Quetzalcoatl stood upon the picnic table and began singing.
“Row, row, row your kayak, gently up the tree, hairily, fairily, bearily, life is but soup.”
The family situated around the picnic table stared up in disbelief.
Quetzalcoatl, garbed in a kilt and very little else, stood upon the picnic table with legs spread wide, braced against the gusting wind, and continued to sing at a significantly higher volume.
“Stow, stow, stow your crack, deeply in a nun, hairily, fairily, bearily, life is but a cup of minestrone and some oyster crackers!”
The adult members of the family situated around the picnic table—covering the eyes of the children situated around the picnic table—began ushering the younger members away from the picnic table, all the while continuing to stare up in disbelief.
Quetzalcoatl, garbed in a kilt and very little else, stepped in a bowl of potato salad.
“What the cheetahs?”
With his foot lodged firmly in the bowl of potato salad, Quetzalcoatl hopped off the picnic table and chased after the fleeing family.
“Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hay. You,” he said, pointing at the mother. “You there. Can you tell me where to buy stamps?”
The mother halted her flight just long enough to scrunch up her face and look confused.
“What?”
“Stamps,” repeated Quetzalcoatl, “I need stamps. Also, I seem to have put my foot into the squishy part of a plastic creature’s cranium. Was this your plastic creature? Have I killed your dingo?”
The mother’s face relaxed slightly. The confusion was still readily apparent, though.
“Uh, no. We don’t have a dingo. You did not kill our dingo.”
Quetzalcoatl suddenly leapt forward and grabbed the youngest child. He lifted the boy into the air and shouted, “Tell me why monkeys eat my cheese, small thing!”
The mother’s expression changed from confusion straight into horror. She resumed her fleeing, hastily ushering the remaining children across the park and into the family minivan. The father, meanwhile, charged at Quetzalcoatl, throwing around his fists and no end of unsavory language.
“Your roses smell unquestionably like donkey turds, sir,” replied Quetzalcoatl, still holding onto the boy while being punched repeatedly.
In an effort to end the beating, Quetzalcoatl tossed the child into the air, grabbed him by his ankles, and swung him at the father like a baseball bat. The boy’s back collided with the father’s head. The father was knocked to the ground. The boy wet himself.
Quetzalcoatl returned the boy to the ground and then knelt down, lining up his eyes with the child’s. He stared at the boy. He stared hard.
“I hate you, small thing,” he said.
The boy wet himself again.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” said the father, picking himself up off the ground and collecting his child.
“That is like a nurse murdering a rabbi,” replied Quetzalcoatl. “What you should be asking is, ‘What is wrong with me?’ How could an antelope possibly let a circus clown kill his dingo and then beat him with the stains on his sheets? You have been mauled by lions and will surely be forgotten by the etchings of cavemen everywhere.”
The father slung his urine-soaked child over his shoulder, flipped off Quetzalcoatl, and retreated to his minivan.
“You shouldn’t run with scissors!” counseled the former Aztec god, smiling and waving.
Quetzalcoatl heard a rustling sound behind him. He turned, expecting a pile of leaves and possibly some wind. Instead, he found a pudgy, unkempt man in a tattered blazer and even more tattered jeans. The man approached Quetzalcoatl.
“My name is Will,” said the man named Will. “I’d like to talk.”