Pull-Through (or "It Took Me Five Days")

It seems to always be the men with the biggest belt buckles who have the widest-brimmed hats. Perhaps you have noticed this. Perhaps you have also noticed that there is a greater pressure exerted upon those belt buckles than upon other belt buckles. Whether or not this is just a function of physics remains to be seen.

There was one particular fellow with a wide-brimmed hat and a large belt buckle that wandered into myth (his ears didn't get to itching – he just had wandered into myth. I know that you are expecting me to give you his name so that you can keep track of him. I refuse to accommodate your desire in this case. I will refer to him as Puller, for he was very good at pulling, and most people that he knew would refer to him behind his back as their friend “who is good at pulling.” If someone needed something pulled, they would go to him. They would fly to his side and request that he pull. “Pull,” they would cry, “pull!”

Puller wore his wide-brimmed hat to conceal a balding pate (no one calls it that anymore, you know), and to shade his eyes from the glare of the radioactive sun. When the winds blew hot and fierce, likewise, he would pull the brim down just a little bit, so as to offer some protection from sun and blowing sand. The wide-brimmed hat was a beauty, all right, encircled with a ht band made of woven calf intestine. When Puller told people about the hat band, he would pronounce the word “intestine” with a hard accent on the second syllable, and would make the third syllable rhyme with “fine.” What a riot. Fun for the whole family, that crazy, crazy Puller is.

Puller stepped out of his cocoon to watch the dance of the mitzi-puffon ballerina fairies one intensely windy day. The samite gowns that adorned the fairies' bodies blew in the hot, dry wind, and offered little protection from the elements for their fair, fair skin. Puller noticed this and offered each one of them a small suit of glittering armor, which they declined to a fairy. Puller laughed ad shook his head, thinking them foolish. More than foolish, they were immune, you might say, to such ravages.

Mitzi-puffon ballerina fairies are stronger than you think.

With a rough and calloused hand the sketchy Puller reached out to stroke a fairy, which was not allowed (but Puller had no way of knowing this, as you could imagine). As he opened his had the dry, dry skin cracked open so that red, sore flesh could be seen underneath the epidermis. A slow trickle of blood began to issue from the cracks in the proud flesh, and it dripped onto a samite gown. Tragedy of tragedies.

(Let me mention, by way of my patented aside, that samite is difficult to wash. Further, it is symbolic of a purity mostly unseen these days, and so for a trickle of blood to stain such a pristine piece of fabric would naturally dredge up thoughts of similar inconsistencies. Blood on a white sheet. Nails through pure, innocent flesh. An ensign before the entire world. The moon in a sun-dappled sky. The sun appearing at midnight.)

(For the night is as clear as the day.)

(As one said.)

Puller paused. He dropped to a knee and watched his blood drip onto the sand beneath his holy, holy boots. The mitzi-puffon ballerina fairies all flitted away and disappeared. Puller was left by himself – aloone with the wind, alone with the sun, alone with the sand. Alone with his belt buckle and wide-brimmed hat.

And a perfect red heifer.