Unidentified Funny Objects 6, page 6
"Oh, I agree, I agree!" the lawyer exclaimed, lying. "But . . . in case she was devoured, would it be okay if I took her iPad?"
Really, they should have sold tickets to Give Leib a Klop in Kupf. It would have paid for two council picnics.
"Shh!" Pinchas put a halt to the crowd-pleasing zetz(24)-fest his son had provoked. "Listen."
24 Like klop, a healthy smack upside the head. You will notice there was no footnote for the first mention of klop. Given the delectable onomatopoeia of the word, I thought you had the sechel to get its meaning. (sechel: intelligence; brains; smarts.)
The sound of three voices wafted through the trees. The first was deep, gravelly, and unknown. The second was calm, upbeat, and immediately recognized by the council and Tanteh Ruchel.
"Gott sei dank(25), she's alive!" she cried.
25 "Thank God!"
The third voice was a high-pitched wail, as grating on the ears as it was miraculous to hear. "Fisheleh!" The child's mother raced toward the sound, oblivious to the chorus of frightened men behind her, begging her to stop, come back, be careful. As if that would hold her! She was into the trees and out of sight. They had no choice but to follow.
All right, so they had the choice to turn tail. As if! You try mishegas(26) like that with Tanteh Ruchel watching, I dare you! More proof that the men of Chelm might be fools, but they weren't stupid. (Yes, I know: Leib.)
26 Madness.
They burst from the forest en masse(27) and saw the abandoned mill before them, on the far side of a pond. There on the grassy bank sat Fishel, half-smothered in his mother's arms, but no longer yowling. There, too, sat Barbi. And there, three, sprawled a green-scaled, blue-winged dragon as big as the town hall.
27 What are you looking here for? If you can't tell the different between French and Yiddish vous avez bison de plus sechel, voyons donc!
"Hey, hi! What took you so long?" Chelm's newest citizen waved to her would-be rescuers and urged them to come closer. "It's safe, honest! This guy promised to stay on his best behavior, or else." She smiled at the dragon.
"Or else what?" asked a Doubting Tevye in the posse.
The dragon blew yellowish smoke from his nostrils. "The lady has had occasion to prove to me her expertise in the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga. It is not an experience I wish to repeat." He shifted uncomfortably on the greensward.
"It talks?!" said all the men at once.
"Yes, he does," Barbi shot back.
"It—I mean, he, understands us?" the rabbi asked.
"I understood you when I first arrived here," Barbi said. "No big deal—ich ken Yiddish(28). But you also understood me when I was speaking English. Unless you've got really good ESL classes in Chelm, I bet there's some kind of meshugga(29) hoodoo turning what we say into words the other person can comprehend."
28 "I understand Yiddish." And now so do you, a bissel. (See if you can figure this one out on your own. I believe in you!)
29 Crazy.
Rabbi Elfundtvelf shrugged. "The truth is, we've lived with that miracle for so long, we don't even think about it."
"I figured that if it worked for people, it might work for dragons. Not that I've ever met a dragon, but in some stories they do talk. It was worth a try."
"A successful try!" The rabbi was so pleased, you would have thought he'd been the one to do it.
"But if we heard everything she said as Yiddish, how come it was such a shock to hear her when she was actually speaking the mama loshen(30)?" Tanteh Ruchel asked.
30 The mother tongue, i.e. Yiddish.
"That is a very good question," the rabbi replied. "And I have a very good answer: who knows?" He turned his attention back to the monster. "So, Mister Dragon, if you're going to stay here in Chelm, we're going to have to set some conditions. Number one, no more eating people. This is also numbers two through infinity. We have plenty of nice goats, sheep, cattle, plus whatever wild beasts you find out here in the woods. Agreed?"
"Who are you to set conditions for me?" The dragon lifted his chin.
"Me? I'm nobody; just the rabbi, although I believe I'm speaking for the entire town council on this." The council immediately moved, seconded, and enacted into law the Desist Eating Humans Edict, though Mottel did attempt to attach a rider concerning his mother-in-law. It was a nice change of pace to have someone besides Leib earn a klop in kupf.
