Fabulous Don and The Garibaldi Transformation of Biscuit Frank-
Miriam was a woman of tepid Thursdays,
where time trickled like honey into her tea.
She lived alone in a house made of sighs
and spoke only to Biscuit Frank,
a Garibaldi once, but now a man-
or the impression of one,
with hair like electrified spaghetti
standing to attention,
quivering as if each strand had its own nervous agenda.
Frank was no ordinary biscuit-turned-man.
His raisin eyes gleamed with secrets
too absurd for mortal comprehension,
and when Miriam pressed him for details,
he responded in crumbs,
which she dutifully swept into envelopes
to send to her enemies.
But pen pals alone do not a life make,
and Miriam, weary of Frank's existential crunchiness,
decided to walk.
She left the house,
armed with a raincoat of pure speculation
and boots stitched from forgotten plans.
She walked for days,
through valleys that whispered limericks
and forests where the trees swayed
to music only they could hear.
It was in the woods she met Fabulous Don—
a creature so unthinkable
it practically negated thought altogether.
His head was a bulbous lantern of pale green light,
antennae wobbling like drunken dowsing rods,
and his mouth was a Möbius strip of confusion,
constantly flipping inside-out
in an effort to smile.
“Greetings, Miriam of Solitude,” he said,
his voice like a Theremin being played underwater.
“Call me Fabulous Don.
My real name requires three tongues to pronounce,
and I see you’ve only brought one.”
Miriam blinked. “Why are you… here?”
“To teach you how to dance,” he declared,
producing a gramophone made entirely of dandelions
from thin air.
“But I don’t want to dance,” Miriam muttered.
“You misunderstand,” Fabulous Don replied,
shuffling on his eight toes,
“Dancing isn’t for joy - it’s for forgetting.”
As the gramophone began to play,
Biscuit Frank emerged from her pocket, h
aving stowed himself there
to avoid the dampness of the woods.
His hair wiggled indignantly,
each strand furious at the intrusion of the alien’s music.
“I’m her only distraction,” he growled,
shedding crumbs like a scandal.
“No longer,” said Fabulous Don,
and with one flick of an antenna,
Frank began to spin like a top.
Round and round he went
until his raisin eyes flew off,
anding somewhere in the underbrush,
and his wiggly hair twisted into a perfect spiral.
“Oh,” said Miriam.
And in that moment,
she realized she had been free all along.
“Would you like to keep walking?”
Fabulous Don asked.
And she did.
But not before taking the gramophone
and playing it backwards,
because Miriam was a woman of tepid Thursdays,
but sometimes -just sometimes -
she liked a little chaos.