A Dozen

Mort motioned to the waitress who took her time getting to the booth.

“Is this place okay?”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I just saw a fly.”

The waitress, with the name ‘Marge’ stenciled on her food-stained uniform, twisted her face.

“Are you sure?”

“I know a fly when I see one. And Claudette saw another one over there.”

Claudette nodded, pointing to the empty counter where a bulbous-headed insect stumbled erratically.

“Only two?”

“What’d you mean ‘only?’”

“Look, I get your point. A dozen or more flies aren't going to be wrong about a diner. But you saw only two in here…

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Silver Flower

The bee insistently buzzed around the silver flower decoration, flitting in and out of the petals. An anthropocentric reading of the situation would suggest the insect was growing increasingly frustrated at the futility of its sugar gathering.

Something in its infrared vision must have found the flowers appealing, even if to human eyes no color or pattern was visible other than shiny metallic chrome. How ironic that something so valuable to our way of thinking was nothing but a torture for the poor bee, who would have preferred the nectar of a dandelion.

I suppose there's no accounting for taste.