9 — Jonathan Gans

“And now, my gen­teel sur­vivors of the genetic holo­caust, the news you have all been wait­ing for”, he spouted with a grandiose ges­ture of his left limb, the end of which ter­mi­nated in a sharp­ened stain­less steel hook.

“It is I, Per­ci­val Mercy who has finally resolved the rid­dle and I will share it’s res­o­lu­tion with you, a very cho­sen few rem­nants of the right­eous, who will soon be read­ied to receive the reward.”

“You’re going to resolve the rid­dle, Percy?” Eve asked, hang­ing on his good arm and smooth­ing over the long ape-like hair on the back of his hand.

“It is already done. Quite some time ago in fact. It was a remark­able rev­e­la­tion that rose its rear into my hori­zon one rare after­noon as I was wank­ing my weasel. But first I have to explain the conun­drum, my squash blossom”.

“But first? The conun­drum?” begged a sur­prised Eve. “But to do that you would have to spill the…”

“Yes, yes, my dar­ling egg­plant, I would have to spill the secret seed”

“And in doing so would you not also have to plunge into the pur­pose of the pajamagram?”

“I am ready, my honey mus­tard and may­on­naise. So long as the peo­ple are pre­pared to plump up for the plan.”

“And of course to slip on the sleeve of secrecy. Shall I start to steam the saf­flower suffusion?”

“You know me so well, my beloved broc­coli. And how it arouses me to be able to have arrived at this apex and ascended above the archaic apes”

“You were the orig­i­nal cho­sen one, my Mar­velous Mon­key Man”

The few dazed trav­el­ers remain­ing in their seats on the stricken air­ship had been watch­ing in silence this alpha­betic love duet unfold.

“Why have you brought us back here, you crazed cus­tard brain?” Mar­vin crowed in anger as he rose from his seat to chal­lenge this genetic junk­yard jughead.

“Set­tle down Old Man. You have no idea what I have in store for you.”

“Sup­pose I don’t want to know?”

“You can’t fight off the future for­ever, Mr. Mini Mojo”

“Now what’s that sup­posed to mean?’ sneered the insulted Marvin

“It means I have dis­cov­ered for you–old and weak as you are–and indeed for all men, what­ever their age, strength, viril­ity or vital­ity, What the War­rior Wants, the Elixir of Excal­ibur, The Golden Fleece of the new Gilded Age.”

“All I see out there is destruc­tion, you hairy her­mit. You have reduced to a rum­bling bub­ble in the ground that model civ­i­liza­tion of Boze­man, MT where the women were triath­letes, the men were excel­lent wait­ers, and all the chil­dren were poets on snow­shoes. Park­ing on Main Street may have been a prob­lem, but the fire hydrants worked and bears were free to roam in the parks”

“Oh ye of nar­row vision and dinky duration–tell me truly, what is it all men crave and wear them­selves out their whole lives through striv­ing end­lessly to attain?”

Mar­vin pon­dered, his fist to his chin for a moment. ” A sweater that fits? A tro­phy dog? A date with Sheryl Crow? Is this a test?

“No, no, no! You pathetic and puny, punked out prog­en­i­tor!” Ranted the pos­sessed Percy, now sil­hou­et­ted by the fad­ing sun in the door­way of the deflat­ing blimp. “You know the answer, you are only afraid to admit it!”

” Well I, I…” stam­mered Mar­vin, “I never thought that was real­is­ti­cally pos­si­ble, what you can’t pos­si­bly be talk­ing about…certainly not in my lifetime…you mean you’ve found…you’re able to…?”

At that moment just behind Percy appeared again the devoted Eve, hands cradling a bowl of some steam­ing con­coc­tion that smelled like Bouil­l­abaisse, a widen­ing and know­ing grin spread across her Hun­gar­ian cheeks.

“Yah, Yah and once again Yah,” she said, the steam from the saf­fron suf­fu­sion sur­round­ing Percy’s head and shoul­ders with an orange glow. “He can do it! And he gets bet­ter at it every day!”

“I lost my hand learn­ing how–wore it right to the bone!” cried out Percy. “But it was a small price to pay to be able to save men from an end­less sen­tence of pent up frus­tra­tion. But I watched and I prac­ticed and I learned from my new mas­ters. I saw how happy they were, how ful­filled their lives, how enthu­si­as­ti­cally they mounted one another and pro­cre­ated like chil­dren play­ing leap frog. I was a good stu­dent, Mar­vin, just as you taught me to be, and though I lost a hand, yes, but still I was rewarded and now I alone have the knowl­edge, the ancient secret unfolded to me that will change the course of evo­lu­tion and set us again on the right and rad­i­cal new path to mas­cu­line freedom!”

“You don’t mean…” stut­tered the aston­ished Marvin

“Yes, my friend,” shouted Percy, now in full prophetic frenzy. “You too can learn HOW TO MASTURBATE LIKE A MONKEY!