“Dear Woody,”

 

I Began.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Short Fiction

 

 

By

 

David A. Archer

02/15/1968

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

09/26/2006

 

 

 

 

 

No, really.. I was a normal kid.  I couldn’t begin to tell you where it all started, doc… so I guess I should start with last night.

 

I was shocked really… in so many words, you know.  There I was.. asleep.  I couldn’t believe it, but I was actually asleep.  I knew this because my dreams get really weird, really fast.

 

Anyhow, before I knew it at was at that grandiose writing desk… you know the kind, those old fashioned type that you see in mall windows and old people’s houses from when their kids totally have exhausted every other gift idea for someone they have been buying gifts for forty years…that kind that rolls up in the front and still has the ink well hole that no one knows what it is for….

 

Like I was saying... this one was huge.  So big that the sound of it when I rolled it up was more like some medieval torture rack than a wooden cover.  It creaked and groaned like a draw bridge.

 

Then it dawned on me.  It suddenly bore a striking resemblance to a hippopotamus coffin.

 

Don’t ask me what a hippopotamus coffin would look like… because I haven’t ever seen one… but this one was definitely similar I am sure…

 

So I’m creaking the cover open and I see her leg.  Gorgeous leg....I knew it had to be a blonde… but it was just one, one leg that stuck out from the side of the desk part… almost like it was supposed to be in the way when you were writing.… you know how girls are…

 

Anyhow like I was saying… the thing creaked open and the leg was right there… and it had a fuzzy Christmas like garter on it… with stockings… net stockings that were stapled to the wooden side of the desk…with a sign taped to her knee that was a reminder note for me not to forget to write Santa this year.

 

Alright I thought to myself as I noticed that the leg was just clean shaven under the stockings.. and I reached for something to write with and write on… which, no big surprise here, turned out to be a piece of old shoe canvass for some reason that someone else had already started to scribble something on with a marker or something….

 

So I pull the shoe canvass out of the one of the little compartments just behind the silky smooth leg… and I then realized that what I had grabbed to write with was a bit slimy.

 

Again, no big surprise here because like I said, my dreams can get pretty weird… but I looked at the slimy feeling in my hand and found a soggy cotton candy cone that looked like I just pulled it out of the puddle under my old mans 72 ford way back in the day…

 

I won’t ever forget that puddle.  It was everywhere.  In the driveway, on the curb… anywhere he parked that thing there was a puddle… but it wasn’t oil… at least not that I could tell… the cotton candy cone that is….

 

So I get over the fact that this soggy cotton candy cone is almost about to drip and it’s a good thing too, because I decided to start writing my letter just then… so it turned out to be almost like a perfect timing thing… you know those… when something almost falls off of the counter and you can’t quite catch it before it shatters all over the place…

 

So I start writing… “Dear Woody,” I began.

 

“Wait a minute!”  I said to the note on the gartered leg…. “Who the heck is Woody and what does he have to do with Christmas?”

 

I looked at the old shoe canvass just to make sure, and sure enough their it read; “Dear Woody.”

 

Now doc, you know I am not one to trifle and get hung up on silly little things… so of course I just took it in stride and kept writing my Christmas letter.

 

So, “Dear Woody,” I began…. “I really liked the trip to the ball park the other day with the ice skating monkey and the juggling bear… and I’m sorry you didn’t score the monkey’s phone number.. she seemed like a nice circus girl…brought up right and all that… so I hope you don’t hold it against me that I managed to get another date with the petrified iguana in the juggling bears sack of tricks…. It must have been one of those fated things… I couldn’t even tell you how it happened.. but if you want, I can maybe put in a good word for you with some of the bears other implements.

 

I hear the bowling ball is really nice.”

 

Alright, so I’m writing this letter that is supposed to be to Santa… and I realize that I must have forgotten my manners because the leg started to nudge my writing hand just a little… you know, in that cat like way that girls do?  So what did I do?  I did what anyone would do in that situation and made sure that the tattoo I started putting on her leg clearly stated that she was my girl leg.

