Hit Parade of Tears: Trial Witch

My hus­band came home late again. By this point he’s prob­a­bly pick­led his liv­er. It’d be one thing if I could’ve called it a night from the moment he went out, but he always woke me up lat­er, in the mid­dle of a sweet dream, call­ing out for ​“Water” and ​“Left­overs” as if those were my names. Though I don’t like to admit it, I always crawled out of my futon and head­ed over to the kitchen.

I has­ten to add, though, that he wasn’t actu­al­ly address­ing me. He was talk­ing to the kitchen. But since my hus­band wasn’t a magi­cian, no tall glass of water jumped into his hand, and no bowl of green tea over rice wad­dled over to him, huff­ing and puffing.

That night, I sat up with my elbows on the tea table, the evening paper spread before me. First I read the ads, espe­cial­ly the ones for the tabloids, my thrifty way of pick­ing up some juicy celebri­ty gos­sip with­out mak­ing an addi­tion­al pur­chase. Then maybe I’d read a cou­ple of columns. If there was an arti­cle about a gory rob­bery or some­thing, I’d read that too. I rarely spent time with the front-page news. 

Just as I was fold­ing up the paper, I heard the most incred­i­ble noise. Was that a bomb? I asked myself, as cloy­ing smoke spi­raled through the room. 

It made me sneeze. 

Behind the haze, some­one else was feel­ing the same effects. 

“Achoo! Gah, that’s awful … Achoo! Well, that one was a dud … Duped again … Thir­ty per­cent off sound­ed like a good deal at the time, but this is ridicu­lous … Achoo!”

I said loud­ly: ​“Excuse me?” Then sneezed two or three times. The yel­low smoke cleared, to reveal a man stand­ing with what looked like a black cov­er­let wrapped around him. ​“Well then, how’s that for an intro­duc­tion … Achoo! Sor­ry, but might I bor­row a tissue?” 

“Why don’t you just use that wacky cloak of yours. Who are you, any­way? Barg­ing in here in the mid­dle of the night. Watch out or I’ll scream,” I warned him, quite loud­ly already. 

“I’m afraid this is the only time of day that I can man­age. I have a num­ber of side busi­ness­es to attend to, you see.” His voice was hoarse. The voice of a much old­er man. His wrin­kled face switched between pas­sion and aus­ter­i­ty from one sec­ond to the next, like a ham actor beg­ging to be pelt­ed with tomatoes. 

“Who are you?” 

I wasn’t the least bit scared. I fig­ured he was lost and suf­fer­ing from men­tal prob­lems, though I couldn’t think of any rea­son­able expla­na­tion for his abrupt appearance.

“You real­ly don’t know? Hmm … Could it be the acoustics? Or is my cos­tume to blame?” 

He stroked his chin, lost in thought. 

“I’ll need to ask you to leave.” 

“Well then, in that case, let’s give it anoth­er try. This time I’ll use some trum­pets, for a prop­er fan­fare. Or would you pre­fer a crash of thun­der and lightning?” 

“I’m not joking.” 

“Of course not. Nei­ther am I. For I come on impor­tant busi­ness. I would nev­er show up in so cramped and stuffy a place as this with­out an excel­lent reason.” 

“You have no busi­ness with me.” 

“Right you are. But I sus­pect you’re not too keen on let­ting good luck slip through your fin­gers, either. Am I right? You see, my dear, you have been chosen.” 

The man cleared his throat emphat­i­cal­ly. Then, from the shad­ows of his cloak, he pro­duced what appeared to be a scroll. 

“Tech­ni­cal­ly this ought to be sheep­skin, but late­ly prices have been soar­ing. I gave pigskin a shot for a while, but this is nor­mal washi, what they use on paper doors. Anyway.” 

The man pulled out a pair of pince-nez spec­ta­cles and set them on his nose. 

“Let’s see, your occu­pa­tion — none? I sup­pose that makes you a house­wife. And your age — twen­ty-six, I see …” ​“What dif­fer­ence does that make?” I exclaimed. ​“Sim­ply wish­ing to con­firm,” he said with a pla­cat­ing look. ​“My dear, please don’t think for a sec­ond that I doubt­ed you. This is strict­ly a for­mal­i­ty, you under­stand, the first order of busi­ness. We’ll be done in a sec­ond. Now, the oth­er mem­bers of your house­hold are your hus­band and … any­one else?” 

