We have pain you can’t take away, although
the effort is much appreciated. Please do not read this
to mean that we have no pain, problems, or peccadilloes,
but rather they are just ones you are powerless against.
You are no longer Sean Connery's James Bond watching
Ursula Andress emerging from the sea. You no longer
say things like, "I have always thought it polite
to knock first before shooting,"
or confidently telling Barbara Walters that
it's okay to hit a woman, just never
use a closed fist. No, something has happened
to you, ineffectual Timothy Dalton rushing your lines
so even when you get it right, it sounds all wrong.
You're dropping bombs on a bridge to stop
the Russians from following your friend, Art Malik,
the Oxford educated resistance leader who has far
more screen presence and sex appeal than
droopy-eyed you. Which was not the case
in the Mummy where Brendan Fraser and his sidekick
Oded Fehr were of equal sexiness, although
Fehr had better hair but Fraser bigger guns,
packing a Colt .45. It's just a matter of taste,
really. I get a little confused here though,
because Oded Fehr was also Zankou
on Charmed and tried to use the Hollow
to open the Nexus, which, trust me,
would have been quite disastrous
to puppies, children, and Alyssa Milano's
wardrobe budget. Where was I? The pain, oh yes,
the pain. Although You, (not you personally
though, of course), may have had
a hand in creating it, yet that toolkit
of yours is made for building Model-Ts,
and we are now DeLoreans with faulty
flux capacitors. Try as you might, you
will not get us out of 1955 where
we stare, mouths agape, as
Christopher Lloyd drinks a Coke and
Lea Thompson gets raped in the backseat,
which is sort of implausible because I saw her in
Red Dawn, she can take care
of herself. I guess what we're saying
is that what will heal the world isn't helping us
organize a protest down at Gold's Gym
against the use of the term "skinny-fat"
or buying us heart pendants of blood
diamonds the Russians smuggled
in ice around a pig's heart just so you
could get them cheap at Dunkin's
in the Tallahassee Mall, which isn't even
the good mall anymore. No, what would be
ten times more efficient and fifty times
more effective than all that pretense
and pollywagging is to sit your asses
down with a journal (leather bound,
Indiana Jones style) and a nice self-improving
book to work your own shit out
rather than assuming we're the ones
with all the problems.
Love, Kisses, and Melon-Scented Lotions,
The Women of America
Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, originally from Columbus, Ohio, lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where she edits confidential documents for the government, which is not as exciting as it might sound. Her work has appeared previously in Drunk Monkeys, as well as Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, and Court Green. She is a reader for Emrys.