Last Looks

Strolls Through Time and Space, by Michael Johansson

Gigi - “I'll Quit (feat. Owen Pallett)”

“I suppose in some ways I was asking to have my heart broken,” said looking blank, at the pitcher of lemonade on the table, covered in plastic wrap with an elastic band to keep out the flies.

“Dr. Nevsky, please,” said the young assistant, anxious in a fitted lab coat.

The two crouched in silence and dusted bones. Nevsky had stayed up late the night before arranging the bones in an order he thought indicated the shape and size of the new creature. Three long flat feet, two in the front and one way behind. The tail permanently between the legs, the head tilted ever to the ground, arms outstretched as if trying to fly or walk a tightrope. A large chest cavity, horns with joints, and a leftover bone, that Nevsky looked at for an hour or so. Eventually he laid in the larynx of the beast, and when questioned by the assistant, referred to it as “the screaming bone.”

“Dr. Nevsky, nothing has ever existed in history that looks like this.”

“I know,” he said, checking his watch, sweating, his mind elsewhere, “it's quite a find, isn't it?”

“Dr. Nevsky,” said the assistant, suddenly calm, and suddenly, finally, attractive, “I don't believe it is.”

Nevsky sighed and poured a glass of lemonade. [Buy]

- Dan Beirne