a ten-foot pole!”

A ten-foot pole was suddenly looking quite handy.

“I am allergic to absolutely everything!” she continued delightedly. “You name the food and I blow chunks just at the sight of it --no kidding.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“No, I am serious! It started when I was just a youngster. My mother tried to give me butterscotch ice cream – I mean, butterscotch ice cream – and let me tell you I was up all day and all night puking my guts out! I was puking up stuff I had not eaten in weeks!”

“Uh, huh…”

“And that is just the half of it. Any dairy product, we are talking cream in my coffee here, and it shoots in one end and out the other, like clockwork. You can count on it, almost exactly a half an hour from the time I eat dairy – or wheat for that matter – and the time I run for the ladies room, and I do mean run…

(This is not happening this is not happening)

“…Be allergic to dairy which is ironic,” she pronounced it ‘iron-ick,’ “because I grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin – you ever been to Wisconsin? It is simply gor-geous this time of year. Anyways, sometimes I wonder if growing up on a dairy farm has anything to do with my allergens, but then I think, well Jeezum, I could have just as easily been born a lobsterman’s daughter because do not even get me started on my seafood allergies…”

This continued on for several minutes. She plowed on into a retelling of her “brush with death” after consuming a piece of popcorn shrimp as a child, and I nodded continuously as I eyed the emergency exit. Talking about food must have made her hungry because soon she was pawing through her pocketbook for the snack she had brought. I hoped for one brief moment that it would be some sort of extra-strength, radioactive mint, but that thought was quickly dissuaded. It was a large bag of Ma Pratt’s Quality Homegrown Sunflower Seeds– extra salt and oil! She tore into the bag and began to nibble the seeds open with great enjoyment and noise as she spoke. Little chunks of shell sprayed in a generous arc every time she laughed…or talked…or chewed –which was constantly. My leg tapped in agitation and I gripped the armrest with one white-knuckled fist as she leaned in closer and closer to emphasize every horrible little nugget of information, tiny teeth flashing and nostrils flared, sunflower seed shells ricocheting off the tray table and hitting me as she swooped from one story to the next. I could feel the recycled cabin air pressing in all around me, the overpowering smells of her sickeningly-sweet hand lotion and her noxious sunflower seeds –of her in general, made me long for that hidden oxygen-mask the stewardess kept talking about. I fumbled with the tiny fan above my head but I must have twisted it too hard because it snapped off in my hand, smacking me in the eye. I swore loudly but Molena just said, “God bless you!” and continued talking. Finally, when she reached down into her bag to show me the gallbladder stone she’d recently had removed (housed in its own display case), I could take no more.

I said, “Molena, I have to go to the ladies’ room. Now.”

“No, quite all right I know what that is like,” she announced loudly. “Looks like maybe I am not the only one with a case of irritable bowel syndrome, eh?”

I clenched my teeth and smiled for the people as they turned around curiously.

“Actually,” she continued, “I am in the aisle seat and I could use a go so why not I just go first and save time?”

I had no idea what she was talking about by “save time” but agreed anyway. “Yes, by all means, go.”

She hoisted herself up out of the seat like a woman in her third trimester and waddled down the narrow aisle, nodding and saying hello to everyone she passed. I breathed a sigh of relief as she left and her smell followed her. Why me? It never fails. Maybe I should just drive next time…

The minutes passed and I decided to make myself busy so that when she came back I’d look like I didn’t want to be disturbed. Glancing over at her bag I noticed what looked to be a small, worn Bible and the destroyed bag of Ma Pratt’s sunflower seeds. I reached into my own carry-on and pulled out my book, flipping through the dog-eared pages to where I had stopped reading. Now that she had left I could finally relax. I was just about to slide back into the familiar story when she thumped back into view.

“I am baaaack!”

I jumped involuntarily. She shuffled sideways across the seat and sank down next to me, swishing air through her nose. A new smell now clung to the others: bathroom freshener, the noxious blue kind. “All yours, hon.”

The thought of entering the tiny airport latrine after Molena had paid a visit made my stomach churn and my bladder clench up; maybe I didn’t have to pee after all. “No, that’s all right, I’ll just wait until we land.”

