Dennis McClain-Furmanski posts:
 
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El Dupree in Deuling Headsacks
 
Stinging still from defeat in his pursuit of perusing the
wares of Juanita (Juat a Juaman), the abundant form made its
way far, for a while, from the hot headlands which he
called, for lack of a better word, home. Land of No Origin
bespoke itself as worthy of consideration, but collided
headlong with rumpus room, and they both fell in a heap
in the road.
 
Having travelled long and hard far to the north, El Dupree
contemplated the few similarities between the north woods
and more familiar territories. Although the light snow of
the morning brought back fond memories of dry road dust,
it differed in its tendency to leak into the holes in his
soles, there to melt and soak the unspeakable fragments
which would have answered to the name of socks, had they
voices in their long ago terminated lives. Strange
indeed was the behavior of the nature of this land. It
brought a welcome relief from His Corpulence's grief of
the heart, to say nothing of the considerable expanses
of other, less wholesome portions of his fragrant form.
 
Mindful of his lack of experience in dealing with the locals
of this far land, far north of the last purveyor of huevos
rancheros in Milwaukee, Dupree warily approached the
roadside shack with its strange messages reading
 
WISCONSIN  CHEESE    MOCCASINS
and
WORMS  ICE  BEER
 
Needing neither edible footwear nor annelidic beverages, he
resolved instead to seek something more on the order of
a guacamole burrito. The small bells tied to the top of
the door tinkled as he entered. A grayed and weathered
gnomish figure stood hunched in the gloom.
 
"Yah, what can I do you for, young feller?"
"Vat you got for a burrito, eh?"
"Burrito? No, no way. How's aboot a nice pasty?"
"Que?"
"Yah, okay."
 
Feeling he had somehow become mired in a linguistic
labyrinth of his own making, yet beyond his control,
our hero of heroic proportion snapped his fingers, and
into his hand flew, seemingly of its own accord, a warm
and comfortable friend, his snugly custom fitted #14 vinyl
headsack. In a flash of darkness, he was inside.
 
He heard a sharp intake of breath, a pause, and then,
almost beyond his belief, the rustle of well worn vinyl.
>From  within the dreamstate of his headsack, from within the
mystical non-time existence he wrapped around himself like
an existential tortilla, he perceived beside him a likened
spirit, a fellow traveller of the world within the vinyl,
a seer such as he, and he was comforted here in this land
so cold, cold enough to remind him of the scorn of his
beloved, or at least bewanted, Juanita. Here in the land
of the 10 o'clock sun, being not so far north as the arctic
circle, but far enough to notice the difference on a
midsummer's evening, against the odds which neither of them
believed in, two High Priests Of The Headsack beheld
each other.
 
Far into the afternoon they voyaged alone, side by side,
each sharing the immense solitude they experienced within
in complete silence. Several times the bells connected to
air hose rang, signalling someone having driven up to the
gas pumps, and each time, no one emerged to pump gas, and
the vehicles drove off into their own futures.
 
It was many hours or nanoseconds later when they emerged,
simultaneously, to gaze at the other, strangers, yet fellows
in spirit.
 
The Old One spoke then to The Large One,
"By Yiminy, the pasty she's burned black!"
"Que?"
"Yah, sure, if it's okay with you, it's okay with me."
And he presented El Dupree with the spoils of the voyage
they shared into the realms of plastic and universal
questions; a shriveled cinder of a beef and onion pasty.
 
El Dupree was enlightened, but then this is hardly
surprising, is it?