Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Department

English

First Reader

Dr. Jay Curlin

Second Reader

Dr. Johnny Wink

Third Reader

Dr. Jeffery Sykes

Abstract

It's certainly rare to see people with animal heads while walking down the street, but it has been known to happen. On the occasions when a person does see someone with an animal head, they think something along the lines of, "Oh, what a quaint performer!" or something equally as posh and oblivious. Peter, however, was a man who didn't trust his own reasoning. Not if he could help it. So, when he happened to see a person with an animal head while walking down the street one fine Saturday, he paid attention. There it was, down the alley: a tall man in plain, amorphous clothes with a massive lizard head where his face should be. He seemed to be listening to the man who stood opposite him. This other was as big as a linebacker but, thankfully, human. Peter pretended to himself that he had gotten an itch in one of his eyes so he could justify rubbing them. When he opened them again, the man with the animal head was still there, animal head and all. From where he stood, Peter could hear the voices of the men in the alley. Rather, he could hear that they were speaking. The noises of the city kept him from hearing the words. He felt a miniature war rage in his gut. On one side, the soldiers of morbid curiosity. On the other side, nerves. Curiosity won in the end, however, and in an action with consequences Peter had no way of understanding, he edged into the alley and squatted behind a garbage can.

Included in

Fiction Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.