Stimes: A Remembrance Based On Association, Not Truth, Thus True.

From Plastic Tub

Table of contents

Wilhemina Forkes book on Stimes Addisson, more forthcoming.

Curious and Amusing Anecdote, no. 1: Stimso Adid and the Lonely Widow (excerpt)


There was once a lonely widow who spent her hours needling the neighborhood children in desperate tones. Her vituperances were borne of an all-encompassing internal malaise. The entire village resented her, and the hopes of securing another husband seemed entirely dashed. It is true that she was beautiful, but her shrill voice made herseem the shrew.
In truth, she was kind and gentle, but her torrential mania constantly swept her into disastrous exchanges with the local youth, who often threw stones and glass. Eventually, her brother, who was a rich oil magnate, decided to put an ad in the local newspaper. The ad read as follows:

WOMAN SEEKS HUSBAND. 31 YRS. SEXY. CAN COOK

PATIENCE A MUST. DIAL #76

As clever as the ad seemed, it yielded but a single call. The lonely widow and her concerned brother listened eagerly to the recorded response. It was a voice full of rumbling passion, if it a bit tilted. It rang with the promise of never-ending pleasure, of evenings lost in sweet reverie. They were overjoyed to hear that the respondent, a certain Don Stimso Adid, had suggested a meeting in a local eatery, at seven o'clock. Adid and the lonely widow hit it off accordingly. They drank wine and supped resplendently. The laughter rolled from their mouths, and all seemed very sporting. But then, as they walked out into the cool evening air, the lonely widow espied a straggling group of picaros.
Immediately, her face folded in two. Her mouth screwed up tight. It seemed as if she were containing within herself a thousand-foot earth tool, which ground and spit with a terrible fury. Finally, it burst forth.
"You sodden loins, you! Dirty-mouthed jigs! You boils, you Pigs!" the lonely widow shrieked.
She put her hand to her mouth, gasping. She looked at Adid. His smile was perhaps larger than her bosom, which was then heaving with embarrassment and chagrin. Go forth with the fishes, he was reputed to have said, and he touched her forehead gently. She swooned and collapsed into a tufted heap. Adid felt her sleeping breasts.
Sleep my love, and when you awaken, your horrible malady will have departed.


Such he is rumored to have spoken. And truly, when she arose she arose anew and her being no longer burned in the hot thrall of never-ending disease. Her brow was smooth and cooled. The sun struck it in such a way that the townsfolk were agape.
Soon, the lonely widow found another husband, and she forgot about Don Adid and his powerful magic. But whenever she saw little children playing wildly in the streets, she smiled secretly to herself and whispered: "God bless you Adid, and may the Forge of Tininess never labor too near your doorstep."

Critical Appraisal


"The best book pretending to know me I've ever read....and there have been many." -Stimes Addisson in Strafe!, 1990 review.