“Honorificabilitudinitatibus”

“Honor, if I may present,

I cab for part time change, you see.

I lit up the streets that night searching for someone who turned out to be a nightmare.

Udini, a night elf from World of Warcraft, who presents to you all her new self, Ghostface Harry Houdini!”

Tat, my ghoul-tourney sulked to the bench. He told the judge he was trying to commit himself due to premblememblemation.

“I bus sometimes on the weekends for colleges and churches, gets me more money. But, as you can see, doing this has got me shut down and in the UNDER-Slammer.”

***

How I Ended Up Down in the UNDER-Slammer

“Alcohol is not my friend!” I yelled, waking up in an agave plant poking me in front of a pueblo-style hacienda. Pulling out thorns, I needed more than more tequila. Not a problem; it was not my friend, but I wasn’t there to make friends. Especially not with ghouls and Goombas.

A lawnmower cranked up its engine, quickly choking to death.

“Not today either,” as I motioned a middle finger salute to the lawnmower owner. They did not respond and pulled the lawnmower chain again, throttling and revving up the motor before flooding it with fuel and choking it—again.

Standing behind the push mower, the shaded worker was not the neighbor. They did not have a name tag, but only a title I would never here because they equally choked when they spoke to humans. It was their decontamination effect. Avoiding communication ensured they would not pass on their culturally sensitive information.

“Oh, what I really want is a Mai Tai, a stiff one, too, with optimal chill factor,” I said to the grass. An umbrella, the colorful tiki glass, that iconic shaved snow ice. “But if a tall Bloody Mary or even a small Tequila Sunrise shows up, I’ll even leave a tip.”

But I didn’t have the time.

The lawnmower engine kicked on steadily with the thudding sound of the blade engaged. Thick whips of steel sped around blasting everything in its wake. Grass shreds flew as fast as bullets, sharp as glass, from the shoot under the heavy metal body.

A dog vicious, a cat slender, a squirrel skittish. Why do we have sidewalks again? So people can walk by houses in neighborhoods on their way to work, school, and parks with playgrounds and pools.

“Hey guy!”

“Not this again…” I started to turn red.

“Hey guy, what are you doing…”

Before they had finished their sentence, I took an arrow I cut from the same type of agave plant I’d just slept in. Tipping the arrow in the groove of the bowing wood of my best bow, I flipped my wrist. A strenuous strum of my fingers finished with slicing the plant stem so it whistled through the air.

It did not slow down, that arrow. It did not skip a beat or scratch anything but the one who dared call me a guy.

“I am NOT a guy. I have a vagina, which you will never, ever see,” I explained as I removed his eyeballs. I did this after dislodging the poisoned agave arrow with the spike-enhanced end sticking out the back of his skull. It was a new prototype that would pierce a victim and explode inside like a bullet with the velocity necessary for complete penetration and extraction of the arrow. My signature touch was using an arrow with a feathering design that blossomed out the back of the victim’s wound.

Looking around, no one was walking on the sidewalk. Concrete reverberated the sound of the lawnmower. I wiped blood away, watching the shadow stalking with that mower. It made no sense why one person was cutting their lawn when signs were posted on every street corner.

The signs all read: “Do Not Cut the Grass,” in big, black block letters but was hand painted. I suspected something about the contamination control. So why didn’t the landscaper follow the rules? Couldn’t he read?

Even in this other dimension where I had seen ghouls, ghosts and walking jellyfish, I no longer gave second glances. I waited until it was safe to mentally process what I had witnessed in the landscape. I had once seen a Goomba, like in the Super Mario video games—a person with Goomba-like eyes that drooped severely on cappuccino skin with large-scale freckles.

He showed up trying to deposit his bag of garbage in my trash can, right in front of my apartment door. I walked out hearing a noise and I wasn’t sure if he was going to lick me or jump, and he quickly scuttled back up the stairs taking his bags with him, looking more like a Goombrat.

I saw a liquor store with the brightest lights I have ever seen for a corner store. The easy-to-identify object that would provide a much-needed lubrication via intoxicant.

On the way out of the store, I passed the busted agave plant with six-foot-long green tendrils. I smiled.

“Better go back for tequila.”