The man mut­tered some­thing as he com­plet­ed the form. ​“Seri­ous­ly, who are you?” I demand­ed again. 

“I’m a mes­sen­ger. Were you not expect­ing me?” He sound­ed a lit­tle hurt. 

“Who sent you?” 

“Who sent me? Why, none oth­er than the League of Witch­es! Which is a fan­cy name for just three peo­ple. All of whom are well advanced in years. Each of them in their dotage and some­what obliv­i­ous, I’m afraid. No sur­prise there, what with so few young peo­ple inter­est­ed in tra­di­tion­al witch­craft nowadays …” 

“Sounds like a joke to me.” 

“Oh my, you’re very quick to judge. Remem­ber just a minute ago, when I mate­ri­alised in a puff of majesty? I would hate to think you still don’t believe me … but we mustn’t waste our time with non­sense. I’ll give it to you straight. You’ve been select­ed to be a tri­al witch.” 

“I don’t recall apply­ing,” I told him, in a tone that made my skep­ti­cism clear. 

“Of course not, you were ran­dom­ly selected.” 

“In that case, I respect­ful­ly decline.” 

“I’m afraid that’s out of the ques­tion. This is your fate. You may as well accept it. For I will now invest you with a nom­i­nal amount of mag­i­cal pow­er. Mind you, I am unable to guar­an­tee what kind of pow­er you will receive. You may rest assured that the witch­es made a wise selec­tion. If you prac­tice hard enough, you can expect to be pro­mot­ed in the future. And if it doesn’t work out, we’ll strip you of your pow­ers as appro­pri­ate. Now, read this over.” 

He hand­ed me the scroll, which I unfurled, but the writ­ing made no sense. 

“I can’t read this.” 

“You have a lot to learn,” he said, with a pompous flour­ish of his cloak. 

“Can you read it?” I asked him. 

“Sure I can, bits and pieces.” 

“Why is it writ­ten in red ink, though?” 

“Tech­ni­cal­ly we should be using lamb’s blood, or the blood of a cat found prowl­ing in the ceme­tery around three in the morn­ing. But des­per­ate times call for des­per­ate mea­sures, so red ink it is. Besides, the witch­es have been squea­mish of late when it comes to ani­mal cruelty.” 

“Take this b‑back, I don’t want it.” 

I was so dis­com­bob­u­lat­ed that I found myself stut­ter­ing. ​“In that case, would you mind very much if I used it for a tis­sue? To be quite hon­est, that thing isn’t worth the paper it’s print­ed on.” 

“Spare me.”

“Very good, so when you wish to sum­mon me, just draw a cir­cle on the floor with chalk and sprin­kle bay leaves all around. This isn’t strict­ly nec­es­sary, but you don’t want any pesky dev­ils show­ing up instead. The chalk and leaves are my sig­na­ture design. Think of it as a direct tele­phone line to me … How­ev­er, I do some­times wish I’d thought of some thing more com­plex. Like bury­ing the head of a kit­ten in the mid­dle of a cross­roads on a moon­less night. Which sounds splen­did, but these days it’s con­crete here and con­crete there, every­where you go. But alas, I digress. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” 

The chat­ty mes­sen­ger dis­ap­peared into anoth­er cloud of sticky, yel­low smoke. 

Next thing I knew, my cheek was smooshed into the tea table. What the heck? Was that whole thing a dream? It felt so incred­i­bly real. 

When I sat up, I saw a white cylin­dri­cal object by my knee. The scroll of paper! What on earth was going on? For a minute, I sat there in a daze. 

It sound­ed like my hus­band was home. 

I could tell because of how the bark­ing of the neighbour’s dog came through the win­dow. It was past two in the morn­ing. Most peo­ple on the block worked nor­mal hours. My dolt of a hus­band was the only one who would come home so late. 

I opened the door and wait­ed. He stag­gered down the hall and stepped inside. 

“Hey, wifey, long time no see,” he said, pre­tend­ing to be in a chip­per mood. 

“Where’ve you been all night?” 

I set the ket­tle on the gas range. Last time he came home drunk, he said, ​“Where’s my tea” and slapped me in the face. He could have at least start­ed with, ​“I want some tea.” Oth­er­wise, how was I sup­posed to know? I could hard­ly have been blamed for get­ting angry. But he just groaned and climbed into bed in all his clothes. 

