"Give me that paint brush,"
he says, "I need it."
"I'm using it," his brother
says back, not looking up from his tableau.
"I have to finish coloring in her
hair, and I need the fine brush."
"I'm using it."
"You're using it to color in the
sky. Use a bigger brush. You don't need the smallest brush we have to
color in the sky. And anyways, your whole painting is sky, and
you're using the big paper. I'm telling mom."
"You're such a cry-baby. First of
all, it's not the sky; it's a neo-constructivist critique of the
imaginary of perspective. I'm not just slathering paint all over the
goddam place like some wannabe Rothko. Secondly your absurdist
portrait of that matronly ideal is such a post-classical joke it's
laughing at itself. Just being in the same rec room as you is
inhibiting my creative energies," the boy with the small brush
says calmly.
"Your totalitarian sensibilities
are trampling on my expressionist freedom. You wouldn't recognize an
enlightened study of hyper-modern realia if it was defined for you on
urbandictionary and carved into your forehead with shards of
reflective glass."
"Whatever. That didn't even make
sense. Just get that trash out of my field of vision before your
compositional retardation damages my sensory organs."
"Mooooommmmm!"
"Shut your filthy traps; I don't
want to hear it," Mom shrieks from her bedroom upstairs.
"Great, look what you did,"
he says glibly.
His brother hisses at him in a
vehement whisper, "You're the little bitch who is coloring in
the sky with the tiny fucking little brush, when you might just as
well dunk the whole sheet of paper into a can of Sherwin-Williams."
"Your horse-faced abomination is
a crime against humanity. Why don't you put it on your blog and let
the rubes comment on it? Maybe your stupid fat mom can tell you it's
beautiful," his brother retorts in a hushed bark.
"We have the same mom,
shit-for-brains. All I want is the little brush for a few minutes. I
don't want to escalate this disagreement into a conflict, or resort
to bringing this matter up before governing bodies of limited
effectual authority."
"Me neither, so just cool your
jets. The last thing either of us needs is another round of
disciplinary sanctions from the imperialist overlords. Furthermore,
resorting to conflict is barbaric, and it would be geo-political
suicide for you to rely on your limited offensive capabilities."
"This display is pathetic. You
know as well as I that the last time negotiations broke down between
us, you were pitilessly savaged and were compelled to acquiesce to
humiliating terms of surrender, including the loss of significant
material wealth, not to mention the famous 5:4 computer time
compromise."
"'Savaged' is just the
word I would have chosen. You attacked me completely unprovoked and
without any warning, in brash violation of the standing cease-fire
agreement between us, and in defiance of international condemnation.
You demonstrated yourself to be a brutish thug with less regard for
the rules of war and basic human rights than a pol-pot dictator.
"The memory of the oppressed is
long and filled with bitterness. But let it be known that your
aggression has not been forgotten, and that I hold you in no higher
regard nor consider you as any less likely to lash out again than a
rabid raccoon," he intoned solemnly.
"What was that? Was that
even English?" Maybe I can find an Idiot-English bilingual
interpreter to help me understand you."
"Maybe I can find you a remedial
English tutor to help you learn your mother tongue."
"Shut the fuck up, you fucking
retards. Put your shoes on and get in the truck," Mom shouts
down the stairwell.
"Fuck: haircuts."
