Read Strange Mammals for Free Online Page B

transgressors away, and you don’t care, caught up in this moment of luminous beauty, your worries and cares melting away in the face of such gorgeosity, and so you hardly notice your proximity to the creek itself, to the enormous stones cut and shaped and implanted in its deep sides, and you don’t even perceive the strong velvety vine that emerges from the creek water until it travels up your leg, rubbing and caressing, up over your waist and your arms, whispering all the while, consoling, telling you that you are beautiful, that you are not fat at all, that you are just the right size and shape for who you are, that you deserve more, oh so much more, the tip of the vine strokes your cheeks and the tiny hairs tickle, its embrace encompassing all of you now, and the relief rushes out of you, a lover finally, releasing pent-up desire and frustration and shame, to evaporate in the air until all that is left is love, all you need, and so when the strong arm of your lover pulls back into the creek, you almost follow willingly, obligingly. Almost, because then you remember your brother, alone in his own head, depending on you, needing your companionship, your sisterly love, and who will take care of him when you are gone? Most likely he’ll be locked away in an institution, surrounded by white walls and other inmates of their own minds, and you can’t even imagine leaving him in a place like that, no matter how reluctant you are to continue playing parent, and so you halt your steps and whisper to the vine, thanking it for the kind words but you’ll have to decline, so it detaches itself and slinks slowly, sadly, back into the creek.
    There is a kind of bounce in your step as you exit the park, a newfound confidence; if love could happen once, it could happen again, you just need to keep looking and hoping and not giving up. It’s out there, waiting for you, making its way, ready for you to make itself complete, to feel whole. In the meantime, you’ll take a class in nature photography, come back here and capture it all in halide silver.

Great Responsibility
    Spider-Man jerks awake behind the wheel of his parked Volkswagen Squareback, his sudden jolt into consciousness the effect of a voice shouting on the other side of his driver’s side window. Spider-Man has been sleeping in his car a lot lately, anchoring his vessel along whichever Los Angeles street he can find that is overlooked by the Parking Violations Bureau. He’s forgotten the name of the desolate road on which he is now located, but he’s never been good at remembering L.A.’s thoroughfares, so far from his native New York City.
    “Hey, chica!” the voice yells again, having moved up the street ahead, attached to a brawny young tough in a sleeveless white shirt and low-slung jeans, his muscled arms rippling with tattoos. “ Chica , I say, I’m talking at you!”
    The young black woman the tough follows is dressed in business attire and carries a leather satchel, just the type Spider-Man would expect to see in a Hollywood executive production office elsewhere in the city, her high heels and tight black skirt a detriment as she hurries away from the aggressive Chicano at her back. Her clacking steps, audible even within the interior of the Squareback, take her toward the strip mall just up ahead, toward the supposed safety brought on by the presence of other people, but this hope is an illusion, and Spider-Man knows that it won’t save her.
    Spider-Man steps out of his car, blinking in the harsh afternoon sun, then shuts the door carefully and quietly so as to avoid detection by the tough, as well as to prevent any dislodging of the five thousand brightly-colored strips of duct tape plastered all over the exterior of the vehicle in patterns designated by her, the young biracial girl—
    No, no time to think about that, it’s time to get to work. He locks the car door, pulls on his mask and silently pursues the pursuer.
    As expected, the tough soon