Did you ever see that Tex Avery
cartoon where the cat accidentally
eats a bag of Mexican jumping beans
and its head goes bouncing all over
the place?
That's how I felt on the Saturday afternoon
I discovered a Paynim in my closet.
I was looking for an old bottle of
Turtle Wax for my bowling ball
in the hall closet when I caught
a stealthy movement out of the
corner of my eye.
I pounced on it immediately,
thinking it might be a pesky
inner tube moth --
but instead it was a Paynim,
trembling like a leaf.
Recoiling in surprise, I
fell over some croquet mallets
and got entangled in a sinister
green badminton net.
By the time I had extricated myself
the Paynim had zipped out of the closet
and was up on the fireplace mantel
in the living room, next to the Shelf Elf.
Trying to blend in, no doubt.
But I wasn't fooled for a minute.
I glanced out the picture window a moment,
to let my eyes readjust to the light.
Snow was being shaken from the sky
like salt.
Then I turned back to the Paynim.
"I suppose you have a name" I asked.
"My name is Hooghly" said the Paynim.
"Like the river?" I asked.
"No, like my father -- who was
also named Hooghly, as was
his father before him" the little
Paynim said. He put a companionable
arm around the Shelf Elf,
who was looking distinctly uncomfortable.
Just then my therapist came in.
She often drops in through the trap door
I've installed in the roof.
"What do you see next to that Shelf Elf?"
I asked her.
"Well" she replied slowly
"I see a lovely holiday wreath next to your
Shelf Elf, and a framed photograph of
Winston Churchill, and what looks like
an opened box of peanut brittle."
"Nothing else?" I asked her.
"Not really, no" she told me.
The Paynim made some frantic gestures,
which I ignored; instead I went over to gaze
out the picture window again. Then I said:
"The snow drifts down like a lift net, doesn't it?"
I heard the Paynim jump off the mantel and run
over to me. He took my hand.
"And we are all little fish that will be hauled
gently up to heaven for sorting and canning" said
the Paynim quietly.
"I believe in myself" said my therapist happily.
And out in the yard the snowman's carrot nose,
which had been gnawed away by squirrels,
was made whole again.
