pioneertown.

I am just sitting down to my Sunday stack of strawberry pancakes when a moose wanders into the kitchen. It comes right up the table. I offer it a pancake. The moose has no interest in the pancake, it is interested only in the big strawberry on top of the stack of pancakes. The moose cannot have the strawberry on top of the stack of pancakes. I have put the strawberry on top of the stack of pancakes just for me. Drizzled it lovingly with the thick corn syrup, whipped cream and fresh jam. The moose will not stop eyeing the strawberry. It lays its heavy head on the table. Its antler pokes me in the cheek. I place the strawberry on a plate and slice it right down the middle, half for the moose, half for me. But now there is a second moose in the kitchen, parked at the table next to the other. It too will not take its eyes off the strawberry. But I have already halved the strawberry. I cannot now divide it evenly into thirds. One of us is going to have to give up his slice of strawberry. I do not want to give up my slice of strawberry and I can see neither of the moose wants to give up his. This is the deadlock we come to. Unless, I think, a third moose were to appear. We wait, the moose, me, the moose. No third moose appears. A pile up of cars, meanwhile, is backed up out of the kitchen into the living room, through the glass sliders looking onto the yard. The drivers honk the horns. Roll down their windows and curse. One driver sticks up his middle finger and spits on the backs of moose. The exhaust fumes are suffocating. The moose are confused, as if just now realizing they are no longer in the boreal forest they were born. I wrap the slices of strawberry in a napkin and place them in my shirt pocket where they beat out-of-sync like the atria of a heart that has forgotten what it is to love.