KIM SILVA

SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT

Her long neck is the pedestal for her very large head, the head called Jean. Jean has a satisfied, knowing look on her face, a lop-sided smile. A perky nose and a faint moustache. A breast with a nipple sticking out flows up from her right eye, like a balloon.

A hyena lady sits next to Jean. She stares at this pretty girl with the big head. The hyena lady's jaws gape open, showing her fangs. Spit drips from them. It makes a puddle on the floor. Thick gold necklaces circle her neck like inner tubes. She has green eyes and a pleated hand fan that is fastened to the top of her head.

On the other side of Jean is a rabbit. Front paws in the air, he sits on his haunches. One enormous eye takes up his whole face. His nose is an outstretched hand. It has long black fingernails. It looks like a weapon.

Jean is beside herself. She'd rather be sitting on a park bench alone. She'd rather be feeding wads of chewing gum to pigeons. She rolls her eyes. These people! They want so much from me! I've learned how to say no. I say no to everyone. I stay where I am, just saying no. I hardly give them the time of day. Yet still they come. This hyena lady just won't give up. She is so ugly I can't stand it. And that rabbit thing; very offensive with those spiky grasping fingers.

Jean doesn't realize she has spoken half of this out loud.

"But, Angel Puff, you live for the attention," says the hyena lady. "If no one bothered you, that smirk of yours would have nothing more to do. It would fall right off your pretty face!"

The rabbit speaks up. (His little paw dribbles the air.) "All I...I want is to talk about...

"n-n-new things. The hyena lady and I have...exhausted all our topics. There's n-n-nothing left for us... to say." His long spiky nose-fingers curl into a fist.

The hyena lady gazes over the top of Jean's head. The breast is waving like a blank cartoon caption out of Jean's eye. The nipple juts outward imperiously. The hyena lady says, "I'd like to suck that one."

Jean says, "Well, you can't. If you do, my balloon will pop and wither."

"Oh, but with that prominent nipple, it's delectable."

The girl rolls her eyes again. She says, "Alright, just once." She bends her big head with the breast ballooning out of her eye way over so the hyena lady can reach it with her greedy tongue. The hyena lady starts sucking the nipple. She says, "Umm ummm umm, so good." She makes smacking noises. Then the hyena lady begins to tremble and shake. She lets go of the nipple. She falls to the floor. There she moans and writhes. Green poison leaks from her mouth. Her body convulses. She is dead.

The rabbit looks at the girl and says, "There. Now we have something to talk about."

Kim Silva lives in Rhode Island with her musician husband and dog, Zelda.