The Cognitive Dwarf

The Cognitive Dwarf got drunk in a hurry.  His tolerance was low and
it happened fast.  He flirted with his daughter's friends and made
faces at his wife from across the room and ran across his lawn waving
a pool stick after dark in a gated community in Tennessee.  A storm
came in and he took a shower in the rain.  After, he went inside and
climbed up a footstool and turned off the light in his bedroom and sat
on his bed in his soaking wet clothes next to his wife as he listened
to the cars splash in the puddles in the street while watching their
headlights peek through the blinds in the window and when a beam of
light grazed across his face he thought it felt like a laser burning
through his skin so he dove into the sheets and hid there.

The next day the Cognitive Dwarf felt hungover when he went to work at
the Texas Barbecue he owned that had no present customers which served
brisket and ribs and coleslaw and had a bar at the far end where there
was a longhorn taxidermy mounted to the wall which no one paid
attention to except for the Cognitive Dwarf.  He sat in the kitchen
until dinnertime and listened to the Mexican cooks and dishwashers
speaking Spanish as he picked at stale butter role after stale butter
role and watched the evening news on a television with the volume off
and the caption function on.  He read the rolling text that told him
forests in the Pacific Northwest are dying twice as fast as they were
seventeen years ago and the bald scientists on the screen blamed
warming temperatures for the trend which is also harming other
ecosystems.

When he left the barbecue, the Cognitive Dwarf drove across town to a
McDonalds that shared a parking lot with a movie theater and a
shopping plaza and he ordered a supersized Number 4 and took his tray
to a corner booth by the window and sat with his hands beneath the
table and watched the road for a while and smelt the food in the air.
He ate his burger and ate his fries and drank his drink.  He stayed
there for several hours and would only get up to pour another cola
refill into his supersized cup.  He had to jump to do this because eh
could not reach.  He sang indecipherable country songs under his
breath and nodded to the other customers who made eye contact with the
Cognitive Dwarf then quickly looked away.  He watched the workers
behind the counter with wide discerning eyes as they microwaved
sandwiches and salted French fries and he thought about barbecues and
Mexicans cooks and dishwasher and the taste of his cola.

After dinner he drove home listening to Christian talk radio and
tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and ran his short corky
fingers through his thinning hair and thought about going bald like a
tree scientist then glanced at the speedometer and thought about
getting gasoline and drove past the super Wal-Mart where the Indian
burial ground use to be but he resisted the temptation of going in and
walking around the hunting section until 2 a.m. deciding whether or
not to buy a machete or a crossbow for deer season while wondering how
many calories are in a pound of raw venison as he would work his hands
over his belly before slapping his tiny gut with contentment.  He
could ask one of the clerks how long the background check would take
if he wanted to buy a weapon and they would look at the Cognitive
Dwarf with restrained alarm and ask him for his name and previous
addresses without writing anything down just to humor him and after a
while they would grow nervous with a dwarf who was attempting to
purchase weapons at a Wal-Mart in the middle of the night.  They would
escort him to the parking lot without saying please or thank you or
have a nice night and the Cognitive Dwarf would turn around and walk
to his car which would be the only one in the whole parking lot
sitting alone beneath the tall light posts.

He drove home and when he arrived the Cognitive Dwarf laid on his sofa
with his feet his feet hanging off the cushion because his legs were
tool short to reach the ottoman and he watched a snowstorm of
interference on the muted television and thought about Wal-Marts and
Indian burial grounds and salted French fries and country music songs
and their lyrics and he wondered if trees in the Pacific Northwest
screamed when they died.  Soon, the sun was up and light drifted in
through the windows so the Cognitive Dwarf rolled over on his face and
tried to fall asleep.  His wife came over in her robe and patted him
on the shoulder and told him good morning.  He rotated back onto his
side and stretched with his eyes wide before closing them and folding
his hand across his belly.  She wondered if he was really asleep but
after a few moments she left him alone while he dreamed about crossbow
background checks and raw venison and the microwaved fast-food
sandwich he had had for dinner and going bald and scientists going
bald and the ecosystems and longhorn taxidermy that no one seemed to
appreciate and the warming temperatures behind gated communities in
Tennessee where no other dwarfs lived.

                                                                                   Adam Moorad