"May I borrow your hankie, Sir? And some of that duct tape?"
"Why do you want my handkerchief, Little Missie?" the nice man inquired.
"With your permission, Sir, I shall tear your hankie in two, and then use the duct tape, which I see there in the pocket of your transparent suit jacket (cool style!), to affix the soft cotton, folded into absorbent pads, to my rosy cheeks, thus obviating the necessity of crossing the freeway to yon opthalmologist's office for a surgical procedure," Muffy explained, lifting a ruffle of her full skirt and with it wiping away some seepage, which was, incidentally, blessedly clear, and detracted not a whit from her charms.
The stranger found himself staring at Muffy's cheeks. It appeared to him, for just a moment, in the gathering dusk, that the moisture had a... a... luminous quality. Yes! Yes, Muffy's tears shone with an unreflected light! Bathing her cheeks was a mysterious, pulsating brightness.
The stranger felt briefly reverent, then forgot about it (temporarily) and handed Muffy the duct tape. "This tape is medical quality. It's for taping up supernumerary ducts and will solve the problem efficiently without a need for the hanky-pads. Surgery either."
"Will you apply the medical duct tape 'neath my pretty blue eyesie wyesies, Stranger?" Muffy inquired with a raucous guffaw underneath which lay a shy plaintiveness to which a less sensitive Stranger might have been unattuned... |