Then, unexpectedly, there was quiet; a shiny little bubble of silence. I opened my book again, tentatively, as if making any quick movements would alert the rhino to my whereabouts and send it off into another charge –verbal, in her case. For a moment it seemed as if she was finished with me and we might pass the rest of the flight in blissful silence, but then the bubble burst.

“Soooo…” Molena said, slowly swiveling her greasy head sideways and showing her tiny teeth.
My heart ticked a nervous beat and as I looked into those swimmy gray eyes behind their coke-bottle glasses. I suddenly had a strong urge to leap over the back of my seat.

“Did I ever tell you about my trip to the hospital last summer?”

Oh, great, I thought, this is all I need. “No, that’s quite all right,” I groaned.

“You see that is just it – it was not quite all right! Ha ha!”

She leaned in closer (I didn’t think that was possible) and thumped me a good one on the shoulder as she laughed. It was rather like getting hit with a side of ham.

“Now I should probably just begin at the beginning,” she started. “It was my first trip to the beautiful city that is our capital: Washington. Beautiful state if there ever was one…”

I slithered deeper into my seat as her greasy aroma pervaded me, the prevailing scent I had now pinpointed as Menthol cigarettes. There was something else, too, lingering below the surface. I couldn’t tell exactly what but I knew on top of it was some kind of loud, intoxicating hand lotion you get out of a Bath and Body Works. Now I remembered the name: Plumeria. It didn’t bear as much resemblance to plums as it did to a cheap car air-freshener. It seemed odd to me that she would want to put any kind of lotion on; she was so oily, it seemed she would never dry up enough to require lotion of any kind.

I realized she was still talking.

"...And the doctor said he had never seen anything like it in twenty-five years of practise, which I thought was extremely hilarious, because twenty-five years is a long time to practise..."

It really didn’t matter what I said at this point, she couldn’t hear me anymore, which was probably just as well. I was trapped next to her, cornered like a chick in an Easter basket before a horde of Sunday-school children. I watched her ramble on, double chins jiggling, white teeth flashing, and soon found I couldn’t look away. Although for the most part I had no idea what she was talking about –she had now lapsed into a blow-by-blow recounting of every flight she’d ever been on, including this one. Still, it was weirdly entertaining at the same time. It was impossible not to pay attention to her. I realized that this woman, no matter where she went, would always have an audience –whether they liked it or not. Her blurry gray eyes had locked on to me, and now that I was trapped in her watery gaze, hypnotized almost, I had nothing left to do but listen with abject fascination, both repelled and strangely enthralled.

“—came down and visited me while I was in my coma, except he did not look like I thought he would, looked like a great big golden carp, you know, those Japanese fish? We used to have some in our back pond but that was before the Frog Invasion of ’86…”

Frog invasion? What the hell is she talking about?

She rambled. I had the distinct impression that she had visited a rubber room at some point in her life. She leaned in over me. Closer…closer…until I could see the tiny bits of sunflower seeds between her teeth. I frantically tapped the stewardess button but they were all clustered by the coffee machine, laughing and chatting. I noticed that they weren’t eating sunflower seeds.

“So, do you see what I am saying now?” she asked, leaning over the armrest.

I said nothing. She had me cornered. I wanted to say, “NO! I don’t see! I don’t care! Stop talking to me and for God’s sake eat a breath mint!” But I didn’t. I was transfixed by her wide eyes, her enormous glasses and her thick, meaty hands clasped together in her lap with the bright expectancy of a child.

“You know, Molena,” I started, but I couldn’t say it. After all, she was serious. I know she honestly meant every word she said, and I had nothing.

Finally I said, “You know, I never looked at it that way before. If anybody ever comes to me in a dream as a Japanese carp, I will be sure to listen to everything he says. Thank you for enlightening me.”

Molena turned and beamed at me, slapping her big, meaty hands together. “You see! I knew I could convince you!”

