What Happens in Vegas in Summer

A wolf, a dentist, and a bear are playing hopscotch on the sidewalk outside of their

condominium. They are roommates. They get along well. The wolf likes that the dentist

keeps his teeth sharp. Why do you like to keep your teeth sharp? the dentist asked the

wolf the first time the wolf asked his services. To scare my landlord off, he’s always

bugging me. Who is your landlord? the dentist asked, wondering how a wolf came to

have a landlord. The same as yours. That’s how they became roommates. The bear got

involved because he is friends with the wolf. Giant sparrows, sequined with lilies and

chrysanthemums, geraniums, roses, and hyacinths, made the bear’s hibernation den into

their nest. The bear thought he could take them, but he found them too beautiful to

disturb. They preferred to nest inside the den because the sun burned their flowers off,

and the bear understood that nature often couples loss and wished to help preserve the

beautiful things that time subtracts. The bear didn’t like math because he only learned

subtraction. Maybe if he learned that math can add or multiply, he would have been the

first bear scientist. The bear and the dentist got along so-so. The dentist didn’t like when

the bear asked him to sharpen his claws. My file is for teeth, not claws, the dentist

always says. The bear always mocks the dentist by making his paws imitate a mouth.

Blah, blah, blah, the bear says as he does this. Playing hopscotch, the three of them

decided to try a simultaneous hop, as a train. The wolf was the head, the dentist was in

the middle, and the bear was the caboose. As they initiated their hop they hopped into

the stratosphere, billowed up by the hot wind that sang to them as they ascended. It was

summer at this time. All the debris of flowers on the ground ascended with them and

fluttered into angels that encircled them as they rose, singing the song the hot wind was

singing. When the three entered the stratosphere, they turned into sunshine. Now you

will never need your teeth sharpened. Nor you your claws. The sunshine-dentist says to

the sunshine-wolf, then to the sunshine-bear. You will never be bothered by your

landlord ever again. The sunshine-wolf and -bear say in unison. The only landlord we

have now is freedom, and our only responsibility is to shine. That is a bigger

responsibility than we have ever had, they realize.