Keep the Giraffe Burning by John Sladek

Author:John Sladek [Sladek, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781587154195
Publisher: Gollancz; Orion Publishing Group
Published: 1977-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

THE POETS OF MILLGROVE, IOWA

Throw Away That Truss

The Astronaut was almost happy about having decapitated a mole while shaving. He’d always wanted to use one of those peculiarly shaped patches that come in the Bandaid assortment. But when he dug down in the flight bag and came up with the tin box, he found it empty.

‘Jeanne,’ he muttered.

‘What?’ Jeanne spread a drop of enamel on her toenail and thrust out her foot to inspect it.

‘Did we carry an empty tin Bandaid box all the way from California?’ Without waiting for the obvious answer, he went into the bathroom, stuck a piece of toilet paper over the wound, and began brushing his teeth electrically. The noise cut off the radio’s words from the bedroom, and he found himself alone with his face.

The Astronaut’s face, if shaved by a Gillette blade, could have aroused bubbles of admiration from the head of an oil millionaire’s daughter: ‘Hmmm, not bad-looking, either!’ (But not, he thought, with a piece of bloody toilet paper glued to it.) It featured a square, pink jaw terminating in a chin like a ripe apricot, superbly cloven. His nostrils were slightly flared, sensing danger, his eyebrows seriously straight and incapable of mockery, and his forehead – whatever a forehead should be – intelligent, he guessed. Even his teeth were proper reminders of death, orderly rows of military tombstones.

Today, however, his face showed classic lines of ‘nervous tension’. He and Jeanne had travelled two thousand miles to his home town, where he was born but not raised, so that he could give his speech at the Millgrove Harvest Festival. So that Jeanne could paint her nails and worry about losing her tan. His own tan was turning yellow, he noted, unplugging the razor.

‘– a modern miracle!’ the radio blurted.

The Astronaut rolled deodorant under each arm and behind his knees.

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