Pixel-stained Techno Greetings
Waiting for Epiphany
“Shhhhh. I think the baby’s finally asleep, thank God”
“Thank God, yes. Who else should I be thanking?”
“Don’t start that again. I didn’t ask for this. I told you I nearly plotzed when I got the news. And with brass trumpets, yet, as if I’m deaf. A whole span measure of millet I dropped, and does he help me pick any of it up? He does not. Angels. Dance all night on the head of a pin, but when there’s ordinary work to be done they can’t be bothered.” Despite the words, her eyes grew soft, remembering. “Anyway, you must admit he’s a beautiful boy.”
“I admit, I admit! He’s beautiful, yes. A little too beautiful, if you ask me, when a man can’t get in his own door for all the idlers crowding around, trying to get a look at his son.”
“Oh, you can’t grudge them, Yosef! They’re only poor dumb animals, after all.”
“Dumb? Dumb? I should be so lucky! They only shut up when he goes to sleep! His peace they care about, never mine. Did the angel warn you about that? Talking animals at all hours?! I will be gray before I’m thirty Miryam, a graybeard at my age! And the camels. They drool on him.”
“Always with the kvetching. If the baby doesn’t mind a little camel drool, what does it matter to you? Go make yourself useful and throw out his bath water.”
“Bath water? What, that basin of wine? I sold it to the landlord. What he charges the guests when he resells it, I don’t want to know. Old bandit. Still, I’ve made him promise to give us the next room that opens up. A real bed again, that would be something. Let the camels try and drool on us then, hah? So, what’s for supper?”
“Bagels and lox.”
“Again? Oy, enough already with the bread and fishes. What do you say to leg of lamb, or a nice grilled camel steak? They’ll never miss just one. The surly, spavined beast drools like a fountain. She’d be better off as supper, the old wreck…”
“Yosef! You and your jokes. It’s not funny at all! There! Go see who that is knocking at the door.”
“It’s an ox, a lamb, and a kid with a drum. What should I do?”
“Let them in, of course! They’re our guests. Ask the boy if he wants a nice pumpernickle bagel with schmear. I’ll cut him a slice from the fattest part of the lox, too.”
“All right, already, all right! I'm coming! Come in, kid, hurry it up. You’re letting in the cold. But I’m warning you right now, no drumming, you got it? No drumming! One rum-pah-pum, and you're out on your ear.”
Copyright 2010 Ulrika O'Brien