The Last Gentleman

I was the rainmaker. I was the vehicle of smart. I was the lark of an apartment in Lehel. I was bishop to F6, checkmate. Today I can fall out of love with someone that I desperately need as easily as I can fall in love with somebody that I’ll never meet. It all comes down to the metabolism of the Internet.

Like last night again with her Royal Hotness: sure, she’s no ginger, pig-tailed porn star, but tossed into a pair of flowery calico bell bottoms, blue jacket, magenta blouse, yellow scarf, and checkerboard sleeping bonnet, she would make a totally swinging sixties stewardess. Ms. Middleton has those vintage stewardess genes, the stuff of yesterday’s Pan Am dreams – or today’s SA.

Each time I board a Singapore Airlines cabin a happy whistle trespasses my lips: So long too little too long! I need that extra blanket, that extra bullshit for behind my neck, those sage three inches of added leather knee room comfort. I need nine non-stop anime channels. I need the choice between the Nino-Zen Yakimono grilled Jidori chicken, or the steamed Kyo-Kaiseki Ichino-Zen Sakizuke lobster. I need a Chanel scented stewardess to float down to my first-class ear and whisper: »Would you care for anything more? Shortly the captain shall be beginning our descent.«

Rain pelts my window in gargantuan ropes. The Boeing shudders. First die the lights. The seat before me wets my socks. Falling oxygen masks. Who would have thought that we’d make it this far? Once a tornado fairly lifted my car. The seat that wet me wears a bun. An airborne earthquake. Then go the reserve lights. She’ll never know that she never knew that I never shared her final secret. Osmemaus, lika lellaone! 

About the author

Eldon (Craig) Reishus lives beneath the Alps outside Munich (Landkreis Bad Tölz - Wolfratshausen). He's an old school Exquisite Corpse contributor with recent work…

Read the full bio

Issue 22 · April 2015

Table of contents