One Hundred and Forty-one Post-its54—92

THE PICKLE FORK DOG

She woke up and there was a starling at the small, high window.

"I'm in a pickle," she said, and the deer on the hill agreed.

"I just need to learn how to be a horse again," she said, and renamed her dog Jones.

Jones's feet were a bouquet. She slang.commed "jones" and learned that it meant thing or problem. Also addiction, which was more like it. There wasn't much she wasn't addicted to, but she called her main addictions "The Four Things." Like in Buddhism.

While out doing one of The Four Things, she thought she saw a ghost.

"Is there such thing as a tree ghost?" she asked the crow in the road, who reminded her that the first animal she'd ever loved was a cat, get over yourself.

She knew ravenspeak and wolfsong, but she didn't know from goats or chickens or lambs, let alone llamas. Although it was obvious Charlotte was one pissed-off pig. You would be, too, if it happened to you.

"In the end," she sighed, collecting a stool sample, "we're all Gary Larson ladies."

Once she went to California and met a boy in a dish. Next she met a shepherd on a beach. Soon after, she was born again. Now she knew for certain there was a Dog.

"I don't know who has a harder time with change, me or Jones," she pondered, moving from chair to chair to get a different perspective.

In dog years, she was dead. Meanwhile, Jones bit her nails in the other room.

THE OTHER SHOE

They woke up and there was a baby on the doorstep. They named the baby The Other Shoe.

"Birth is a violent act," said the Accidental Mama, and the Accidental Papa quoted Shakespeare.

"Some people have motherhood thrust upon them."

God, or maybe it was Shakespeare, knew the number of hairs on The Other Shoe's head, but did He know the number of headlice? Aye, there's the rub.

The Accidental Mama eschewed the first Dr. Spock in favor of the second, who arched an eyebrow and cautioned that babies on the doorstep grow up to be teenagers on the roof. When this happened, the Accidental Mama took The Other Shoe shopping.

Eventually The Other Shoe overdosed on Abercrombie and called the cops. But not before swallowing enough Advil to stave off headaches for seven years.

"If you want a kid to be skinny," The Other Shoe said from her hospital bed, "name it Casey."

The Accidental Mama repaired to the belfry and Googled "portable morphine drip." When this didn't pan out, she turned around three times, laid down, and began rereading old childhood favorites. Halfway through "Scoundrels, Fiends and Human Monsters," she had an idea.

"HALFTIME!" she yelled, and started writing a memoir.

She called her memoir "Live Long and Prosper" and filled it with white lies. The Girl Who Died in the War, The Girl Who Danced with the Bears, The Girl with the Sewed-together Fingers. After five years, or maybe it was yesterday, she looked up.

"My daughter's gone to church," she lamented, "where have I failed?"

In the corner the piano began, by itself, to play.