I ride the bus of small hope, surrounded by my little monkeys. Because they want everything but are given so little, they hope for nothing. Uncomfortable with what little we can give them, and because they ask for so little, to spare them we offer them nothing. When they give from their poverty to us in our abundance, they stun us with what we’re given. I used to buy three newspapers a day. Now, instead, five days a week I hold one page before me like a mirror and look for the truth of their hearts and every day come closer to reading not the news of the day but the unreflecting paper. The driver loves to tease them all with childish names despite their age and laughs when they tease him back. They call him Special. I am furniture, nameless as the world, scanning the paper between the lines, listening for the teaching moments. The blond one is waiting for me to escort her down the aisle. How does she know I’ll see her, that I’ll understand what she wants? She waits for me to put my paper down, to stand beside her and thread her arm through mine, to smile my substitute parent smile and be for her the cardboard dad who gives her away to the grinning boy with the spotty mustache. Her faith is dizzying. Where did she find so much to offer me? How does she know I’m there for her, already in attendance, figurative flower in my figurative buttonhole? I’m marrying Skanky, she tells me. See my ring? I had to ask him. Yes you are too, Skanky! This is a, my veil—at my uncle’s it’s a tablecloth really. Yes you are too, Mister Skanky. We are too going on a honeymoon!
Copyright © December 17, 2006 David Hodges
Very Short Novels 
4 comments
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December 18, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Robert Kangas
Hi David:
What a pleasure to read these short novels. I know that they’ve been an enduring interest of yours through the decades. Let me respond to your little monkeys with a few of my own:
Have I found the teahouse, the sidewalk café… the place to just relax and hang? The place to be yourself. To just be. This feels civilized. This is the place to let the monkey mind relax. Here’s to your teahouse in the network. I salute your sidewalk café amid all this furious computation. Let’s all establish pubs, taverns, and wayside inns in this singularity. Where is the pausing point in us… the place to observe? The place where we feel safe to… not know. To just trust. To let it all work out. Where is that? I think it’s here.
I think it’s here, too, Robert, and it’s been a long time coming. If you stretch your legs out for just one afternoon and order something tall, and be yourself, others of like mind will find you. But if you venture out and knock on doors, and invite the best you find to join you, you’ll never have a better time . . . not knowing.
–David
December 18, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Bruce Schauble
I like this one a lot. Each sentence sends out these little spikes into alternate paths of thought, which then seem to thread in and out of one another. Each new detail is a surprise, but they all work together. It’s an interesting little world you’ve woven.
– Bruce
Thank you, Bruce. I don’t know if that objective is worth pursuing (over and over again), but you’ve described my ideal story beautifully.
–David
December 22, 2006 at 11:46 am
Jackson
I enjoy the reflective(!) quirky wisdom of this story and technically it’s neat; for instance when the driver says ‘yes you are too’, I somehow “know” skanky in my own way and can picture the whole scene. Writing is re-writing, i’ve heard, and that sounds right. Red line/ edit yourself a little work of art then.
Thanks, Jackson. No matter how I polish them, these little things are never done.
–David
January 13, 2015 at 9:32 am
Jess Villasana
This is written from the point of view of a father, and I’m curious to know if the wedding scene is based off of your own life? Especially when you talk about giving her away to the boy with the spotted moustache. I was overcome with emotion at this line.
From the point of view of a substitute father, Jess, a stand-in. No, it’s not my life; I don’t write of my particular life. However, I did once share a daily bus ride for a few months with some developmentally-challenged young adults. One day a girl said: we are too going on a honeymoon, and the rest fell into place. Thank you so much for asking.
—David