who?
december seventeen | five thirty post meridiem
Smacked around like a red-upholstered step-sofa
Out of the churning dust, a spray of fine red droplets. The animal's neck folded back on its haunch, then snapped. Within moments its belly was eviscerated, and slippery organs like eggplants in tomato sauce were eagerly gobbled up.
"He doesn't want to talk about it," J.'s face flickered in the glow from the television screen.
"Give him time," I said. J. and E. had just broken up - for the fourth time - and he was being sullen.
"Do you know what I think?" she asked, shifting in her chair to face me, feet tucked in. She turned the volume off. "I think that men are naturally silent, because long ago they were the hunters, and had to be quiet in order to stalk their prey. And women like to talk and gossip because they sat around back in the safety of the cave with the babies."
"Yeah."
"Sort of like the Flintstones," she smiled.
"No, I mean 'yeah', as in 'yes, that is a serious anthropological theory.' A century of scholary and scientific inquiry, and, faced with the mystery and grandeur of millenia of human evolution, that's the best most evolutionary psychologists can do: Leave It To Beaver in loincloths."
"Well then, I guess I'm a genius."
"You should write a book."