Dr Jew

nearly a month. The dog people barked and whined. Alger and I laughed and rolled in a pile of money.
    Then the instructions to modify them surfaced on the internet. They showed people how to change Dog Away to blow up children (and some adults with extremely good hearing). The hack spread fast – some said it was an al-Qaeda ploy – as if no one else dislikes American children! – and we had to get them off the market.
    I, of course, had no knowledge beforehand of this new, malignant use for Dog Away, but no one got away unscathed. Alger and I were labeled child-haters for a brief spell. It was rough, but I'd lived long enough to know the public is fickle and would soon forget. And they did. I designed a chemical sweater for the corporate sector and got my image rebranded. And shortly thereafter I transitioned into the quieter, medical life once more. Alger went on with his movie reviews. Life goes on. That's show biz, kid.
    However, I still keep a Dog Away on my keychain to this day, and I 'm guessing Alger does too.
    I suppose this is a metaphor for something.

V.

    2012.
    "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen TV?"
    "What?"
    At the edge of a cornfield, a grasshopper the size of a grenade sat on a seventeen-year-old's arm. The boy's eyes were big and blue like tropical ocean water and they saw only what was before him, nothing more. I say boy but only in reference to his age and experience. In size he was a colossus, barrel-like. He wore dark blue overalls and filthy tennis shoes without socks. His dark hair had recently been cut – hacked might be the better word – and his face was showing a splenetic growth of manly hair, uneven as anything in the boy's existence. He chewed an unknown substance to displace energy that might otherwise go towards something destructive or useful. He was fascinated by the huge grasshopper on his arm and as with most things in his life, he wanted more. He snapped a paw onto a leg of the grasshopper. The insect struggled in the grip of the monster and the boy lifted it up to his face to watch it squirm. In doing so, he was too rough for the bug's constituency and the leg he held remained in his grasp as the grasshopper unintentionally parted from the squeezed limb. The grasshopper fell to the ground and flitted away. The boy looked at the leg that remained between his fingers.
    "I… killed it," he said.
    There was a man in a white suit too.
    "Ridiculous," said the man. "It will grow a new leg. And if it doesn't, who cares? Damn bugs get in your way you smack 'em aside. One less bug in the world."
    "I didn 't mean to," said the boy.
    "Sure you didn 't. You wouldn't hurt a thing. You're just a swan in the body of a dinosaur."
    "What is a swan?"
    "Shucks, boy, that's what you are. Just a great big ol' gorilla swan. Anyway, let's get you out of here. We're going on a trip.
    The boy was suspicious. "Where are we going?"
    "We 're taking a little vacation. A trip out west away from this cornfield prison you been living in. Say, have you ever been to the city, boy?"
    "I been to Memphis with ma."
    "Well ain't that great. Well, I tell you what – we're going to another city called San Francisco. It's exactly like Memphis except not really and on the ocean. Now don't that sound great?"
    "I don 't know."
    " I don't know , he says. Shit, boy, you don't know how sweet the honey is till you taste it. Let's get you packed up. C'mon."
    The thin man walked musclelessly toward a small plain house opposite the cornfield and the boy came after him like a pet. Inside the house they packed clothes into a suitcase.
    "Alright, we 're all set. Let's get a move on and we can catch an afternoon flight."
    "In an airplane?"
    "No, in a flying saucer! Hell yeah, boy, in an airplane. We'll be in San Francisco by tonight."
    "Okay." The boy thought this over. "Uncle Dave?"
    "What?"
    "I don't think I should go."
    "Why in hell not? Don't tell me you're afraid to fly in an airplane."
    "It 's ma I'm thinking about. She's still sick."
    For the first time the man hesitated before speaking to the boy. "Aheh. Your ma… well, I imagine a few days without you she'll be okay. We got her in the best hospital in town, the best hospital in the world, I dare say. We'll have you back before you know it and just imagine how happy she'll be to see you when you get back and all the stories you'll have to tell her."
    "We 'll just be gone a couple days?"
    "Prob 'ly, yeah. And don't tell me we went and packed