Atm by Walter Knight

Author:Walter Knight [Knight, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781938758270
Publisher: Penumbra Publishing
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

General Daly arrived for Media Day to schmooze with the spider Governor of the North Territory and Chief Stone-Claw. The spider commander’s staff and mine joined us for lunch at the casino buffet. Sitting to eat, Captain Patton opened a pocket bible and read a prayer from his notes. “A poem from antiquity: Rommel is dead. His army has joined the quicksand Legions of history where the battle is always a metal echo saluting a rusty shadow. His tanks are gone. How’s your ass?”

“Amen,” I concluded, picking at my meal, not much hungry.

“You’re quite the poet,” complemented the spider governor.

“He’s a captain,” I corrected.

“A toast!” proposed General Daly, raising his glass of wine. “To peace!”

“To peace,” agreed the spider commander diplomatically.

“To peace and profit,” I added.

“Peace on you,” bristled Patton refusing to toast with spiders.

“To peace on everyone,” added the governor.

“To the next war,” toasted Patton.

“Sooner than you realize,” advised the spider commander, gulping his wine through clenched fangs.

“To the victor goes the spoils,” slurred Stone-Claw, already drunk. “To rape and plunder sweet bubble-butt virgins.”

“To this fine meal,” toasted Daly, trying to divert a confrontation. “What’s in this meat pie? Duck?”

“Tastes like chicken,” answered the governor. “It’s a bit gamey. I love eating ethnic.”

“Eat up, Czerinski,” ordered General Daly, noticing me pick suspiciously at my pie. “It’s a party.”

“I only eat one meal a day, and this isn’t it.”

“I love spider culinary innovation,” commented Daly. “It adds so much to the frontier experience. My wife would love your recipe for this meat pie.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I whispered to Lopez. He nodded in agreement.

“What was that, Czerinski?”

“Nothing, sir.”

General Daly let out a customary belch to express polite appreciation of the fine meal. Photographers zoomed in for close-ups of the general wiping his mustache with a napkin. Fox News ratings soared to all-time galactic highs as commentators and Democrats speculated about whether the pie was duck, chicken, or something more sinister. The public might never know.

Suddenly General Daly felt ill with stomach pains. “Where’s the restroom?” he asked. “Your road-kill pie went right through me.”

“Sir, there are no restrooms,” answered Major Lopez, handing the general a smooth rock. “You’ll have to go native. The spiders go out by the creek.”

“That’s damned odd,” complained Daly, examining the smoothness of the rock. “What the hell?”

“Keep it,” replied Lopez. “I have plenty.”

“We recycle our rocks!” called out Stone-Claw as Daly dashed outside. “We practice green. Waste not, want not!”

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