"Come on, big guy, don't be like that." Barbi nudged the dragon in a chummy way. "You know you want to be accepted here and make a new life."
"I should accept the beast that ate my Beynish?" Tanteh Ruchel had a prodigious ax to grind.
"What choice do you have? What comes to Chelm, stays in Chelm," Mottel reminded her. Everyone waited for him to tie this remark to his mother-in-law. He left them hanging. For a freelance reader of entrails, he was kind of a jerk(31). For an economic advisor . . . mnyeh.
31 Yutz.
"Um . . . that's not quite true," Barbi said. "The dragon didn't get sent here. He came voluntarily. He can leave the same way."
"We creatures of unfathomable enchantment travel where we will," the dragon informed all present grandly. "You ought to feel honored that your world attracted us. We suffered far too much persecution in our original home—"
"Look who's talking persecution," Leib muttered.
"—and wish to lead a peaceful life. If not eating one's neighbors is the rule here, we will abide by it. As a token of good faith, I herewith return the one called Fishel to you, uningested and untouched." He gestured with one huge claw at the child.
Barbi elbowed him a second time. "You big poser," she said, with a good-natured laugh. "You told me you never intended to devour that kid. Don't lie to your new landsleit(32). Let them know why you really grabbed Fishel."
32 Fellow townsmen or even countrymen. Singular: landsman.
"We wanted to adopt him, to add to our family." The dragon lowered his eyes. "We can't have children of our own."
"Wait, what, 'we'?" said Yona, who had brought a memo pad and was desperately trying to make the record keep up with events. "There's more of you? Oy! And why would two dragons want to raise a human child? He'd never fit in. There's more family resemblance between a gopher and a waffle iron!"
"Family resemblance isn't an issue," Barbi told him. She stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew a shrill whistle.
Right on cue, a dazzling ray of sunlight lanced into a nearby grove of evergreens which suddenly decided to grow both pinecones and cherry blossoms. As the pink and white petals tumbled to earth, they provided the only carpet lovely enough to welcome the dainty golden hooves of a milk-white unicorn. With a majestic gait, the ineffably lovely creature came to stand between Barbi and the dragon. Every human present felt the power of mystic glamour emanating from that vision of grace and starlight.
"Hi, baby. Daddy's home." He nuzzled the dragon's snout. "Everything okay here?"
It is said that the boom of so many jaws hitting the forest floor at once could be heard echoing above Chelm for days. One of the town's top entrepreneurs decided to capture the explosive sound in bottles and sell them to people who wished to jazz up their summer fireworks displays. He would have made a fortune if not for a batch of faulty corks.
What followed ushered in a fresh era for Chelm. Beyond the initial shock, there were no negative reactions to the new couple's relationship. Living in a town located within a fragment of folklore was not an orthodox situation, so neither were the main spiritual practices of the populace. Some were more ready to welcome the pair than others, but no one had a selective memory lapse when it came to recalling the words of Deuteronomy 10:19(33).
33 Look it up.
The dragon kept his word and did not eat any more human beings. He submitted himself to the judgment of the court regarding an appropriate punishment for his three initial crimes, namely one count of kidnapping and two of manslaughter/mandigestion. Luckily, like all reputable fire-wyrms, he possessed a vast treasure hoard which he had transported to Chelm with no respect for the laws of physics because ooooh, MAGIC! He was allowed to atone for his crimes by giving each of the plaintiffs enough riches to render even Tanteh Ruchel speechless.
Justice having been done, nothing prevented the dragon and his unicorn partner from becoming an accepted part of Chelm society. The latter was a homebody, but didn't mind if his beloved maintained separate interests. The dragon proved to be a gregarious creature who enjoyed a heavy philosophical discussion as much as any college sophomore. He debated law with Leib Draykup, discussed feminism with Barbi, and spent his happiest hours in conversation with the rabbi on the subject of faith.
This led to . . . complications.
"Oy, how do you circumcise a dragon?" Leib groaned.