“No need to get your panties in a bunch … Come on, let’s play nice, huh?”

My hus­band shed his suit jack­et and tossed it in the cor­ner. I fetched a hang­er and hung it up. He pulled off his cot­ton polo eas­i­ly enough, but had some trou­ble with his pants, so he dragged them and his under­wear off in one go. 

I hand­ed him paja­mas and fresh under­wear, then fold­ed up the clothes he had removed. 

He hadn’t answered my question. 

“Where have you been?” 

“Shibuya, then. Aoya­ma. Drank some local sake,” he said, like it was no big deal. 

“Just bars? You sure you didn’t stop off some­where and cozy up in some­one else’s bed?” 

“Of course not.” 

As he pulled up his paja­ma bot­toms, he looked off into space. ​“Ah, right. Then how do you explain this lip­stick stain?” ​“That, uh … that must have hap­pened on the ride home.” ​“So you rode the train with­out any pants on? The lip­stick is on your underwear.” 

“Mohhh …”

My hus­band let out a moo­ing sound. 

“See­ing as you love women so much, I wish you’d just turn into one. Then you could fon­dle your own butt and stare at your own — ” 

Before I’d fin­ished speak­ing, my hus­band (or rather his body) trans­formed into some­thing else entire­ly. As if anoth­er per­son had tak­en his place. 

At first it was unclear exact­ly what had changed and how. ​“Hey!”

Squirm­ing and fid­get­ing, he did his best to assess his new figure.

Next thing he tore off his paja­mas. What do you know, my hus­band real­ly had become a woman. Sev­er­al inch­es short­er than before, small­er over­all in stature. There was no more stub­ble on his face, which had acquired a new round­ness. Same hair­cut, though. 

“Hey, what’s going on? Hey!” he (I’ll stick with ​“he” for now) squealed, in a pecu­liar high-pitched voice. ​“Wow, look at you.” 

“How did you do this? Huh? How?” 

Right. A minute ear­li­er, I’d wished that he would turn into a woman … 

Was this the doing of my mag­ic pow­ers? It seemed the man in the cloak had been telling the truth after all. ​“Come on, do some­thing, will you?” 

My for­mer hus­band stood up, utter­ly flum­moxed. He need­ed me to inter­vene, but what was I sup­posed to do? I wig­gled my fin­gers, doing my best to cast a spell. ​“Go back, go back.” 

My hus­band changed again, this time into a pri­mate, or some­thing like one. He must have tak­en my com­mand too lit­er­al­ly and ​“gone back” in the evo­lu­tion­ary sense. He was a female pri­mate, by the way. Growl­ing loud­ly, he charged at me, enraged at what I’d done. 

“I didn’t mean to. Stop! You’re scar­ing me.” 

“Gimme a break.” 

“You may look like a mon­key, but you talk the same as ever.” 

“Quick, turn me back!” 

The pri­mate let out a fear­some bel­low, as if thirst­ing for blood.

“This is a bum­mer for me too, you know.” 

“Don’t make me repeat myself …” 

“Alright, alright. Okay, go back to your orig­i­nal form. But don’t go back, like, a mil­lion years.” 

Shit. This time he turned into a baby girl, cov­ered in thick fur. The pale­olith­ic infant wailed relent­less­ly. I lift­ed the scream­ing ket­tle from the stove and made some tea. After all, this was as good a time as any to think things over. 

“Dis ked­do watts some chea!” 

The grumpy child flailed its legs, stag­ing a hissy fit. ​“Don’t tell me you can still talk.” 

“Coss I can.” 

“Your pro­nun­ci­a­tion could use a bit of work …” ​“Jon’t chease me.” 

I strolled over to the tea table and took a seat, then cut myself a slice of takuan. Delicious. 

“You think I’m enjoy­ing this? Last thing I want is to acci­den­tal­ly turn you into a T‑Rex or some­thing. I’m not lift­ing a fin­ger now — hey, want some of this?” 

“I jon’t like it.” 

The baby was red in the face. 

“No?”

I had anoth­er bite of takuan, drank some tea, and pon­dered the sit­u­a­tion for a while. 

“How does it feel to be a girl?” 

