Tuesday
Peg
Erik Wennermark
Peg walked up to Jim and kicked him in the shin.
"Ouch!" Jim said.
"Boo!" Peg said, thumbs hanging in his belt loops like a cowboy.
Jim turned, startled, searching the surrounding walls. They were bare and white, the ceiling low. It felt safe and familiar. Whew, Jim thought, that was close. He looked at Peg. "Thank you," he said. He smiled at Peg. Peg looks like me, Jim thought, except more so. Jim smiled bigger. Peg smiled back and kicked Jim in the other shin.
"Ouch!" Jim said.
"Boo!" Peg said, stifling a yawn.
Jim spun around. "Where are you?" he screamed. "Why are you doing this? I do not, we do not, deserve this! Stop!"
Peg put his hand on Jim's shoulder in a consoling manner. "How's the leg?" Peg asked. Jim reached down and touched his shin, dabbing at the small trickle of blood.
"Not so good," Jim replied.
"I understand," Peg said grimly, picking his teeth with the corner of an embossed business card.
A quiet smile creased Jim's face and Peg smiled back brightly, reaching his hand into Jim's pocket. Peg searched around, his fingers caressing Jim's leg through the fabric, and took Jim's dimes and quarters. Peg paused, searched around still more, and took Jim's nickels and pennies. Peg gave Jim's balls a little squeeze.
"Hey!" Jim said. "What's the big idea?"
"Boo!" Peg said, and spit contemptuously at a passing postal worker.
Jim fell to the ground, hands clasped around his head, terrified and shivering. He thought of his wife, his children, his future grandchildren, his own mother and father. Jim's eyes began to tear. Jim thought of Peg. Peg is strong, Jim thought. I must be strong. I must show resolution. Jim collected himself. He raised his head and asked Peg, "Are they gone?"
"No," Peg said, cleaning the corner of his eye. "They will never be gone. They will always be here. But I am here too. And I will protect you."
"God bless you," Jim said. "God bless you."
Note: Originally published in June 2012, Metazen.
Author's Note
This is a pretty old one, 2004, that I didn't send around until several years later. I was working at the amazing, wonderful, beautiful Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore Maryland at the time I wrote "Peg" and it was the morning after George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in the U.S. presidential election. The mood in the library was grim, my colleagues and I trudging about listlessly through the stacks. How could this be? The first time was a mistake, larceny even, surely, but this time? Was it really possible? Peg appeared from the ether to answer my questions. I don't remember why he was named Peg -- round peg, round hole or something.
Erik Wennermark writes prose in Hong Kong. He is following the current presidential campaign from afar with a mix of bemusement, chagrin, and hilarity.
FF.Net Editor Commentary (Randall Brown)
And so it begins: "Peg walked up to Jim and kicked him in the shin." Without history or explanation, out of nothing & into something, such story beginnings can give flash its immediacy, that idea of something alit, burning, burning, but only for the briefest of moments. And where will this kick lead? How do we go from an unexpected kick in the shin to that final "God Bless You?" In between, there's that trickle of blood. There's a prayer for strength. There's Peg, the attempt to fit the unfit.