To be honest, I had no idea what she had been talking about, but I was trying hard to appease her. There was a brief glinting in her eyes that I didn’t recognize, and it gave me a chill. It was a subtle as a glass bottle turning in the sun; one moment Molena was just another annoying passenger stuck next to me by chance, the next moment she was something much more strange and sinister. I can’t explain it, it was gone before I could even blink, but when I looked into the murky depths of her eyes swimming behind those gold frames, I could see someone hiding behind them. I quickly pushed the thought out of my mind. My imagination had a tendency to scamper off by itself, and this was just another one of those times. After all, it was probably just that she knew more of what I was thinking, and how little I was paying attention, than I realized. Or maybe it was just her glasses reflecting the bright bolts of sunlight that beamed in through our cabin window to shine on her face. Either way, for that one, fleeting second, she scared the hell out of me.


###


Time seemed to pass a little quicker after that. I had forgotten all about what I thought I saw, and quickly slammed back into the tedious monotony of real life again. True, time still ticked by with frustrating sluggishness, and I wondered briefly whether my flight to Boston required a trip over the Bermuda triangle, but at least the minutes no longer dragged along at a death-crawl. They now passed like the struggled hopping of a lame toad.

Meanwhile, Molena continued her conversation (more with herself than anyone else) at a pace which I found astonishing. How could anyone talk so extensively about nothing? She breezed from her four marriages, to her seven children (now there’s a scary thought), to her brief stint at professional clogging, to her latest trip to the dentist (“I am a microdont, you know”), to belly dancing, to her lucrative sunflower seed sculptures, and finally to her great love of flying –paragliding, that is. My eyes watered from trying to stay awake and my mind flashed and spun with fantastic images of Molena paragliding in her belly dancing costume. We talked briefly about my interests, but it wasn’t long before she accelerated off on another tangent about, incredibly, the best ways to catch bloodworms.

“Now, contrary to popular belief,” she continued, “sifting is not the best way to get a good crop of bloodworms.”

“Hmm, bloodworms,” I said.

“I prefer placing a small tree branch with green leaves in the water…”

“Uh huh, water,” I said, nodding.

“The larvae built their cocoons on the branch and then you just pull it out and pick them up by swabbing a finger over their cocoon!”

“Oh, okay, swabbing,” I said agreeably.

The thought of Molena ‘swabbing’ bloodworms made me sick to my stomach. Still, I couldn’t help but play along in the conversation. I was trapped either way, and as I said before, it was fascinating to watch her talk. She seemed delighted with herself. I couldn’t remember for the life of me why were we talking about bloodworms, but I smiled and nodded.

“You don’t say…”

I could almost hear the willowy stewardess saying, “Please return all tray tables to the locked and upright position, and all annoying passengers please proceed to the rear of the cabin to have your mouths taped shut.”

I realized she was talking again. Something about “crunchies.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, what do you think about Munchkins?” she said patiently.

“Oh, you mean like in The Wizard of Oz?”

“No!” she cried. “Do not be ridiculous.” She looked at me strangely.

“I don’t understand. What’s a Munchkin?”

She rolled her eyes. They swiveled easily in her head beneath the thick folds of her eyelids. “Why, they are cats, of course. What else would they be?”

“Right. Obviously,” I said. “So, what’s a Munchie?”

Wrong question. “You mean you have never owned or been able to meet a Munchkin? Why, they are only the most wonderful creatures on the face of the earth! They are the best cats anyone could ask for.” She put a hand over her wide mouth confidentially, then giggled with surprising girlishness. “Sometimes they are even more well-behaved than my three children.”

“I thought you had four children.”

“Yes, I do. What did you say?”

“Never mind.” Actually, I could have sworn she said she had seven children, but I let it slide. Something about the way she was looking at me with those glassy eyes made me quickly decide against getting in an argument with her.

My mind wandered for a brief moment as I pictured what would happen if I got into a brawl with Molena. Maybe if I grabbed her glasses and made a break for it I might escape unharmed... No, who was I kidding - she'd have me pinned in an instant, doomed to a fate of mushy crushing and smelly suffocation. I jammed the thought back into my head and tried to concentrate on Munchkins again.

“Here," she said, putting on the polished pronunciation of a top-knotch QVC host. "Let me clarify things with a brochure.”