“Jis­gusht­ing.”

“But I thought these dis­gust­ing girls were what you lived for?” 

“Jis and jat are two jif­fer­ent chings.” 

“Okay, fine. Now you’re a boy.”

I twid­dled my fin­gers again. Ever so faint­ly, I could feel the mag­ic do its work. After a few adjust­ments, my hus­band trans­formed into a baby boy. Though just as hairy as before. ​“Now you’re thirty-nine.” 

The cave­boy grew long legs and stood up, but his back was pathet­i­cal­ly bent. 

“What’s this? You’re an old man. Last thing I need.” ​“Backed in, duh wife expect­ing see was at foot it is now.” I could bare­ly under­stand him. Most of his teeth had fall­en out. 

“You look like you’re about to die.” 

“Dance to weight. Do sun thing.” 

“Okay, jump ahead ten mil­lion years.” 

“Do eddy it! Chew man beans hub on lean bin a row fur chew many un years. Chairs no jelling what Cayenne d’Monster R2-N2. Bee sighs, en an azure aid many un years, chew man beans zar lye glee to go it stinked!” 

The pre­his­toric geezer low­ered him­self, exhaust­ed, to a cush­ion on the floor. 

“Okay, then jump ahead two mil­lion years.” 

My hus­band turned into a slen­der man with rosy skin and pur­ple eyes. This time his hair was brown. 

“Oops, a bit too far. What now?” 

“Since when have you been able to do this?” he asked me in a steely, stri­dent voice. 

“Ever since the … the mes­sen­ger came by. The mes­sen­ger, of course! I’ll call him up. It’s all his fault.” I had no chalk to draw a cir­cle with. It was a shame to spoil the car­pet, but I found a tube of lip­stick that was sort of on the whiter side and drew an awk­ward ring. Then I sprin­kled a whole bag of the bay leaves that I used in stews and cur­ries on the floor. Sit­ting in the mid­dle of the cir­cle, I called on the mes­sen­ger to return. 

“Come back, come back!” 

The future man was aghast at what he saw. 

A cloud of blue smoke and a nasty sneeze beto­kened the arrival of the messenger. 

“Achoo! Achoo! What’s this stuff on the floor? I thought I told you to use chalk. Ahh-choo!”

The black cloak trem­bled as he spoke. 

“Well, I don’t have any.” 

“Just for­get it-choo! Heav­ens, it’s hot in here.” 

“It’s the same as earlier.” 

“I was just at the North Pole … Did you want some­thing?” ​“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have called you. Explain this.” ​“Huh?”

The mes­sen­ger looked at the pur­ple-eyed man. ​“Is he a friend of yours?” he asked. 

“He’s my hus­band. Or used to be. But look what he’s turned into now.” 

“My, what a spec­i­men. As ele­gant a fig­ure as ever I have seen.” 

“Don’t mess around with me.” 

“Hard­ly. I would nev­er mess around. Are you ask­ing for advice?” 

“Tell me how to switch him back to normal.” 

“Sad­ly, that won’t be possible.” 

The messenger’s eyes betrayed a hint of mis­chief. ​“But it’s your boss­es, the three witch­es, that gave me these, uh, mag­i­cal powers.”

“It’s mag­ick, if you please … spelled with a k.” The mes­sen­ger chor­tled like a cluck­ing hen. 

“What­ev­er, I don’t care, just do something!” 

“Not for free. By rights, this is some­thing you should frankly be doing on your own.” 

The mes­sen­ger flashed me a cheeky grin. 

“What do you want, then?” 

“Now that you men­tion it … this cloak of mine is start­ing to fray.” 

“I hap­pen to have a black cloak I can spare. Made using hun­dreds of pieces of cloth. Long enough to reach your toes.” ​“Sounds like it’s only good for winter.” 

“So what? It’ll be get­ting cold soon.” 

“But my next trip is to the African savan­na. I’d much pre­fer a silk num­ber, maybe some­thing with a crim­son lin­ing …” ​“Fine,” I sniffed, purs­ing my lips. 

“Splen­did, it’s a deal. I’ll expect it by next week.” ​“Let’s make it the week after. You can have the win­ter cloak as well.” 

“Hmm … alright, it’s set­tled. I can see it now. With these addi­tions to my wardrobe, I’ll be quite the dandy. Where were we … Ah, yes, I’ll now teach you the mag­ick word required to turn your hus­band back to normal.” 

