PARRIS GARNIER

THE EXCERPT OF DR. STRANGELOVE

In the Matter of The People
vs.
Herman Humperdink, A.K.A. Dr. Strangelove

On charges of indecent exposure, abetting unnatural acts, procurement, and practicing medicine without a license.

Judge: You have entered a plea of nolo contendere.
Do you wish to make a statement before sentencing?

Defendant: I do, your honor.

Judge: Rise and address the court.

Defendant: They call me Dr. Strangelove, Chiropractor
to hearts misaligned who bind with partners bizarre
indulging practices [unprintable]. But here will I
testify we cannot doctor strange love, love is all
a strange arrangement: the joker in the mammal deck;
wildfire in the gene pool; a mustard weed in Darwin’s
so-well-ordered garden.

Jesus said, Be wise as serpents—knowing the serpent
stuffed Eve with an apple and tortured Adam with
leftover rib; Blessed are the destitute—knowing
the most deprived are those whose coital conjunctions
spark the highest unction of the pious. So how can we
in all humility kneel at Father Sigmund’s altar, who
denied his own cigar and beloved daughter, Ana,
kneeling in his laundry?

It’s not the acts of love but the very fact of love itself
that is our strangeness. We cannot doctor strange love—
strange love is all the love there is, and of all there is
about us from satanic sanity to divine derangement,
nothing so ennobles or estranges us as love.

Judge: I find you guilty on all counts. Bailiff will
provide the defendant with blindfold and cigarette
and distribute silver bullets to the gallery.
 

Parris Garnier has published work online at Stirring, Exquisite Corpse, and Rogue Scholars. He loves his (cheap) apartment on the waterfront in Washington, DC; Christina; his gray fedora; and his daughter -- in no particular order. He writes on his balcony overlooking the Odyssey on the Potomac downstream from Great Falls.