"Carefully," said Pinchas, master of the deadpan delivery.
"Rebbe, are you one hundred per cent sure that he wants this?" Yona's hands were shaking so badly that when it came time to translate the minutes from shorthand, it appeared that the dragon was a candidate for circumnavigation.
"He wants to convert. He said so. I rejected him three times, as one must, but he was adamant. He has studied our ways and can read Hebrew better than many of you. He has attended services at our synagogue conscientiously." He gave Dr. Zoydmacher a hard stare. "On my head be it. I will be the one performing the procedure since our previous mohel(34), Reb Nakamura Kenshin passed away last month, olev hasholem(35)."
34 A man who performs ritual Jewish circumcisions. A person my Dad used to refer to as "the Yankee Clipper." I miss you, Dad!
35 "May he rest in peace."
"We're going to need a bigger mikvah(36)," Mottel said, referring to the ritual bath that was part of the conversion ceremony. "We can't afford to build something like that!"
36 Again, you're looking down here? It says "ritual bath" right in the same sentence!
"So we'll use a lake."
"Who will be the sandek(37)?" Yona asked. "Who could possibly hold a dragon on his lap?"
37 A person (usually male) who either passes the infant (male; d'uh) to the mohel or in some cases holds the child on his lap throughout the circumcision. In which case, give that man a drink!
The rabbi sighed. "That would be a difficulty only if we were discussing an infant's bris(38). Sandek means 'companion to the child.' Which you'd know if you studied as much Hebrew as our dragon, who is no child."
38 Jewish covenant of circumcision, also called brit milah.
"He's a reptile," the physician said. "I kept a pet snake when I was a lad. There's a very interesting detail about their male generative organs: they have hemipenes."
Look it up.
Oh, never mind. It means eyn shmekeleh, tzvey tsveygn(39).
39 One male generative organ, two branches. In this case, the Yiddish word for the male generative organ is not just a diminutive, but a diminutive of a diminutive! Used to affectionately describe said organ when it belongs to babies, toddlers, and very young boys. Weaponized to describe said organ when it belongs to a teenaged or adult male who has ticked you off.
Now look it up!(40)
40 By which I mean See footnote 39, above. (I'm spoiling you, amn't I?)
"I looked it up," Dr. Zoydmacher continued. "As far as I could learn, it's the same for all male snakes and lizards. Which of the two gets—?" He made snipping motions with two fingers.
"Dealer's choice," said the rabbi dryly.
"He can't convert!" Leib was losing it. "He's—he's—he's a reptile! He's trayf(41)!"
41 Not kosher.
"Were you planning to eat him?" newly appointed council member Barbi King asked archly. "That would end the transportation service he's been running for us."
(The service to which she alluded took advantage of the dragon's ability to shuttle between Chelm and the commonplace reality of Terra. With Barbi on board to deal with the hands-on part of their visits, they were able to bring back gobs of the latest merchandise. No longer did the people of Chelm need to await the random contact of their shtreimel with earth's cat hair! It also allowed Barbi to tidy up her personal finances, pay her bills, break her lease, and let friends and family know her new address, though future correspondence would be email-only.
Why didn't she choose to get off the dragon and stay in the world of her birth, you ask?
To which I answer: have you seen this place lately? Better a home where the fools mean well than one where the "wise" mean wickedness.)
"Ha, ha, very funny." Leib was as petulant as a thwarted toddler. "That's no solution to the big problem, namely circumcising—"
"All it will take is drawing one drop of blood. It's an acceptable practice where the convert can't be circumcised in the usual way, for whatever reason." Barbi stood up from the council table. "And I'll do it."
"You? But you're—you're—"
"—a mohel." She smiled. "Actually, a mohelet(42). I'd just gotten my certification when I was shtreimeled(43) here. I would have said something sooner, but I didn't want to step on anyone's toes if you already had a mohel."