The mes­sen­ger leaned for­ward and whis­pered some­thing in my ear. 

“Kin­da odd that I didn’t need a mag­ick word to change him into some­thing else …” 

“Chang­ing some­thing back is much hard­er to do, my dear. Take whiskey and cola, for exam­ple. Imag­ine how hard it would be to sep­a­rate the liquor from the soda.”

This sil­ly log­ic cut no ice with me. 

“If you say the mag­ick word, you’ll break the spell. It’s that sim­ple. On which note, I bid you good day. Don’t for­get, you owe me two cloaks.” 

Again the smoke churned through the air, dis­ap­pear­ing with the messenger. 

“Who the hell was he?” asked the future man, incred­u­lous. ​“Doesn’t mat­ter. Don’t wor­ry. Let’s just try it.” 

I said the mag­ick word. My hus­band changed back to nor­mal. Though I won’t pre­tend that he was hap­py. He put on his paja­mas with­out so much as a thank-you. ​“Don’t blame me. I was in my tri­al period.” 

“You could’ve used your mag­ic pow­ers to make me a stack of mon­ey. Then I wouldn’t have to go to work tomor­row.” I turned toward the bare floor and said: ​“Stack of mon­ey, go!” but noth­ing happened. 

“There’s no going back,” I said. ​“Not really.” 

My hus­band set a box of match­es on the tea table. ​“Try turn­ing that match­box into a hunk of gold.” Noth­ing hap­pened. I tried turn­ing the match­es into flow­ers or fruit, too, but it was no use. 

“See, your pow­ers are gone. If you ever had them.” ​“I can’t believe it. What happened?” 

I scratched my head, bemused. 

“Who cares. I’m going to sleep.” 

My hus­band climbed into bed. 

The next morn­ing, I was con­vinced it’d all been a dream. I thought about say­ing, ​“Now be caviar” as I placed the break fast pick­les on the table, but didn’t bother.

Once my hus­band was out of the house, though, I decid­ed I would give it one more try. He had left for work at nine, his usu­al dis­ap­point­ing self, noth­ing pre­his­toric or futur­is­tic about him. He worked for a music pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, where they had flex­i­ble hours. 

I gazed into the fish­bowl at our gold­fish and said: ​“Turn into a tad­pole.” To my aston­ish­ment, it was a suc­cess, for the most part. 

So, it only worked if some­thing was alive … I tried trans­form­ing the cup of pars­ley grow­ing on the win­dowsill, but no luck there; I guess it didn’t work on plants. Regard­less, I was hav­ing a great time experimenting. 

Out in the street, I changed cats into dogs and dogs into cats. None of them knew what hit them. The cats, espe­cial­ly, must have been at a loss, unsure of how to go on liv­ing, now that they were dogs. 

I stepped onto the train, but it was packed. 

Between there and the next sta­tion, I turned all the pas­sen­gers into homun­culi, on aver­age just over an inch tall. This gave me all the space that I could wish for. But the homun­culi react­ed bad­ly. They were up in arms. 

“You’re get­ting sleepy, very sleepy. You have amne­sia. None of this ever happened.” 

This time, the spell worked per­fect­ly. The train fell qui­et. I lay down on the bench. From out­side, it must have looked as if the car were emp­ty. We had pulled into the sta­tion, so I said the mag­ick word. The pas­sen­gers turned back to nor­mal. Though they all looked pret­ty groggy. 

This was great. Imag­ine doing it some­where on vaca­tion. So fun … I got off the train and went into a café. A wait­ress was lean­ing against the counter, look­ing bored. There were only a few cus­tomers. She yawned and watched a dif­fer­ent wait­ress bring me a glass of water. 

“Now you’re a lion,” I whis­pered, eye­ing the bored wait­ress. Boy, was every­one sur­prised! Most of all the wait­ress who had become a lion. She looked around the room, stand­ing with her forepaws propped up on the counter. I cov­ered my face with both hands and laughed. Then I turned her back into a person. 

Did the mag­ick only work on others? 

Out on the side­walk, I tried it on myself. 

“You’re a bird, you’re a bird,” I told myself repeat­ed­ly, but no such luck. By then I was tuck­ered out, so I decid­ed to head home. 

