Green Shadows, White Whales. Ray Bradbury

was a show of hands waving goblets.

      “Gentlemen, ladies!” John reminded them of their manners. “Cake to go with the champagne!”

      “John!” Ricki jerked her head. “No!”

      But it was too late. All turned to focus their lust on a bridal confection which had waited, gathering dust, for eight days.

      Smiling like an executioner, John brandished the knife. Lisa took it as if she had just pulled it from her breast and desired to shove it back in. Instead she turned to bend over the lonely and waiting cake. I crowded near to watch the speckles of dust flurry up from frosting stirred by Lisa’s breath.

      She stabbed the cake.

      Silent, the cake was obdurate.

      It did not cut, it did not slice, and it gave only faint tendencies to flake or chip.

      Lisa struck again and a fine powder puffed up on the air. Lisa sneezed and struck again. She managed to dent the target in four places. Then she started the assassination. With a furious red face above and the knife gripped in both hands, she wrought havoc. More powder, more flakes.

      “Is the damn cake fresh?” someone said.

      “Who said that?” said Tom.

      “Not me,” said several people.

      “Give me that!” Tom seized the knife from Lisa’s hands. “There!”

      This time, shrapnel. The cake cracked under his blows and had to be shoveled onto the plates with a dreadful clatter.

      As the plates were handed round, the men in their pink coats and the women in their smart black stared at the broken teeth strewn there, the smile of a once great beauty laid to ruin by time.

      Some sniffed, but no aroma or scent arose from the powdered frost and the slain brandy cake beneath. Its life had long since fled.

      Which left the good souls with a confectioner’s corpse in one hand and a bad vintage in the other, until someone rediscovered the rare vintages stashed against the wall and the stampede for the saviors’ refreshment began. What had been a moment of statues-in-panic wondering how to be rid of two handfuls of failed appetite became a wonder of imbibation and loosened tongues. All babbled, churning around and about every few minutes for a refulfillment of Mumm’s while Tom, suffering the rejection of a lost salesman, slugged back brandies to relight the fury in his eyes.

      John stomped through the crowd, not hearing but laughing at jokes.

      “Pour some on my crutches,” he cried, “so I can move!”

      Someone did.

      It would have been pitiful had it not been ludicrous to see the gentry wandering with platefuls of hard rock-shrapnel cake, picking at it with forks, saying how delicious and demanding more.

      On the third go-round the crowd turned brave, abandoned the vitrified cake, and filled their empty glasses with Scotch. Whereupon there was a general exodus toward the yard, with people feverishly seeking places to hide the last of the concrete cake fragments.

      The hounds in the yard leaped, barking, and horses reared, and the Reverend Mr. Hicks hurried out ahead with what looked to be a double double in his fist, garrulous and cheerful, waving to what he thought were village Catholics near the hounds and Protestants by the horses. The villagers, stunned, waved back, in pretense of a religion they despaired of to the point of contempt.

      “Did he …,” said Tom, behind me.

      “Did he what?” Lisa sneezed.

      “Did Mr. Hicks … did you hear him say, ‘I pronounce you man and wife’?”

      “I think so.”

      “What do you mean? Did he or didn’t he?”

      “Something like.”

      “Something like?” cried Tom. “Reverend …? Toward the end of the ceremony … ”

      “Sorry about the living-in-sin bit,” said the reverend.

      “Reverend Hicks, did you or did you not say ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’?”

      “Ah, yes.” The reverend wrinkled his brow and took another snort. “Easily fixed. I now pronounce you man and wife. Go thou and sin some more.”

      “And sin no more!” corrected Tom.

      “Ah, yes,” said the Reverend Mr. Hicks, and wove himself into the crowd.

      “I rather like that.” Lisa sneezed happily. “Go thou and sin some more. I hope you’ll be back early. I sent someone to dope the fox in hopes of an early night. Are you really going to climb on that silly horse with all those drinks?”

      “I have only had six,” said Tom.

      “Shit,” said Lisa. “I guessed it at eight. Can you really mount that damn horse drunk?”

      “I’m in fighting trim. And I’ve never heard you swear. Why today!”

      “The Reverend Hicks, in his sermon, said it was the end of the world. Can I help you up on the funny-looking steed?”

      “No, my dear,” Tom said and laughed, because people were listening.

      With great dignity he strode to his horse and propelled himself into the saddle. Through gritted teeth he said, “The stirrup cup!”