"Beyond Smelling Salts"
Out past the mud flats, past the salt flats, lay the smelling salts.
Word was, only one man kept a level head in parts reputed more monstrous
than evil itself. Harold was his name. Snakes
were his game. He played to win. He lived underground, and never
ate tuna melts on dark rye with dijon mustard. His other name was
Gige, the dark hearted. He fed on beetle feces, and had become the biggest
fan of Steve Martin the world had ever known. Which is how he got into snakes.
Adventurously, Chris and her stupid kid brother
thought Harold would like some sandwiches. They trotted out with their sacks,
and stepped right into a nest of hatching eggs. He cursed
and the salt snakes came rippling up the dune.
They ran, panting wildly, tripping over tumbleweeds.
When they came down off the salt high, Harold cried 'Doh!' flagellating himself
on the head, but missed. She picked up the vials and frantically
snorted each one, but, nothing. She could smell Harold's silent but deadly
snakes, and knew she had to make it to the tree fort soon, or she
would start having flashbacks. Harold was somewhere close, draining her hope.
But with an incredible stroke of luck, the mouth of a cavern
opened in front of him and swallowed him whole. He surfaced a week
later, corpse gaseous, until he was resuscitated and the
fever had spent itself. He'd never recovered, and it always affected his
sense of taste. He couldn't savor salt anymore, so all that was left was to
watch that woman who turns out to be a salt-sucking monster on classic Trek.
Meanwhile Chris had escaped the snakes, but not the fame. Stepping
into the cruiser, flashbulbs popped. A mother sobbed. Only
Chris knew why, add she wasn't smiling.
A small child clutching a blanket
wanted to know if they had really seen a salt diamond down
in the deeps of the mines that was as big as the head of a really big man,
and would they go back?
Chris, wondering why her kid brother was suddenly here again, started answering, but
Papa interrupted, "I've heard enough!" He growled,
"Pass the Smelling Pepper!"