Wait­ing at a traf­fic light, I spot­ted my hus­band across the road. With anoth­er woman. He’s incred­i­bly near­sight­ed, so I don’t think he noticed me. They hailed a taxi and drove off. 

It seemed like the news my girl­friend had giv­en me over the phone the week before was true. 

“The girl must live in Ike­bukuro. Does he reg­u­lar­ly stay out all night?” 

“Yeah. All the time.” 

This was noth­ing new. By then I didn’t care. In fact, I did my best to wipe it from my mind. 

“The oth­er day I saw them hav­ing break­fast at the café. Eat­ing hot dogs. Total morn­ing-after vibe. They were all over each oth­er. Fact is your husband’s awful cute, not gonna lie.” 

I’d nev­er caught him red-hand­ed before. With my friend’s voice echo­ing in my ears, I walked the rest of the way home.

That night, I got a phone call. 

“Hey. It’s me.” 

I knew where this was going. 

“Hi,” I said, hit­ting myself in the ribs with a tight fist. ​“What’s the matter?” 

“What’s the mat­ter? I’m your hus­band, call­ing home.” ​“Oh, of course, dear.” 

I recit­ed the words like they were scripted. 

“What’s wrong, had a bad day?” 

He was try­ing to but­ter me up. 

“I guess I’m not feel­ing too hot, now that you ask.” ​“Read tonight’s paper?” 

“Not yet.”

I put a bit more oomph into my fist. 

“There’s a rather strange arti­cle, about a mass hal­lu­ci­na­tion. Appar­ent­ly a wait­ress at a café in Shin­juku sud­den­ly trans­formed into a lion. Though some peo­ple say it was a tiger.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Everyone’s con­vinced, her especially.” 

“Did they call some­one from the zoo, or what?” ​“That’s the thing, every­one was so shocked they didn’t think of it. Accord­ing to eye­wit­ness­es, she changed back about twen­ty min­utes lat­er. After that, they called the police or the hos­pi­tal, you know.” 

Twen­ty min­utes? No way. I changed her back in thir­ty sec­onds, tops. 

“If it was sum­mer, I might chalk it up to heat stroke — but it’s not.” 

He was obvi­ous­ly mak­ing the con­nec­tion with last night.

“I know what you’re think­ing. But it wasn’t me. You saw me yes­ter­day, try­ing with the match­es. I can’t do it any­more.” ​“Oh, so it wasn’t a dream, after all …” 

“Where are you right now, anyway?” 

“I was about to say. I’m stuck here late tonight. We’re com­pil­ing this pam­phlet for a music festival.” 

“You are, huh? Then put Yamashita on the phone. Isn’t he next to you?” 

“Nah, it’s just me. But I’m not at the office.” 

“Where are you?” 

“You know … Setagaya.” 

“Are you, now?” 

I gig­gled into the receiver. 

“Don’t you trust me?” 

He sound­ed uneasy. 

“I saw you two today. Out and about.” 

“Saw what?”

“You got into a taxi with some woman. Today. Or tonight, I should say. Clos­er to five.” 

“That, uh, that was a work thing …” 

“It’s fine. Because now you’re a bull. A big black bull.” I hung up the phone. 

Then I switched on the TV and lit a smoke. About ten min­utes lat­er, the phone rang again. 

“Excuse me, this is Nani Nani Design Stu­dios call­ing.” It was a woman’s voice. I didn’t rec­og­nize her. ​“Can I help you?” 

“Can you? I sure hope so. What have you done? My work …” ​“Work? You’re a piece of work, you know that? Fess up, or he’ll be stuck like that for good.”

There were whis­pers on the oth­er end. The sounds of them con­fer­ring. The woman and the bull. 

My hus­band, who as far as I knew was still a bull, roared into the receiver. 

“Hur­ry up and undo this! Now!” 

“No way. You two can fig­ure it out your­selves.” ​“I’ll kill you for this.” 

“You say that, but how’re you going to get out of there? You may as well enjoy your love nest. That’s what you want­ed, right? You’ve final­ly got­ten rid of me.” 

“I wish you could’ve cho­sen some­thing else. Any­thing, real­ly … We’re hav­ing a hard time being in the same room.” ​“I bet you are.” 

“Come on, switch me back.” 

“Come home first.” 

