Uncle Sam - flash fiction

Uncle Sam


Sam's next-door neighbor was a six-legged horse. She had a little pet dog, a dachshund. It spoke five languages and had a degree in feline studies. She said her husband had seven legs; I believe he had lost one in The War.

Sam had a half a passel of cats, mostly front halves. The front-half cats wouldn't have anything to do with Sam's neighbor, the horse. The ass-half cats wouldn't look her in the face, but they were otherwise on good terms.

Sam was a wyvern with a flexible tongue, or so he explained to all and sundry. (Sundry was the kids who hung around the old-cars home in the unmowed field by the subsidized housing units.) Everyone knew Sam's tongue was prosthetic, but they were cognizant of his faux-lingual sensitivity. Only the crowbits persisted in harping on it whenever the Philharmonic tuned out in farce. Sam never attended their concerts and, out of loyalty, neither did horse-lady.

This caused some friction. Her heptapedal husband was the chief woodwind, a bassoonist, and he missed his wife. Her relations with Sam caused so much friction that five out of six in her next litter were winged, and four were scaled. The horse husband whipped out his wooden leg and gave Sam what for. His wife left him; the heptahorse succumbed to drink; Sam disappeared for parts unknown, taking his cats; and, over the next weeks, the houses were stripped by all and sundry.

--

No one lives there now, but scaly pegasi occasionally visit by moonlight, and play games in the tall grass.


end