 

I used big swooping letters, too.  Some really nice work if you ask me.

 

Anyway then... like I was just telling you.. I get done with the tattoo to Santa Woody… and I’m kind of glad that my list wasn’t too big this year… just because there’s only so much leg to tattoo on, when a leg is all you got to work with, you know….

 

So, I’m done with the tattooed girl leg Santa Woody list, and I realize that I am in one of those nightmare scenes from childhood… you know, the huge Santa display and long line of other squirrels and elves and noises, and strippers… straight out of some nightmare from when I was a kid … and I look up at the top of the big Santa platform… just beyond the weave of obstacles and groping elves pushing everyone around… and then it hits me…

 

Bang!  Like everything went into slow motion… like in those dreams where you can’t run away from something fast enough… yeah, just like that…but I was trying to get to Santa… I felt like a cross between a caged animal and a naked guy in one of those money balls with non toxic past smeared all over my body….

 

No matter how hard I tried to get to this Santa Woody character… I just could not get past the grabbing hands trying to peal the money off and what felt like a biblical sized chain hooked to some old lady tour bus buckled to my posterior.

 

It was horrific!  But I had to get to this Santa Woody guy way up on the Santa throne.

 

Through some miracle and probably with a little help from something I ate.. I finally managed to get there… and what did I see?

 

It was freaking Woody Allen playing his clarinet! 

 

What the *&$%^&!  I thought to myself… Woody Allen is Jewish…. he isn’t Santa… Then I thought to myself out of nowhere; “Why do they call it ish?   

 

Then I looked around and none of the Christmas stuff was there anymore… which was none too disappointing considering how horrific it had been…

 

Did I really write a letter to Santa Woody Allen?

 

It just doesn’t seem possible…. for obvious reasons even beyond the sound reassurance of my dream.

 

Then I realized that some really advanced time shift thing must have been happening… you know, one of those really complicated scientific type of things that they only teach you about in astronaut school or something?

 

Yeah… it was like at any moment I could wake up and find my huge leg desk and everything would be back to normal… but like there was some crazy math equation I forgot to not cheat on in high school that I would have to recite a hundred times to make it happen… So let’s just say that I knew that wasn’t going to go anywhere any time soon…

 

What did I know then… everything was automated… you took the T.V. dinner out of the freezer and it was done in a few minutes.  What kind of an Einstein do you have to be to figure that one out, right?

 

So there I was without my math equation and nowhere on my money pasted body could I have possibly had my crib sheet….

 

And that is when he said it….

 

I know what you’re thinking… “What did he say, right?”

 

I’ll get to it, but I think you should know that the moment was incredibly heavy.  I don’t think I have ever been in a more tense situation than finding myself face to face with Woody Allen and his clarinet… which he was tooting on… but I couldn’t tell you what the name of the tune was… I left that on my crib sheet, too…

 

So he says to me… “Hey, you got that bowling balls number yet?”

 

And that’s when it occurred to me….

 

I left that with the math equation…. I was screwed!

 

I knew I had it… it wasn’t like I didn’t get the bowling balls number for him….I just didn’t bring it with me… which is an incredible violation of the Scout Law… so I suddenly realized that I was double screwed.

 

I was not prepared for the math quiz or getting Woody Allen the bowling balls phone number.

 

What was I to do, you may ask?

 

Well, thank goodness I remembered where I left my fuzzy bunny slippers. 

 

That’s what saved me… I remembered where I hid my fuzzy bunny slippers and I woke up.

 

I really got to find some other way to get to sleep besides hiding my fuzzy bunny slippers from myself.

 

One time, it back fired when I was having a really great dream…as was right there and Wham!  I woke up.

 

So I guess it is kind of a trade off… like with everything else in life…. you know, Doc?

 

You win some, you lose some as the old saying goes.

 

Now give me back my squirting flower.  I have to get home in time for the garbage disposal to turn on.