42 A female mohel. They exist! And why shouldn't they? Who are you to decide?
43 Neologism ahoy!
The dragon's conversion went without hitch or glitch. The event became a double celebration, with many a heartfelt mazel tov(44) for the guest of honor and his unicorn partner as well as for Chelm's new mohelet. The whole town was present, as were a number of beings from the dragon's original world. Although the hostile atmosphere of that place had driven the heterogeneous couple to leave, not everyone from back home was a schmuck.
44 No. Absolutely not. I refuse to believe you don't know this one. Do something yourself, for once, you nogoodnik!
Oh, so that word you know?
Rabbi Elfuntvelf was watching Tanteh Ruchel doing the Chicken Dance with a pixie when Barbi found him. "Having a good time, rebbe?" she asked.
"We all are, thanks to you," he replied. "I've been having the most fascinating conversations with some of our visitors. That gray one with the wings over by the punch bowl said he wants to learn more about Judaism, too, maybe consider conversion. He'll be coming to see me for lessons. Even if he doesn't turn out to be dedicated, at least he'll be educated! And if he does hang in there when I try to turn him away—" The rabbi chuckled. "How do you feel about circumcising a goblin?"
Barbi stared at the creature Rabbi Elfundtvelf was talking about. She blanched. That was no goblin: that was a gargoyle. Every step it took left a six-inch deep depression in the ground, as you might expect from a grotesque, animate statue whose body was one hundred per cent solid granite.
"We're really gonna need a bigger mikvah," she muttered. "And a chisel."
Nebula Award winner Esther Friesner is the author of over 40 novels and almost 200 short stories. She is also a poet, a playwright, and the editor of several anthologies. The best known of these is the Chicks in Chainmail series that she created and edits for Baen Books. The sixth book, Chicks and Balances, appeared in July 2015. Deception's Pawn, the latest title in her popular Princesses of Myth series of Young Adult novels from Random House, was published in April 2015.
Esther is married, a mother of two, grandmother of one, harbors cats, and lives in Connecticut. She has a fondness for bittersweet chocolate, graphic novels, manga, travel, and jewelry. There is no truth to the rumor that her family motto is "Oooooh, SHINY!"
Her super-power is the ability to winnow her bookshelves without whining about it. Much.
Twenty-Nine Responses to Inquiries about my Craigslist Post: Alien Spaceship for sale. $200, you haul.
Tina Connolly
No, I don't know what "galaxy far, far away" it's from. This isn't Star Wars, dude. I just woke up and found it crash landed in my backyard. That's literally all I know about it.
Sorry, no pictures. It's got some kind of force field that makes my phone go wonky. Like, when I went out last night to see if it had damaged my climate-controlled greenhouse I swear my phone said 1:11 am, and I remember because I thought that was a funny time for weird things to happen. And then a few minutes later my phone said 3:15. So I dunno, weird force field.
No, it won't fit in your roadster.
Nor your cargo bike.
Don't you know anyone with a pickup truck? Or maybe two pickup trucks and like a lot of rope?
Yeah, you might need a crane. BUT I'm not letting anyone in my backyard with a crane. I am a master horticulturist with a very important garden experiment that this damn saucer crash-landed into. I lost three of my best specimens and the remaining dozen are really agitated.
Look, maybe get twenty friends to help you lift around the saucer edges? I'm spitballing here.
IDK, maybe you know a bunch of frat boys or something. I don't know your life.
If that's the way you're going to be, I'm moving onto the next responder. Don't come over here or I'll sic my ten-foot Venus flytraps on you. Next!
No, I won't take $50.
Nor "$55 and some really killer weed."
I do think $200 is reasonable, actually. It's going to cost me twice that to repair the damage to the flytraps' greenhouse. Next!
I guess you could turn it into a Tiny House??? Good luck getting a permit for it without any windows though.
No, I didn't call the police, the FBI, or the CIA. I don't need the government poking around my backyard, thank you very much.
I didn't say I was on the run from anybody or that I might be wanted in several states for bio-engineering giant man-eating plants. I don't care what you googled.
Look, do you want it or not?
Everyone so far is a flake. Are you a flake? Because if you're a flake you can flake off right now. My Venus flytraps are going nuts snapping at this thing and I really want it gone. It's time for their steak dinner.