“Look, it’s like you said, okay? I can’t get out of here!” ​“Then stay there. Fine by me.” 

“Maybe I will!” 

He hung up. 

I grabbed my wal­let and walked over to the bar around the cor­ner, where I had three whiskey and waters. This put me in a good mood. I came home to find a ner­vous-look­ing woman stand­ing at the door. In fact, it was the very woman I had seen with my hus­band on the street. 

“I need you to come back with me,” she burst out. ​“Hey, how’s he hold­ing up?” 

“I was so scared, I couldn’t stay! We’re talk­ing about a full grown bull here. If he’s there for one more day, I don’t know what I’ll do … Come on, let’s go.” 

“It’ll be fine, calm down. Let’s get a drink.”

“This is no time for a drink. We have to go.” 

She seized me by the arm and hus­tled me into a taxi. 

“Nice digs you got here,” I said, look­ing around the lob­by of her build­ing. We took the ele­va­tor to the sixth floor. She was so scared she hand­ed me the key. I opened the door to find a black bull sit­ting in the mid­dle of a loft apartment. 

“Come on, hur­ry up. Or you’ll regret it.” 

The bull stuck out his peach-col­ored tongue, as if to intim­i­date me. 

“I doubt I’ll regret any of this. Now be a good boy and trans­form,” I said, before whis­per­ing some­thing more spe­cif­ic: ​“Into a T‑Rex.”

My for­mer husband’s mus­cles jig­gled and dis­tend­ed. He broke the chandelier. 

The girl­friend let out a fright­ful shriek and dis­ap­peared. ​“Hey, where’s she going? Your sweet­heart ran away.” ​“Don’t be cute. Who wouldn’t run away from a T‑Rex? This is a dis­as­ter. We got­ta get out­ta here.” 

“How?”

“By mak­ing me small, how else.” 

“Shrink-a-dinky-doo. Now you’re little.” 

My for­mer hus­band turned into a two-inch-tall dinosaur. Just as I dropped him in my hand­bag, I heard three or four peo­ple run­ning over from the elevator. 

“What now?”

Stuck in the bag, my mini dino of a hus­band cat­er­wauled. ​“Alright, now be Superman.” 

That’s how the pair of us escaped. Fly­ing, obvi­ous­ly. But we were spot­ted by a ufol­o­gist (or hob­by­ist), which caused a cer­tain hul­la­baloo. Peo­ple thought it was the sec­ond com­ing of George Reeves. 

You’re prob­a­bly won­der­ing what hap­pened next. Well, I’m hap­py to report we’re still togeth­er. Except my poor hus­band is stuck hang­ing in the chif­forobe. After I turned him back into a bull, he got furi­ous with me and roared, ​“I’m going to spill the beans,” and we couldn’t have that, could we. 

At the top of my lungs, I shout­ed: ​“Now you’re a liv­ing, breath­ing piece of jerky!” 

In an instant, he was as rigid as a dried and salt­ed ara­ma­ki salmon. 

Believe me, I planned to turn him back even­tu­al­ly. Once he’d cooled off. But then, no mat­ter how many times I said the mag­ick word, my hus­band wouldn’t change. He just hung there in the chif­forobe, with a dazed look on his face. 

So I sum­moned the mes­sen­ger. And what do you think he said? 

“Your mag­ick pow­ers have expired.” 

“Well, can’t the witch­es turn him back for me?” ​“I’m afraid that’s not the way it works. A mag­ick spell can only be undone by the per­son who cast it.” 

I asked if there was any hope at all. He reflect­ed for a moment. 

“The spell will break once all three witch­es die. Which should be soon­ish. They’re get­ting up there …” ​“How soon?” 

“Let’s say twen­ty years.”

That’s how I wound up liv­ing with a mute pad­dle of salmon for a hus­band. At first I thought of turn­ing myself in to the police, but no one had been killed or injured, and there’s noth­ing in the law books say­ing it’s ille­gal to cast spells. 

The only thing that bugs me is that late­ly, one of my smoked husband’s legs has got­ten all stretched out and rib­bony, on account of hang­ing there so long. It’s not like I can cut it off. But it just keeps get­ting longer, I mean it’s real­ly in the way, so every time I close the chif­forobe, I have to kick it shut.

Hit Parade of Tears is out now on Ver­so.

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