She dug around in her bag for a moment before producing just that – a handful of glossy, hideously colored brochures apparently devoted entirely to Munchkins. She carefully placed one on my tray table and then withdrew her hand quickly, beady eyes glued to my face to determine my reaction. I looked at it. There, sure enough, was a Munchkin. Except for the fact that it was dressed in a tuxedo, complete with a top hat and a miniature cane which was obviously taped to the poor thing, it looked like a normal cat. That, and the fact that it’s legs were two-thirds shorter than they should have been. It’s saggy cat-belly barely cleared the spotlit stage it stood upon.

“Oh, I get it. They’re wiener cats.”

“Well, no, in fact, most of mine are girls. And to answer your next question -- yes!” She squealed. She liked squealing. “I have fourteen at home, on my breeding ranch. I even have an Internet web site. Do you know what the In-ter-net is? The farm is called Molena’s Marvelous Munchkins.” She paused, then added, “I came up with that name myself.”

“I bet you did.”

“I also came up with all their names. I could list them if you like. Let me see… there is Mucha, Mencken, Meckel, Mally, Mooford, Mibley, Moxy, Mookie, Munkey, Manby, Monwen, Muttox, Mimsie, and M-Quigley. There are more but they do not have names yet. They are still inside their mothers, and I usually wait until they come out before I name them.

“Some people do not understand how special they are. You see, they are more special than most mammals. In fact, they are just like people except with short legs and a tail, and fur, and they go, ‘MEE-OOOWW!’ Ha ha! Now would that not be something!

“They are extra-ordinary, really. For example, I am sure that there is a gene in their cells for using the toilet. The people-toilet. They won’t go anywhere else. I do not even have litterboxes for them. Sure, the babies will relieve themselves on the carpet a few times a day, but that is ‘cause they are babies. Of course, you have to build little ramps up to the seat because even the grown-ups cannot jump up on the commode themselves. And believe me, they try! I also put a little guard around the inside of the bowl so that in case they fall in, they can climb back out. It is made out of chicken-wire. I call them ‘No-Drown Toilet-Rounds.’ They are patented. I lost one of the early ones to drowning last year, very tragic. All you could see was his stubby little legs and tail sticking out of the seat, straight up in the air like he was trying to do a handstand or something. It was unfortunate, really. Poor thing’s fur was stained blue from the waist up! So now I have guards up to prevent that. Of course, it prevents any human from being able to use the toilet, but I fixed that too, by building an outhouse in our backyard. Simpler, really.”

“Uh, huh.”

“It was not until a few years ago that I actually started the breeding farm. I am breeding them at a tremendous rate now. It is absolutely spectacular, the amount of cats you can produce each year with a small amount of effort. I have a vision. It came to me one evening when I was sitting on my porch. I have a porch swing, you see. I was watching them run around in their exercise wheels in the front yard – we do not have enough room for them to be loose in the yard so I set up a system of enclosed wheels for them to get exercise, like a hamster. They love it really. They run for the door the moment they see me coming. Anyway, it was then that the idea hit me!”

She paused for effect. I sighed; I couldn’t resist.

“What was it?”

“NO LEGS!” She cried gleefully, generously spraying me with little droplets of spit. Did she really say, ‘no legs’? Her hands shot out in front of her in her excitement, hitting the back of the man in front of us. I couldn’t tell whether he minded or not; all I could make out was the delicate duck-fuzz that was his hair.

“You see, I am trying to breed out that whole ‘leg’ gene. It is very scientific, my work. I thought, if short legs are good, no legs are better! After all, who wants a cat with legs, anyway? A legless cat will never run away! He stays where you put him, will never chase the birds, claw the furniture, scratch you, get into fights, or get into trouble of any sort. That is the real problem with cats. They are always going places. How can you watch over them if they keep walking around? I am convinced this will be the wave of the future. Once it catches on, there will be no stopping them from taking over the world!”

She looked at me sharply. “Figuratively speaking, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Suuuure, there have been side effects, but what great science breakthrough does not?”

I heard a strange, squealing gurgle, a high keening noise that grumbled off after a few seconds. I looked around for the source of it but the sound tapered off and was gone before I could place it.

“Side effects?” I said uncertainly.

“Well, they are not unlike any normal, everyday birth mutations that happen from time to time. I think of it as small-scale evolution.”
“Oh, you believe in evolution?” I asked curiously.

She eyed me. “Certainly not! What I am saying is that it is like evolution – if such a thing existed. Evolution that occurs within an individual.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works…” I started.

