Thomas Wictor

For at least forty-five minutes now, an obese woman across the street has been shouting, “GIMMIE WAYDA!”

I went out my back door and crept around behind my car so I could see. There are actually three obese women standing there on the sidewalk. I don’t recognize any of them. They’re all in their forties and look to be about three feet tall.

Maybe they’re of average height but only appear to be three feet tall because they’re spherical. There’s nothing near them to give me a sense of scale. Too bad one of them isn’t holding a yardstick vertically with one end on the ground so I could calculate their heights.

Every few seconds, the fattest one shouts, “GIMMIE WAYDA!” She sounds as if her mouth is crammed with food, like mashed potatoes or an entire egg-salad sandwich.

They’re all looking down the street. None of the three display any sense of urgency. This seems almost like a ritual; there’s something stilted and ceremonial about it.

On the other hand, maybe someone’s answering her, and I just can’t hear it. Like Bob and Ed. The first goat is in Peru and the second is in Egypt, but they’re clearly communicating.

So it could be that there’s another woman in Turkmenistan shouting, “WHA YOU SAY?” over and over.

* * *

The fattest one really wants wayda. I wish someone would give her some so she’d shut up.

Maybe she’s from New York and wants a waiter. Maybe she thinks she’s at an outdoor cafe, and she’s miffed at the slow service.

Or maybe I’ve completely lost my mind, and there aren’t three obese women across the street at twelve minutes past midnight, the fattest one shouting, “GIMMIE WAYDA!” for over an hour now.

Pretty stupid hallucination. If I’m going to go insane(r), can’t I hallucinate a flock of gorgeous belly dancers or Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, and Ingrid Bergman having a tickle fight?

* * *

I went out and took a photo after the shouting finally stopped. Doesn’t seem to be anyone there right now. That doesn’t prove a thing. If there were nobody there in the first place, there’d be nobody in the photo, right? Right!

But it appeared that there was no one there when I took this. Now, if I could still see them on the sidewalk but they didn’t show up in the photo, I’d start to worry about what’s going on between my ears.

Here’s a thought: If I were hallucinating them on the sidewalk, would I also hallucinate them in the photo?

A brain teaser…