HANDS HELD AT RELIGIOUS ANGLES

Tiny deposits of magic were contained in the tears of fairies and it was for this reason that any single zone bus transfer blessed by those tears would be transformed into a multizone pass. That is of course if you believed in fairies.

Tony stood by the bus stop with his hands jammed in his pockets. Apart from pimples and the blood coursing through his veins, there were few differences between the lanky, blank-faced boy and the stop-sign itself. Loose change jingled in either his right or left pocket.

Hearing the strange sound of tinkling, Tony looked down at the base of his non-breathing doppleganger. A fairy was supping on the pedals of a buttercup. An idea brought some unattractive intelligence to Tony's face.

"Excuse me. Mightn't you have the time ?" he asked the fairy with clumsy formality.

"Three-thirty. I think the next bus should be by in an hour," she responded through a mouth full of yellow.

Tony wracked his brains for the language used in fables of fairies and other such nonsensical stories. "Is this not a day sky-heated to inspire perspiration from the pours ?"

"Uhhh, yeah I guess."

"What it is I mean to say is that the sun brings to mind my father for I am his son."

"Yeah."

"My father was divested of a huge sum of money... once upon a time. One afternoon while he was golfing, the beast that he rode upon across the greens bit a small man in the head. The man was cunning and claimed that he was vacationing from his vocation of the monkhood and that the head-chomp would delay his returnance to his monastery. In court this so-called monk held his hands up like in our classical paintings of saints or crossing guards. In short he walked away with my fathers fortunes."

"Weird."

"Oh but that I wish I were enabled to retain this change in my pocket. It would help my father back upon his feet, knees and upper torso."

"Um yeah... okay... well good luck with that," the fairy said as she wiped her yellowed mouth on her sleeve. "Just hang in there and hey I've got one piece of advice for ya."

As she floated away on her gossamer wings she gave him her middle fairy finger.