FEATURED STORY
Dante’s Red Skirt
by Moshe Prigan
Mrs. Agnes Kobovsky was so ugly that even if she met Hieronymus Bosch, and offered him money to add her to his triptych The Garden
of Earthly Delights, which is full of malformed people, he wouldn’t even dare to think about it since he would simply puke out his guts.
She was the Head of the Ethics Commission in Buzzport Municipality. She had her own office, lone in the last storey of the building. She
was in charge of the moral behavior of about two thousands municipal workers. Last year she said to thirty three of them, “You’re fired!”
That’s what happened to Don Burrows who worked as a librarian in the Municipal Library. He showed a book with nude paintings to a nun.
He was summoned to Mrs. Agnes Kobovsky’s office. When she shot at him through her disfigured lips, “You’re fired!” he - only God knows
why - imagined her pole-dancing in red bikini top and tight yellow denim shorts revealing veined white feet. He rushed out of her office
and puked his brains out.
His friend, John Mackilrin, who was a municipal catering delivery driver to the town’s schools, told an obscene joke to the seventeen-yearold daughter of St. John Secondary School’s Headmaster; he was fired for sexual harassment. He later told Don that her shirt was unbuttoned.
“What shirt, the girl’s?”
“Kobovsky’s.”
Don said to John that he should be put in a nut house. They burst into laughter.
A year later Mrs. Agnes Kobovsky got hit by a car and was forced to quit her job.
***
The Buzzport Municipality, as each year, organized a mass picnic and a glamorous festival for one hundred and thirty retirees at Billock
Park, located at the outskirts of the town. Don and John, though disgracefully ousted, managed to charm the young lady in the Public Events
Planning Office and get invitation cards too. They wouldn’t let such a happening be missed. They were told to bring booze. Don liked French
wine, and John couldn’t do without his Irish Stout beer. Their invitation cards were lettered with a big yellow B, meaning they belong to
Group B.
Bill Cameroun, once a baker in Deep Lake Hotel at east of Buzzport, received his invitation marked with a yellow B too. He was supposed
to bring cakes. He loved the Swiss Black Forest cake.
Dona Mitchell, a young widow and former teacher at the Gilmore Elementary school, received her B-marked invitation.
Mrs. Agnes Kobovsky felt well enough to go for this event. She received an invitation too.
“It’s time to get out and have some fun,” she said to her bony husband. “My soul needed to be warmed up, and the event has come out at
the right time.”
She was supposed to bring some music for the event to lift the mood of her friends at the bonfire.
***
They arrived at about six pm to