Tina saw the tiny tenor sweetly fall against the sizzling marionette, doing a jig or two with half a leg missing.

The missing half a leg performed the floor show at the local hall on Friday and Saturday nights with a matinee on Sunday–through the remainder of the season only. Tina lifted the man hole cover with her third and fourth toes and rolled it down the hill to her grandmother’s house–the house where she could get gingerbread cookies without having to get into the oven to check if the gas connections was in order–grannie being old enough to orchestrate such maneuvers of the flesh in the dark herself.

A canary led Tina to the outskirts of town where Cory waited for the coming of someone else. Tina told the canary that’s not the Cory I know. Cory said who are you? The canary said I’m the canary. Cory said there are no coal mines around here. Not anymore, said the canary. Tina lifted her bonnet and two finches escaped.

The finches and the canary flew off to find another Tina in another place who this time knew another Cory whom her grandmother admired and loved so well.