Godtongue

With words wondrous and fecund

Lithe tongue
Open my mouth
Let my lips split
For your wisdom

Lana’s hand trembled as she read the words engraved on the tip of the bronze tongue. Its base sat on the heel of her palm and curved like an S with the tip reaching her fingertips and flicking up.

“Bez, what is this?”

“No idea, old roommate left it here when he bounced.” Bez was watching the news. Something about the droughts and fires engulfing the planet. Nothing new. Things were getting worse. They’d been getting worse for as long as Lana could remember. She tuned it out.

“You didn’t try to get it back to him?”

Fires raging across the world

“Tried to get the rent from him, never tried to get his old junk back to him.”

“You didn’t sell it? Looks old.”

“I don’t like touching it. It gives me the creeps. He said it was the severed tongue of some god, got cut off for a cosmic crime and then bronzed to preserve it.”

“Weird.”

Impossible to fight

“To put it mildly.”

“No, I mean, if it were the severed tongue of an ancient god, why is the inscription in Latvian? Shouldn’t it be like cuneiform or Aramaic or something?”

“Oh,” Bez took a drag of his cigarette, “I thought it was in English.”

Millions displaced

“I mean. I know Latvian when I see it, I haven’t been here that long. It does have a weird energy, right? I swear it’s vibrating in my hand.” She frowned and flipped it over, looking for an on switch. It would be totally like Bez to get freaked out by a vibrator. He was essentially a two-legged chihuahua, he had buggy eyes and everything. There was no switch. It was really heavy, too, seemed unlikely to be a sex toy. Clutching the tongue, Lana flopped down on Bez’s dirty old sofa and coughed in the resultant cloud of cat hair and ash.

“You should vacuum.”

Bez looked at her in horror.

“Can I have this?” She held the tongue out in front of them.

“Sure… why though? It’s gross and weird.”

“That’s exactly why, it’s gross and weird.”

The last coffee farm in Guatemala burned in the night. It was the sole remaining coffee farm in the world.

“I’ll be glad to never have to see it again. I usually avoid that side of the room or close my eyes if I have to go over there. Makes my guts feel squiggly.”

“I guess I’m here to save your guts then.”

Bez took a drag and wouldn’t look at the tongue.

Scientists still working to perfect synthetic coffee