THE PURPLE EGG GAME pt. 26

Epilogue next week

            After the baby had fed, Rugbug pulled a chair close to Sabrina and she put the small child in his thin but sturdy arms. He moved his glasses up onto his forehead, leaned in close, and stared into the little baby face that held more beauty and mystery than the whole of the universe around it. A thought struck Rugbug. Miracle baby. The baby is a miracle too, just like me. And not just us, but every single little baby. Even the big and terrible things they often grow into, all of them. Every last human walking this crooked Earth, is a stinking miracle. If only they could see it that way.

            Soon the baby began to cry and pump its fists and Sabrina took it again to her breast and fed her nipple into its reaching lips.

            Rugbug went into the kitchen and ferreted a few things out of the mounds of food on the floor. Hamburger buns, American cheese, white onion, ketchup, and mayonnaise. He made a couple terrible little sandwiches and brought one to Sabrina. As Sabrina ate, Rugbug walked out to the deck with his own sandwich and looked towards the shore.

            The sun was directly overhead now, high noon, the shoreline nothing but a thin and shimmering line separating blue sky from blue sea. Almost invisible. Rugbug stuck out his arm and measured the mountains against his thumbnail. They were no bigger than his cuticle.

            He looked into the water, back into the restaurant, and got an idea. Two crisscrossed oars hung above the bar as decoration. I'll row us, he thought. I'll row us to shore.

            Rugbug scarfed down the rest of his sandwich and darted inside. He leapt up onto the bar, pulled the oars down, and cut through the rope fastening them together with the same steak knife he used to cut the baby's umbilical cord. There was glue and staples underneath, but Rugbug leveraged one oar against the other and got them apart easily. He ran out to the deck with one and plunged the broad end of it into the water. With all his might, he began to row. Teeth clenched, tiny body pouring sweat, he rowed and rowed and rowed.