"Cooties Are Real"
Once, when I was walking down the street, I heard a strange young voice cry out to me.
“Cooties are real.”
I stopped and turned. I was standing by a schoolyard during recess.
A young girl, maybe nine or ten, stared at me through the fence. Her eyes had the fixed gaze of someone offering a somber and life-changing warning.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Cooties are real.”
She repeated her intonation in the hushed whisper of revealing a tragic, yet important, well guarded secret.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Which cooties? And how did she know they were real?
Then the girl handed me a small, folded picture, through the black chain-link fence. As soon as I had it in my grasp, she turned to run off and play with the other children.
I turned over the folded picture and opened it.
It was these two beachgoing choadwanks, and their Bleethed out ladies.
It was true. The girl was right. I had to spread the word.
Cooties are real.