“I know how it works!” She butted in. “I am simply stating it in Layman’s terms. It is all very scientific.”

“How do you ‘breed out’ the leg gene, anyway?” I chuckled dubiously. “I suppose you have some sort of recombinant DNA research lab in your basement?”

“No, no, no! There is no research involved. Do you not know how this sort of thing works? Here, let me explain: the Munchkin cats have short legs. I want them to have no legs. So I breed them to go from short legs to no legs.”

“But that doesn’t explain—”

“Short legs, no legs!” She said again, voice screeching. “I was not finished. First, I take two cats, one boy cat and one girl cat. Do you need me to explain the difference?” She said patiently, as if I were as slow as a retarded sloth.

I sighed as irritably as I could. “No, and this is hardly—”

“Boy cats have penises,” she continued cheerily, raising her voice.

“What does this have to do—”

“Anyway, then I breed them. I take the ones with really short legs. I measure them first, the legs I mean. Then when the babies come out I look at them to se which ones have shorter legs, or preferably, no legs. Then I take two of those with the shortest legs from that litter and breed them together, and so on and so forth until eventually the legs kind of disappear, which I am hypothesizing will happen in a few more generations. Of course, a cat born with no legs already is ideal but I am willing to settle for other options until I reach my ultimate goal.”

“I see…” I said, horrified. I shuddered to think of what abominations might be born after years of such close inbreeding! “And what do you mean by ‘settle’?”

“Well, say I cannot breed out all of the legs at once. ‘Okay,’ I say to myself, ‘Two out of three legs ain’t bad!’” She laughed heartily. “That was a little joke.”

I wasn’t so sure. “Uh, huh,” I said. It’s worse than I thought! She really is crazy!

“Or say, maybe they are born with legs but then they shed them after a year, like a deer’s antlers. They do that you know. I mean, that would be fine! I am okay with that! It is a step in the right direction! You work with what you have!”

She was getting all worked up now. Her pallid cheeks had a high color creeping up into them, and beads of sweat popped out on her already greasy forehead. I heard the noise again, and wondered if it was my fan malfunctioning. It was a high, shrill squealing that deepened into almost a growl. It reminded me, strangely, of this naughty baby that was always at our church services back home. It seemed to wait until everyone in the congregation was engrossed in silent prayer before letting loose with a painfully sharp baby squeal or a ripping fart. It was a very naughty baby.

“So how successful have you been with this project of yours?” I asked, a little uneasily.

“Well, success is measured in degrees. I would say… hmmm, now let me think…”

She paused, eyes glazing over for a brief moment. It was as if someone had simply turned her off. Molena hung suspended for what seemed like a long time; mouth open slightly, a glistening of saliva on her slack lips. I was beginning to get a little nervous, and took the opportunity to jam the stewardess button a few more times, though I knew it was useless. She jerked upright.

“Thirty-two.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, you asked me to describe my success, and I said it was measured in degrees, so I would guess that I have been thirty-two degrees of successful. I still have a long way to go, but I have had some results. For example, just last week one of the kittens was born with less toes on his feet. That would you say, is at least a step in the right direction? Of course, all his other legs had more toes than usual, but on the whole I think the number of toes had decreased.”

“Eeeeww,” I said.

“Now, one of the other litters was also making headway. You see, all of them had four legs, which is disappointing, but one of them couldn’t walk, which I figure, is closer to having no legs than anything else because at least they are not going anywhere, right?”

She smiled. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. She had that funny look in her eyes again, a hidden blackness, and I heard that sharp squeal again. I realized it was coming from her stomach, and for some reason the thought sent an icy chill flickering down my spine. I pushed the stewardess button for one last time, hoping they might actually answer, but I knew they wouldn’t. I held eye contact, frozen to my seat and afraid to look away for fear that, like many predators, she would fall upon me in attack the instant I looked away. Then, like a sign from God, the ‘fasten seatbelts’ light came on, and I knew it would all be over soon.


The End... or is it?

For those of you who took the time to read this, thank you, and please leave a review!
I ended this in a sort of... un-ending if you know what I mean. I stopped here because I'm not sure where to go next. Any suggestions are always welcome! :)